SHAUN GLADWELL : STORM SEQUENCE 2000

Museum of Contemporary Art, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Andrew and Cathy Cameron, 2011
single-channel digital video, colour, sound, 7min 59s
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
The artist Shaun Gladwell often portrays isolated figures, undertaking choreographed acts like skateboarding or breakdancing. Located within urban and natural symbolically significant sites, his work articulates a relationship between the performer’s body and its immediate environment through slowed motion, often redefining the prescribed function of objects and spaces.

Storm Sequence is Gladwell’s seminal work and depicts him skateboarding on the edge of a concrete drop at Sydney’s Bondi Beach. Gladwell – a prolific and skilful free-style skateboarder – pirouettes and spins within a contained space. Incorporating an organic, liquid-like soundtrack by Sydney composer Kazumuchi Grime, the footage is slowed down and movement, which in real time would have a jerky rhythm, becomes graceful, emphasising the relationship between the skater and the environment. As a storm approaches on the horizon, Gladwell continues to skate as the sky turns black until eventually the rain becomes too heavy for him to continue.

Storm Sequence is a deceptively simple work – it depicts a solitary action in an unadorned space. The camera hardly moves and concentrates only on the artist’s movements. The strange, poetic intervention of the natural world, combined with the well-known nature of the place where it is performed, creates a compelling and mesmeric work. The importance of Storm Sequence lies in the pivotal role it has played in the reception, exhibition and acceptance of moving image as an art form in this country. This work is an important cornerstone in the MCA’s Collection.
"Storm Sequence" auctioned for $84,000 in 2007[1] setting an Australian record for video art[2] and is in the collection of the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art.[3]