Solo exhibition
19 July – 9 August 2014
BREEZEBLOCK, Reading Room, Potts Point
4 channel HD video
Overall dimensions: 2.5m (h) x 4m (w) x 3m (d)

In Remaining still (in a world of gestures) paths of movement and illusion were revealed against contrary positions of the still and permanent. Interplay between the two devices was performed out in a series of works that engaged the moving realm with static imagery. Suspended amid these two areas of difference was ­a shifting conversation between the material and the immaterial, revealing temporal ambitions of rapid gain against the shiftless weight of constancy.

“Leahlani Johnson’s Remaining still (in a world of gestures) is an expansion of her research into the “visual representation of the invisible realm” (Johnson once memorably exorcised the plinths in a gallery). In four distinct yet related installations, Johnson imagines stillness and movement as separate territories and uses the time-based medium of video as a counterpoint between the two. Two of the works loop footage of a fixed object, another animates static frames and in another, a still image is juxtaposed with moving footage. Remaining still (in a world of gestures) is a meditative video installation that plays with the kinetic harmony and discord between quietness and progress.”
Stella Rosa McDonald, The Art Life, Remaining still (in a world of gestures), July 25, 2014

This project has benefited from an Arts & Design Grant courtesy of Arc @UNSW Limited. Supported by Parramatta Artists Studios.

Photography: Courtesy of the artist