Overview

The Shadowers portrays a chain of abstract and surreal interactions between a trio of characters, as games and exchanges are played out within the realm of video. The physical and emotional create a coded language describing pain, desire and the fragility of existence. The action is set in a lush, outdoor environment and dark, flip-side spaces, feeling claustrophobic, dreamlike and minimal. Within these realms flesh and the 'natural' oddly merge to create a new 'prosthesis', frighteningly beautiful as control and the vulnerability of natural order spiral into one another. Psychology dangerously manifests itself physically, revealing the abject and unconscious violence of the mind.

Monika Tichacek arrived Australia in 1994. She completed her studies in sculpture at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, in 2000. Tichacek uses video, endurance performance and installation to create emotive worlds of mutation and possibility, where the self is possessed by unrequited desire and estranged beauty. Her works include I Wanna be Loved by You, 2000, combining the fairytale with nightmares and eugenics, and Romance, 2000, an assembly line of desire and scientific perfection. Romance was awarded the 2001 Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship, providing Tichacek with the opportunity to travel to New York and Prague where she created Lineage of the Divine, 2002.