Archive : 2013

December 4 - December 21, 2013

Chantal Fraser, It Hangs With Rattlesnakes and Rubbish, video still, 2013.


Chantal Fraser

It Hangs With Rattlesnakes And Rubbish

This collection of performance footage was undertaken in the San Gorgonio Pass, near Palm Springs and located at the entrance of Coachella Valley, California. One of the windiest places in the west, the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm, along with having sacred native significance, provides much of the energy for Southern California. A series of performance works were filmed amongst the fluctuating noise levels and forceful winds generated from the turbines. 

The video contains footage of the artist adorned and draped in a material object, however the object is not ‘worn’ in its traditional manner but rather playfully and intentionally morphed. Through this physical challenge to nature, the adornment is forced to act as security/comfort, a mask, coverage and at times a menace. 

Chantal Fraser uses adornment as an aesthetic and conceptual tool for material exploration and production. The work explores the creation of cross cultural connotations and representations through silhouette and the embodiment of adornment, and more significantly cultural adornment. Fraser's practice explores ornamentation as an aesthetic resolution to identity and individuality. 

Fraser is a Brisbane based multi-media artist with a BFA (Honours) from Queensland University of Technology. Fraser has exhibited nationally and internationally at various institutions and galleries. Recently Fraser held solo exhibitions at Artereal Gallery in Sydney and Spiro Grace Art Rooms in Brisbane. Fraser is currently represented by Spiro Grace Art Rooms, Brisbane. 

Media Release

Janice Gobey, Refuge, 100cm X 100cm X 100cm, hand sewn recycled fur coats, chair, 2013.


Janice Gobey

Respite

Fur and in particular, fur coats are seen as a luxury item, usually purchased by rich men for their women. Fur of course has many Freudian references, but in this instance, Janice Gobey has subverted this use as a luxury item and by reversing the coat, the most valued fur part is turned to the inside, the outside revealing the hidden skin. 

Gobey has a particular interest in women’s issues, particularly violence against women. Often women are most vulnerable at the hands of their partners’, in their homes where there is little protection available. The fur suit is stitched in a crude way, using traditional female skills of hand sewing in an attempt to create some sort of refuge. By then lining the walls of the gallery with fur, this then provides another level of protection. 

Janice Gobey is a Melbourne based artist working in both painting and installation. Her undergraduate studies majored in Psychology and Sociology, leading to an interest in people. Growing up in South Africa has influenced her practice and combined with a residency in Berlin led to her current interest in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Gobey graduated from the University of Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts with a Masters in Visual Art.

Mateja Simenko, Drawing, Watercolour on paper, 18x18cm, 2013.


Mateja Simenko

Drawing

In this project Simenko examines drawing as a three dimensional process. Pigment moves within the space of water and paper, staining along the way. A mark results. Our retina reads and brain spatially interprets the mark in ways surprisingly unrelated to the mediums' physical encounter with its’ environment. Simenko investigates this discrepancy. 

Imagery is loosely sourced from diagrammatic systems commonly used to capture and interpret space (perspective, topography, shading, overlapping). The medium not recognising such systems results in an ambiguity that makes the reading fluid and broad, drawing interpretations beyond the surface of diagrams. 

Mateja Simenko graduated in Bachelor of Fine Art Degree at VCA and Masters of Fine Art Degree at RMIT University. She lives and works in Melbourne and has shown her work extensively through artist run spaces, public and commercial galleries in Melbourne, interstate and overseas. Her work is held in many private collections.




November 13 - November 30, 2013

Telia Nevile, Happy couple paste, Inkjet Print, 24.5 x 19cm, 2013, image courtesy of the artist.


Telia Nevile

The Grass Is Always Greener...

While it’s perfectly acceptable to alter or manipulate most photos these days, there’s still something sacred about family photos. They depict who we are and where we come from, contributing to our sense of identity and preserving our history. Telia Nevile is fascinated by photography’s ability to alter memory, so when she found this collection of family photos on ebay she was eager to see what it would feel like to visually invade someone else’s life. Pasting herself in amongst, and in some cases, over this family, has given Nevile an alternative history and a new set of ‘family memories’. But is this re-writing of history one manipulation too far? 

Telia Nevile is a writer, performer and photographer who graduated from RMIT in 2012 with a First Class Honours in Fine Art. Her visual arts practice centres around photography’s ability to preserve, alter and create memories, and the (too often) blurry line between fantasy and reality. 

Website: http://telianevilephotography.virb.com

Kasia Fabijanska, Interference, graphite and charcoal on paper, 57 x 57 cm, 2013, image courtesy of the artist.


Kasia Fabijanska

Interference

This project peers into the condition of nature, environmental degradation and humanity’s perception and relations with nature. Doubt and debate surround us, generated by the media, politics and environmental groups, on many varied environmental topics. 

Present in the works are elements of chemical symbols, distortion or manipulation to nudge the viewer out of the comfort zone of the familiar and expected in nature and explore the different ways people choose to “see” the natural world and the state of the environment. On show will be etchings, drawings, photography and overlayed, etched perspex plates. 

In 2000, Kasia graduated with a B.A. Fashion Design (RMIT) and after two unimpressive years in the rag trade, decided to pursue art. Between 1999 and 2010, painting was the main medium, exhibited in various group exhibitions around Melbourne and Gippsland. In 2008, she was selected as a finalist in the John Leslie Art Prize. 

2010 marked a shift in the chosen media towards a more graphic aesthetic. In 2012, she completed a Master in Visual Art at Monash University in printmedia and has been pursuing both print and drawing since graduation. 

Website: http://www.kfabijanska.com.au

Savina Hopkins, White Bluff, collage on paper, 52 x 52cm, 2013, image courtesy of the artist.


Savina Hopkins

Close Quarters

Close Quarters is a series of collages which use paper file tags originating from office files from the 1930’s and 40’s, a time when people were frugal with materials and paper was considered precious. The tags themselves were fashioned from society’s ephemera like outdated maps, theatre stubs and cigarette packs. They were roughly cut and pierced by a metal file pin that held a bundle of papers together. 

Hopkins’ interest in the tags verges on the forensic: the inherent qualities of the paper remnants; colour fading caused by light damage or acidic transfer and embossing or scarring formed by the pressure of rusting file pins. Handwritten notes in careful, proud script, typed standard-issue forms and sections of aged folders are all used in constructing her work. On close inspection it’s possible to identify the tags’ origin from word fragments and colour clues, and to discover accidental thumbprints or absent-minded doodles. As Hopkins selects, arranges and assembles these elements in an artwork, the seemingly insignificant has its meaning re-valued and re- interpreted. 

