Golden Madonna

Macpherson explores identity, navigating it through our relationship to the body and the restriction and self-imposed withdrawals away from its physicality and reality. Brought up catholic, her work utilises formal elements and icons from the religious movement — dissolving their original intent through manipulations and processes such as molding and recasting. “Antipodes” namesake is the diametric opposite of a position on earth, and Macpherson finds a lyrical metaphor for characterisation that is at once opposite and bound together — casting two versions of the madonna then fastening them together at the base. Through this the odd unbalancing of the sculptures gait (assumedly added or astutely observed by the artist) finds a new harmony and balance. Small sections of paint applied to the few uncovered parts of the body seem to heighten a sense of opposition, but the palette of red & black neutralises and shrouds any intent for complete contraposition.