SEANNA VAN HELTEN talks to artist RUTH MCCONCHIE about her upcoming solo installation CUCKOLD CULOTTES: THE CERTAINTY OF CYNOSURE.

When Ruth McConchie awoke one winter morning in a New York loft, so too did the inspiration for her forthcoming art show. “On the first day it started snowing there and there was an intense glare from the snow, an intense whiteness,” the artist recalls. “It was surreal for someone who lives in Brisbane ... It felt like an alien invasion! I wanted to replicate that.”

The resulting work is a site-specific installation, titled Cuckold Culottes: The Certainty Of Cynosure, and hosted by Brisbane-based artist-run initiative (or ARI), No Frills*. As McConchie’s memory of that surreal morning in Brooklyn, New York was slowly twisting into an artistic idea, she was invited by No Frills* to present the piece at the ARI’s base at Metro Arts. Converted from former warehouses, the rambling Metro Arts building was “the perfect space” to reproduce a Brooklyn-style loft, says McConchie.

Part-installation, part-sculpture, the aesthetic resemblance of McConchie’s finished work to a loft space is a focal point – or “cynosure” – to draw in viewers, McConchie explains. “I want to give that to the viewer as a starting point,” she says, “but I’m interested in the different associations that people might make between the objects in the space.”

McConchie cites as aesthetic influences contemporary installation artists such as Sarah Sze and Christoph Büchel, both known for their complex, large-scale installation pieces.  For Cuckold Cullotes, McConchie will fill the gallery space with a carefully constructed catalogue of eclectic items and materials that, together, will evoke “orchestrated chaos.”

The idea, the artist explains, is to explore the connections between objects, place, and memory. “I’m hoping that visitors will bring their own histories and own memories of place, or of these objects [to the scene]. Or maybe these objects remind them of something else that they’ve seen? How might people read these together? This builds up a history in the space, a talk between all the objects. I’m interested in how people will come up with their own interpretations of the scene.

“It won’t feel so much like a gallery space,” McConchie continues. In fact, the idea is to distance the viewer from the gallery context and, she laughs, “with the amount of stuff in there, it won’t feel so much like the same space at all anymore!”

A graduate of Queensland University of Technology’s Fine Arts program, and a current Masters student at the same institution, McConchie believes that ARIs such as No Frills* are integral for emerging and early-career artists. “I think it is all to do with experimentation and how much freedom you can have,” McConchie says.

“There are no commercial limitations. I can’t sell my installation, obviously, so how much freedom an ARI allows is really important,” she continues. “It is a space for experimentation and trying out new things that may fail but may just work! That teetering is what makes it so interesting and special.”

McConchie is also a co-director of her own artist-run initiative, inbetweenspaces, and she says the abundance of young ARIs in Brisbane reflects “a whole generation of motivated people who see a lot of potential in this city.”

The memory of another city may have inspired her work, but as McConchie explains, “the joy of memory is that it becomes fictionalised the more you remember and explore it.” The resulting installation, she insists, is site-specific and “won’t look anything like the New York loft that I went to! But there are parts of it that will evoke that.”

CUCKOLD CULOTTES: THE CERTAINTY OF CYNOSURE opens at Studio 3.10, Metro Arts, 109 Edward St, Brisbane on Jan 22, 6pm, and continues until Feb 6. For further info contact No Frills* on  or www.nofrillsari.org

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