Uber Gallery, March 2008
Artist – Beck Wheeler
Hey, Hey, Which Way?
There is a saying that for every five bodies in a cemetery, there’s an extra one. On certain nights, so the rumour goes, the gates are left unlocked, a hole left unfilled and two spades are pronged in a mound of dirt like kebab sticks. These extra bodies make the dead jump as they are dumped on top of expensive coffins, gate-crashing the funerals of the properly buried. The only send-off said under a black cellophane sky for them is ‘good fucking riddance’ and if they’re lucky, the glowing butt of a cigarette thrown in after them – a tiny torch to take into the afterlife.
Beck Wheeler’s collection Hey Hey, Which Way? is a labyrinth journey into the afterlife. Based on a board game she used to play with her siblings, Wheeler has entwined fables, polemic, ancient beliefs with the oddly beautiful and lucid realities of the departed. If our subconscious were an ocean, then she has paddled across it and collected all the messages in bottles that have drifted between the living and the dead. “Death is like being in the womb. You can hear everyone around you, but they’re muffled, they are underwater,” says a departed father to his daughter, his message captured in a painting.
When it comes to Beck Wheeler settling on her own insurance plan for the afterlife, she has had a range of options. Growing up in Beach Haven (a small New Zealand town that ironically had no beach – only mangroves and a fish n’ chips shop), her parents followed the teachings of Sheikh Abdullah Isa Neil Dougan, a group that merged Sufi, Buddhist and Hindu traditions. However for the sake of the girls getting a good education, Wheeler and her siblings were sent to a Catholic school. “So we grew up with a mix of Sufi services that included the adults dressing in robes and lighting candles, then going to Catholic Mass where followers lined up to drink the blood of Christ. I never really understood either ceremony as a child. They both seemed like a game.”
Hence the theatrical depiction of the afterlife in Wheeler’s installation and paintings. There is the cosmic egg, magical wheat silos, the dance of a thousand virgins, banished souls burping out spores, embalmed mummies avidly reading the Book of the Dead, perilous journeys and so many tests – the afterlife is like year 12 all over again.
But are these beliefs, rituals and cemeteries more for the living, than the dead? In the same way black armbands are for those left behind, perhaps the seven layers of hell in Islam (which is very different to my housemate’s dessert named Seven Layers of Delight – think peanut brittle, condensed milk, meringue, jelly and more) is simply a convincing way to reinforce the law.
In America, it’s said that after the electrical switch has been flicked on death row – the fluorescents shuddering throughout the jail – the family of the executed will often rush to the funeral home so they can embrace the warm body before life evaporates from it, leaving a cold corpse. Then they might discuss Jesus and how forgiving he is. But for these departed souls, what then? Is it is a case of ‘Hey hey which way?’
Beck Wheeler’s work has a haunting poignancy and comic sadness. Her creations make faux pas, they ask the wrong questions and then awkwardly hang around for the answer. Struggling with the big questions and life’s mundane certainties (for some creatures, it’s merely gravity they grapple with, their saggy green bosoms hanging painfully to the ground), one sad character reveals to another “While I was dreaming of death, you were dreaming of dinner”.
Wheeler’s work is unafraid to relate to ordinary chores, everyday habits, and imperfect people. When travelling in Cuba, I came across the work of Os Gemeos, identical twin brothers who paint together. In their Brazilian hometown of Sao Paulo, Os Gemeos have transformed the landscape with their characters that hiss at passer-bys on the street like a pimp trying to show off his lovely ladies. Their odd characters engage with one another, often revealing small truths about themselves in the process. To me, Beck Wheeler’s work promises a similar resonance, spooking passer-bys and offering a carnival engagement to its viewers.
It has been documented that people who have returned from the dead will often describe a sensation of hovering above their body, their souls getting a birds-eye view of the situation. In fact, this ‘reporting back’ from the dead has happened so often, that one UK hospital decided to place a LED screen in their emergency surgery, placing it in a position that only the recently dead could see it if looking down from the ceiling. The test was to see if those who reported back from the dead, could recall the message flashing on its screen. So far no one has been able to.
But perhaps we’re being too literal. Maybe a hovering sensation doesn’t actually physically mean we’re rising. It is not fully understood how brain cells generate thoughts. In England, one research team is has produced significant evidence to suggest the mind or consciousness is independent of the brain. The lead researcher, Dr Parnia says “… The brain is definitely needed to manifest the mind, a bit like how a television set can take what essentially are waves in the air and translate them into picture and sound.”
So if our bodies are the equivalent of televisions, when we die we lose that expression – but perhaps the signal sticks around. I get the sense in this exhibition, in Beck Wheeler’s take on the afterlife, we will all be hovering for before us are the dreams, the memories and the messages that have drifted between the living and the dead. Whether we see an LED screen or not, I don’t think it matters.
Artist Biography – Beck Wheeler
Beck Wheeler creates installations that combine drawing, sculpture and toy making. Her work explores narrative and reflects an interest in comic book art, contemporary illustration, medieval cartography and children’s toys. She has exhibited in New Zealand, Australia, Spain and the USA, seeing her work reviewed in The Age, IdN, Creative magazine, Australian Art Review, Urbis Magazine and Make Magazine.