Betty T Doll, 2009, Never Never Land #89, Ink on canvas

Elements Art Gallery is pleased to present:

‘NEVER NEVER LAND’

by

BETTY T DOLL

8 - 24 MAY

New York artist Betty T Doll presents a hauntingly beautiful body of work in her latest exhibition at Elements Art Gallery.

Entitled “Never Never Land” the artist utilizes the doll to transport the viewer within their subconscious.

The doll has long been associated to forms of negotiation in expression created by humans as a means of resolving self-reflecting issues. The human/non-human characteristics in dolls make it a symbolic basis for humanness. It serves as a virtual self, a replicated self or a soul vessel that gives a meaningful sense of existence.

Using the doll as the subject matter while generating Freud’s ghostly “uncanny” concept, each piece in this body of work is produced by both traditional painting and transfer printmaking, thus depicting a surreal never-never land between reality-dream, liberating-terrorising, illusion-disillusion and other dichotomies. That is, a dwelling place where senses of freedom and desire are refined.

The Never Never Land series projects the doll as a promise of hope for escaping the flesh in the spiritual realm, as well as representing anxiety and fear that the new technology (such as cloning and genetic engineering) threatens a clear position of subjection that equates to being human. When humans become something more, however, also something less than human, they become both subjects and objects.

Having completed 2 research degrees in fine arts and visual arts, Betty T Doll has had 12 solo exhibitions as well as numerous group exhibitions nationally and internationally in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and the USA in the last decade.

‘Never Never Land’ opens on Saturday 9th May at 6.30pm.

For further information please contact the gallery manager Sue Nash by phone or email: sue@elementsartgallery.com.au