Melbourne's galleries back in full swing We’re sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later. Dismiss Melbourne's galleries back in full swing By Tiarney Miekus Normal text size Slime and Ashes. Through glitz, strangeness and adorableness, Slime and Ashes shows how the experience of both cuteness and the uncanny — those moments which are paradoxically both compelling and repelling — is one of our most dominant aesthetic experiences. The show encompasses painting, drawing, video and sculpture to consider how cuteness, and how anthropomorphising non-human characters, can conjure feelings of irresolvable ambivalence. In this way the cartoon-influenced drawings of Keely (Kaymay) Hallas, the soft sculpture aliens of Terry Williams, and the life-size waxed wood sculpture of a mother and baby pig by Abdul-Rahman Abdullah show how cute isn’t trivial but something more complex that borders the uncanny. In a very humourous exhibition — take Bronwyn Hack’s beige underwear with stitched pubic hair — there’s also introspection into identity, as seen in the brilliant diamante encrusted “fan girl” works of Aretha Brown, exploring her experience of Indigenous teenagerhood. And since the ultimate blend of uncanny and cute is often found in animation, the show’s centre is the mesmerising and absurdly sexualised, bouncing rounded woman in Victoria Todorov’s animated video. By embracing the cute and uncanny,