Savina Hopkins is a graduate of The Victorian College of the Arts (BA Fine Art – Painting) and The University of Newcastle (Post Graduate Diploma - Scientific Illustration). She lives and works in Melbourne. Her recent art practice is predominately collage based, with a focus on using unconventional and discarded materials. Her work is held in various collections including The National Archives of Australia, Museum Victoria, The Royal Society of Victoria and Lowensteins Arts Management. 

Website: http://savinahopkins.blogspot.com.au
Media Release
Essay




October 23 - November 9, 2013

Zero and One, oil on masonite, 15.8 x 22 cm, 2013. Image courtesy of the artist.


Brad Rusbridge

Haunted Future

The most powerful natural explosion in recorded history occurred on 30 June 1908 when a meteor burst through the atmosphere above the Tunguska River in a remote area of Russia. Detonating with the power of 1000 atomic bombs the explosion knocked down an estimated 80 million trees over an area covering 2150 square km. Despite its magnitude little scientific study was done at the time, mostly due to geographical isolation and the impending world war. 

Haunted Future
 is an alternative history of the modern world following the Tunguska impact event. It is imagined that the meteorite shook reality in strange and unpredictable ways causing a series of after-effects that would continue for decades to come. 

The paintings in this exhibition act as a visual record of this fictional world. They are arrived at through a process of painting via digital collage, in which originally unrelated historical photographs are subjected to a series of modifications in order to be forced into the service of the narrative. The result is the vision of a haunted future, viewed through the prism of the past. 

Brad Rusbridge lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. 

Website: http://bradrusbridge.tumblr.com

Tom Vincent, Cube-Octahedron, acrylic on canvas, 31x 23cm, 2013 Jack Rowland, Cave, oil on canvas, 110x110cm, courtesy of Anna Pappas Gallery, 2013.


Jack Rowland & Tom Vincent

Transition Period

Jack Rowland and Tom Vincent express an ongoing inquiry into the nature of consciousness and our perception of reality through the themes of psychedelia and spirituality. 

Transition Period presents a series of paintings, which demonstrate two different interpretations of this common interest. Rowland focuses on the notion of altered perception through representational landscapes with an intense palette of hyper-real colours. In contrast, Vincent creates subtle coloured geometric abstract paintings that explore concepts of Sacred Geometry, illustrating that shape and form are the underlying principals of all manifestation. 

Jack Rowland is a Melbourne based artist whose practice focuses on landscape paintings that explore the notion of altered perception. He has completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) at RMIT University in 2009. Since graduating, Rowland has participated in a number of curated group exhibitions at galleries including Flinders Lane Gallery, Blindside and Melbourne Affordable Art Fair. He is represented by Anna Pappas Gallery, where he had his first solo exhibition Unfamiliar in 2012. Rowland has been commended in the Hawkesbury Art Prize and awarded the RMIT Tolarno Art Prize. He has recently returned from an artist residency in Berlin. 

Hailing from Melbourne, Tom Vincent's first experiences of the art world were through street art and graffiti. Whilst painting train corridors and laneways as a teen he uncovered the concept of 'sacred geometry', a science that gives a multi-faceted understanding of our reality. Through the study of this science, Vincent was prompted to move his practice into the studio and hence began a detailed investigation of the patterns of this world.

Bryce MCerlain: ‘The Black Hole’ , arm chair, oil, video film, paper mache, timber, 150 x 180 x 180 cm


Bryce Mcerlain

The Ether

Bryce McErlain’s first solo exhibition, The Ether, focuses on issues relating to the unknown, barriers to human interaction and the vastness of space. The artist works across installation, painting and photography to explore the isolation caused by a technology-dependant existence and the impact this will have on the collective consciousness of our species. Multiple identities, future space travel and the origins of life are all encompassed in a sci-fi nightmare that is only just beginning. 

Bryce McErlain is originally from Sydney, and now lives and works in Canberra. He graduated from Sydney Gallery School with a Diploma of Fine Arts, and from the College of Fine Arts (UNSW) with a Bachelor in Art Education. Bryce is a multi-disciplinary artist and art educator. He has been exhibited in several group shows and art prizes nationally. 

More of Bryce McErlain’s work can be viewed online at: http://brycemcerlain.com




October 2 - October 19, 2013

'Transaction', inkjet print, 26cm X 30.3cm, 2013. Image courtesy of the artist.


Katrina Stamatopoulos

Specimens Of A Collective Condition

Like micro-organisms evolving in a culture tube, the absurd agitations of a group of humans is being examined. From her distinct perspective, Katrina Stamatopoulos observes the others, wryly capturing an essence of ordinariness. Using her camera as a microscope she investigates the body as a place of reflection, a space that can be comprehended in relation to the bigger space that surrounds and is contiguous to it. Figures she chooses to photograph are unaware of the cameras presence, lost in their own thoughts and efforts to become samples in her own collection of culture tubes, specimens of a collective condition. 

Katrina Stamatopoulos is a Sydney based artist working predominantly with images. She has recently completed her Undergraduate studies at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, and is the 2011 recipient of the Australian Centre of Photography Scholarship Award and the COFA Dinosaur Designs Prize. 

In 2013, Katrina has participated in Liquid Cities and Temporary Identities, Espoo, Finland, Liquid Borders, Bari, Italy, and the 2nd International Exhibition: Media and Visual Arts, Izmir, Turkey. She has recently returned from a residency at the BigCi, in Wollemi National Park, NSW, Australia and is soon to participate in MiniArtVideoFest, Barabas Villa Gallery, Budapest, Hungary. 

Website: http://katrinastamatopoulos.net/

Performance #1 Fight, 2013. Image courtesy of the artist.


Klara Kelvy

Three Performances: Fight, Hold, Clean

Part social experiment, part catharsis, part fairy tale, in this work Kelvy explores the interior dialogue and symbolism of conflict - the anger and energy, the burden, and the cleansing. The aesthetic of the work draws upon consumer culture, reality TV, and pop psychology symbology. The performances are influenced by 70’s and 80’s body artists – with the themes recontextualised through a more self-reflective and personal viewpoint. The different modalities of audience involvement and interaction are designed to allow chance to entre and activate the work. 

