138 Window GalleryA second life (of sorts)
May 2026
Asha Bowditch, A second life (of sorts), 138 Gallery. Image courtesy of Claudia Saballa Hobbs.
Asha Bowditch, Petrolium jellied glamour, Oil on canvas, 100 x 40 cm, 2025. Image courtesy of Claudia Saballa Hobbs.

Asha Bowditch, Double figure or a challenge to resemblance, Oil on canvas, 140 x 100 cm, 2026. Image courtesy of Claudia Saballa Hobbs.



A second life (of sorts)

138 Window Gallery
138 Lygon St, Brunswick East, VIC, 3057

30 April - 9 May, 2026 Exhibition text

A second life (of sorts) aims to recover lost film photographs through the act of painting. In order to retrieve the instant, the images must first be translated into something else. Playing with an abstraction of light and tonality, the painterly hand takes the effects of a disintegrated film roll and repeats them with intention. Gestural white heat, glazed fog, titanium exposure. It is through this commitment to observing and replicating, that a new meaning is embedded into the moment captured.

We consider photography as a tool for memory, but when there is no recollection of the moment captured, what are we left with? A memory becomes a memory of a memory, then a memory of a memory of a memory, and so on.

Playing with this curiosity, A second life (of sorts) presents the answer in the form of an anticipation, where the true source of the memorialised ‘memory’ is not fully disclosed. Rather, in the tension between ambiguity and knowing something, their significance becomes revealed.