Our current exhibition, Robert Owen, Fallen Light, is featured in today's Age newspaper.
ROBERT OWEN
ROBERT OWEN: FALLEN LIGHT 2012 - paintings
13 November - 15 December 2012
Opening: Saturday 17th November, 4-6pm
ARC ONE Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of a new series of paintings by Robert Owen – Fallen Light.
In Fallen Light, the vertical black fields of the portrait abstract paintings—titled Soundings—are intersected by refracted light in yellow, pink, blue, grey, green and brown. Like composed musical notes the colours dance across the canvas. As the light resonates through space, the paintings capture the transition and encounter of the two separate spheres of pure light and pure darkness. The canvas acts as a mediator for references, experiences and transitions—where sensation, colour and movement, interact and come into being.
Owen’s artistic practice approaches the idea of abstraction as an experimentation and artistic examination of the properties and possibilities of ideas and objects. His artwork captures and illustrates distinct natural forces that may not be visible to the human eye. These connections and coexistences—between the physical and metaphysical—are formally expressed as transitions that unite and simultaneously disperse.
As one of Australia’s most highly respected artists, Owen’s practice spans over forty years and includes sculpture, installation, painting, photography and major public commissions.
Owen represented Australia at the 38th Venice Biennale, 1978; was awarded the Australian Council Visual Arts: Crafts Emeritus Award for lifelong service to the visual arts, 2003; and the John Moore’s Liverpool Exhibition 7 UK Prize, 1969. Group exhibitions include: Photographic Abstractions, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne, 2012; Contemporary Australia: Optimism, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2008; New Acquisition in Context, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2005; A History of Happiness, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2002; Geometric Abstraction in Australia 1941-1997, University Art Museum, University of Queensland, 1997; Spirit and Place: Art in Australia 1861-1996, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 1996-7. Solo exhibitions include: Inside and Out, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney, 2007; Different Lights Cast Different Shadows, The 2nd Balnaves Foundation Sculpture Project, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2004; The Text of Light, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, 2004; Between Shadow and Light – London Works 1966-1975, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne, 1999. Selected collections include: British Museum, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of New South Wales; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Olympic Sculpture Park, Korea. Selected public commissions include: Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Harry Seidler Building, Sydney; Triptych Development, Southbank, Melbourne; and Webb Bridge, Docklands Melbourne.
NIKE SAVVAS
Nike Savvas monograph Full of Love Full of Wonder has been published by Black Dog Publishing.
Nike Savvas, winner of the prestigious Australia Council Fellowship Grant for Fine Art in 2010, is an artist of both large-scale installation and small-scale works. Drawing her inspiration from a variety of sources, from Op Art through to kitsch, her work often conflates painstakingly crafted detail and complex mathematical algorithms - drawing attention to both the tangible and the abstract at once.
Her objects and installations often invite the viewer to partake in the active experience of her work, by physically shifting, repositioning and refocusing their gaze, in order to unveil ever-changing facets to the works. Her art is never quite ‘stable’, rather Savvas creates tantalising, fluctuating objects that captivate and mesmerise the eye and the mind. Full of Love Full of Wonder is the first monograph on her work.
Born in Sydney, Australia, of Greek-Cypriot parents, and moving to London in the mid-1990s to develop her arts practice, Savvas continues to work between London, Sydney and Nicosia— her artistic identity is therefore an eclectic reflection of her multiple heritages.
The book is currently available through Black Dog Publishing or Amazon.
MCA commission NIKE SAVVAS for LOUIS VUITTON
ARC ONE are pleased to announce the partnership of Louis Vuitton and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Nike Savvas has been commissioned by the MCA to create an installation at the Louis Vuitton George Street store in Sydney.
ROBERT OWEN
ROBERT OWEN's installation Silence in the new Hamer Hall, is featured in Spanish Design Magazine Modaes:
"Swarovski fills Melbourne with the brightness of its crystals. Through its division Elements, the company has signed a partnership agreement with the sculptor Robert Owen that is reflected in the interior of the Hamer Hall in the Arts Centre in Melbourne, Australia.
Suspended from the ceiling at different heights above the main entrance of the Hamer Hall, hangs seven stainless steel sculptures with Swarovski Elements, each unique in geometry and scale.
The installation is called Silence and aims to amplify the audience's experience at a concert and provide a link between the visual and performing arts, adding also the theatrical space. The structures of the creations are completely covered with 62,000 Swarovski Elements."
To read the full article, click here.
GUAN WEI
GUAN WEI
THE ENCHANTMENT
09 October - 10 November 2012
Preview: 4-6pm, Saturday 13 October, 2012
Guan Wei’s artistic practice draws on his own experience as a Chinese national who migrated to Australia from China in 1990—following the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Guan Wei made many changes in the 1990’s. It became a significant time for him in Australia, where he explored cultural relationships among China and Australia, ideas of immigration, colonisation, identity and cultural tolerance, come together to create a fantasy world illustrating his own personal transition between the two cultures. In 2005, he returned to his homeland, this pilgrimage to his native soil mediated a sense of wellbeing, and finally, a sense of place.
Guan Wei is an adept storyteller who masterfully engages his audience. There is fine and gentle nature to Guan Wei and his artistic practice. The gentleness manifests in his own questioning and enquiry of his creative world. The Enchantment, a series of twelve paintings, and Up in the Clouds, a series of five bronze sculptures, retains the humour, wisdom and cross-cultural exploration that have become characteristic of his oeuvre.
