Station 2

…in Diamantes
Pigment print on vinyl
140 x 100 cm
Image courtesy of the artist

The artist attempts to explore the imaginings of sacred subjects through objects that embody the meaning of religion in the everyday while narrating the ambiguous distinctions between sacred and profane, commoditisation, imitation and the relationship of the believer with the ‘kitsch’ aesthetic.

The ‘kitsch’ object serves as a stand-in, despite its deficiency. As the carrying of the cross marks the atonement of sins in times of hardship and trial, the sentimentality placed on kitsch objects by believers re-enacts the episode over and over again.

The aesthetics and ethics of religious imagery are compelling and elitist judgment dismisses any genuine, meaningful or personal attachment to any object deemed ‘bad art’.  As Nietzsche stated, “to experience a thing as beautiful means: to experience it necessarily wrongly."

Biography

Shannon Calcott is an artist based in Perth, Western Australia. Her practice explores the duality of the photographic image and the legacy of reproduction by subverting found imagery and materials through the use of analogue and digital collage. Her work aims to create a sense of wanderlust by unifying popular nostalgia, false romance and artificiality concerning the relationship between the photographic print as both image and object.