FoRA / squared x Simone Handsley

Welcome to the first of the FORA /squared series, a project begun in reaction to our current situations.

The FORA/squared series is an exercise in activating the beautiful window space that throws an oblique shoulder from the gunsmith's alley at 75 Vulture St. The installations will rotate bi-monthly, with the first cat out of the ranks being Simone Handsley. This project is eternally grateful to the upstairs residents (Autumn Studio + Lance Montana) for lending this space.

Simone Handsley has been a consistent presence in the non-institutional Brisbane art space for some years now. Raised predominantly in Redcliffe, Handsley’s hyper-observant pieces draw from the micro-narratives the world presents us in our daily lives. Handsley’s point of difference is what she does to these narratives, and how she manipulates the traditional mediums of pen, acrylic, and oil to become tools of incisive commentary. Her work is spiked with humour, but always resonates with tenderness, and a warmth that betrays her adoration for the world.

Handsley’s work embodies the concept of intertextual conversation, and often draws on off-beat pop culture, the wider arts sphere, or just a man sitting on a headland. Pop Spiral (Crembrandt’s Desert Holiday) is a work of acrylic on ply. Working with gestures that suggest the undulations of the wood grain beneath, Handsley’s pastel creation reduces every backdrop into a sweep as it floats above each space it is installed with an observant, interactive air.

Handsley occupied the FORA window from September 24 - November 29 2020.