Rochelle Haley: upcoming artist-in-residence


Rochelle Haley in her studio, photo Owen Craven.

Rochelle Haley is an artist and researcher, based in Sydney, who works with experimental drawing, expanded painting, movement and spatial performance practice. She is a lecturer at UNSW Art & Design. Rochelle's projects involve live drawing, dance, painting and installation to explore space structured around the sensation of the moving body. She is interested in the relationship between bodies and the physical environments they move in; exploring movement both in the creative process as well as in how the work is viewed. Rochelle's most recent exhibitions include Afterglow, a participatory, collaborative, painting and dance choreographed performance at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery in September 2017;  Bare Loggia at Galerie PomPom Sydney in May 2017; Spin at Museum of Contemporary Art ARTBAR Sydney, 2016; Patternation at Hazlehurst Regional Gallery and Through Form at Galerie Pompom, Sydney, in 2015.

Rochelle Haley, Afterglow rehearsal with Angela Goh and Ivey Wawn, 2017,
photo Jessica Maurer, source Concreteplayground

My Gunyah residency project will expand on my explorations into geometric designs and patterns of dance notation through the lens of contemporary abstract painting. Choreographic notational systems of influential dance theorists and practitioners including Rudolf Laban and Noa Eshkol will be referenced as rich inspiration material for abstract paintings and the source of compositions for colourful abstract works made with acrylic paint and translucent resin while in residence. I plan to begin with colour studies working with acrylic painting on board followed by multiple layers of colourful translucent resin painting. The final paintings will likely be glossy abstract paintings that draw compositional structure from the intricate geometric detail and motifs of dance notation and are inspired by the contrasting colours and clashing hues of the modernist period in which Laban and Eshkol worked. 


Rochelle Haley, Flow – Red Yellow Bronze, 2016, 
acrylic, ink, Oregon veneer and resin on board, 76 x 46 cm

To see more of Rochelle's work go to her website www.rochellehaley.com