ISADORA VAUGHAN
Rumours of True Things
7 October – 4 November 2023

STATION | MELBOURNE

Rumours of True Things continues Vaughan’s ongoing process-based investigations in how we sense, feel and experience the natural world around us.

In this immersive installation of works, Vaughan examines the fleeting life cycles of local flowers and grasses, rendering their ephemeral states in permanent forms. These works vary in scale between the macro and micro – from dioramic assemblage works Vaughan titled third hands, to large bud-like forms cast in fibreglass, and hand-whittled wooden compositions.

Elements of this exhibition were informed by Vaughan’s recent research into the colonial and historical displays of flora, such as the cuttings and pressings at herbaria, centres of botanical discovery and research. Such records are inherently extractive, albeit also educational. Taking inspiration from the specificity and precision of archival, conservationist methodologies, this work presents a more cacophonous and entangled nature, where conceptions of any singular specimen in isolation are cast aside.

Informed by this research, Vaughan playfully de-stabilises traditional museological methods of display, placing her works on and alongside a series of recycled and deconstructed plinths, highlighting the waste inherent in exhibition deinstallation, and the gap between how plants are experienced in an organic, natural environment, and how they are displayed institutionally; in a rarefied, rigid and hierarchical manner.

Rumours of True Things serves as an enveloping environment, drawing connections between desire, perspective and value in how we conceive of our local ecologies and the fragile ephemerality of our world.

image: Isadora Vaughan, Third hand: Wahlenbergia Stricta Metal, 2023, wire, Apoxie, artificial flies.

Installation Views

Artworks

Isadora Vaughan
Gabriel 2023
porcelain
17.0 × 6.0 × 6.0 cm

Isadora Vaughan
We end up with something partial 2023
ceramic
58.0 × 60.0 × 40.0 cm

Isadora Vaughan
Third hand: Eucalyptus Olida 2023
Bougainvillaea, wood, glass, wire, resin, foam, bronze, artificial flies, pike hook
90.0 × 53.0 × 36.0 cm

Isadora Vaughan
A nature seen beyond belief, instead of a moderately accurate fish tank 2023
fibreglass, steel, paint
250.0 × 70.0 × 70.0 cm

Isadora Vaughan
I invented modern agriculture 2023
steel, copper, Apoxie Sculpt
126.0 × 72.0 × 93.0 cm

Isadora Vaughan
Third hand: Wahlenbergia Communis 2023
metal, wire, Apoxie, artificial flies
50.0 × 46.0 × 49.0 cm


Rumours of True Things 2023
installation view

Isadora Vaughan
Stigma (in three parts) 2023
ceramic, gouache, Apoxie
39.0 × 30.0 × 23.0 cm approx.

Isadora Vaughan
The unsubstantial can easily bump the ordered world into very different registers 2023
ceramic, pigment
47.0 × 38.0 × 38.0 cm

Isadora Vaughan
Third hand: Austrostipa Elegantissima 2023
brass, glass, Themeda Triandra, tape, artificial flies, copper, wood, wax, foam
65.0 × 46.0 × 46.0 cm

Isadora Vaughan
Pastoral or mountain scenes, small relaxing towns, simple worlds at peace, islands enthralled by trains infinitely lapping them 2023
steel and brass
115.0 × 88.0 × 95.0 cm

Isadora Vaughan
Suburban life 2023
recycled plastic and paint
70.0 × 70.0 × 70.0 cm

Isadora Vaughan
Pistil 2023
ceramic, epoxy, paint, pumice, sand
48.0 × 55.0 × 55.0 cm