Anne KUCERA – “Alone I Keep the Wolves at Bay”

Walking into Trocadero Art Space in Gallery 1, I’m drawn towards a corner with black and white checkers beginning at the floor and working up towards the ceiling. They are half completed and gives you the feeling that you could either disappear towards the ceiling or floor.  A small white chest of draws sits there and on top of that sits a hard covered book. Don’t be fooled by the picturesque scene for here begins the nightmares.

An Abstract Nightmare is the name of this first piece. Open the book and a paper pop up scene of a woman appears and she is either drowning or being sucked into the whirlpool of checker squares. The size of this piece is a little larger than A3. The way the chequered pieces are crafted gives you the feeling of movement and a spiralling effect to an underworld that lives under the checkers.

The largest of the pop up books is named The Clearing (seen in image above). Open the book and your presented with a forest of trees and in the clearing sits a wolf facing a seated person on their knees. A standoff or as the title of the show suggests, alone l keep the wolves at bay. Each leaf of each tree has been individually cut and placed on each trunk. The stare between the wolf and person is intense that you forget this is paper. The structure of the pop up book is clever and for some of us, takes awhile to figure out its construction.

The artist Kucera is sitting the gallery as she is also the treasurer of this artist run space. She tells me that these artworks are small pixels of her nightmares and dreams. Being slightly insomniac, she has built these scenes from her mind and dreams. Kucera has been working on this show for eight months. She taught herself how to build these paper wonderlands. 

For me, pop up books reminds us all of our childhood and the surprise of what each page will present. In this exhibition, as you approach each book your excitement builds. You read the title of the book in the anticipation of the image that you will be greeted with. The exception here is that you’re not a child but an adult with fears, apprehensions and failures. These adult pop up books capture these emotions in a strangely fairytale way.

Kucera has exceptional attention to detail and has beautifully mastered these pop up books which makes for a successful and compelling exhibition.

On until 13th August. 

www.trocaderoartspace.com.au