Door in the Dark: Selected works from the Cunningham Dax Collection 2013

This exhibition explores the way in which art has provided the artists a means by which they can explore their interior worlds, and changing mental states, as well as a means by which to find a release from that interior. These artworks give viewers an insight into the minds of the artists and in so doing promote empathy and understanding.These art works have been produced in many different contexts, from institutional settings to the private homes of artists, and encompass a range of psychological experiences, including solitude, calmness, joy and contemplation, as well as turmoil and suffering. These experiences are common to all of us in varying degrees.The institutional works selected for this exhibition speak with an artistic vocabulary that allows them to transcend their therapeutic and clinical origins. These works are fascinating from a number of angles; historically, socially, philosophically, and ethically, because they were not created for display and we know very little about the creative impulse behind them. From an artistic perspective they have an expressive quality that is rare, they are considered and consolidated, deliberate and technically nuanced. They communicate in a direct, yet strangely gentle fashion and they are all the more poignant when the conditions under which they were made are considered. As curator, I gravitated to content clusters of landscape, trees, interiors, text and image, theatre, animal studies and the human form rendered through drawing, gouache, photography, ceramics and digital montage, all of which represent a tiny part of the total holding. These works communicate with direct and powerful eloquence. A public program complemented the exhibition which in its university setting gave a powerful context for young people to explore their own vulnerability.