Klara Kelvy is a Melbourne based Artist. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at The Victorian College of the Arts in 2009. Her work is immersive and interactive, using performance, installation and video. Through her practice Kelvy explores the intricacies of our personal lives: from the mundane to the profound or comic. The work Kelvy makes is often based on mimicking her surroundings and sometimes actions of other people in an earnest attempt to make sense of the fundamental nature of humans. 

Website: http://www.klarakelvy.wordpress.com

PERFORMANCE TIMES:

Performance #1 FIGHT: 
Date: 2nd October (Opening Night) 
Time: 6.30pm-7pm 
Space: Gallery 2, small space 

Performance #2 HOLD: 
Date: Saturday 12th October 
Time: 2pm start 
Space: Gallery 2, large space 

Performance #3 CLEAN: 
Date: Saturday 19th October 
Time: 2pm start 
Space: Gallery 2, both spaces

'Hybrid', sculpture, plywood, lacer print and silver cardboard, 220x60x60 cm, 2013. Image courtesy of the artist.


Louise Sparre

Hybrid

It is a kind of dualism that often interests Louise Sparre - something that can simultaneously be both attractive and repulsive or beautiful yet dangerous. The sculptural hybrids that dominate her practise, express precisely this duality. The works hover between the artificial and the organic, the figurative and the abstract, made in 2D and 3D. 

Louise Sparre’s main intention with her works is the poetic and sensual - to create a mood, get the viewer to reflect and associate, and be seduced and consumed. She tries to achieve this by pointing to various aspects of the outside world, which may seem small and irrelevant or large and incalculable, but which are fragments of a larger whole. 

Louise Sparre is a Danish artist, born in 1977, who graduated from the Funen Art Academy in Denmark. She currently works and lives in Brisbane, Australia. 

For several years Louise Sparre has experimented with merging the mediums of collage and sculpture together, creating hybrids. These pieces blend the strengths of collages/photographs, which have the ability to accommodate a lot of diverse information, with sculpture dynamics, which act by virtue of its three-dimensionality and sensuous surface. 
Louise Sparre has exhibited in solo and group shows both in Australia and Europe since 2003. She is the recipient of a working grant from The Danish Arts Agency in 2012 and 2013. 

Website: http://www.kunstdk.dk/kunstner/louise_sparre
Media Release




September 11 - September 28, 2013

Dog with Carcass, Acrylic on paper, 64cm X 49cm, 2013. Image courtesy of the artist.


Denise Hall

Irruption Of The Real

This work is not only critical realism but also an exaggeration and distortion of the image in order to disrupt the way we see the world. The animal series is concerned with the relationship between our bodies and the bodies of a nimals and aims to give credence to the inner world of animals. The female body series looks at the way women experience their bodies in a domestic environment, which appears safe but cans sometimes be threatening. These themes bring forms out of the darkness to disturb us and to shine a spotlight on our fears. 

Denise Hall is a Victorian based artist who graduated with a Master of Visual Art’s, Monash University, 2012. She had previously completed a Bachelor of Art’s with Honours, Visual Art, at the University of Lancaster. Her work contains elements of critical realism and she is interested in the history of the grotesque in art. Denise has exhibited in many group exhibitions in and around Melbourne, including Roar Studios and William’s Town Fine Art Gallery. One of her major residencies was at Arthur Boyd’s Bundanon Trust. Her work is included in many regional and private collections in Australia and overseas. 

Media Release

#260026, Acrylic on veneered plywood, 18.5cm X 10cm, 2013. Image courtesy of the artist.


Gareth Jenkins

ob.ject.ness

What is in a line? The recent work of Gareth Jenkins is concerned with the reduction of concept in painting. In the past his work was developed from urban culture, man made structures, the walls and spaces of the architectonic environment. Through his work he demonstrates how line in its simplest form can be used to convey a sense of object while asserting spatial structure within a non-figurative format. Gareth’s natural progression for the idea of these paintings is demonstrated by his move to the three-dimensional, which he considers by highlighting the edge of the painting as well as the painted surface. 

Gareth Jenkins is a Darwin based artist originally from Wales in the UK. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Art painting degree with first class Honours in 2008 at the Limerick School of Art and Design, Ireland. In 2010 he successfully completed a Master of Fine Art postgraduate research degree in painting at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. 

He has exhibited work both nationally and internationally and is the recipient of numerous awards. His works are in private/public collections in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Croatia, Ireland and the UK. 

Website: http://garethjenkins.info/
Media Release

The Loft, Oil on canvas, 90cm X 120cm, 2013. Courtesy of the artist.


Scott Anderson

Fully Functional

“Fully Functional” is an exploration through painting, of architectural forms which may or may not have a function. These ambiguous structures are a vehicle to investigate the porous relationship between abstraction and representational painting and the suggestion of anthropomorphism and possible states of physiological, psychological and conceptual being. Anderson’s focus in painting is to form, investigate and explore ideas of dis- functionality in relation to the utopian impetus that underpins and informs Modernist society and culture. 

Scott Anderson is a Melbourne based artist, who graduated from RMIT with a degree in Fine Art painting in 2012. His work has been included in group shows at various Melbourne galleries such as 45 Downstairs, Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, Brunswick Street Gallery and the Trophy Shop Gallery. This is Scott’s first solo show since graduating.




August 21 - September 7, 2013

Dissolution Blue, 30cm x 25cm ink on Awagami paper . Image courtesy of the artist.


David Freney-Mills

The Floating Word

Freney-Mills’ work is an investigation into the visual aesthetics of text. He draws words in a process of repetition during which letters can merge or fragment, conveying a flow of consciousness. For the artist ink is the most responsive medium in combination with Japanese papers such as Kozo, Tengucho, Musashi and Awagami, which have varying degrees of transparency or absorption that allow for different layers in a work to be seen simultaneously. For Freney-Mills these qualities represent clarity of thought and best serve the philosophy that drives his arts practice, which is that art should be a contemplative experience that allows consciousness to expand. 

Melbourne based Freney-Mills completed a PostGraduate diploma at Victorian College of the Arts in 2005 –where he produced his first text- based work on canvas. He has staged exhibitions at STEPS Gallery, PB Gallery-Swinburne, Trocadero Art Space, Five Walls Projects and Carbon Black Gallery. Freney-Mills’ extensive travels through Japan act as the basis for ongoing research into techniques from contemporary and traditional Japanese drawing, painting and dye art practitioners. 

Website: http://davidfreneymills.com/

Sarah Jane, acrylic on canvas, 244cm X 167cm, 2012. Image courtesy of the artist.


