The idea of duality is hardly a new one in the scope of art history. The threshing of tensions between lineages, aesthetics, references, techniques and their various counterpoints is at the core of art’s continual re-imagining and manifestation, especially in the context of the contemporary. During a career that has spanned the last decade, Melbourne-based artist Emily Ferretti has pieced together a convincing painterly vocabulary, only to gently rephrase, remould and recast it, time and time again. Walking in Both Directions arrives at a pivotal time for the artist. Bookending a three-month residency in the Australian Council’s Greene Street studio in New York City in 2015, the paintings, drawings and (in one case) major installation that feature in this book not only explore her work’s increasingly abstract, complex and faceted terrains, but her growing fascination and research into the aesthetic, compositional and philosophical underpinnings of American folk art.
112 pages, 28 x 21 cm, exposed bind softcover with dust jacket, Perimeter Editions (Melbourne).