Barbie Kjar

Night Dance
2 to 31 December 2005

My first close encounter with a Barbie Kjar print was years ago when I was house-sitting a house in Hobart.  A large print had pride of place in the lounge room.  It was called Man with bull’s head.  A young man held in his arms a cornucopia of fruit.  In the otherwise darkly coloured print the fruit formed a circle of colour like a mandala at the centre of the image.  I’d go back and back to stand in front of the print.  It seemed to me that the there was something universal about the image, and at the same time something very specific.  It was a portrait and it was a metaphor.  It was symbolic as well as immediate and sensual.

That print had what I now recognise as the unmistakable, vivacious mark making of Barbie Kjar as well as the poetic layering of image, metaphor and motif that is characteristic of Barbie’s work and that we see in Night Dance.

This exhibition’s central metaphor is the dance.  What is dance?  An intricate pattern of steps, controlled or chaotic, with a partner, sometimes alone, often at night, a response to music.  It is not an intellectual experience, more an intuitive one, sensuous and sensual.  It’s romantic.  It’s sexual.  You make mistakes, but does it matter?  You participate; you enjoy.  At the end of the dance you are still you, but affected, changed by the experience of the dance.  Dance imagery is everywhere in these works – salsa dancers in Firetower, dancing shoes (men’s and women’s), dance costume, a dress, a ballerina.

Dance is integral to Barbie’s life.  If anyone has seen her dancing salsa or tango, or teaching salsa, you’ll know how well she dances, and you’ll have seen her passion for the dance.  It’s hard to imagine being passionate about dance and not being passionate about life, dance, of course, being a metaphor for life.

These works express the dance’s intuitive response to life, a sensory response.  Particularly represented are the senses of sight and hearing, but made active, into looking and listening.  This is about trying to see clearly and to listen hard.  Seeing through the darkness present in life; listening to what is told, as well as to the inner voice.  It is about being perceptive, working with instinct and intuition.

The portrait is again to the fore in Barbie’s work, although, as with that first Man with bull’s head, I find a universality about her portraits.  It is young woman, as much as it is Lucy, Barbie’s daughter, who appears in Hoop-girl, Mickey Mouse ears and Puppet Show.  A portrait of Jasper, Barbie’s son, appears as a portrait-in-absence in Jasper’s Journey, a work made while Jasper was away travelling overseas.  These pieces give us an insight into the way the artist’s own life journey appears, transformed, in her art, the way it is reflected in her artistic journey.

I’ve been fortunate to be privy to this recent artistic journey.  It began with Barbie’s work for an exhibition in Melbourne entitled Milagros.  Milagros is Spanish for miracles.  Milagros are the small objects, usually made of tin, copper, silver, even gold, which Mexicans use to represent a request for a miracle.  Milagros express a wish or a desire in the person’s life.  The milagro might be a hand, someone wanting to heal a hand, or a house, someone wanting to own a house.  Or a tortoise, symbolising long life, or an owl, symbolising wisdom.

Milagros appear as a motif in this exhibition.  In some works they have become more personal images, usually associated with a particular figure, adding that poetic layering, and creating a richness of resonance between elements in the work.  Look at the dancing girl and the map within her dress.  The whimsy of the girl with Mickey Mouse ears or the man with reindeer antlers; the shoes in Jasper’s Journey containing images of his wishes for his journey.  Or perhaps his mother’s wishes.  Barbie’s own milagro is clearly the dance.

The owl is there, tiny, among the other hieroglyphic images in Milagros dress and elsewhere.  But the owl has grown in importance throughout the artist’s journey as if the owl has pushed itself forward in the artist’s imagination, insistent and powerful.  The owl now features prominently; it is centre stage.  The owl symbolises wisdom.  But it also represents the ability to be alone, to inhabit the dark comfortably, to see through darkness.  These mesmerising owl images, mainly drawings, seem to me milagro, symbol and portrait rolled into one.  They move towards a human quality and the eyes haunt you.

Another intriguing element here is the incorporation of text into an image, adding another layer of meaning and association.  I love this aspect of the works.  Not only because I’m engaged with words and text, but because to me pictures and words are equally important.  Images and words share origins and are both concerned with meaning-making, expressing ideas.  In some cultures there is less separation of the two modes.  What comes to my mind is Japanese calligraphy, words or poems written beautifully.  What matters is not only what the text says; it is also appreciated aesthetically as a work of visual art.  This element seems to have arisen from Barbie’s residency in Japan last year.  But, it is very Barbie Kjar to introduce new and sometimes surprising elements into an image.  (I should mention that Barbie spent time last year in Japan, Mexico and Cuba, the impact of those geographical and cultural journeys evident here in her work.)

You’ll notice that the text is sometimes in Spanish - another of Barbie’s passions - which is tantalising if you don’t know the language, and illuminating if you do.  A few of the titles are also Spanish, which harks back to Barbie’s exhibition Mirar and others – for instance bailarina (ballerina), or escuchar (to listen).  The Spanish language becomes another motif appearing, disappearing, reappearing.  Motif, like the word motive, comes from the verb ‘to move’ and is related to emotion.  These motifs appear and reappear because these are the things which move the artist.

We are privileged to see the works on show together.   We’re able to gain an appreciation of resonances within and between individual pieces as well as a glimpse the artist’s journey.

I invite you to celebrate with Barbie this wonderful outcome of much hard work and a unique vision.  Congratulations, Barbie, on Night Dance.

Kathryn Lomer
Hobart, December 2005

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