Vanessa White

Back Of Murray’s

Created while on residency at Hill End, NSW, Back of Murray’s is a multidisciplinary combination of three interweaving items: painting, animation and performance. A highly energetic work with exaggerated brush marks and mark making, it consists of three life size paintings used as a platform to create an animation. The animation and paintings are about the artist’s physical interactions with the two-dimensional world, drawn from life, her physical play and reciprocal action with it. Through the time- consuming process of stop animation and video echoes, the work fractures and multiplies temporality. The result of all this activity is work that connects with the viewers’ own expression and experience of the body in the world, giving voice and acknowledging the importance of bodily experience over layers of time. 

Vanessa White is a multi-disciplinary artist exploring the perception of bodily experience through physical energetic works involving performance, animation and painting. Trained as a painter and animator she also pursues professional development in performance. White received the Artstart Australia Council for the Arts grant (2012). Recent solo exhibitions include Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney (2011), Art & About Festival, Sydney (2010) and video installations at Pier 2/3 Sydney Biennale Bar (2012) and Firstdraft Depot (2011). She has also participated in residencies at Gunyah, NSW (2011), Hill End, NSW (2010) and studio residencies at Anyplace studio, Sydney (2011) and Firstdraft Depot studio, Sydney (2010). 

Video: https://vimeo.com/66450173

Salle du Lac, oil on board, 120cm X 90cm, 2013. Image courtesy of the artist.


Naomi Bishop

Underland

Naomi Bishop has always been fascinated by peripheral, frontiers. 

These dark, mysterious places have provided shelter from the elements, safe havens from predators, and been used as burial grounds. In the mythological realm caves are secret, sacred places, keepers of knowledge, even portals to another world. 

Naomi Bishop has been exhibiting internationally since graduating with a Master of Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art in London in 2003. Focused primarily on painting, her work has been exhibited at The Whitechapel Gallery in London, The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Fondation Hippocrene and Galerie Nicolas Silin in Paris. She has been included in several curated exhibitions in Melbourne and has received grants from Arts Victoria and The Australia Council. Naomi’s work is represented in The Whitechapel Gallery collection, as well as private collections in Europe, The United States and Australia. This is her first significant solo exhibition in Melbourne. 

Media Release




July 31 - August 17, 2013

Grotto Metallic, Archival pigment print on rag paper, 104cm x 76cm, 2012. Image courtesy of the artist.


Peter Lambropoulos

Metallic

These colourful and vivid photographs by Peter Lambropoulos are a surreal journey into a parallel yet familiar world. The ethereal space in this work is the product of an on-going sculptural and photographic investigation into material, form and colour. For this exhibition, micro-sculptures made from blobby soft metal are presented as hallucinatory characters in an abstracted and super-saturated environment. Transformed into obscure critters, these hand-made micro-sculptures allow for a fanciful re-imaging of the world, which although no longer natural — is still mediated by real objects. 

Peter Lambropoulos is a Melbourne based artist. He graduated from the Queensland College of Art and has a post-graduate degree from the Victorian College of the Arts. His primary medium is photography and he has employed various extensions to this practice including performance, sculpture and video. He has exhibited widely in Australia in a variety of contexts including artist run initiatives, public and commercial galleries since the late 1980s. 

More of Lambropoulos's work can be viewed on-line at http://petlamb.com.au.

Image created by Siying Zhou, 2013.


Siying Zhou (curator)

Envisioning Gods

Featuring six artists: Jayne McSwiney, Penelope Hunt, Siying Zhou (VIC), Talitha Kennedy, Jonathon Saunders (Indigenous) and Simon Cooper (NT), Envisioning Gods presents a broad perspective and diverse voices examining the subject of spirituality and beliefs in modern societies. It draws attention to and re-appraises the value of wishful thinking, heroic culture, biotechnology, Zen and Christianity through six individual works: a drawing of a personal memory on a religious event; a sculptural installation that offers a ritualistic experience to the audience; a metaphoric photographic image; a stencil painting that reveals the mundanity of the daily lives of superheros; a family of small organic leather forms; a series of blueprints on boards that depict half human hybrid creatures. It intends to engage audiences both visually and physically. 

Siying Zhou (curator)
Born in 1980 in China, Siying Zhou is a multi-disciplinary artist and an independent curator. Zhou’s art focuses on subjects such as Zhou’s current research subjects include: spirituality as reflected through food culture in nomadic communities; the dialectic relationship between nature and humans; the meaning of nationality in multicultural societies; and art movements that engender creativity in the community. Zhou completed her Master at Sydney College of The Arts, the University of Sydney (SCA) in 2005 and was employed as Program Manager at 24HR Art: Northern Territory centre for contemporary art (now known as Northern Centre for Contemporary Art) from 2007 to 2013. Zhou is currently studying Masters of Contemporary Art at Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne.

Snake,man,mountain, ink on paper, 45cm x 45cm, 2013. Image courtesy of the artist.


Peter Aldrich

Name Not One Man

The title of the exhibition, ‘name not one man’, is a palindrome which discusses both the conceptual content of the drawings being exhibited, as well as indicating something of their literal appearance. While the work is not confined to a singular topic, a concise explanation of the title is that it refers to pervasive social issues regarding males perpetrating destructive, immoral acts, criminal or otherwise. It also connects to the common popular media response of judging singular, harmful acts rather than viewing larger social issues; consequently alleviating both media outlets and their viewers of responsibilities regarding such grave social issues. 

Based in Melbourne, Peter Aldrich completing an Honours degree in Visual Art at the University of Ballarat in 2008. In 2011 he was asked to return as an artist in residence. He has had numerous solo exhibitions in galleries such as Upstairs Flinders Lane Gallery (Melbourne 2006), Trocadero (Melbourne 2010) and Ballarat Fine Art Gallery (2011). Peter has been short listed in prizes such as The Waterhouse Prize (2007) and The Rick Amour Drawing Prize (2012). Most recently he has spent a significant amount of time in Berlin where the work for his current exhibition, name not one man, evolved.




July 10 - July 27, 2013

Natural Wonders, Rebecca Agnew, Video still, dimensions variable, 2011. Courtesy of the artist.


Rebecca Agnew

Natural Wonders

Natural Wonders presents elements of human condition utilising the figure and contemporary music. The burlesque puppets become misguided by their uniforms, as conflict arises the girls are faced with moral dilemmas in their micro world. Social behaviours digress with some unexpected outcomes in the fight for freedom of speech. Exaggerated twists on the norms and stereotypes of life entice the viewer to engage in questions between the relationship of fiction and reality.

