This wall is 45 metres long and the entrance to the Piano Bar. This laneway was a venue for free live concerts hosted by the Piano Bar in between Covid 19 lockdowns. Kerrie’s artwork is site responsive: it considers both the laneway as a live venue - where the artwork becomes a backdrop for performance - and the use of the laneway as the main entrance to the Club now that events have returned indoors.

As groups of people gather in the laneway before entering the club they listen to music from inside talk dance mingle. Like this activity the proposed artwork is both vibrant and colourful bringing the grey wall to life. The work is site responsive; a colour improvisation which resonates with both the neighbourhood and the dark grey wall.

By looking for an equivalent activity in the field of popular jazz music Kerrie arrived at the title of the artwork ‘A CESH’... In Jazz music the term ‘CESH’ is an acronym for the musical term ‘Contrapuntal Elaboration of Static Harmony’. Well-known by jazz musicians and enthusiasts a CESH is a device used to invent ways to elaborate upon static harmonies to create movement through improvisation. (The results of this improvisation are only as good or interesting as the improvisor.) Similar to Kerrie’s instructional based wall drawings in music a CESH is like a set of rules which can be used to learn how to improvise i.e how to successfully test or break existing rules and/or invent new ones.

To define the ‘linear dynamics’ of the artwork along this wall Kerrie used a method of drawing that she’s developed over the last 30 years called ‘wave drawings’. These drawings which are made entirely of straight lines reflect on the flow and transfer of energy and the manifestation of waves across different phenomena including sound water light environmental processes and migration. Inspired by the beach and the ocean she’s developed and practised making these drawings at low-tide on the back-beach between Point Lonsdale and Ocean Grove over the last 25 years.

Like jazz music the ‘wave drawings’ combine simple mathematical rules with feeling intuition practice and improvisation to make art. The result in this work is a dynamic site responsive pattern that fluctuates along the length of the wall.

Kerrie Poliness is known for her painting and drawing works that revisit the ideas and practices of conceptual art. She uses everyday materials to produce large scale asymmetrical geometric artworks which respond to the place in which they are made.

As part of her art practice Kerrie regularly works with art galleries museums councils schools architects and others to deliver workshops where large groups of people can participate collectively in making public artworks.

Her works are present in major public collections in Australia and internationally:

• Art Gallery of Western Australia
• Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
• Dowse Art Museum New Zealand
• Griffith University Art Gallery
• Monash University of Art
• Heide Museum of Modern Art
• National Gallery of Victoria
• Ian Potter Museum University of Melbourne
• QAGOMA
• and prominent private and corporate collections.