Flights Of Fancy

Flights of fancy suggests a soaring of the imagination that transports us to that place of wishful thinking; dream worlds where we are invited to play, imagine, and fantasise about possibilities outside the reality of the every day.

The sculptural artworks in the exhibition "Flights Of Fancy", narratives unfold in tiny spaces that we might suddenly and unexpectedly come across in our daily routines that suggest hidden make believe worlds, creating a sense of intrigue and wonder while exploiting our suspension of disbelief, as we take moments to look at reveries that might disappear with the blink of an eye.

Our lives are abundant with narrative worlds from the regular narratives we share with family and friends, to the games, books and movies that engage us in entertaining narratives that offer us amusement and spaces to see ourselves in a different way. Just as we find meaning in our lives through its narrative retelling, we also construct our imaginings as narrative events. Brief escapes into fiction transport us out of the everyday and into the narrative worlds of our imagination, but these make believe worlds are constructed with fragments of narrative that we are familiar with, and that often suggest an illusion of memory of a certain space and time or situation. We make emotional investments in the fanciful spaces and time constructed in our dreams and daydreams thereby recasting these hidden spaces as private realms. The artwork "Fun Fair, Concessionaire" invites us back to a time when a fun fair offered delight to all our senses.

Idealised fragments of past experience are bought together in a wish filled fantasy in the artwork Sweet Retreat a holiday destination, which is given new meaning in an imaginary world, personally constructed for our own pleasure. We enter these fantasy worlds with a strong emotional charge, and an optimism of the possibilities they promise. We are happy to envision the possibilities of a dream fantasy in some detail, taking our time to construct arrangements that have personal significance, and meet our need for a desirable outcome.

In that artwork "Family Style, Smile" time is re-presented in the tiny dreamscape. The familiarity of this scenario and the other artworks in the exhibition, seem to suggest memories or nostalgia for an often told family story, but these events might have just sprung forth like an idea in the imagination, or they may have evolved and grown over many visits to a familiar scenario. The recreation of the spaces as daydream evolves through the narratives that are implied, and their miniature size enacts a type of longing for the viewer, to be in that world again, even for just a short time. To hold on to things we loved and valued, in an attempt to re-experience them through our fantasies.

Kendal Murray, 2012.

Sweet Retreat (Front view)

Mixed media assemblage
28cm x 26cm x 23cm

Sweet Retreat (Back view)

Mixed media assemblage
28cm x 26cm x 23cm

• Sydney Contemporary 2023

• Imagined Worlds 2023

• In the Smile of a Tree 2022

• Interconnected 2022

• Summertime, Pantomime 2021

• Renewal 2020

• Material Properties 2019

• Sydney Contemporary 2019

• Reflections of a Fading a Sky 2019

• Afterglow, Adagio 2018

• Blue Bird, Overheard 2018

• Show and Tell 2016

• Between Rhyme and Reason 2015

• The Collector 2014

• Flights Of Fancy 2012

• Stage Whispers 2011

• Imagining The Self 2010

• Short Stories and Tall Tales 2009

• An Enchanted Life 2007

• Walking Sideways And Smiling 2003

• In Search Of Childish Pleasures 2001

• Night Fictions 2000

• Every Day Dreams 1999

• Secret Histories 1998

• She Starts By Removing Her Face 1997

• Circulatory Pleasures 1996

• Compulsive Beauty 1995