Polyphony

Daine Singer Gallery
90 Moor Street, Fitzroy 3065 / +61 (0)410 264 036 / [email protected] /

http://www.dainesinger.com/nina-sanadze-polyphony

8 JULY – 14 AUGUST 2021

Polyphony is a new audio-visual installation that looks to the collective nature of a choir, an orchestra and a forest, seeking to tune into the sound of present-day society. Divided, perplexed and uncertain voices search for harmony and incidental beauty.

The drawings of Polyphony are based on historic photographs from Georgia (former USSR) picturing the artist’s orchestra conductor father and her choir conductor mother. For Sanadze, the choir and orchestra are a reminder, a quixotic inspiration and a metaphor for the potential of magical beauty and harmony that people can create together.

The three large drawings are created from an excess of dot-to-dot markings that simultaneously hide and reveal the images on which they are based. Sanadze’s painstaking drawing process evokes the opposing experiences of mindfulness and angst, with the calculated promise to connect the dots and unveil the complete image. The numbers present disarray and disorder; excessive and overwhelming as they soar into the thousands.

Sections of the drawings are connected with lovingly stitched threads, though they still appear both schematic and impenetrable. Fluctuating between abstraction and representation, the images are also reminiscent of geographical maps or astrological charts.

The accompanying soundscape is Sanadze’s own experimental ‘orchestration’, a contemporary score that references Georgia’s history of polyphonic choral music. Collaborating with her mother to conduct a disparate and untrained group of artists to harmonise following a set of instructions, the resulting vocals bestow the two dimensional drawings with a transcendent aural dimension.

Blending histories, geographies, time and space, Polyphony seeks to access and arithmetically decode something beyond its constructed images — an elusive, coveted meaning that we can only see in the unconscious mind’s eye.

Polyphony: Soundscape, 2021
Sound engineer Pete Palankay @ The Recording Space, 4:28 mins audio

Polyphony: Choir, 2021
window blind fabric, indelible archival ink
and markers, cotton thread
139 x 167 cm
(Available)

Polyphony: Orchestra, 2021
window blind fabric, indelible archival ink
and markers, cotton thread
139 x 167 cm

Polyphony: Forest, 2021
window blind fabric, indelible archival ink
and markers
139 x 167 cm

Photos 1 to 4 by Tim Gresham