JANET LAURENCE SPEAKS ON JOHN OLSEN

Tomorrow Saturday 19 June at 2pm, JANET LAURENCE will speak at the National Art School exhibition John Olsen: Goya’s Dog.

Drawing on the central importance of critical dialogue, friendship and inspiration shared between fellow artists, the 'Artists x Artists’ talk series brings leading Australian artists into the NAS Gallery to talk about their interpretations, experiences and interactions with the work of Dr John Olsen AO OBE. 

John Olsen: Goya’s Dog is a powerful exploration of an extraordinary Australian artist – from his creative awakening in Spain, through the darkness that threatened to overwhelm him at times, and his ability to reach for the light, pursuing a long and acclaimed career.

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Image 1: Janet Laurence photographed by Christopher Pearce; Image 2: John Olsen, Reflections on Goya’s dog III (detail), 2021, acrylic on Belgian linen

JULIE RRAP CURATES 'THE OTHER PORTRAIT' AT UTS

Julie Rrap & Cherine Fahd, Give and Take [video stills], 2021, 4 channel video work;

Curated by Julie Rrap and Cherine Fahd, The Other Portrait has just opened across UTS Gallery and SCA Gallery.

Featuring new work by Julie Rrap, this exhibition brings together work by artists who have an established relationship to the concept and traditions of portraiture. Through existing and newly commissioned works, the exhibition provokes a new analysis of the self and the other and examines the ways artists draw on their bodies, families, communities, cultures and experiences to underscore the paradoxes of subjectivity. Located across two spaces – UTS Gallery and SCA Gallery – The Other Portrait proposes the self and the institution as sites in conversation.

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PANEL DISCUSSION
Join Julie Rrap, Cherine Fahd, Rachel Kent, Lee Wallace and Patrick Pound for an afternoon exhibition viewing and discussion moderated by Stella Rosa McDonald. 

Tickets to panel discussion >

READ Art Guide REVIEW >

JULIE RRAP'S 'DOUBLE ECLIPSE' AT DARK MOFO

JULIE RRAP’s Double Eclipse (2015) is programmed at Dark Mofo, happening this week 16-20 June.

A great pair of eyes will begin to go blind, as if by solar eclipse – a metaphor for the power of the gaze, the blindness of desire, and a window to the mind of artist Julie Rrap.

The eyes are projected at 129b Bathurst St, in Dark Downtown.

Image courtesy of Darklab Media

LYDIA WEGNER AT GIPPSLAND ART GALLERY

Opening today at @gippslandgallery is Middle Ground, an exhibition celebrating the contribution of female photographers to the Gippsland Art Gallery Collection, featuring LYDIA WEGNER.

Focusing on a snapshot of seven significant artists, this exhibition showcases the diversity of the works in the Collection and highlights the way these women have impacted the creative industry.

Middle Ground will continue until 1 August.

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PETER WEGNER WINS ARCHIBALD PRIZE

Wonderful news for the Wegner family, and ARC ONE Gallery's LYDIA WEGNER. Congratulations to Peter Wegner, winner of the 100th Archibald Prize with his portrait of 100-year-old artist Guy Warren.

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Left: Peter is pictured here with his daughter and fellow artist Lydia Wegner.

Right: Peter Wegner, Portrait of Guy Warren at 100, oil on canvas, 120.5 x 151.5 cm

CYRUS TANG'S WORK SUBJECT OF ARTICLE ON COBO SOCIAL

Diego Ramirez has penned an insightful reflection on CYRUS TANG’s artwork ‘Power Cables’, a finalist exhibition of the @sovereignasianartprize. Published on @cobosocial, Ramirez writes:

“[Cyrus Tang’s] migratory experience inspires much of her practice, where memory is a ruin that she reconstructs in labour intensive processes. Her body of work ‘Remember me when the sun goes down’ (2020) looks at the empty streets of Vermont and the city of Melbourne area during lockdown as an elegy for the future, documenting the social wreckage of COVID-19.
[…]

Cyrus Tang, Remember me when the sun goes down: Power Cables [detail], 2020, archival pigment print, 90 x 90 cm.

These are the optical traces that collectively form the impression of a blurry memory, a strategy that characterises Tang’ oeuvre, where mental images seem to find form on paper.
[…]
By photographing locations for extended periods of time, then compositing all images into a single frame…the mundane becomes fantastical.”

