Landscape Amnesia

 By Stanislava Pinchuk, born Kharkov, Ukraine & Reko Rennie (Kamilaroi), born Melbourne

Curator: Broached Commissions Location: Viewable from Gunpowder Walk, near Two Melbourne Quarter Photographer: Peter Bennetts

Reko Rennie and Stanislava Pinchuk both started their artistic practices creating street art. Landscape Amnesia continues both artists commitment to using simple symbols to make bold political points. In this work Pinchuk and Rennie have used net like lines and Reko’s distinctive vivid shield patterns to create a distorted landscape over the rectilinear grid of commercial office windows.

Stanislava Pinchuk is a contemporary artist who uses data-mapping as a tool to imbed drawings, sculptures and installations with messages on changes in landscapes which occur as a result of political conflict, war zones, refugee migration and the climate crisis.

Born in Ukraine in 1988 and emerging as one of Australia’s youngest and most exciting street artists under the pseudonym Miso between 2000–10, Stanislava has built her career around developing works that at first glance appear delicate and light in subject matter, yet contain a deep research base that reveals itself on further investigation. Stanislava is particularly famous for her Calais Terrazzo (2018) works: a series of stone sculptures incorporating remnants collected by artist from the abandoned migrant camp of Calais, France, as well as The Red Carpet (2020), a photographic proposition for a red carpet covering the steps of the Sydney Opera House, whose design includes data-mappings of damaged topography from Kiev's Maidan square protests (2013–14). At Melbourne Quarter Stanislava has been commissioned to create work in collaboration with Reko Rennie, as two artists whose careers began in street art, and who use symbols to convey deep political messages. Here, these artists have responded to the themes of the Tempest and the Grid by merging their design styles to create a new distorted landscape.

Stanislava’s work is held in the permanent collections of Le Louvre’s Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris; The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; MCA, Sydney; The National Gallery of Victoria and ACMI, Melbourne; La Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris; UQ Museum, Brisbance; The State Library of Victoria, Melbourne; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide;, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; and others. Stanislava’s substantial body of work was recognised in her first retrospective exhibition at Heide Museum of Modern Art (2021). Stanislava’s work has been also commissioned by clients including Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Broached Commissions and the Immigration Museum, Victoria.

Reko Rennie is one of Australia’s most renowned contemporary artists. A descendant of the Kamilaroi People, Rennie has cemented an enormous following for his ability to fuse graffiti with symbols and pattern work built from his Aboriginal heritage in order to subvert and re-establish how Indigenous culture can be understood in urban Australian environments.

Since 2012, Reko Rennie’s work has been superimposed onto some of Australia's most notable public spaces, including the Sydney Opera House during the Vivid festival (2016) and Federation Square as part of the White Night festival (2016). Reko’s artwork has been exhibited in major international institutions and fairs, including the Australian Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo (2010), SCOPE Art Fair New York (2012), Art Basel Hong Kong and Art Miami (2019) and Los Angeles Contemporary (2020).

Rennie was commissioned for Melbourne Quarter by Broached Commissions and LendLease due to the synergy between the political symbols and shields seen in his work, and the curatorial theme of the Grid; Rennie’s work in the precinct equally connects the Indigenous history of the site to its current-day role as a central urban space within Melbourne city.