Melbourne COVID (re)lockdown means only leaving home for essentials, like exercise. Hitting the footpath, a short but persistent shower starts. I’m off to see sculptural & photo media works by @karrynargus, @Stephania_Windholz_Leigh & #CarolinePhillips.

Along the fence line of a residential/commercial development is #AssemblyPoint. Outdoor space both accessible 24/7 & elusively interred behind glass barriers. I view from outside looking in to 5 separate glass vitrines, art safely encased from the elements, & happily let the rain come down on me.

BooBoo is the artists’ second presentation after Boob (Bias Objects Objective Bodies) Kings Artist Run Gallery in 2017, continuing important investigations of female bodies, visibility and spaces with form, materiality and objects. Stating “in this COVID-19 era of physical distancing, women have become more invisible & artists themselves become silenced”. It strikes me as fitting the look-but-don’t-touch presentation — required consent essentially reinforced by the space itself in its encased gatekeeping role. I gaze at the spheres, cones, drops, but despite being suspended from a spring (designed to move), I cannot touch Stephanie Leigh’s playful large red teardrop form. No interaction, I can’t make it jiggle nor bounce. I recall Leigh’s flatpack women at Linden New Art in 2015, continuing to deconstruct her subject further here reductive flat forms in bright hues hang from industrial hooks.

Caroline Phillips’ repurposed materials, soft(ish) sculptures lean, sit, flaccid while a series of photographs show us their dynamic interactions with women in spaces past. Industrial looking, bound up, sparse, framed by elegant green leaves because the tree lives here.

Soft sculptures by Karryn Argus, recycled materials, hand-made crocheted objects, sit and hang making me question my eye-to-brain instinct to read them as malleable, squishy, squeezable. Look don’t touch. “Feminine” blush palettes, cheeky splash of orange.

Playfulness runs through the work, reminding me that humour often accompanies pain when appraising with a conscious gaze.