The Apparition

Melody Woodnutt’s, The Apparition is a conjuring and ascension of spirit. It is a futile attempt to build her grandfather Frank’s unfinished boat which he was making out of love for his wife. Upon Frank’s death, the massive boat frame stood as a 17m long, 9m wide bare skeleton – unfinished for 40 years with no hull, having never seen the sea. The artwork thus becomes the boat’s spectral fiction and a ghostly apparition. The Apparition conjures a siren’s call from beyond the spectral veil – seen as a death shroud made for the boat out of wool and silk – it is a call into the deepest of seas to discover what answers us.

The Apparition is part of an ongoing series by Melody Woodnutt called ‘The Ship’ which contemplates objects as they persist over time, autoethnography, and the tropical gothic hauntings of North Queensland. Lara Gabor joins Melody Woodnutt for The Apparition to create a bespoke lighting design for the exhibition. The two artists attempt to conjure the boat from another world with sound and light. Their collaboration will culminate in a short expanded cinema performance on the opening night (April 12) which utilises 16mm film, sound and light as the key foundations of cinema and world-building.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a creative writing piece by Dr. Daniel John Pilkington, who recently completed a PhD. thesis, ‘Magic and the Occult in Contemporary Poetry’ at the University of Melbourne.