The New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) is pleased to present The Interior by Natalya Hughes, an exquisite national touring exhibition, opening to the public this Friday, February 7.
The exhibition is presented by the Institute of Modern Art (IMA) and toured by Museums & Galleries Queensland.
Drawing on the gendered power dynamics between public and private space, the exhibition presents a playfully exaggerated consultation room.
Combining sculptural seating, richly patterned soft furnishings, uncanny objets d’art, and a hand-painted mural, The Interior creates a stimulating space to unpack our collective and unconscious biases.
Natalya Hughes, one of Australia’s most exciting mid-career artists, is known for her explorations of decorative and ornamental traditions and their associations with the feminine, the human form, and excess. Recent bodies of work investigate the relationship between Modernist painters and their anonymous women subjects.
In The Interior,Natalya builds on her interest in the role of women and their historical absence from positions of power. The exhibition asks, “Can we use the talking cure to solve society’s ‘problem’ with women?”
The custom-made couches that dot the gallery take their lush contours from the shapes of the female body, and their detailed upholstery reveals motifs of eyes, rats, and snakes taken from patient case studies from the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.
Audiences are invited to recline and be enveloped, soothed, and held by the furniture’s womanly forms while taking turns playing analyst and patient. With this bodily encounter The Interior creates a space where the existence of women can be reimagined on different terms in the post-‘Me Too’ world.
“In this work I wanted to explore something of society’s unease with women; I am interested in the representation of women, how we are conceptualised, and why expectations of us are so slow to shift. Freud founded psychoanalysis – a theory which informs much of my art making. Women are also problematic within his work, but psychoanalysis provides a useful framework for dealing with problems around gender and what we value. By mining Freud’s references and imagery of women, I seek to see what they might offer or reveal in order to more equitably reimagine the idea of ‘woman’”. said Hughes.
Exhibition curator, Tulleah Pearce is eager to open the exhibit.
“The IMA is thrilled to present this new commission from Natalya, a significant undertaking within her practice. This exhibition is deeply researched and intricately executed – the pattern details drawn from Freud’s case studies and the furnishings inspired by his consultation room really reward close viewing from visitors. We are also excited about the playfulness involved in The Interior, where the audience is asked to complete the work by stepping into the roles of analyst and patient. Hopefully, this participation reveals something surprising to those who take up the offer.”
In November 2021, Natalya was announced as the recipient of the Michela & Adrian Fini Artist Fellowship, awarded by the Sheila Foundation, helping the artist to realise The Interior, her most ambitious project yet.
The Fellowship supports the development of new work by contemporary women practitioners at a critical juncture of their career and assists in the presentation and documentation of the work at contemporary art spaces within the national Contemporary Art Organisations Australia (CAOA) network. The Fellowship was established through the generosity of Sheila Foundation board member Michela Fini and her husband Adrian, and is awarded annually over three years, to provide vital support to women artists and contemporary arts institutions around Australia.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The Interior is on display at NERAM until April 6, 2025.
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