Artist: Julia deVille
Lives: Collingwood, Melbourne
Age:36
Represented by:Sophie Gannon Gallery (No Sydney representation; Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane)
Her thing.Multi-media installation with everything from jewellery to taxidermy, holograms and virtual reality.
Our take.Julia deVille is represented by Sophie Gannon but for this exhibition she is undertaking her largest-ever installation under the auspices of Linden New Art. DeVille has made a reputation as one of the most versatile contemporary artists in Australia with a macabre line of jewellery and small sculptures incorporating a menagerie of stuffed animals. She is an advocate of animal rights and only uses subjects that have died of natural causes. Her works have proven popular with both public institutions and private collectors.
In the show Wholeness and the Implicit Order, deVille turns the Victorian-era rooms of the gallery into a fantasy museum of taxidermy, antique furniture, audio-visual work, and various combinations of the above, such as an alpaca transformed into a child’s rocking horse, or a real zebra impaled on a pole from a merry-go-round. The title of the exhibition comes from a 1980 book by late quantum physicist, David Bohm, that discusses the interconnectedness of all things.
To complete the installation deVille has collaborated with several other artists, including painter, Leslie Rice; sculptor, Kate Rohde; embroiderer, Josh Weatherlake Adipocere, and stone carver, Joe Sheehan. There are also sound and smell elements incorporated into the presentation.
Can I afford it?All artists dream of keeping installations together, but the separate components are definitely for sale, with the cheapest being Spectre: Hologram of Queenie Ring (13cm by 13cm) – a small, framed holographic work selling for $2,900. The most expensive is a real baby giraffe bedecked in jewels, titled Mother is my Monarch (200cm by 112 cm by 163cm) for $170,000. This surpasses deVille’s existing record price of $110,000, but as this is her first solo exhibition since 2014 it’s hardly surprising that her prices should be on the rise.
Where can I have a squiz?
Linden New Art, 26 Acland Street, St. Kilda, Melbourne
25 August – 4 November, 2018. lindenarts.org
Published in The Good Weekend, Sydney Morning Herald, 15 September, 2018