A Fantastic Journey - Beinart Gallery
There’s something so captivating about small works, almost like you could reach out and hold the entire universe in your hands (please do not use this as an excuse to touch the artworks). In Beinart Gallery, tucked in the last room on the left, you’ll find 20 such works ready to take you to different worlds. English artist Caroline Dewison’s A Fantastic Journey presents 20 dioramas, five of which are automata. The whimsical art leans towards the weird in the best way, with each of these scenes fit for a fairy instead home to UFOs, leading you to wonder what’s really going on.
Though touted as small online, nothing prepares you for the delicacy of scale that Dewison actually plays with. They’re whimsical and worrying at the same time, leaving you wondering what lurks outside of the frame. In a day and age when every other exhibition seems to contend with the tension between art and technology, having the UFOs be front and centre in these intricately crafted works was refreshing, so was the clearly human hand that made them. The circular works felt like portholes, offering glimpses out of the white submarine of the gallery walls.
As a fan of The Weird in all its forms, especially art and literature, I couldn’t help but see a world that was a funhouse mirror version of our own. Underwater Adventure- evidently Dewison’s take on an ocean-scene- called to mind Area X from Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation trilogy. The coral morphing into fungi, and the blue-green of the ocean into the hazy skies of an ecological disaster. The scene escapes the frame, encroaching towards you, wanting to take up more space than it is allowed.
Stormy Skies, one of the aforementioned automata, hypnotises you with its spiral of clouds. The three UFOs in the foreground seem to be awaiting returning home, ready to pop into the next universe. It’s well worth asking the gallery staff to demonstrate the automata for you (heed the sign that asks you to not do this yourself). You get the full scope of care that has gone into these dioramas, as well as an appreciation for the talent that Dewison has to conceive of these on such a minute scale. Another automata, Crystal Planet, feels just as sci-fi as Underwater Adventure. The bright blues and greens lean eerie, where other darker works feel lighter, like a fairy tale.
Though Beinart Gallery is a well established institution on the Melbourne art scene, I did feel like the lighting of the space did the works a disservice. While the shadows are somewhat unavoidable to a point, they obscure some of the details in the work. With the works being so small (all less than 15cm across), that detail is needed for the immersive experience Dewison is looking to create.
Works like Forest Flight with waterfalls flowing out of frame, allow for dimensionality to the works, combining techniques in a way that truly works for Dewison. The exhibition had potential to feel redundant and repetitive, but there was not one work that I didn’t want to look at closer. She does not shy away from blending fanciful toadstools with glitter with her UFOs, striking a balance between mythical and extraterrestrial. What she has created are sets, each waiting for a story of their own.
Caroline Dewison’s A Fantastic Journey is on at Beinart Gallery from July 20th to August 10th 2025. It is a solo show, on display alongside Hannakin’s Dream You Sprouts, Tokyo Jesus’ Eternal Memories, and Aof Smith’s Unrevealed Traits all of which explore themes of the weird and/or the whimsical.
Written by Charlotte McKinnon
