Fish Carvings from Catherine Truman

One of our major releases for this year is the latest SALA monograph, Catherine Truman.
With a lush, evocative text from Melinda Rackham, this book delves into the fascinating world of Truman's art.
One of her earliest series, the Fish Carvings, has echoes throughout her career.
 

 

Truman's first solo exhibition, Fish Carvings (1987), held at the Contemporary Jewellery Gallery in Sydney, intuitively articulates a feminist discourse of difference in conceptions of ageing and beauty. Carved in two woods – youthful pink fleshy Australian silky oak and wide-grained greying mangrove, embedded with steel and lead – her Fish sit with the body, present in their own right, rather than being absorbed into the portable gallery of the wearer’s body.

Acting as a counterpoint to the carvings, a grid of handcoloured black and white images of women (and some men) of all ages wear the pieces. As Truman is fond of mentioning, given the right nutrients fish do not appear to get older, rather they will continue growing to fill the space that contains them. Instead of deteriorating with lived experience, her ageing subjects radiate the beauty and individuality of a rich interior life. The National Gallery of Australia quickly acquired a neckpiece from this series.