SCAF – Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation

Born in Sydney in 1970, Brook Andrew is one of Australia’s most exciting, conceptual and eclectic artists.  Working with striking neon installations, powerful photographic studies, prints, sculpture and optical illusions Andrew explores the dynamics of intercultural engagement and the construction of history and power.  Language and traditional designs from Andrew’s Wiradjuri heritage are combined with contemporary elements such as optical art patterns, pop art aesthetics, and the declarative strategies of advertising to create compelling and insightful pieces.

The Cell commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation and presented in association with Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, is a hypnotic, immersive, large-scale installation.  A 12.5-metre by six-metre inflatable decorated both inside and out with Wiradjuri-op designs, The Cell requires viewers to don a patterned costume before crawling via a tunnel into its patterned, cushioned interior.

“The original idea for The Cell is an extension of my wall pattern installations, where one is immersed in the pattern and experience’, Andrew says.  ‘You are immediately transformed once you don a costume and enter The Cell.  It’s like you become an inmate, a cellular astronaut or asylum seeker.  Experiences of loss, asylum and genocide, an ‘outsider’, is turned on its head.  The Cell is a conundrum, a monument to such stories, a space for quiet contemplation, disorientation and spectacle.’