Fiona Hall

Fiona Hall is one of Australia’s most well-known and innovative contemporary artists. She grew up in Sydney in a family with a keen sense of enquiry; most significantly her mother was a prestigious scientist and her brother pursued a career in mathematics. Hall’s endeavours as an artist are parallel to that of a scientist; searching for understanding about humanity and the environment.

Hall works across a range of media including painting, photography, sculpture and installation. At times she uses unusual materials such as soap, sardine tins, aluminium cans, video tape, currency and beads. Hall uses these everyday objects to address contemporary issues associated with history, politics, conflict and the environment.

Hall’s All the King’s Men, first presented as part of the exhibition Wrong Way Time at the 2015 Venice Biennale, features eighteen misshapen knitted bodies suspended from the ceiling on wires, tightly woven from various pieces of military camouflage. Their faces are assembled around animal bones, billiard balls, bottles and boxing gloves, with mouths open wide as if whispering their history.

The different camouflage patterns used by Hall reference countries the globe over, from the Asia-Pacific to the Americas, Europe and the Middle East, and conflicts from the Second World War to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hall’s use of the varied patterns makes reference to a defiant intermingling and speaks to a camaraderie, despite military formation, cultural, racial or linguistic difference.