Simon Bayliss: Kangaroo Beach

About

Kangaroo Beach sees a body of recent works spanning video, ceramics and poetry, which tease out ideas on intersections between the local and the international; traditional crafts and contemporary practice; and queer culture and rural identity.

Lending its name to the show, Bayliss’ latest video work Kangaroo Beach is inspired by American poet Mary Reufle’s essay of the same name on the subject of sincerity and irreverence. It features a disconcerting collection of appropriated footage, in which muscular, buck kangaroos suggest an uncanny sense of ‘the other’ whilst also reflecting ideas around macho surf culture, of posturing and body-building, all set to the artist’s own dance music composition.

Further works include a series of slipware plates informed by studio pottery and the legacy of Bernard Leach and Michael Cardew, and a collection of text paintings presenting the artist’s short poems inspired by the Japanese form of Haiku and Senryu.