From A Cosmic Drift Through Higher Prairie

Richard Proffitt’s work in painting, sculpture, video, and sound is characterised by its manipulation and repurposing of found material, recurring themes, coded motifs, and symbolism. These works often combine to create installations that evoke previously inhabited and later abandoned places of worship; environments suggestive of the intermingling universes of esoteric religions, the bedrooms of teenage loners, and the remote dwellings of psychedelic death cults.

From A Cosmic Drift Through Higher Prairie reassembles two previous installation works to form a reimagined, site-responsive environment. Through the reappraisal and coalescence of existent elements with additional recent works, Proffitt encourages narratives and themes to shift, morph, and bend. From A Cosmic Drift Through Higher Prairie presents an otherworldly, intimate, and immersive experience amidst the ghostly debris of psychedelia, the failures of counterculture, and the remnants of an alternative spiritualism.

Installation view of From A Higher Prairie Through Cosmic Drift by Richard Proffitt. Photos by Ros Kavanagh.