Retroactive Documents: local artist and designer’s latest exhibition

Carlton resident and multi-disciplinary artist Steve Hennessy’s recent exhibition brings together decades of collected materials to illuminate the “instability and poly-temporal nature of art”.

The exhibition is part of Mr Hennessy’s PhD thesis he is undertaking at Deakin University, which is titled Retroactive Documents – Subverting the Linear Account of the Personal Archive.

The concept at the core of the exhibition initially emerged in 2020 when Mr Hennessy started exploring photocopies from his archives, drawing inspiration from a period in the early 1980s where photocopies were frequently used in collage art.

“So, I’m taking things that were sitting there for, you know, 30 or 40 years, and then I’m starting again with a new collage,” Mr Hennessy told Inner City News.

“And then, at the end of that collage process, I said, ‘this is a retroactive document’. I coined the phrase, and that became the subject of my thesis a little bit later on.”

The exhibition presents photos and objects as items that can not only capture a point in time, but also gain new meaning. 

“Time doesn’t feel linear – my studio is full of items that connect me with the people, projects and experiences that have shaped me,” Mr Hennessy said.

Retroactive Documents is a multimedia exhibition using digital photo collage, plywood sculptures and audiovisual pieces.

Mr Hennessy said the exhibition development process was a way to engage with the back catalogue of artworks and materials that he has accumulated over his 45 years as an artist and designer.

“The stored collection of source material, bits and pieces, newspaper cuttings, postcards, pictures, you know, memorabilia; all the things that go into an artist’s archive of things that they might use in the future.

“I decided that it was time to go through these things and start using them in a positive way to make works for the future, so to speak,” he said.

It was a way to use dormant things in the archive and so, in some ways, it’s trying to reignite the past through a sort of recuperative process where I’m reviving things for the present or the future. It’s not so much about nostalgia for the past.

Early in his career, after studying art at RMIT, Mr Hennessy adapted his skills as an artist to work as a designer.

In the mid ‘80s he worked with architects such as Allan Powell and Greg Burgess.

His work has since included designing the lighting for the Crown entertainment complexes both in Melbourne and interstate, including the custom chandeliers in the Palladium Ballroom and the Crown Towers foyer.

He has also designed lighting and public sculptures for the Immigration Museum, the University of Melbourne, Princes Pier and the Shrine of Remembrance.

Mr Hennessy said he was drawn to complete his PhD as a way of re-engaging more deeply with his art practice.

“I’ve had some cancer issues since 2017 and so obviously I’ve been through a lot of treatment processes at Peter Mac,” he said.

“I did have a sense of unfinished business that the art, even though I kept producing art all during that time, I sort of wanted to restore the balance sheet.

“And even though there’s a lot of design in the current exhibition, I wanted to sort of make sure that my art practice was reinforced and boosted. The last three to four years of research was all about recuperating the art career, giving it a strong context, and to make sure that both sides of my practice were well represented.”

Although Mr Hennessy’s studio is located in Prahran, he has lived in Carlton for 15 years now.

In the mid ‘90s, he lived at Curtin House in the CBD, before moving between Carlton and Fitzroy.

“When I moved away from the city, I made the joke that I was moving ‘off the grid’, meaning the Hoddle Grid,” he said.

“For me, it was like moving to the suburbs, even though it was only about two kilometres from the city.” •