Rebecca Agnew is a New Zealand born painter and Stop Animator based in Melbourne. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne with an MFA in 2012 and the University of Otago, Dunedin with a BaFA in 2004. Recent exhibitions include 'I'm just here for the atmosphere', NONO Gallery; Substation Contemporary Art Prize, Substation and 'Femmes and Hommes', John Buckley Gallery. She was included in Australian Art Collector’s 2013 Undiscovered Artists series. Agnew had her first represented exhibition with Tristian Koenig in September 2013 and is part of Sydney Contemporary 13: International Art Fair, and Matucana 100, Santiago, Chile. 

My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion, Catriona Hutchinson, polystyrene balls, spray paint, nail polish, pins, glue, glitter, dimensions variable, 2013.


Catriona Hutchinson

My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion

For me, this show is the beginning.  This is the most head-on way so far that I’ve been willing to explore the fragility of the human body and the psyche on a symbolic level, and it’s the beginning of where I want my work to go.The balls are a metaphor for growth, transformation, regeneration and decay – they began as simple sketches of circles on a page that soon grew into increasingly large multicellular organisms until reaching the scale and complexity that they’ve developed today.  Although the balls are bright and colourful, it was very much the way that the nail polish and spray paint ate away at their skin - sometimes quite a vicious way - that really captured my imagination, simultaneously undermining and strengthening their playful and joyful nature.  Strange as it may seem, I chose to create a full scale installation out of children’s craft materials precisely because of how much of a challenge it was to even let myself purchase materials like play doh and feathers with the intent of making art out of them in the first place – a clear sign that within that idea there was something I needed to challenge.

Along the way these balls have come to symbolise the growth of my artistic practice and where I want to travel with it.  When they arrived inside the skin of the people in my drawings in such a confrontational way I knew that this was where I needed to go.  In the drawings they’ve become a vehicle for me to explore what people are capable of doing to themselves and what they can be subjected to, and that’s the beginning of quite a rich vein of a subject matter right there.

Catriona Hutchison lives and creates her art in Melbourne. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2010 but fostered her love of drawing growing up in Canberra during the many hours she spent exploring National Gallery of Australia. This is her first solo exhibition. 

http://catrionahutchison.moonfruit.com/

Watch Your Step, Josh Hook, installation, timber, chipboard, vinyl flooring, MDF, dimensions variable, 2013.


Josh Hook

Watch Your Step

The gallery space can often be considered secondary to an artwork and not really that important at all.  I believe that this attitude towards a space can also bleed into the viewers experience with the art that is presented in that particular space.  “Watch Your Step” examines what the gallery space is and what its purpose is, and whether it and the artwork within it can be something more than the expected.

The installation is constructed to resemble a normal gallery space, with four walls, a floor and a ceiling, but with the noted exception of there being no form of traditional art on display.  However, there are pressure sensors under the floor, that when tread upon will trigger a recording to play randomly from hidden speakers in the walls of the installation.  It is an interactive multimedia installation, but more than anything it’s meant to be fun.  The interaction is crucial to whether or not the work is successful, and forms the main focus of the project.  The aim is to see how the viewer will interact with the work, a supposedly empty room, how they place themselves within the context of the white empty walls of the gallery, and their reaction and response to the recordings they unknowingly trigger as they move through the space.

This unexpected interaction with a seemingly autonomous and empty room will hopefully make the viewer think about the space as an integral part to how art is perceived and experienced.  The encounter the work creates is designed to build a relationship with the viewer without the influence and baggage of a traditional form of art present.  A relationship that is more playful and surprising than any gallery space has been before.  So don't be shy when approaching the installation, feel adventurous and have some fun.

Josh Hook was born in 1988, Melbourne, where he currently resides and works.  Inspired by his grandfather, cartoonist and artist Geoff Hook, Josh is a driven and enthusiastic emerging artist.  Primarily working in the field of drawing, Josh also uses animation and installation within his artistic practice, often employing these mediums in tandem to explore and present his ideas.


This project is been funded by the City of Melbourne 2013 Arts Grant Program.




June 19 - July 6, 2013

Carol Swain, Clearing of Clouds, Oil on Canvas, 71.5 x 56.5 cm, 2013


Carol Swain

Memory

Discarded building sites with their randomly created abstract forms have been the catalyst for this body of work. 

My engagement with these unexpected spaces and the abstract forms I find in them or in Proust words “that material object” sets up a poetic dialogue between my inner and outer world. 

For me the random abstraction within these abandoned spaces acts as a trigger and potency in evoking memories previously hidden. These memories and sensations are a constant source of inspiration for me and inform my abstract paintings in this show. 

“The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it.....” 

‘Remembrance of Things Past’, Marcel Proust

Rosina Prestia, Resolving\'a last sculpture\', dimensions variable, 2013


Rosina Prestia

Resolving \’A Last Sculpture \’

Definitions: 
Chaos- Complete disorder and confusion. 
Deterministic Chaos- Physics the property of a complex system whose behaviour is so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions. 
Khaos- (Greek, Latin and French origins ) Gaping void or chasm. 

Complimentary exhibition titles: 
1. Chaos and the garden. 
2. Chaos in a bedroom, with directions. 
3. A last sculpture. 

Rosina Prestia born in 1990, completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at Monash University in 2011. She is currently undergoing an internship at West Space Gallery and has her practice based in North Melbourne.

Alison Kennedy, Paintings without heads II, acrylic on tea stained cotton, 180cm X 90cm, 2013


Alison Kennedy

The Worldhood Of The World

What happens when a contemporary female painter critiques the grand tradition of narrative paintings? Kennedy poses this question through exploring questions of flatness, illusion and surface. She also incorporates research into industrial pigment, paints and surfaces. 

She draws on her reading of Heidegger’s Being and Time which considers the being as action-in-the world driven by an indefinable mysterious “knowing” as much as conscious understood intent. Does painting reveal or conceal this sense of knowing? Kennedy likes to think it does both. 

Alison Kennedy has recently completed a Masters of Contemporary Art at the University of Melbourne after working in areas including writing, Architecture and design. 

