TRACING, SOFTLY
GABBEE STOLP
12–29 September

Tracing, Softly explores personal and environmental connections through tracing found objects; examining the impact of collecting and care for place.

"The soft pink glimmer of an ice-cream cone shaped shell, a tumble-smoothed pebble in the shape of a heart, the amber glint of a fragile shark egg. I pick them up, and turn them in my hands, remnants, relics, pocket-sized history books. I have a large collection of these found things.

My mother’s ashes are scattered in the estuary of the river that runs through the town in which I live. I walk its edges, swim in its dark water, and collect these souvenirs. In doing this I commemorate this place of great importance; I grasp the material of the river and the ocean, and in doing so I grasp my mother."

"I want to tread more lightly in this place, acknowledging its importance and significance far beyond my own life. This work considers the impact of my collecting, the history of collecting, and the concept of ownership of place."

–Gabee Stolp

Gabbee Stolp's work examines material, memory and place, evoking biological and metaphysical themes including grief, loss and human-induced extinction. Stolp creates gentle tools with which to reflect on time, change and the way our human lives are invariably connected to the deep-history and ecology of the places we live.

Stolp holds a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts) with First-Class Honours, from RMIT University. She has exhibited widely throughout Australia and was the recipient of the 'Bell Bay Aluminium People's Choice Award' for the Women's Art Prize Tasmania, 2022. She is a founding member of State of Flux Workshop, in nipaluna/Hobart.