September 2019
Ann Shelton | close to the wind
Two Rooms Gallery
Curated by Heather Galbraith
close to the wind sets up conversations between selected works by Ann Shelton (2001-2019), and 19th century historical vernacular photography from a private collection, in order to identify and attend to certain omissions and presences. Shelton’s works presented here, tap into a range of urgent societal concerns and tensions, prioritizing female experiences and narratives; including access to abortion, fertility and women’s relationships to crime. The title of the exhibition alludes to the idiom of ‘sailing too close to the wind’, where an individual and/or action is on the verge of doing something illegal or improper, or when a scenario includes a key agent or character who has intentionally or unknowingly moved towards implied danger or precarity. close to the wind seeks to provide a space for consideration of some of the societal frameworks that suppress, define, pass judgement, essentialise or denigrate female experience, and a tendency to perpetually, repeatedly, sail too close to the wind. Read the full text here.
