The inseparability of nature and culture, explored by contemporary artists across a broad range of materials and modalities, is featured in a new exhibition at Melbourne's new contemporary art gallery, Project8.

The exhibition Megacosm explores the entanglement of nature and culture through the work of six Australian and international artists: Simone Douglas, Irene Hanenbergh, Lotta Petronella, Kate Rohde, Benedict Sibley and Utako Shindo.

A spokesperson for the gallery said: "In a world where technology, spectacle and excess can sometimes eclipse quieter contemplation of the interconnectedness of nature and culture, how do we reconcile our position as a virus in clothes that makes cities and internets of baffling complexity? Has nature been assimilated into the artifice of culture? Or is culture simply nature that humans produce? What role can art play in negotiating and mediating understandings and anxieties related to our place in the world? 

"Nature has certainly returned with force as an artistic subject in recent years, albeit largely in response to growing anxieties and precarities related to the changing world that we occupy. Consequently, many artists are reassessing one of the oldest themes in visual art through new conceptual lenses and material means. This exhibition considers art as a portal through which to channel feelings of awe, anxiety and hope in response to exponential change"

Artwork featured in the exhibition includes:

Simone Douglas’ multi-modal constellation of expanded photographic materials pairs light boxes and other image-objects to evoke the sublime qualities of reflective, watery surfaces. Together, these form an experiential meditation on the presence of light in the heavens.

Irene Hanenbergh’s commanding yet modestly scaled oil paintings offer the viewer a threshold through which to imaginatively enter an otherworldly existence. Through a strangely nostalgic gilded frame, the viewer is offered a fantastical natural landscape dancing with contemporary baroque and its' romantic currents.

Lotta Petronella’s film and photographic works trace the destinies of countless women and natures across the centuries. Imaginatively connecting winds and spirits to realms of hidden memories, Petronella contemplates which stories are remembered and which are forgotten. Can trees and bodies embody ghostly connections across space and time?

Kate Rohde presents her intensely colourful and richly decorative sculptural objects as a fantastical version of nature, albeit with a faux-figurative presence. Here, human relationships to nature coexist in a strange oscillation between comfort and the labyrinthian dimensions of the natural world.

Benedict Sibley’s exquisite series of small photographic etchings are paired with a large three panelled drawing seeking to remind us of the Australian bush’s extraordinary capacity to regenerate after catastrophic fire events—a capacity now pushed to its limits.

Utako Shindo presents a collection of delicately executed ink on paper abstractions that interact with spatially considered ceramic objects to quietly resist translation. Alluding to absences which imply shadow-like presences, Shindo’s pieces seek to direct attention to less noticed spaces between them and louder objects and events in the world.

The exhibition is open from November 12 to December 24 at the Project8 Gallery, Level 2, 417 Collins Street, Melbourne.

Pictured: Irene Hanenbergh's Ampussya  2014 oil on canvas. Photo courtesy of Neon Parc