There is a pain - so utter
Curated by Beth Caird

Taking its name from the title and first line of an Emily Dickinson poem There is a pain - so utter took as a fluid and amorphic genesis, ideas of doubt, retreat, openness, transparency and dialogue. Instigated by 2016-2018 Gertrude Studio Artist Beth Caird, the selection of artists reflected her research into strategies of withdrawal and reluctance to pose questions around what it is to create work, what it is to be an artist and not create work, what it is to be human and what it may be to be human together. Referencing Lee Lozano’s iconic work / anti-work Dropout Piece (1969-1972), in which the artist committed to a period of time of not making art and consciously withdrawing from the art world, the artists in There is a pain - so utter individually and collectively consider what it might be to absent one’s own voice, and to reflect vulnerability and transformation as an artistic gesture and to work as a strategy to disrupt the proclivity toward constant making and participation.

There is a pain - so utter presents new and recent works by: Hana Pera Aoake (Tainui, Ngāti Raukawa, Aotearoa/NZ), Beth Collar (UK), Erin Crouch (AU), Brian Fuata (AU), J*, Spencer Lai (AU), Claudia Pharés (AU), Alice McIntosh(AU), Ander Rennick (AU), current Gertrude Studio Artist Isadora Vaughan (AU), Faith Wilson (Aotearoa/NZ and Canada), and Grace Wood (UK). 
 
J* cannot be identified and is currently completing a sentence at a Victorian correctional centre.