Kaldor Public Art Project 17: Bill Viola 2008

'Fire Woman'

'Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall)'

9 April – 23 May 2008

St Saviour’s Church, Redfern, Sydney

Bill Viola has developed a unique body of work since his first experiments with film and video in the early 1970s and is celebrated today as one of the world’s leading video artists. For Project 17, two works from Viola’s 2005 series 'The Tristan Project' were presented nightly at St Saviour’s Church in Redfern, Sydney, in April and May 2008. The darkened church was lit with a larger-than-life projection of 'Fire Woman' and 'Tristan’s Ascension' (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall), mesmerising images of catharsis and ascension accompanied by resonating sound. Exploring the universal elements of spiritual themes, his works often echo medieval and Renaissance painting, sometimes wavering between figurative scenes and flickering shadows and abstractions. Dreamlike, they seem at once contemporary and timeless, meditations on the human experience.