Benev(i)olent Dreaming

Artist Ilona McGuire presents a solo exhibition to mark the conclusion of her residency at Goolugatup Heathcote Gallery, WA. Evolving from her 2022 explorations in charcoal and ochre, powerful cultural materials, McGuire transforms the white cube gallery space.

Radical breakdown is one imagined result of this country’s simmering tensions: a bitter explosion, fuelled from a hostile past, ignorant present and this Great Australian Silence. 

Calling for a revolution, McGuire seeks to stoke the fire in our bellies, triggering impressions of what it might be like to blow it all up and start again. This fantasy explosion shatters the illusion of the twilight zone that is Australia. It is the confrontation, the complete breakdown of common ignorance, the burn of accepting truth. But mostly it is about Empowerment.

Our Culture speaks with blunt honesty; it comes from the fire, honed through millennia. It can lead and heal in the aftermath, if we allow it to.