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Simone Darcy

Flesh

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Simone Darcy | 2022
Title: Leather Back Seat Shag
Silver Gelatin Chemigram
Reproduced - Archival Inkjet Print
165 x 135cm

Flesh
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​Abstraction in art serves as a powerful vehicle for expression. Liberated from the constraints of traditional representation, it evokes a visual reality that transcends the ordinary, embodying virtues such as simplicity, resilience, purity, and wonder.

This Showcase features the remarkable work of Simone Darcy, an artist born in Bedgerabong (NSW) on Wiradjuri land, who now resides in lutruwita/Tasmania. With the use of bold, expressive gestural marks, Darcy crafts abstract compositions that delve into themes of place, identity, and embodiment, deeply informed by her experiences as a woman, artist, and mother.

Gold Circle is excited to present these works, old and new, accompanied by an in-depth interview with the artist that reveals the stories behind her concepts, creative processes, and the presentation of her art.
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​Simone Darcy | 2022
Title: Body Spirit
Silver Gelatin Chemigram
Reproduced - Archival Inkjet Print
165 x 135cm

​Tell us about yourself and how your career as an artist began?
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​I grew up in a small rural farming community in Australia, and from an early age art was my escapism. The influence of this landscape and its colours has always stayed with me. I then left and went to the city to study at Sydney College of the Arts. From the beginning motherhood was a major part of my work, my daughter Taliah was a baby when I started at SCA in my early 20’s and then my son Jasper came along during my studies. My children have always been a presence in my work in body and spirit. I was a young mum, we didn’t have much money so my studio was always a home studio, this has always been my normal. 

Photography has always been my passion, and from the first moment I stepped into a darkroom I was hooked, these were pre-digital days so experimenting with alternative photographic processes was embraced and nurtured. I spent many hours alone each week in the university darkroom. This way of working has stayed with me, it stills my busy mind, and the darkroom is somewhat of a healing space.
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​Simone Darcy | 2022
Title: Leather Back Seat Shag
Silver Gelatin Chemigram
Reproduced - Archival Inkjet Print
165 x 135cm

​Have there been any primary influences in your work, either from the art world or beyond?
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Early on, I was introduced to the textural black-and-white work of Minor White, along with the assemblage work by Man Ray and Lazlo Maholy-Nagy. 

A reoccurring theme from my early 20s has been to draw on shared stories of women from the past and present as healers, mothers, and alchemists. These conversations are more present in the photogram work that I do. 

More and more I find myself turning to the work of painters I have long admired, such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Cy Twombly and Julie Mehretu.
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​Simone Darcy | 2022
Title: Crow Flys
Unique Gelatin Silver Chemigram
50 x 60cm

​Simone Darcy | 2022
Title: River Bend
Unique Gelatin Silver Chemigram
50 x 60cm

​How did the fascination with camera-less, alternative photography begin for you?
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​A few years back I started returning home to Central West NSW. I would set up my processing equipment in the back of my car, allowing me the freedom to create work in the field whilst being mindful not to leave any footprint behind. This became a conversation with places from my past, the banks of the Lachlan River and the land out around Bedgerabong near my family farm. I felt the presence of my father here, he had died in an accident just near our farm when he was 28.

Through exploring the chemigram process came a major shift in my practice, a new excitement with challenges. Through intuitive mark-making and experimenting with combining multiple techniques, I started to create work that was equal parts abstract and mysterious. Through the materiality of the weighted paper, these works often act more like sculptural objects.

​Simone Darcy | 2022
Title: River, Mud & Silver Studded Boots
Silver Gelatin Chemigram
Reproduced - Archival Inkjet Print
165 x 135cm

​Can you describe the process of creating these works and what has led you to develop this practice?
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​My practice involves combining two or three processes to create works that directly respond to the physical and psychological body, with the final works often formed somewhere between direct representation and abstraction. Of late, I have been making this work on the studio floor, allowing me to use painter’s tools to fully express what is felt and also expose them to the winter sunlight.

