Desafinado is the artist’s debut exhibition (as the recipient of the 2011 ARC ONE Gallery/Monash Award for High Achievement) at ARC ONE Gallery. An installation comprised of a large central sculpture and twelve paintings, exploring foreign scenes and memory of place. Rudolph’s central sculpture, Compass (2013) is an assemblage of hard rubbish—cupboards and furniture salvaged from the streets of Melbourne. This reflects Rudolph’s exploration of the potentiality of discarded items as new and appropriated architectural forms. Positioned in the centre of the gallery, the openings and closings of the draws and doors point to multiple worlds and destinations. The twelve paintings are positioned at the circumference of the sculpture and the landscapes depicted in the paintings correlate to the points of the compass.

For Rudolph, the installation draws on a longing for stability and a sense of worth in life; but of knowing the impossibility of such solace, thus discovering a beauty within imperfection.

Desafinado is inspired by architecture discovered on Rudolph’s travels—the extravagant domed religious and state structures contrasted with domestic dwellings such as the squats of Europe’s Roma and the favelas of Brazil. Compass reflects these two aesthetics: drawing its composition from one, material and process from the other. Rudolph’s practice engages in how the refiguring process can make the familiar appear exotic and the discarded beautiful—without denying the object’s status as refuse.

Image: © Isabelle Rudolph, Arc One Gallery