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Australia's refugees are suffering the dehumanising effects of incarceration. Government intervention and censorship of the media presents them as faceless victims. From their secluded imprisonment they emerge to the public psyche as tormented, contorted forms, both physically and mentally damaged by their plight. Lack of hope makes them vulnerable and strips them naked in every sense. With no voice, no identity and no hope they transform metaphorically into broken, disfigured and internally tormented entities.
In the series of works titled Landscape of the Australian Conscience, Penny Jensz utilises the common measurement of a door space in Western architecture for her canvasses to represent a doorway void. This shape symbolises a place where free, standing, upright figures usually pass through uninhabited by barriers and defined spaces. The aim is to emphasise the contrast between freedom and incarceration by revealing the crouched, psychologically damaged figures within this space.
Contact Penny Jensz
Witness, oil on canvas 60 x60 cm
Stagnant, oil on canvas 60 x 60 cm
Ravaged, oil on canvas 60 x 60 cm
Landscape of the Australian Conscience #5, oil on canvas triptych, 3 panels @ 210 x 86 cm each
Landscape of Australian Conscience #6, oil on canvas triptych, 3 panels @ 210 x 86 cm each
Landscape of the Australian Conscience #7, oil on canvas triptych, 3 panels @ 210 x 86 cm each
Metamorphosis #1, oil paint and charcoal on canvas 210 x 86 cm
Metamorphosis #2, oil paint and charcoal on canvas 210 x 86 cm
Cerebration #2, indian ink and pencil on paper 72.5 x 45 cm
Transferred Pain, indian ink and pencil on paper 96.5 x 70 cm