She has exhibited her paintings in Australian galleries, including the McLelland Gallery and the Darwin Centre of Contemporary Art, as well as in Italy. 

alk@bigpond.com
http://akennedyblogdotcom.wordpress.com/




May 29 - June 15, 2013

Alizon Gray, #24, oil on canvas, 137cm x112cm, 2013


Alizon Gray

ice9squared

In ice9squared Gray builds abstract forms from the chemistry of liquid paint and congealing material on canvas. Overlaid with vast spaces of white, that obfuscate past marks. Gray’s paintings are reminiscent of a scarred landscape shrouded in a blanket of ice. The painted surface becomes geographical and glacier-like in its final frozen image, evocative of the imagery within Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s seminal novel ‘Cat’s Cradle’, from which the title of this exhibition is taken. 

Alizon Gray grew up on the Mornington Peninsula and now lives and works in Melbourne. Gray has a Bachelor of Fine Art majoring in Painting and a Bachelor of Fine Art – Honours from the Victorian College of the Arts.Gray has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions nationally since 2003, and has been a finalist in numerous art prizes. Her works are in private collections in Australia, New Zealand, England, Germany and Switzerland.

Laura Skerlj, Crinkle Mountain (Be Here Now) 137cm x 152cm, 2013


Laura Skerlj

Preciousless

Laura Skerlj’s work concerns a provocation that every image of the landscape, in effect, collapses it. This collapse could be thought of as a process of re-arrangement or reconfiguration of an original subject (the natural world). In this case, it involves the artist using collage and sculptural methods to invent versions of landscape before articulating them through painting. Painting becomes an important process that pushes the reference point away from reality and towards an imagined vision, presenting landscape as a place where the organic and synthetic intersect. 

The works in Preciousless approach landscape and terrain as base geological forms—be they mountain ranges, gold or gemstones. Through the process of reconfiguration, these elements are extracted from a state of preciousness (the grandeur of alpine territory, the richness of gold…) and presented as euphoric assemblages of their former selves. 

Laura Skerlj is a Melbourne based artist and writer. Her practice is primarily concerned with painting, with a parallel interest in sculptural and drawing tableau. She has degrees in Journalism, English and Art History, and is currently completing a Master of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts. Laura also works as a freelance art writer.

www.lauraskerlj.com

Annie Erez, Colour me Orange 1, ink and enamel, 120cm x 150cm, 2013


Annie Erez

Colour Me

Annie Erez’s practice is process based whereby she views her work as a constant experimentation with surface and the elements of paint. Exploring new territories with each painting, her works evolve organically throughout the creative process. By using artistic intent and the unpredictable nature of pigment, gravity, Erez ultimately navigates through her work. For Erez, it’s both a relic and unfolds into the future. 

Colour is very important to Erez. ‘We underestimate the power of colour….it affects us directly”, says Erez. In this series she experiments with juxtaposing tints and vibrant inks. These works experiment with a tension between chaos and order, vitality and control, through line and poured paint. They invite the viewer to enter a new realm. 

Annie Erez is a Melbourne based visual artist who primarily works in painting. Erez has exhibited in numerous shows throughout Melbourne including FLOAT, UNE ÉCHAPATOIRE (DANS CE MONDE SI CRUEL), Eildon Gallery, Melbourne. 

Erez has a background in design and styling and has completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Visual Arts in 2011 at the University of Melbourne.




May 8 - May 25, 2013

Limits of Likeness catalogue cover, 22 x 15 cm, 2013


Curated by Ann Fuata & Neil Shurgold

Catalogue essay by Laura Skerlj

Portraiture aspires to summon both physical and essential likeness. Described as “the meeting of two subjectivities,”i the portrait is more than an illustration of a person’s physiognomy: it draws upon the ‘originality’ of both the artist creating the work, and the sitter. However, it was perhaps the sitter’s role (and expectations) that dictated the function of the portrait historically. First appearing as images of ancient Egyptian kings and queens on sarcophagi, or in the funerary paintings of the 3rd and 4th centuries, the portrait traditionally favored the wealthy, royal, and esteemed. In the late Middle Ages, portraiture became a distinct genre, and members of various social groups began sitting for artists. During the Renaissance, interests in the natural world and classical cultures . . . . . . . . http://rubiconari.com.au/Laura-Skerlj-The-Obscure-You

 

James Bonnici, Pauly Against White Background, Oil on Linen, 31 x 31 cm, 2012


James Bonnici

pauly against white background

Interested in how things appear and how they can be hidden from us, James Bonnici’s current work explores the process of disclosing concealment: the in-between, a glimpse of what lies beneath the surface. Through the representation of subject in motion, distortion is created which hints at the subject’s psychological state. The subject’s mood is captured and the viewer is given an insight into their subjective reality through the layers of rendered abstraction, distortion or filtration. 

James Bonnici is a Melbourne based artist who works from Blender Studios. After graduating from RMIT, he slowly developed his style, one culminating in a cohesive body of psychological landscapes and portraits which reflect his attitude towards the contemporary environment. He now exhibits regularly around Melbourne, most recently appearing in Dark Horse Experiment’s group show ‘Confine’. He was one of Art Melbourne director, Tamsin Roberts’, top picks at Art Melbourne 2012, and has featured on ABC TV’s Artscape program, Subtopia.

Celeste Chandler, lovesick 8, 2012, oil on linen 70 x 70 cm


Celeste Chandler

Lovesick 8

My artwork explores the experience of embodiment - the intersection between the internal and external worlds that meet in the visceral sensations of the body – and, specifically, how this can be expressed in painting. 

The autobiographical body, intimacy, touch and the instability of identity are themes central to my practice. 

Celeste Chandler received a MFA (2003) and is currently undertaking a PhD through the VCA. She has held solo exhibitions in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, participated in numerous curated group shows; awarded a Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship; twice received an Elizabeth Greenshields Scholarship (Canada); won the R&M McGivern Prize (2008) and awarded an Australian Council Emerging Artist Grant(2004). Her work is included in public collections including GOMA and the QU Art Gallery and she has undertaken residences in Australia and overseas.

Savina Hopkins, Mum & Dad, 45cm X 39cm, Band-aids, paper, linen, acrylic and pencil on linen, 2012


Savina Hopkins

mum & dad

I have ploughed the family archives to create a series of portraits using adhesive dressings (‘band-aids’) as a primary medium. The band-aids approximate flesh tones and are applied to describe the form and contours of the body. Via the symbolic and metaphorical connotations band-aids can evoke, I aim to charge each portrait with psychological weight, exploring and amplifying interpersonal dynamics. 

