Neon Parc acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong Boon Wurrung as the Traditional Owners and sovereign custodians of the Country on which we operate. We pay our deepest respects to their Elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
Neon Parc is pleased to present a two-person exhibition of recent and historical works by Hans Bellmer and Noriko Nakamura. Featuring a selection of hand carved limestone sculptures by Nakamura, alongside aquatint etchings by Bellmer, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to compare and contrast each artists’ methodology, as their works separately navigate ideas of surrealism, desire and the fetishised or abject body.
Known for his intricate and dreamlike imagery, Hans Bellmer’s etchings are filled with eroticism and psychological tension. Featuring twisted and intertwined bodies, faces and limbs suggest both a yearning for connection and a profound sense of isolation. In these selected works Bellmer employs a deft and sensual line quality which creates figures that appear both fragile and dynamic, as if the viewer is peering into a private dream or a secret narrative.
Noriko Nakamura’s hand carved limestone sculptures draw on connections between the maternal body and the force of the earth. In the production of these works using only hand tools: prune saws, chisels, rasps, a mallet and sandpaper, Nakamura attempts to tune in to the slowness of the stone’s formation. She feels that “the material becoming of limestone and the experience of pregnancy and gestation both share the possibilities of transformation.” The limestone brings echoes of an ancient temporal atmosphere to her work, which mirrors the millennia through which women have given birth.
Noriko Nakamura (b.1986 Japan. Lives and works in Castlemaine/ Dja Dja Wurrung)
Nakamura uses stone carving to make installations, drawing on ideas of Japanese Shinto animism and ritualistic practices, and investigates what arises from generating forms with natural materials. Her recent work explores shifts in the subjectivity of the maternal body and suggests the womb as fullness of complexity. Nakamura first studied Fine Art Foundation at Byam Shaw School of Art at Central Saint Martin’s College, London followed by undergraduate studies with honours from The University of Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts (2011) and recently completed a Master of Visual Art from Latrobe University (2024).
Recent solo exhibitions include: ‘In the beginning was Chaos’, Composite Moving Image Agency & Media Bank, Collingwood Yards (2023), ‘The force that the warrior adopts during the evolution of the pale pink rose’, Caves, Melbourne (2019), ‘Erosion’, Gertrude Glasshouse, Collingwood (2018). Selected group exhibitions include: ‘Maternal inheritances’, Latrobe Arts Institute, Latrobe University, Bendigo, curated by Amelia Wallin (2023); ‘wHole’, Heide Museum, Bulleen, curated Melissa Keys (2022); ‘Choose Happiness’ Murray Art Museum, Albury NSW curated by Serena Bentley (2021), and ‘Interrupted Expenditure’, RM Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand (2014).
Hans Bellmer (1902-1975) was a German artist known for his provocative and unsettling surrealist sculptures, drawings and photographs. He is a significant figure in the history of modern art, with a strong influence on the Surrealist movement and important contributions to the exploration of the human psyche.
Bellmer’s work explored themes of sexuality, desire, and the human form and was met with both fascination and controversy. His works were considered subversive and were even confiscated by the Nazi regime. He was interested in responding to the repressive and oppressive aspects of society. Often through fragmentation or distortion his work challenged conventional notions of beauty and emphasized the inherent contradictions within human existence.
Hans Bellmer’s works are in many important museums around the world including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Tate Modern, London.
