Passages
Christopher Bassi
22 February — 8 March 2020
Opening Reception: 21 February 2020, 6 - 9pm
Passages was developed from a recent trip to the Torres Strait where I returned with my cousin to trace part of the journey my family had made between islands before finally settling on Thursday Island. This body of work presents a meditation on place and mobility in the region. Reflecting on the ways in which those living in the Torres Strait live and work with an understanding of mobility as fundamental to daily activity, as well as the ways connection between self and place, and the flow between people, seascape and landscape is crucial to Torres Strait Islander identity.
Christopher Bassi practice is informed by ongoing concerns with place, belonging and the entangling of racial and cultural identities. Engaged in archetypical modes of representational painting his work examines alternative genealogies through performance, and enactment. Focusing on structures and conditions that underpin histories of exchange in both a material and cultural sense and raising questions on how painting might function more broadly as a way of engaging with the world. Christopher Bassi graduated from the Queensland College of Art in 2017 with a Bachelor of Fine Art. His first Solo Show Documents of Distance was held at Stable Art Space (2018). Selected group exhibitions include Placement: Monica Correa and Christopher Bassi, Spiro Grace (2017), Futureproof, Boxcopy (2018), Cross-mending, Outerspace Ari (2018), BEUAT Festival, Outerspace Ari (2019) and 15 Artist, Redcliff Regional gallery. His work is held in a number of private collections as well as The Museum of Brisbane.
Exhibition documentation: Charlie Hillhouse