Savina Hopkins is a graduate of The Victorian College of the Arts (BA Fine Art – Painting) and The University of Newcastle (Post Graduate Diploma - Scientific Illustration). She lives and works in Melbourne. Her recent art practice is predominately collage based, with a focus on using unconventional and salvaged materials. Her work is held in various collections including The National Archives of Australia, Museum Victoria, The Royal Society of Victoria and Lowensteins Arts Management.

Neil Shurgold, Portrait of Josephine Rowe, Oil on wood, 20cm X 20.5cm, 2012


Neil Shurgold

Portrait Of Josephine Rowe

Neil Shurgold uses the figure in everyday situations as the source material for his paintings. Observing people during his daily travels throughout the city where figures by way of gesture, their clothing or a ‘prop’, often becomes a tableaux for Shurgold’s work. 

Neil Shurgold is a Melbourne based artist and musician who is the Director of Rubicon ARI and is currently completing a BA in Fine Art at Curtin University.

Nicholas Ives, When I Grow Up, Oil on linen, 92cm x 78cm, 2013


Nicholas Ives

When I Grow Up

Some of my thinking toward my painting and studio process is to do with the question of possibilities – possibilities within the painting process and as a methodology. I describe these new works as dream-like pieces, executed quickly and without pre-planning. I have been drawn to unstable forms, and have actively encouraged a fluid painting process that encourages discovery and experimentation. 

Nicholas Ives has been actively painting and exhibiting nationally for the past 12 years. Nicholas holds a BFA and MFA Painting from Monash University.His works predominately emphasises the physical nature of painting. Highly process driven, his method highlights change, evolution and the multiple possibilities of the form. Nicholas approaches these risks and chances as real and lived freedoms which diverge from premeditated routines. Nicholas Ives currently works from the Blender Studios in Melbourne.

Simon Attwooll, Untitled (Secret Toil Series 1-4), Dye, Pigmented GAC100 & Synthetic Polymer Paint on Hardboard, 46cm X 51cm, 2013


Simon Attwooll

Untitled (Secret Toil Series 1-4)

Simon's practice is sampled from the everyday. Like an apocalyptic joyride through the news, accessible images are gleaned from contemporary mass cultural image dumps. Starting at such a general, familiar point encourages us to explore our current contemporary psyche through the two dimensional space of the reproduced images it consumes and is consumed by. 

Talking about the present, using out-moded technology of the past, Simon is able to explore personal as well as shared anxieties about how our physical and social environments have changed and how they will continue to change in the future. 

We are used to seeing these reference images in the media most commonly to describe something negative. The technology induced ectoplasmic forms suggest a corruption or intervention in the way we view the image which challenges the initial face value and assumptions we attach to familiar scenarios and suggests alternative readings.

Tom Mackie, (Between Bands), Screen print on paper, frosted Perspex, 45mm X 90mm, 2013


Tom Mackie

(Between Bands)

(Between Bands) is made of found materials to confuse memories and imagination. These tampered interpretations are intended to serve as reference points with no clear narrative as we open the door for viewers to continue to dismantle or build upon the existing in order to create a new identity. 

Throughout this work I continue to destabilize the role of photography as an index of reality using destruction, distortion and abstraction. 

Tom Mackie is a Wellington based visual artist working across the field of sculpture, installation, printmaking and collage. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking with first class honours at Dunedin School of Fine Arts in 2008.

Lin Tobias, Sharpie chick, Oil on board, 600mm X 450mm, 2013


Lin Tobias

Sharpie Chick

I am interested in the intersection of fine art and popular culture. This focus has emerged from my background as a graphic designer and my interest in portraiture, popular music and nostalgia. Music is a trigger and I like exploring all those excessive enthusiasms of the true fan – the bands, the songs, the hair, the clothes. In the outer eastern suburbs of the 1970s, sharpies had all the allure and the thrill of a subculture and were a source of fascination in my teenage years. Another fascination while at graphic design school were British painters of the 60s especially the rare few women artists.

Lin Tobias is currently completing a Diploma in Visual Art at Victoria University, where she has majored in painting and printmaking. She is also a graphic designer, working from her own studio, La Bella Design. In 2012 she was the recipient of the Fiona Myer Travel Grant which enabled her to undertake residencies at the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum, Wisconsin and Hatch Show Print, Nashville in the USA. She has been a finalist for the last three years in the Silk Cut Print Award.

kirsten Turner, The Diary, Oil on canvas, 90 X 105 cm, 2012


Kirsten Turner

the diary

Kirsten Turner's paintings are predominantly figurative images based on personal snapshots - depicting ambiguous scenes to explore rites of passage, notions of being 'present' in a moment of time and the banality of the everyday. Recent works show private rituals performed during the creation of a face to display to the world, which although carefully cultivated, remains impermanent. 
Kirsten Turner graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Art in Painting from the VCA (2004) after completing a Diploma of Visual Art at RMIT (2001). She has exhibited in various group and two-person shows including Anna Pappas Gallery, Project Space, Red Gallery and TCB art inc., for which a NAVA Visual and Craft Artists' Grant was jointly awarded. Turner has most recently shown at c3 Contemporary Art Spaces (2012) with the solo show 'For this hour', as well as co curating and exhibiting in the ‘The Sixth’ at West Space (2013).

Rebecca Agnew, Untitled Sucks, Gouache on paper, 76cm x 56cm, 2013


Rebecca Agnew

untitled sucks

Rebecca Agnew is a New Zealand born painter and Stop Animator based in Melbourne. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne with an MFA in 2012 and the University of Otago, Dunedin with a BaFA in 2004. Recent exhibitions include 'I'm just here for the atmosphere', NONO Gallery; Substation Contemporary Art Prize, Substation and 'Femmes and Hommes', John Buckley Gallery. She was included in Australian Art Collector’s 2013 Undiscovered Artists series. Agnew had her first represented exhibition with Tristian Koenig in September 2013 and is part of Sydney Contemporary 13: International Art Fair, and Matucana 100, Santiago, Chile. 




April 17 - May 4, 2013

Hannah Gatland, Magnolia Mountain, watercolour and acrylic ink on arches paper, 2013


Hannah Gatland

Up In The Heavens Down In The Earth

Fragility, complexity and chaos are arguably defining characteristics of the universe within which we exist. Even on a minute level our lives are ruled by the chaos of the weather, the complexity of social structures and the fragility of the human mind and body. It is these ruling components that are the focus of Gatland’s exploration within these personalized microscopic sanctuaries. Her chief ambition for this project was to produce a series of paintings and paper sculptures on a smaller scale than previous work, further conversing with the ‘micro’ aspects of the duality of the cosmos. 

