Collection Online
Medium
synthetic polymer paint, cane, wood and string on inkjet print on canvas on aluminium
Measurements
197.3 × 197.5 cm
Place/s of Execution
Sydney, New South Wales
Inscription
inscribed in fibre-tipped pen l.r.: Yeldham / 8
inscribed in fibre-tipped pen on reverse u.l.: Resonance (underlined) / Yeldham / 8/9 / 22
Accession Number
2023.22
Department
Contemporary Art
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Presented by Scott Livesey Galleries, 2023
© Joshua Yeldham
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work

This intricately detailed image is of a grey mangrove tree on the Hawkesbury River, NSW. Joshua Yeldham has made art with this tree for sixteen years. He states that the old tree – maybe 150 years old – did not speak to him as a photograph. Yeldham said, ‘It was foreign as an image on paper. It was separate to me and I wanted it to be me’. To ‘become’ mangrove, Yeldham carved the surface of the image with a Dremel tool, letting the tip of the grinder meander up through the bark over and over, as a meditation. Each touch of the Dremel brought light. Yeldham explains, ‘I’m starting to make an offering. I’m starting to find illumination and reverence in something that I didn’t fully connect to, which was just a static image. And then I felt it was vulnerable, so I made strings that are holding it together, in case a storm comes. To care and bind’.