Melbourne Now 2023: National Gallery of Victoria – Ian Potter Centre

Ara Dolatian

24 Mar - 20 Aug 2023

The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Fed Square

The second edition of the ground-breaking exhibition Melbourne Now will be presented at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from March 2023. Bold in scope and scale, the exhibition highlights the extraordinary work of more than 200 Victorian-based artists, designers, studios and firms whose practices are shaping the cultural landscape of Melbourne and Victoria.

With more than 200 ambitious and thought-provoking projects on display, including more than 60 world-premiere works commissioned especially by the NGV for this major presentation, the exhibition highlights the vibrant creativity of local emerging, mid-career and senior practitioners and collectives – including many who are presenting at the NGV for the very first time.

Relic, 2022, is a sculptural ceramic work inspired by archaeological relics. Drawing on the cultural ecologies of lost and stolen artefacts of the Al-Jazira region – the area between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, also known as Mesopotamia – Relic is hand-built using earthenware clay, glazes and oxides. Eccentric in form and colour scheme, its curvatures and seemingly fragile shapes are inspired by archaeological figures and decayed architectural sites in the region. Dolation’s largest work to date, Relic continues the artist’s abstract visualisations of the dialogue between the human and non-human, nature, biology and technology.