Hannah Gatland was born in Sydney in 1980 and currently lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours year at the Queensland University of Technology in 2002 and a Master of Visual Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2008. Gatland has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows nationally and in 2011 was awarded Artist in Residence at Level ARI, Brisbane.

Simon O'carrigan, Enlist! (zappa/stravinsky) 2013, oil on canvas, 150x120cm


Simon O’Carrigan

Duets

Duets explores communication and cooperation, and what happens when these go wrong. O’Carrigan depicts figures in high-stress situations, with no means of clear communication. Removed of speech and context, all that is left is gesture: the viewer is left to interpret the figure’s body language.

By choosing awkward moments, where the subject expresses private feelings between frames and takes, it seems as though O’Carrigan is betraying his heroes. Instead, what O’Carrigan gives us is the moment where the subjects show how they feel when they cannot speak it. 

There are two sides to this show. Duets are taken from ridiculous interviews aptly portrayed with a hint of caricature. In contrast to the playfully nonsensical on-screen meltdowns are foreboding scenes of impending violent conflict. Musicians are suddenly recruiting for the war effort. Slapstick fugitives are in Dresden, or Hiroshima. O’Carrigan gives us altered histories versus Hollywood tropes. 

The combination of these threads exhibited together seems to suggest an escalation of conflict seeded in confusion. What is meant is not always what is heard, or other powers bend the meaning to their will. When words fail us, the pen is no longer mightier than the sword. 

NB: Duets exhibition catalogue can be downloaded at 5mb: 
http://bit.ly/ZTEhpE 

To view on mobile at 500kb: 
http://bit.ly/115JeON

Nicola Page, The High Line Study four - Oil behind glass – 83.5/100cm – 2013


Nicola Page

Change Of Nature

This series of large paintings on glass were created from photographs taken on an extensive trip by the artist to New York in late 2010. Taken at the ‘The High Line,’ an urban development reclaiming a disused rail line traveling through the lower end of Manhattan, Page has chosen this site to work from as it hosts several tropes present in her practice; the relationship between the natural world and manufactured environments and a designed landscape that perpetuates local urban mythologies. The park reflects the history of the site incorporating design elements from its past life as a train line while cultivating wild flowers, grasses and vegetation that flourished previously during an extended period of neglect. 

Nicola Page is a South African born artist now living and working in Melbourne. In 2008 she completed a MVA at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. She has exhibited in various solo and group exhibitions nationally as well as in Asia and Europe. Exhibitions include; ‘In Praise of Shadows,’ C3, Melbourne, 2012, ‘Tidal Flux,’ White Street Arts Project, Frankston, ‘Tree Line’ Level ARI, Brisbane, 2011’, ‘New Works’, Jiwar Creation Society, Barcelona, 2011, ‘Worm Mountain’ C3, 2010, ‘Herbaceous Order, Rearview ARI, 2009, ‘Beneath the Empire’, Flinders Lane Gallery, 2008, ‘Geek Chic’, Loop, 2007 and ’Strip’, Red Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne 2007. She has also been the finalist and recipient for several visual arts awards and residencies including Artist-in-residence at Level ARI 2011 and a support stipend of residency at Can Serrat International Art Centre Spain in 2011.




March 27 - April 13, 2013

Flour Power, video still, dimensions variable, 2012


Martha Ackroyd-Curtis

Flour Power

The title of this exhibition suggests the basic notion of power, yet the video piece is a depiction of revealed nakedness or nakedness that is presumed, the artist is filmed in a ritualistic and somewhat vulnerable way. 

She pumps up cooking flour into the air, like she is, wanting to disappear with it. The photograph that accompanies this is far more obvious in its meaning: it is power and the artist’s direct stare at the lens, with lightning inspired graphics overlapping the image. 

There is finally a realization this is no flower generation here. This is today and the slickness and versatility of performance and drama through video.

Untitled (Ghost) Dye, Pigmented GAC100 and Synthetic Polymer Paint on Hardboard, 60x46cm 2013


Simon Attwooll

The Kids Are Alright

The premeditated school photograph documents a person in that time but doesn’t normally function in any other way. The ambiguous context in which these images are displayed initially feels uncomfortable. We feel empathetic toward these strangers on display as we have all sat in the familiar school photograph setting yet there is an interesting discordance in the way we are familiar with the school photograph construct yet it is also generic and distant. 

In The Kids Are Alright the source material came from a deceased estate being auctioned on Ebay. The late African American School teacher had innocently collected photos of white children that she taught and documented the name of each child and date on the back. We are used to seeing these reference images in the media most commonly to describe something negative. I purchased these photos around the time of the Sandy Hook Massacre where one of the teachers sacrificed her life to hide the children from the gunman and a collection of cropped school photos were broadcast of the ones who weren’t so lucky. 

This work instead celebrates the people who overcome societal failings in order to give so selflessly and acknowledge something positive. The work challenges the initial face value and assumptions we attach to familiar scenarios and suggests alternative readings. 

simonattwooll.com

Double Dark (flash, enlarger: 2 hours: 15 sec) Unique chromogenic photograph, collage in 2 parts, 90 x 70cm


Danica Chappell

Double Dark

Double Dark is a collection of handcrafted single-edition photographs. Using discarded manufacturing remnants of plastic off-cuts, objects of semi-translucence and high reflectance, in combination with light-sensitive materials and a long and intensive 'darkroom haptic', this body of work conflates a painterly expression and the action of construction on the flat photographic plane. 

These are ‘materialist photographs’, which re-represent light, form and colour to construct an abstraction that enables a re-evaluation of perception and the photographic condition of indexicality against an image-saturated environment. The viewer may desire to describe the artworks as ‘abstract’ however, the objects themselves belong to a concrete reality. 

"Whilst the artist may be responsible for casting a net over chaos and be vigilant to the responsibilities that then emerge, art needs more than the skills of a draughtsman or the eyes of the painter. It is by means of the material that art is able to wrest the percept from the perception and the affect from affection." 

Barbara Bolt, "Unimaginable Happenings: Material Movements in the Plane of Composition," in Deleuze and Contemporary Art, ed. Stephen Zepke and Simon O'Sullivan (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010). 277.

http://danicachappell.com