100 Years of Solitude
Joshua Searle
100 Years of Solitude, Sydney Contemporary Art Fair
Presented by Saint Cloche Gallery
3 - 6 September 2026
Booth E05
In 100 Years of Solitude, Joshua Searle traces the arc of his family’s migration from Colombia to Australia, weaving together memory, myth, and the quiet weight of inherited stories. Borrowing its title from Gabriel García Márquez’s seminal novel—often called the “Colombian bible”—the exhibition reflects Searle’s personal connection to the text, and to the word soledad, the Spanish name of his grandmother, which translates to “solitude.” This generational echo becomes a lens through which Searle contemplates belonging, distance, and the fragile threads that bind past and present.
At the heart of the exhibition is a major ceramic installation of 52 vessels, each marking one year since his family first arrived in Australia. Their external forms draw from pre-Columbian goldwork, traditional ceramics, and Spanish text Searle encountered during his research trip through Colombia. Inside, each vessel is glazed as an inner world—an imagined repository for memories brought across oceans and those formed on Australian soil. In their duality, the vessels embody a kind of magical realism, holding both the real and the impossible, the lived and the mythic.
Searle’s accompanying paintings extend this merging of truth and imagination. Family narratives become fertile ground for new mythologies: años de burro—a phrase his grandmother uses to recall “donkey years,” a time long ago—intertwines with imagery of mules he encountered while trekking to Ciudad Perdida in Santa Marta. These visual crossings collapse timelines and geographies, evoking a world where ancestral memory and present experience coexist.
Through ceramics and painting, 100 Years of Solitude chronicles the journey of a family shaped by movement, love, solitude, and resilience. Searle offers a body of work that honours both the magic and the ordinariness of diasporic life—where every vessel, every story, becomes a site of connection between home and elsewhere.
Fair Hours
Wednesday 2 September
VIP Preview
VIP Pass and Premium+ Pass only
Thursday 3 September
11am–5pm, Fair Open
5:30pm–9pm, Art Night
Friday 4 September
11am–4pm, Fair Open
4pm–8pm, Friday Night
Saturday 5 September
11am–6pm, Fair Open
Sunday 6 September
11am–5pm, Fair Open