This earthly plane = Bill Viola

Still shot of Bill Viola's Ocean without a shore, NGV International. Photo: Julie Clarke, 2009

Yesterday, had a really good chin-wag over lunch with the always entertaining, larger than life, ex-rock journalist from the seventies and avid photographer, Brecon Walsh. We were lucky to secure a table at the NGV International bistro because the Gallery was absolutely packed with patrons who were attending the European Masters Exhibition. Brecon and I took the opportunity whilst we were there, to have another look at Bill Viola's three screen video/sound installation Ocean without a shore, which was purchased by the NGV last year. The artwork, shown in a dark, black space displays individuals emerging into or out of a watery threshold. It makes one think about life and death and was a fitting complement to the conversation Brecon and I had been having about the flimsy as well as the strong connections we have with others in the arts and music industry and the risks we took when we were young, including several times in my life in which I might have drowned. Each time I visit Viola's installation I see a different body emerging. This time it was an old woman, whose face revealed so many different emotional expressions. Sometimes I wonder if we see what we want to see in these emerging figures and we imagine that someone recently passed, uses Viola's screen as a vehicle to re-enter ~ if only briefly, this earthly plane.