Read the full article here >

GUAN WEI'S 'A DIGITAL AGE' AT ARC ONE

Revered contemporary artist Guan Wei returns to Melbourne this May with a spectacular new exhibition of paintings titled A Digital Age.

Guan Wei’s latest exhibition at ARC ONE Gallery presents three bodies of work: A Digital Age, a suite of paintings laden with philosophical meaning, The Metamorphosis, a video work depicting migration, identity, and notions of boundaries and place, and Cosmotheoria, a major 42-panel work which explores our individual and collective knowledge.

In A Digital Age, Guan Wei examines the realities of contemporary life and our relationship to, and increasing reliance on, numbers, symbols and signs. In the face of increasing alienation, digitalisation, virtual reality, and global change, this body of work invites us to reflect on our humanity:

“Numbers which represent highly abstract symbols are present in philosophies, religions, sciences, arts and cultures throughout human history. The information embodied in numbers has been absorbed in our genetic make-up. We recognise the capability and power of numbers by intuition. Numbers embody codes of information from ancient times, for example, dualism, the Trinity, four elements of nature, and the Chinese wisdom of the sixth day of the sixth month, the list goes on. The advance of modern digital technology is mind-boggling. The binary numeral system, Big Data, the Internet, and so on, are all about digitalisation which has intruded into every corner of our lives. Have digits become the essence of humankind? Yuval Noah Harari in his book ‘Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow’ questions, “Are organisms really just algorithms, and is life really just data processing?” – Guan Wei, 2021

Such themes are similarly explored in the key work Cosmotheoria. The title is drawn from a Latin term for “world-view” and considers the ways in which the known and unknown are constantly changing. Our knowledge and understanding of the immense universe, but also of nations, societies, others, civilisations, history and geography are constantly in flux, varying throughout time and place. In this work, Guan Wei has merged eastern and western philosophies, art histories, eras and empires, signs and symbols, using, as the artist explains, ‘a kind of magic collage, with an oriental perspective, to confuse the viewing point’. Representative images from different cultures are extracted and placed in the same painting to create an imaginary cross-cultural realm that explores contemporary issues and an up-to-date view of the world.

With his consummate ability to create work at once light in tone and profound in message, Guan Wei finds a higher order of expression in these beautifully produced paintings and video work. Interlaced with the artist’s emblematic clouds and iconic characters and motifs, the works in this exhibition are powerfully drawn together through a material and metaphysical exploration of human life.

Guan Wei, Cosmotheoria, 2017, acrylic on linen, 42 panels, 282 x 750 cm

Guan Wei was born 1957, Beijing, China, and lives and works in Beijing and Sydney. He has won many awards, including the 2015 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery; Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2002; and was selected for the prestigious 2009 Clemenger Contemporary Art Award, National Gallery of Victoria. In 2018 The Australian Tapestry Workshop completed ‘Treasure Hunt’, a tapestry designed by Guan Wei and woven by Chris Cochius, Pamela Joyce, Jennifer Sharpe and Cheryl Thornton. Solo exhibitions include: Guan Wei: MCA Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2019; Chivalry, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne, 2018; Cosmotheoria, White Box Art Center 798 Art District Beijing, 2017; Guan. Perspective, Scene Sense Art Gallery, Beijing, 2017; Salvation, ARC ONE Gallery 2016; Archaeology, ARC ONE Gallery, 2014; Spellbound, He Xiang Ning Art Museum, OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shenzhen, China, 2011; The Enchantment, ARC ONE Gallery, 2012; Other histories: Guan Wei’s fable for a contemporary world, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 2006–07; Looking, Greene St Studio, New York, 2003; Zen Garden, Sherman Contemporary, Sydney, 2000; and Nesting, or the Art of Idleness 1989–1999, MCA, Sydney, 1999. Major group exhibitions include: Between Two Worlds, Newcastle Art Gallery, 2019; Between the Moon and the Stars, Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory, 2019; The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes exhibition, AGNSW, Sydney, 2017; Closing the Distance, Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, Bundoora, Victoria, 2017; Borders, Barriers, Walls, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, 2016; Collaborative Witness: Artists responding to the plight of the refugee, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, 2011; Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai Museum, China, 2010; 10th Havana Biennial, Cuba, 2009; The China Project, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2009; Handle with Care, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Adelaide, 2008; Face Up: Contemporary Art from Australia, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin, 2003–04; Sulman Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, 2002; Osaka Triennial, Japan, 2001; Man and Space, Kwangju Biennale, South Korea, 2000; Third Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1999.