Within my latest work ‘Flesh’ it’s hard not to think of the body, especially with their recurring earthy pink tones giving them a feminine interpretation. Of late I have been reading the work of Remica Bingham where she writes ‘In this elegy for women’s broken bodies, flesh becomes the site for longing and sin, desire and destruction’. I started making this work while being based in Queenstown during my residency at Q Bank Gallery. Queenstown is a town in the West Coast region of Tasmania. The landscape and town show strong evidence of its mining history impacting the surrounding mountains, making it resemble a cratered moonscape. The slow regeneration of plant life. To me, this comes through as being in the presence of strong female healing energy.
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​Simone Darcy | 2024
Title: Flesh #023
Unique Gelatin Silver Chemilumen
110 x 78cm

​What is the most challenging aspect of creating these works in the studio?
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​I often work alone in my home studio and darkroom which can be challenging when processing large sheets of photosensitive paper, recently I have managed to create a few new working methods outside of the darkroom and giving me the freedom to take my gear to new locations.
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​Simone Darcy | 2024
Title: Flesh #114
Unique Gelatin Silver Chemilumen
110 x 78cm

​Simone Darcy | 2024
Title: Flesh #108
Unique Gelatin Silver Chemilumen
110 x 78cm

​How do you see your work evolving in future? 
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​Changing my approach to photographic materials has been increasingly on my mind. As an experimental photo-based artist I spend a great deal of time working in the darkroom. I’m looking more and more at new methods to produce environmentally friendly work. This has involved a lot of research and experimenting with alternative solutions to limit the harm of darkroom chemicals to waterways, and my body and pass on to the students I teach. At this time, it’s still important to me to print and hand-build all the layers in my work, this may change in the future. The physical side of making is what holds me to the work, often highlighting the beautiful mistakes and my limitations, something I have come to embrace.

Last year I moved to Tasmania, an island at the bottom of Australia, this has had a significant impact on my work and the direction I’m going in. Being immersed in nature, this island’s beauty and vastness is helping me to slow down and make work that is fulfilling and holds a connection. I’ve also started to see the landscape more as a visual spectacle. 
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​Simone Darcy | 2023
Title: Gun Metal Moon
Silver Gelatin Chemigram
Reproduced - Archival Inkjet Print
165 x 135cm

​All images ©Simone Darcy

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Bio

Born in Bedgerabong (NSW) on Wiradjuri land. Living in lutruwita / Tasmania.
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Simone is a contemporary photographic artist who uses experimental processes including cameraless techniques to make unique photograms, chemigrams and light paintings onto photo-sensitive materials to depict the physical and psychological effects on the body. Simone’s work continues to reference her experience as a woman, artist and mother, often using performance strategies within the still image to construct ideas of abstraction, embodiment and self.
 
Simone’s work has been shown in Australia and Internationally, this has included Point North at the Reykjavik Museum of Photography in Iceland; Verge Gallery Sydney; Arts System Wickham and selected as part of the Gaffa Experimental Photo Festival Award Sydney; Other notable exhibitions include Embody at Cement Fondu Sydney; Light Objects – Photography in the Expanded Field at Perth Centre of Photography; The Bus Stop Project at Maitland Regional Art Gallery and Absence at Span 1,2 & 3 Melbourne
 
Simone has been finalist in the Gosford Art Prize; Mullins Conceptual Photo Prize, Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre; The National Photographic Portrait Prize, The Portrait Gallery Canberra; Head On Portrait Prize, Australian Centre of Photography; The Portrait Prize, Queensland Centre of Photography; The New York Photo Prize; The Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photographic Prize; MAMA National Photography Prize; Melbourne Photobook Image Award and was the recipient of the Ilford Salon Portrait Award at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne. Simone has been an invited artist in residence at All That We Are, Rosny Farm Arts Centre and AIRspace Oatlands (Tasmania); Studio Kura (Japan); NES Artists (Iceland); Devfto Printmaking Institute, (Ubud Bali) and QBank Gallery, Queenstown (Tasmania)

www.simonedarcy.net