PERIPHERAL DISTURBANCE:
wandering between worlds

New Zealand born, Aldinga-based artist Gail Hocking, works across the art forms of sculpture, installation and new media.

As a migrant and nomad, her practice is grounded in personal experience and the investigation of various states of transience within people and the natural world. She employs a unique material language to visually and poetically explore the impact of time and non-human forces on the communities and environments that we live in.

For The Collections Project Hocking explored the Ernabella Arts Archive – a collection owned by Ernabella Arts and held at Flinders University Museum of Art for the purposes of teaching and research. The collection features approximately 750 works by artists from Pukatja (Ernabella) in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands of far north-west South Australia. Hocking will present a new body of work that quietly reflects upon her research into the resilience of Anangu women who navigate change through their art practices.

The Collections Project is a collaboration between Guildhouse and Flinders University Museum of Art that provides artists with the opportunity to engage with the Museum’s collections and staff to create new work for exhibition. Guildhouse is the leading South Australian organisation supporting and creating connections for South Australian creative practitioners.

About the artist

Gail Hocking

Born in Opunake, Aotearoa (New Zealand) in 1963, Gail Hocking graduated with a Master of Visual Arts (Research) from the University of South Australia in 2017. She completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) in 2014 at the same institution and a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Curtin University in 2007.

Hocking was awarded the FELTspace Philanthropic Award in 2015 and shortlisted for the Country Arts SA Breaking Ground Award in 2011. She has undertaken residencies at Cultivamos Cultura, in São Luis, Portugal; Vancouver Arts Centre, Western Australia; and Central Art Studios, South Australia. She has also received public art commissions from Country Arts SA; and the City of Holdfast Bay and City of Norwood Councils of South Australia; as well as Denmark Arts, Western Australia.

Hocking has exhibited widely, including at Depot Artspace, Auckland; Gallery-Smith, Melbourne; Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery of Lisbon, Portugal; and the Fremantle Arts Centre in Western Australia. Hocking’s projects have been supported by numerous grants from Arts SA.