In her new work, Lights No Eyes Can See, Melbourne artist Kate Daw uses various creative strategies to temporarily activate the Melbourne Town Hall's Swanston Street façade. Local musicians will mark the beginning (9am) and end (5pm) of each day with a five-minute performance of The Grateful Dead song, Attics Of My Life, performed on the Town Hall steps. Throughout the day, the building will remain visibly 'activated' with the display of Daw's ornamental wallpapers in glass cases that border the building's facade. As night settles in, the Town Hall's exterior will be further transformed by a subtle light intervention that bathes the institution in a purple haze, the colour of creativity, counterculture and feminism.
Melbourne artist Kate Daw explores issues of authorship, narrative and creative processes. Her work moves between the domestic and the social, the everyday and the imagined. Daw’s recent work restages the narrative form in contemporary art, combining materiality and history, language and image, art and literature, to explore their interchange of meaning.
Daw has exhibited widely, including recent works in the Biennale of Sydney: You Imagine What You Desire (2014), Melbourne NOW (2013-14), India Art Fair (2013), and ART#2 (2012). Since 2012 she has been involved in several projects involving India, including an Asialink residency and exhibition with Emily Floyd and John Meade (2012). Since 2007, Daw has undertaken a number of public works in collaboration with Stewart Russell.
Currently Head of Painting at the Victorian College of the Arts, Daw completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2006. She is represented by Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne.
Local performers: Marcus Carne, Annabelle Hayes, Georgia Spain
