Inquisition
(1996-1999)
Medium
oil on canvas, glass beads, wood, lacquer, synthetic fabric, type C photograph, glass, DVD
Measurements
(a-g) (installation variable)
(a) 275.2 × 136.5 cm
(b-c) 162.5 × 61.7 × 19.1 cm (overall)
(d) 116.2 × 69.1 × 10.8 cm (framed)
(e) 83.0 × 64.0 × 10.7 cm (framed)
(f) 129.3 × 103.0 × 7.1 cm (framed)
(g) 3 min
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Burnett-Smith Bequest, 1999
© Courtesy of the artist
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work
Susan Norrie’s installation combines art-historical references to painting, minimalism and the monochrome with a preoccupation with materiality and the evocation of feminine experience. Conceptual art, the physical act of viewing, and perception are primary concerns in Inquisition. The work’s particularly gothic sensibility – through references to the funereal, mourning attire and, more obliquely, feminine containment in the Victorian era – shifts the viewer’s focus from the formal, abstract exercises in texture and form to the more menacing and uncanny character of the objects.