Guan Wei, No. 10, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm

ROBERT OWEN RETROSPECTIVE AT HEIDE EXTENDED

Emerging first in the 1960s, Robert Owen is one of Australia’s most eminent artists. His art traverses an ambitious and far-reaching range of mediums and contexts, from painting, sculpture, photography and installation, to public art and architectural commissions. Grounded in geometry and abstraction, his visually stunning works are inspired by his diverse interests—encompassing philosophy and psychology, science and mathematics, music and literature—and reflect his life-long curiosity about the world. Owen’s approach is underpinned by a poetic and intuitive exploration of the expressive potential of space, light, colour, context and materials.

The first museum survey of Owen’s practice for twenty years in Melbourne, this exhibition will encompass his work from the 1960s and 1970s living in Greece and London, while also featuring new and more recent paintings and sculptural installations.

More information >

The Age review >

Carr Studio blog post >

PAT BRASSINGTON AT ARTBANK

Pat Brassington is featured in The Work of Art, currently showing at artbank.

Curated by Sabrina Baker and Anja Loughhead as part of the Artbank Emerging Curator program, the exhibition brings together a selection of works from the Artbank collection that interrogate our relationship to art and traditional notions of labour.

Join Sabrina and Anja alongside artist Darcey Bella Arnold at 1pm on Saturday 22 May as they discuss the physical, conceptual, material and emotional exertion tied to creative production and the importance of placing value on the - work of art.

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TRACY SARROFF'S WORK AUGMENTED IN FLINDERS QUARTER

TRACY SARROFF is featured in the Flinders Quarter Augmented Art Walk, on now until 2 July.

Discover Tracy's artwork pasted up in the foyer of Journal Cafe and City Library, 253 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, then unlock each its animation and sound using your phone or tablet device via the augmented reality EyeJack app, free to download for iPhones and Android.

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JANET LAURENCE ON DISPLAY AT MCCLELLAND GALLERY

The McClelland Collection: 50 Years of Spatial Practice is now open.

Featuring this stunning work by Janet Laurence , Forensic sublime (Crimes against the landscape series: Styx Forest), the exhibition explores the significant collection McClelland has developed in its 50-year history.

The exhibition continues to 15 August.

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ROBERT OWEN INTERVIEWED ON ART GUIDE PODCAST

ROBERT OWEN is the subject of the fourth episode of Art Guide’s podcast series The Long Run, now streaming. In the episode, Robert talks with host Tiarney Miekus about what it means to create over six decades, and what he feels is the truth of his art: a sense of oneness.

Listen to the podcast here >

Robert Owen's survey show, Blue Over Time, is currently on display at Heide Museum of Modern Art, closing 23 May.

JANET LAURENCE REFERENCED IN NEW BOOK

Award-winning author and art historian Janine Burke has written a new book, My Forests: Travels with Trees. Published by Melbourne Uni Publishing, My Forests offers an enchanting and illuminating meander along forest trails within art, myth, history and present day.

Reflecting on JANET LAURENCE'S Forest (Theatre of Trees) recently exhibited at the MCA, Burke writes:

"I’m in a forest in a gallery. It’s a labyrinth made of drifting voile curtains in tones of mauve and silver, imprinted with towering images of trees. It reaches from ceiling to floor. Though in a public place, this forest makes me feel sequestered. It’s shadowy; tantalising. What’s around the bend? Revelation? A nasty surprise? I think of Little Red Riding Hood and the other fairytale children whose exploration of the forest symbolises maturity, courage and independence. The trek into the unconscious, the reward of self-knowledge, a process psychologist Bruno Bettelheim described as “the uses of enchantment”. As I follow the circular path, the tree-curtains move gently in my wake."

My Forests: Travels with Trees is available to purchase here.

PETER DAVERINGTON AT ART GALLERY OF BALLARAT

Peter Daverington, The Raft of the Clan, 2018, oil and acrylic on canvas, 260 x 397 cm.

PETER DAVERINGTON'S The Raft of the Clan is featured in Out of darkness: A survivor's journey, which opens today Art Gallery of Ballarat.

