This exhibition stages a conversation between two artists with a long history of friendship and collaboration, reflecting on changes and challenges in personal life, identity and relationships. The title is a playful nod to our shared investment in mental health and the influence of psychoanalytic concepts in our art practices; using the framework of a therapeutic conversation the exhibition explores autobiographical content such as dreams, memory, trauma, gender, relationships, existential issues and spirituality.

In the background to this exhibition are some unstable dyads that leak and overlap, in particular the apparently opposed rationalism of Freud with his disciple Jung’s mysticism. Thea takes the Freudian path while Tarryn follows Jung’s approach; other fragile oppositions such as masculine/ feminine, ego/ id, life/ death will also be explored. At its heart this is an exhibition about the self and the relationships that define it, and love, loss, rivalry and projection play a role in the working dynamic as well as the content of works. Cool Change provides an incubating space for us to explore this process.

Tarryn Gill is a WA based multidisciplinary artist who makes artworks spanning the mediums of sculpture, photography, film, drawing, set/costume design and performance. Notably, she has exhibited works in the 2016 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Magic Object; in the 17th Biennial of Sydney; at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane and Akademie der Künste, Berlin. Tarryn’s works are held in numerous public and private collections nationally. She is represented by Gallery Sally Dan Cuthbert, Sydney.

Thea Costantino holds a PhD (2011) from Curtin University and undergraduate degrees in Fine Art and Literary Studies. Costantino received a 2015 Visual Arts and Craft Mid-Career Fellowship from the WA Department of Culture and the Arts, the 2013 Hutchins Art Prize, a 2011 Qantas Foundation Encouragement of Australian Contemporary Art Award and the 2012 Artsource/ Gunnery Artist Exchange. The artist’s work is held in collections including the Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, The Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, Murdoch University, John Curtin Gallery, City of Perth, and City of Joondalup.