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Justene Williams

(Australia 1970– )

Title
Derr sonata
Year
2008
Media categories
Time-based media, DVD
Materials used
digital video, black and white, sound, 19:25 min
Edition
2/5
Dimensions

archival box: 34.4 x 39.4 x 4.8cm

Signature & date
Not signed. Not dated.
Credit
Purchased with funds provided by the Photography Collection Benefactors' Program 2009
Accession number
210.2009
Location
Not on display
Further information

Justene Williams was born in Bankstown NSW and educated at University of Western Sydney and Sydney College of the Arts. She has exhibited widely in Australia and Europe since the early 1990s including the 2004 Adelaide Biennial, ‘Perfect for every occasion: photography today’, Heide Museum of Modern Art 2007. She has held residencies in Rotterdam and Tokyo.

Williams has frequently pondered the meaning of a world where image saturation is a given and where she is complicit in that. This also occurs in ‘Derr sonata’ where the artist has become the image and where discernment of the nature of the image is obscured, confused, in addition to the nature of the artist within such an environment. In Anthony Gardner’s 2009 essay, ‘An isle full of noises’ in the AGNSW contemporary projects brochure, he writes, ‘It is about weaving through tempests of image and sound to regather a sense of self… It is about neither art nor the artist being perceived as redemptive or nihilistic, restorative or amnesiac…’ ‘It’s about playing with the questions,’ as Williams says.

Bibliography (4)

Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874) (Author), Bighead garbageface guards ghosts derr sonata, 2009, (illus.). selected video stills

‘Questioning the image: Justene Williams solo at the gallery,’ by Laura Pia, pg.33, Look Nov 2008, Nov 2008, 33 (illus.).

‘New work: Justene Williams’ pg.129, Art World (issue 5) Oct 2008-Nov 2008, Oct 2008-Nov 2008, 129 (illus.).

‘Dumpster diva’ by Tracy Clement, pg. 175, Australian art collector Oct 2008-Dec 2008, Oct 2008-Dec 2008, 175 (illus.).