Out of the darkness: A survivor’s journey is an exhibition of works collected, commissioned and curated by Robert House, a survivor of child sexual abuse. The memories of House’s childhood experiences have continued to haunt him and affect his mental wellbeing, but he has employed determination and resilience to become an advocate for survivors, and work towards a more just society.

House has developed a passion for art, becoming convinced of its ability to represent the complexity of the trauma and other emotions experienced by survivors. He has commissioned, collected and created art, building a unique collection of works that reveal the journey of our society as it comes to terms with this shocking history. His collection reflects his personal journey, carrying the message that the voices of survivors should be heard and responded to with compassion and understanding.

“This was a difficult subject to portray,” says Daverington. “I settled on the idea of survival at sea as a metaphor for the survivors of child abuse - they were abused by a system entrusted with their care. I chose Gericault’s, ‘raft of the Medusa’ (in the louvre) as a source of inspiration… The young people in my painting are empowered, fighting for their rights and protesting injustice. This is a tribute to the people of the CLAN (Care Leavers Australia Network) , who after years of protest, have their voices finally heard. The portraits on the border are significant individuals involved with bringing the case to a royal commission. They include former prime ministers, politicians, royal commissioners and CLAN members.”

The exhibition continues to 1 August.

More information >

ROBERT OWEN BOOK TALK

This afternoon Heide will host a book talk with ROBERT OWEN, his studio manager and book editor Angela Connor, and book designers Stuart Geddes and Paul Mylecharane. The panel will discuss the journey of producing Robert Owen – A Book of Encounters, the first major monograph of one of Australia’s most eminent artists. The talk will be facilitated by Dan Rule, director of Perimeter Books.

Tickets to this event include museum entry and a glass of wine. It’s set to be a rainy afternoon: great museum weather! Reserve your spot at the book talk now and enjoy an afternoon at Heide with a tipple afterwards!

Book here >

Robert Owen with his monograph, photographed by Jake Roden.

ROBERT OWEN INTRODUCES 'WORDS OF LOVE' FILM

Tomorrow Saturday 24 April at 3pm, Heide x Cinema Nova will be presenting Marianne & Leonard, Words of Love to celebrate the exhibition Robert Owen: Blue Over Time – A Survey, with an introduction by the artist. Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love is a documentary film about the relationship between Marianne and Leonard, and their time spent on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1963, Robert Owen set off on a Greek boat for London. Along the way, he stopped off on Hydra intending to only stay a night. Unbeknownst to him, Hydra was a haven for bohemian expatriates, including George Johnston, Charmian Clift, William Lederer, Jack Hirschman and Leonard Cohen.

For three years (1963 – 66) Robert lived and worked on the island, making musical instruments and artworks, writing poetry and selling jewellery to tourists in the summer. It was also on Hydra that two events occurred that would change the course of Robert’s arts practice: an eclipse of the sun over the Peloponnese and the discovery of a Maggi soup cube wrapper.

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CATHERINE WOO OPENS 'VIBRANT MATTER' AT ARC ONE

A master of the surface and abstraction, Catherine Woo’s striking new body of work is an instinctive and powerful examination of the human connection with the natural world.

Catherine Woo is known for her visually arresting oeuvre of ‘painting with weather’. By using a range of unconventional materials and processes, Woo creates works that are both macro and micro-interpretations of natural phenomena. Her delicate, abstract forms, rendered in intensely detailed surfaces, draw forth various analogies between the body and the environment. In this recent body of work, Woo continues this investigation into the interrelationship between humans and the natural world via layered, undulating and ethereal paintings that examine the complex systems and structures of nature.

In previous works Woo found herself a silent partner to the visualisation of natural forces – vibration, evaporation, reticulation. In this chapter, she is now compelled to make the human element more present by incorporating intimate, hand-painted forms.

Intricate compositions weave together evoking water currents; leaf veins; coral skeletons; pulsing arteries; webs; microscopic snapshots from within the body and formations of earth. In conflating the regions
of the body and the environment, new possibilities are explored where the self is inextricable from the environment that contains it. Drawing the exhibition title from a text by philosopher Jane Bennett, Woo suggests that by seeing ourselves as part of a network of Vibrant Matter, we can begin to think more ecologically:

“Rather than seeing the environment as something ‘outside’, beyond our bodies, these patterns and processes suggest being within it – where our own bodies are part of a larger body, intimately and inextricably linked. It is a kind of visual acknowledgment of our participation in a vast changing body of living matter.” - Catherine Woo, 2021

As Jane Bennett asserts in the text “such a new found attentiveness to matter and its powers will not
solve the problem of human exploitation or oppression, but it can inspire a greater sense of the extent to which all bodies are kin in the sense of inextricably enmeshed in a dense network of relations. And in the knotted world of vibrant matter, to harm one section of the web may very well be to harm oneself. Such an enlightened and expanded notion of self-interest is good for humans.” 1

Visually stunning, these extraordinary paintings simultaneously speak to themes of nature, beauty, the body, and geography, while resisting representation in the pursuit of more philosophical concerns.

