Jacquie Meng, Tuesday. Image: COTA.
In 7 Crash Out Devotions, Jacquie Meng presents seven paintings attached to sculptural structures, representing the seven days of the week. The works invoke altars, where vertically stacked objects sought connection with the heavens and were used in worship practices. 7 Crash Out Devotions is informed by the idea of stacking, using assemblage to destabilise painting’s status as a static, self-contained surface in a symbolic gesture toward devotion, transformation, translation, and the complexity and futility of identity categorisations. Meng also draws from post-internet aesthetics, everyday idiosyncrasies, and references to the studio and building where she undertook her residency at Woollahra Gallery. The works in this show use playfulness, movement, and collage to bypass categorisation and critique the coherence of historical records, opening space for alternative gendered and cultural understandings. They engage with myth-making and the construction of worlds within worlds as a method for blurring boundaries between body, object, and meaning.