Sriwhana Spong

The Plum Tree, 2017

fibreglass, plums and performer
1,261 x 1,371 x 2,794 mm

Do you remember the plum tree? Red orbs, small and pert, darkening under the sun before dropping into the long grass where we would either find them or squish them between our toes, breaking apart the skin to open up the golden insides to the fading summer light. The sun reflected in our palms. Eat the sun! The sun has a stone! Spit it out! It will grow more suns! Eat as many as you can fit in your mouth. Three? I’m doing four! See the juice from the sun rolling down my chin. Trickling and spilling, and then barfing. Vomiting in the dry grass. Eyes welling up with the effort. Laughing and puking. Vomiting up the sun. Many suns. Bent over in the golden light, your face stroking the grass, you are a goddess of excess in the orchard puking out her guts; a body turned into a song with each contraction.

– Sriwhana Spong

Sriwhana Spong

born 1979, Auckland
Lives in Auckland and London

Of New Zealand and Indonesian descent, Sriwhana Spong in her early work explored the fertile margins where inseparable difference lies. More recent works are multidisciplinary in approach and include dancers, composers, instrument makers and herpetologists. Aspects of dance in particular are frequently employed in works, imbuing them with the ephemeral nature, sense of loss and the potency of the present that this medium evokes.

Spong has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Art, The University of Auckland. Recent exhibitions include: Im Wintergarten, daadgalerie, Berlin and Oceanic Feeling, ICA, Singapore (2016); 24 Frames Per Second, Carriageworks, Sydney (2015); Taking Form, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia (2013), The Walters Prize, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, (2012) and 18th Biennale of Sydney: all our relations, Sydney, Australia (2012).

Represented by Michael Lett, Auckland