What is the space between self and other? Can it be named? Does it become something new? Does it rupture? Congeal? Transform? ‘Devoted’ is concerned with the question of intimacy; that intangible space wherein boundaries dissolve, bodies connect, spirit engulfs– where love and grief share equal domain, where rifts and raptures never cease to muddy the water. These works share a sense of devotion, particularly to connections that are eerily elusive or distant. One could say that this devotion enacts a kind of pining; an obsession of sorts to realise unity with the desired other, even if that affection remains behind barriers, blurred images, or wooden shutters.

The artists in Devoted span broad spectrums of material practice, including Indigenous basket-weaving, photography, and painting. However, there is an apparent shared fascination with the subtleties of longing. Veils, distortions, and distances amass, beckoning us to grasp at what lies beneath. Sean Monaghan’s inkjet print work ‘Raw Wood, Uncut Silk’ positions its naked subject between a large frame resembling wooden shutters, as though we have stumbled upon an open window and must bear witness to its world within.

Devoted guides us on a journey through this longing. As we move with the pieces and consider their various veils, we find ourselves at a place of introspection: what does longing achieve? Where does intimacy take us? How can we traverse these inner boundaries? As we turn towards Sehaliah Du Ressac’s suspended basket, woven to a shape and size in which the artist may cocoon their own body, we witness a return to the self. Perhaps this is the intimacy we long for in order to truly connect. Perhaps this is the devotion we need.