138 Gallery

Shop Exhibition

17 Feb - 27 Feb 2025

Residual Sanctum, Joanna van der Linden

Residual Sanctum delves into the materialities and unstable surfaces of embodiment and body representation. This exhibition engages with the symbology of corporeal demarcation, exploring surface, image-making, and materiality through etching, metalwork and latex. The works disrupt and repurpose the language of Catholic iconography, using metal etching and sculpture to challenge the traditional representations of the body and wholeness. Repetition serves as a tool for abstraction and meditation, transforming classical figures into forms that simultaneously distort and pay homage to the body, which is both pierced and encased within steel. The classic iconography of punishment, body horror, pain, and grief is refracted, reflected and embodied, generating a multiplicity of material languages and symbologies, in which the figure takes shape, refracts and dissolves.

Room Sheet with exhibition text by Lillian Phillips.

Johanna van der Linden (she/her) is an artist living and working on unceded Wurundjeri country. Her practice spans print making, metalwork, and sculpture, where she reinterprets traditional iconography through a contemporary lens. Johanna explores themes of embodiment, materiality, and the intersections between the body and the material world, engaging with feminist materialisms to examine the relationships between physicality and symbolism. Her exhibitions have included solo and group shows across Melbourne, such as Seventh Gallery, Blindside, and Rubicon. In 2024, she was recognized as a finalist for the William Blake Prize. Johanna holds an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Canterbury, Aotearoa, and an Honours degree in Fine Arts from RMIT.

Pictured Left: Johanna van der Linden, Residual Sanctum, 2024, Soft steel, etching, latex, bronze. Installation view, dimensions variable. Documentation by Bonnie Thorn.

Open Weekdays 2-6pm, Weekends 12-6pm as per shop exhibition dates