Fitzroy Library - 128 Moor Street, Fitzroy
24 June - 25 August
'A View from the Subkingdom 2' by Debbie Harris Walter - Mixed media, 40 x 30cms (1999)
Review by Cressida Fox
Debbie Harris Walter’s exploration of the microscopic world has brought forth a record number of works into the display cases and bluestone wall in Fitzroy Library. This is because most of them are, like their subjects, tiny - some as small as 8cm x 6cm. As well as the 28 catalogued works - mixed media drawings and paintings and acrylics on canvas - she has also included three sketchbooks and 8 more tiny drawings and mixed works on paper.
Of her work, Debbie writes: “My images are derived from the exploration into the aesthetic value of microscopic bodies ... a fascination with the simplest of life forms, creating interesting visual complexities and foreign organic worlds.” Her forms are based on microscopic organisms - invertebrates, protozoan cells and tissue structure, and the cycle of life - reproduction, growth and development.
Her largest work, 112 x 85 cm, titled 20 Microscopic forms, is comprised of 20 small, colourful studies of cells and creatures, swimming in soups of bright blue to red-pink and softer yellows and mauves. These beautiful, delicate forms are artistic impressions of a world that is hidden to most of us. In A view of the subkingdom 2, a painterly mixed media, the forms of cells dividing and multiplying are almost jewel-like. Something else is going on in Progressive envelopment of a nerve fibre, an acrylic on canvas - an interesting study of a red nerve fibre in four stages of being engulfed by purple tissue which surrounds it in layers.
Then there are the creatures. Floating invertebrates (mixed media) shows a collection of strange little animals swimming and floating. We see some of them again in Invertebrate studies (oil on board). Some are round, some have tails and tentacles. More swimming creatures and floating orbs appear in Micro study on paper 2, mixed media, which is one of several drawings made on layers of handmade paper and covered with a pale, gauzy layer of what could be thin paper or fabric.
Other works show different approaches again to the theme of microscopic worlds. Under the microscope 2 (mixed media) shows a red form and floating jelly-like organisms within a deep blue disc - the view from the microscope - dramatically contrasting against a white background. Hidden Aesthetics, an acrylic on canvas, portrays the beauty of cells growing and splitting, in rich reds, blues and purples ensheathed in white. In general, I found it a very rich and fascinating exhibition, and an insight into secret worlds that very few of us would get to see.
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