Janelle Mendham
Two little Goats in a Forest (detail) Janelle Mendham, 2010
Two little Goats in a Forest (detail) Janelle Mendham, 2010
The road trip to Queenstown from Hobart was a fantastic adventure. From the middle of wilderness one descends into a small town via a precariously winding road through the stunning remains of an open cut mine. The mining company had offered to revegetate this land, but Queenstown, proud of their mining heritage and aware of the beauty of the moonscape declined the offer. Nonetheless, this otherworldly realm is being reclaimed by tiny forests of lichen moss and fungi.
Two Little Goats in a Forest explores one of these tiny realms of regeneration with its strangely aquatic forms, colours, patterns and rhythms. The goats under the canopy of lichen (base centre-right of the drawing) began as an accidental marking but spoke of our adventure. Two friends drenched to the skin, caught in the hail, snow and rain clambering up the side of the valley.
In this realm I was particularly drawn to the coral-like lichen – Its tiny organic horn form, had a cup shape that opened to the sky and spoke to me of resurrection. The lichen appeared as if they had once harboured an orb that had popped out of its casing. Herald depicts this lichen and my inclusion of the giant orb One Thread provides the imaginary lost globe, referencing the current life blood of the town - copper mining. Its sister sculpture Eclipse speaks to the primal theme of regeneration acknowledging the soil and stone in reclamation.
The fragile sculpture Winter Coat relates the scary journey home. In a small car on a road that was closed, there was no turning back and no stopping. Winter Coat is a life cast of the shoulders of a friend who had just returned from a residency in Lake St Claire – the place where we first encountered snow and the Black Currawong. Covered in a glimmering slate rock collected at the brink of our entry into the snow it takes its patterning from the night creature seeking light- a moth.
Design by Mexico and modified by Linden Langdon
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