For over two decades Lisa Roet has won acclaim in Australia and internationally for her powerful investigations into the complex interface between humans and our simian relatives.
Drawing inspiration from a myriad of sources including residencies at major international zoos, field studies of apes living in the forests of Borneo and most recently through her own heart surgery, Lisa’s multidisciplinary approach to her work has challenged, and continues to challenge, fundamental scientific and behavioural theories relating to human evolution and creationism, language and communication, science and art and the relationship between humans and ‘other’ primates. Notwithstanding the potentially political nature of her subject, Roet never indulges in heavy-handed dacticism. To the contrary, her art practice is infused with refreshing vigour, candour and an inescapable sense of mystery, poignantly highlighting how inextricably linked humans and primates are amid the messy uncertainty of biology, nature and culture.
With the ape as her muse, Roet encourages us to reflect upon prevailing attitudes towards these relatives with whom we share in excess of 98% of our DNA, the lingering anxiety with our evolutionary past, our use of apes for scientific and entertainment purposes and the way in which we project onto apes our own fantasies and culture, while at the same time assuming they are somehow ‘inferior’ to us.
Not surprisingly, Lisa’s explorations into the psychology, behaviour and the soul of simian-human relations have attracted an impressive number of art awards, including the prestigious: Geelong Gallery Acquisitive Print Award, Australia (2013), Deakin University Small Sculpture Award, Australia (2012), Fremantle Print Award, Australia (2011), McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park Sculpture Survey & Award, Australia (2005), Australian National Gallery National Sculpture Prize, Australia (2003).
Since her first show at Querhause Gallery, Berlin in 1992, Lisa has been represented by galleries in Australia, Belgium and the USA, has held over twenty-five solo exhibitions and has participated in more than fifty group exhibitions internationally and within Australia, including: Golden Monkey, Beijing Design Week, Beijing, China (2016), Heart Beat, Adelaide Festival 2016, Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, Australia (2016), Lisa Roet/KITX Collaboration, Melbourne Fashion Week, Pieces Of Eight Gallery, Melbourne, Australia (2016), Golden Monkey White Night Festival, Melbourne, Australia (2016), Bound Communication and Stories of Love, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand (2015), When I Laugh, He Laughs With Me, Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide, Australia (2015), Australian Artists In Bali: 1930s to Now, McClelland Gallery, Langwarren, Victoria, Australia (2015), Monkey Grip, Deakin University Art Gallery, Melbourne, which toured various regional galleries throughout Victoria, Australia (2013-14), When I Laugh, He Laughs With Me, Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne, Australia (2014), Chengdu Biennale, China, 2013, McClelland Sculpture Survey & Award, McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park, Mornington Peninsula, Australia (2014, 2005 & 2003), Den Hagg Sculptuur 2007/The Hague Sculpture 2007, The Hague, The Netherlands (2007), Satellite Project (12 Australian Artists), Shanghai Biennale, China (2006), Kiss of the Beast, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia (2005), Lisa Roet: Finger of Suspicion, McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park, Melbourne, Australia (2004).
Lisa has also featured several times in the publication titled Australian Art Collector’s ‘50 Most Collectible Artists’ (2001, 2003 and 2007) and is the subject of a comprehensive monograph by Alexie Glass titled Lisa Roet: Uncommon Observations (2004), that was published by Thames and Hudson. Lisa was also the feature of an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) documentary titled APELADY, which was produced by Klaus Toft in 2010.
A new monograph of her three decade career
We are all apes, is artist Lisa Roet’s clarion call in I am Ape, a new monograph of her three decade career.
Roet’s striking art works explore human’s relationship with apes, drawing on the influence of zoologists, language experts and others.
Roet multidisciplinary art operates within the realms of still-life, caricature, landscape, classical sculpture and Pop art. Prof Jeanette Horn calls Roet “one of the foremost sculptors working in Australia.”
Roet is best known for her giant inflatable sculptures that cling to iconic architecture in metropolises around the world. From Beijing to London the presence of jungle creatures – gorillas, gibbons and chimpanzees – dramatises the dire encroachment of humans on the great apes’ pristine habitats. With nowhere to run, Roet’s art provocatively suggests, the animals will soon be on our doorstep, if not climbing the walls and nesting on the roof. Environmental concerns are, however, only one facet to her conceptual project.
Aesthetically rich, diverse and complex, her work always returns to the same terrain – the great ape, human/animal relationships, the degradation of the Earth, species extinction and hope for the future. Roet has become the a major voice of the last half-century in exploring how inextricably linked human and animal are in the age of the Anthropocene.
“Using the animal to reflect the human, demystifies the human,” she says. “I’m interested in exploring that liminal state between the rational and the primal. In my work I’m always becoming the ape, or the ape is becoming me.”
The Design
From cover illustration to layout structure and printed object, the design of I Am Ape embodies key aspects of Lisa Roet’s conceptual art. Just as she explores the evolution of communication, Andrew Ashton’s design questions the boundaries, traditions, mediums, materiality, and messages intrinsic to both her art and the art monograph. The cover portrait itself blurs the human–simian divide immediately reminding us of our species connection to non-human apes. The chapter headings resemble living forms, expressing the evolution of communication. And the exposed spine not only allows greater readability with flat open spreads, but metaphorically reveals the DNA of the book.
Pages 300 Full Colour soft cover
The Authors
Ray Edgar is a journalist and editor whose work appears regularly in the Age newspaper Melbourne.
Barbara Creed is Professor of Screen Studies in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Her books include The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis and Darwin’s Screens: Evolutionary Aesthetics, Time and Sexual Display in the Cinema. She is director of the Human Rights & Animals Research Network.
We are all apes, is artist Lisa Roet’s clarion call in I am Ape, a new monograph of her three decade career.