Catherine Woo graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Tasmania in 2013, having also studied at Sydney College of Fine Arts and the ANU School of Art. She has exhibited her work across Australia and internationally since 1997. In 2008 and 2011, Woo was awarded a $20,000 New Work grant by the Australia Council Visual Art Board, and was included in the Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia (2008). In 2010, Woo was curated into an exhibition at the Samstag Museum in Adelaide titled Abstract Nature. She has been a Finalist in the City of Hobart Art Prize in 2002, 2011 and 2012. Her major corporate commissions include: Visy Corp Australia, the Chinese World Trade Centre, Beijing, Shangri-
la Hotel, Beijing; Four Seasons, Hong Kong; and the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Shanghai and Perth. Her work is represented in private and public collections in Australia, including Artbank, Macquarie Bank, and RACV, as well as in the UK and Asia.

1 Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Duke University Press, 2010), 13.

CYRUS TANG SHORTLISTED FOR SOVEREIGN ART PRIZE

Cyrus Tang, Remember me when the sun goes down: Power Cables, 2020, archival pigment print, 90 x 90 cm.

Congratulations Cyrus Tang! Her work Remember me when the sun goes down: Power Cables is shortlisted for the Sovereign Art Prize.

The Sovereign Asian Art Prize was launched in 2003 to increase the international exposure of artists in the region, whilst raising funds for programmes that support disadvantaged children using expressive arts. Held annually, The Prize is now recognised as the most established and prestigious annual art award in Asia-Pacific.

In the wake of the past year, Tang wishes to memorialise images that address our collective experiences, anxieties, and hopes, allowing us space to remember and recover. Having had a renewed opportunity to explore her landscape, Tang created 'Remembering me when the sun goes down - Power Cables'. The artist, drawn to the geometrical composition of the sky, took daily photos of the power cables. She then collated the images, creating composite, ethereal layers. At the centre point of convergence, the image condenses and vibrates, as if to confirm a moment of real existence.

The finalists’ artworks will be presented to the public at 9 Queen’s Road Central, Central, Hong Kong from 5 – 16 May 2021. The artworks will then be exhibited at Art Central at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from 20 – 23 May 2021.

More information >

LYNDELL BROWN & CHARLES GREEN AT CAM

LYDNELL BROWN & CHARLES GREEN have work showing at the Castlemaine Art Museum in their new exhibition Cloudy - a few isolated showers.

In this exhibition, clouds gather in the Whitchell Gallery with historical and contemporary painting, photography, sound, watercolour and sculpture, curated by Jenny Long.

Castlemaine-locals Charles and Lyndell present three new works made during 2020, over a period of uncertainty, crisis and the suspension of sociability and travel. The paintings depict Castlemaine clouds, the winds of change, and the wider world and its turbulence.

Cloudy - a few isolated showers continues at CAM until the end of the year.

 More information >

Left to right: Lyndell Brown & Charles Green, Activism is Learning, 2020, oil on linen; Lyndell Brown & Charles Green, Orpheus, 2020, oil on linen; Lyndell Brown & Charles Green, Into the White Light, 2020, oil on linen.

JANET LAURENCE AT S.H. ERVIN GALLERY

Janet Laurence. ‘Tree of Knowledge’, 2021, mixed media installation

JANET LAURENCE is featured in the new show at S.H. Ervin Gallery, ‘TREE of LIFE: a testament to endurance’.

Opening today, this group exhibition led by First Nations artists will generate a fresh, positive energy towards the reclamation of diminishing natural resources. Threads woven through 'Tree of Life' will recognise the deep spiritual and physical associations that connect all forms of life – life that must be nurtured as we chart a course of action through this perilous age of climate change, pandemics and wildfires.

The exhibition will continue until 30 May.

More information >