Ebony Secombe

Born 1988, Penrith
Bachelor of Fine Arts
Graduation show: 2009
Graduation ceremony: 2010

Artwork in Space YZ  

Untitled, 2008/2021
Plaster, mud, chicken wire, paper towel, carpet, found ceramics
Dimensions variable

The work expresses a sense of anxiety and ambivalence towards gendered domesticity. Materially speaking the work is tethered somewhere between the kitchen and garden. Unravelled carpet, chicken wire, paper towel, ceramics, plaster and dirt. Intertwined, woven, layered and splattered. The materials merge and refuse to be singularly defined. They become porous and messy. Organic, colourless lumps clustered within a crease, or nook are cloistered, protecting and suffocating. The formation of clusters suggests a sense of the familial. The pod or cocoon like nature of the objects speak of things already existing and yet, still waiting to become. The work is queer, rebellious and caught in stasis.

I remember arriving at Z block for the interview that would inform my entry into the course. I was intimidated and struck with awe, seeing a range of practice that was outside of what I knew... I was excited because I had not yet found or developed a style, or figured out exactly what it was that would preoccupy my mind and drive me to make, I realised that this unknown world of making would become vital to my practice. It felt like this was a place where I could fit. Not necessarily fit in but that Z block would be a place where it didn't matter.

I can't tell you how special Z block was. 

I can tell you about breaking in at 7am so I could make an early start to the day.

I can tell you about the demolition of old works, dragging them the skip bin and setting fire to the remains.

I can tell you about security turning up to seek out the source of billowing smoke, only to laugh and continue along.

I can tell you about how materials would mysteriously disappear from the foundry only to return in the form of McDonalds.

I can tell you about the park dirt, rotten fruit, dog poop and permanently borrowed fence palings; "found" en route to university.

I can tell you about the tentative friendships formed in those early years of my adulthood, which last to this day.

These are the things that contributed to the unique magic of Z block.