YOU MUST GO ON. I CAN’T GO ON. I’LL GO ON

11 Sep - 31 Oct 2018

BLINDSIDE SATELLITE SCREENS AT FEDERATION SQUARE, MELBOURNE; BUNJIL PLACE, NARRE WARREN; HARMONY SQUARE, DANDENONG; LIVERPOOL, SYDNEY

Sam Doctor

My practice ruminates metaphorically on humanity’s fragile relationship to the environment and the potential or aftermath of catastrophe. In my work, I investigate desecrated and violated landscapes, and the effects of Technology and Industry has had on deprived social communities. This current body of work was produced by documenting landscapes within the exclusion radioactive zone of Fukushuma in Japan. I explore the emotional, spiritual and psychological states that landscape can provoke, my work shares an affinity to landscape where nature is imbued with a pregnant sense of aesthetic and spiritual potentiality. This spirituality is not be thought of in terms of institutionalised religion, rather in my work it might be an artistic act of devotion that seeks to penetrate what Henri Bergson called the E'lan Vitale, the imponderable creative force of life and nature.

Sam Doctor was born in Sydney in 1977, he lives and works in Sydney. Doctor graduated from Sydney University, Sydney College of the Arts with Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honors) in 2006, and is currently studying A Masters of Research in Visual Arts. Doctor has exhibited extensively in both Sydney and Melbourne, in galleries including Chalk Horse and Sherman Galleries. His work has also been screened at Federation Square in Melbourne. More recently, Doctor has shown at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art and at the project space at CACSA in Adelaide. 
Doctor's art practice can be seen as an ongoing confrontation between humankind and the environment, highlighting the fragility of mankind in the face of natural forces, exposing the Faustian side of human nature and our will to contain what cannot be contained. His practice incorporates a range of artistic strategies: video, sculpture, photography and performance. Doctor also regularly collaborates with musical composers to construct soundscapes that either complement or feature as integral parts of his work. 

IMAGE | Sam Doctor, You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on, 2018, 2 channel HD colour video with sound, Edition of 3 + AP | Courtesy the artist