BRISBANE.- A solo exhibition of key works from the past five years by leading Sydney-based Malaysian artist Simryn Gill opened at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art until October 17.

Queensland Art Gallery Director Tony Ellwood said ‘Simryn Gill: Gathering’ included major works created since 2005, as well as photographs, collections, books and jewellery made from paper and found objects.

‘We are thrilled that Queensland audiences will have an opportunity to engage with Gill’s multi-disciplinary practice that questions ideas about place and history, and intersects richly with personal and collective experience,’ Mr Ellwood said.

‘The exhibition highlights Gill’s pursuit of meaning through materials and art-making processes. It also focuses on her ongoing interest in collecting, reading, archiving, arranging, casting and photography.

‘Throwback 2007, is a sculptural work created from truck engine parts and Garland 1993-ongoing, is an installation of objects collected from beaches in Malaysia and Singapore that encourages audiences to hold, touch and rearrange its parts and thereby participate in the work’s transformation.

‘Also featured is May 2006, a series of more than 800 photographs taken over a month in Gill’s Sydney neighbourhood using 30 rolls of discontinued film stock, and My Own Private Angkor 2007- ongoing, photographs capturing the melancholy ruins of an abandoned housing estate in Malaysia.

‘Both these works are powerful expressions of the artist’s personal connections with her locality,’ he said.

‘The exhibition also includes Paper Boats 2008, in which gallery visitors are encouraged to create an origami boat out of pages from a 1968 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica.’

‘In addition, ‘Simryn Gill: Gathering’ includes a selection of sketches, collections, photographs and experimental pieces from the early 1990s to the present – some never intended as art – offering an insight into this significant artist’s creative processes.’

Simryn Gill was born in Singapore in 1959, and lives and works in Sydney and Port Dickson, Malaysia. She exhibits regularly internationally and in Australia and was included in the Queensland Art Gallery’s Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (1999), the Singapore Biennale (2006), documenta 12, Kassel (2007), and the Biennale of Sydney (2002 and 2008).