ADELAIDE.- Adelaide Contemporary Experimental announced, Lee Salomone, recipient of the 2024 Porter Street Commission presenting his first major institutional exhibition in over a decade at ACE. Titled Fragments; a widening vision, the exhibition is being held from 1 June to 10 August 2024, with a metaphorical garden spanning the gallery floor. The poetic installation encourages audiences to explore themes of memory, identity and connection to land.

Fragments; a widening vision poetically weaves together form and image interlacing memory with personal and ancestral histories. Grounded in intergenerational learning, this exhibition acknowledges First Nations country and offers an understanding of settler colonial experience. It is envisaged as a metaphorical garden cared for by elders, family, and educators, proposing a site for growth.

Lee Salomone’s sculptural practice involves bronze casting and recalibrating found objects and natural materials, embedding allegory and narrative into his work. By sowing new seeds of connectivity between migrant histories and the enduring cultural practices sustained by First Nations people, Salomone’s 2024 Porter Street Commission is an example of allyship and nurturing storytelling.

Since 1991, Salomone has presented over thirty solo shows and exhibited in more than seventy group exhibitions. He has been a finalist in several prestigious art prizes, including the Wyndham Art Prize (2023), Gallery M Contemporary Art Prize (2023, 2022), and the Heysen Prize for Landscape (2020, 2016). In 2023, he won the Gallery M Contemporary Art Prize and the 2024 Porter Street Commission. Lee is represented by Gallerysmith, Melbourne.

“My sculptural practice transforms found objects into contemporary artefacts,” says Salomone. “If listened to, these physical fragments carry stories. The Porter Street Commission has allowed for a deepening engagement in this practice. Fragments; a widening vision, references the absence and presence of knowledge fragments that are lost and gained when knowledge pathways are altered by immigration, colonisation and assimilation.”

ACE’s Associate Curator, Rayleen Forester commented on the significance of Salomone’s exhibition “Lee’s sculptures speak to his migrant experience as an Italian- Australian living and working on Kaurna Country. This exhibition brings together stories of family and community across oceans, lands and time. Lee’s thoughtful approach to object and allegory inhabit an important space in exhibition-making today.”

The Porter Street Commission, now in its fourth year, annually awards $20,000 to a South Australian artist at any stage of their career to create an ambitious new work to be presented as a solo exhibition at ACE in the following year. The commission is made possible by the Porter Street Fund, established through the legacy of the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia (CACSA).

2024 Porter Street Commission Selection Panel Statement: “We welcomed the opportunity to engage with a range of South Australian practitioners, noting the significant number of proposals that prioritised thoughtfulness when thinking of our relationship to others.”

The committee was struck by Lee’s eloquent and honest approach to art-making as well as his commitment to better understanding his practice and how cultural practices can be shared through story-telling. Lee’s consultation and investment in community engagement aligns with many of ACE’s objectives to see models of allyship and kinship within its exhibition programming.