In The Enchantment, the artist as magician plays his hand to the allure and power of art. In this imagined new world, the ‘Big Guy’ is the central figure in the paintings. He features as the modern day alchemist, masterfully playing out and watching over scenes of his enchanted universe. In the words of the artist: the passing of time translates the tension and strangeness experienced at the beginning, into maturity, and finally capability. The alchemist has mastered his universe.
As a continuation of his sell-out Cloud sculptures of 2009, Up in the Clouds features a series of dark bronze sculptures. The cloud, as a symbol of liberty, features prominently throughout his practice. Up in the Clouds portrays gentle figures playfully interacting with their cloud. The harmony between body and form alludes to the transience and freedom of nature.
ADAM HILL
ADAM HILL's work Bennelong Had a Point is now part of the permanent collection for the NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIA.
This work is a typically witty play on a cultural pun by Adam Hill.
Bennelong Point, the stretch of land where the Sydney Opera House now sits, is the site where Bennelong (a senior man of the Eora Aboriginal (Koori) people) was originally captured by Europeans in an attempt to create ties with the people of the land.
Rather than succumbing entirely to the colonial forces of the Europeans, Bennelong maintained a relationship with these figures, while trying to change the behaviour of Europeans on Aboriginal lands.
He spent many years as an interlocutor for the Europeans, and travelled to London. But did not relinquish his ties to his people or their land. His forethought into the potentially mutual impact that Aboriginal and European peoples could have on one another is...a fair point to be considered.
ADAM HILL
ADAM HILL has been accepted as a finalist for the Parliament of NSW Aboriginal Art Prize. This is an acquisitive prize to recognise the achievements of NSW aboriginal artists.
It will culminate in an exhibition at Parliament House from 4-25 October, with the winner of the prize announced on October 17.
Adam has also been making new works in collaboration with 'Will Coles'. These works will be exhibited at Sculpture by the Sea, Sydney, which will run from 18 October - 4 November
ROBBIE ROWLANDS
ROBBIE ROWLANDS: Place of Assembly, Melbourne Festival
As part of this year's Melbourne Festival, Robbie Rowlands is among 11 guest artists who will create site specific works to acknowledge the closing of a vital chapter at the Abbotsford Convent's community life after 120 years.
Official opening Wednesday 10 October, 6pm
Abbotsford Convent.
More Information.
PAT BRASSINGTON
PAT BRASSINGTON interview with ACCA
In this interview, produced by ACCA in connection with her current exhibition at the gallery, PAT BRASSINGTON speaks about beauty, colour, source material and her work in Á Rebours at ACCA.
You can watch the interview here.
JANET LAURENCE
JANET LAURENCE, The Memory of Living Nature, 2010-12 is currently a Featured Work at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
The work utilizes the idea of natural history museums, which have always used dead specimens to explain the living. Here, the dried plants, stuffed birds, burnt bones and minerals act not only as a memorial to lost nature but also a warning regarding the fragility of our environment. While the scientific instruments recall botanical science, the see-through structures play on the idea of a glasshouse as well as museum display cases
For more information, click here.
JANET LAURENCE
Current Exhibition: Opening drinks 8 September, 2012 4-6pm.
Exploring notions of art, science, imagination, memory, and loss, Janet Laurence’s practice examines the interconnection of life-forms and ecologies and observes the impact that humans have on the threatened, natural world.
With Avalanche, Laurence constructs a wild and fragile environment amidst the imminent threat of extinction. The beauty of intricate objects and luminous images is poetically nurtured in this intimate modern day wunderkammer.
As part of her research, Laurence works with biologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and botanists, collecting data and images from remote environments, including the Tarkine Rainforest in North West Tasmania. In this series of work, the Tarkine is depicted on a micro scale; one of close concentration and proximity that denotes tenderness and intimacy. Laurence’s fondness for this pristine environment, and her concern for the threat that humans pose to it, brings a sense of pathos to the works. With a delicate tinge of malaise, notions of fragility, loss, and undoing, are presented on a scale of intimate catastrophe. If there were wounds in the fabric of nature, chlorophyll would spill from them—this notion is memorialised and honoured in Laurence’s work, and amongst layers of reference and beauty, Avalanche gives special access to relatively unknown worlds within worlds.
Throughout her career, Laurence has consistently pursued what she regards to be a continuous source of inspiration and struggle—the environment and our undoing of it. As we enter into a geological timeframe that is characterised, above all, by the impact of humans on the environment, Laurence’s art remains persistently vital in its exploration of issues that are, at once, intimate and global.
Janet Laurence lives and works in Sydney. She has exhibited in significant group exhibitions, including: 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010); Clemenger Contemporary Art Award, National Gallery of Victoria (2009); Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Japan (2003, 2006); Australian Perspecta (1985, 1991, 1997); and the 9th Biennale of Sydney (1992). She has exhibited internationally in China, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan and United Kingdom. Commissioned works include: Tarkine Macquarie Bank Foyer, London, (2011); Translucidus, Qantas Lounge, Sydney International Airport (2002); Central Synagogue, Sydney (1999); 49 Veils (with Jisuk Han), (1998); The Edge of the Trees (with Fiona Foley), Museum of Sydney (1994); and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Australian War Memorial, Canberra (1993). In 2012 the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney commissioned a solo exhibition After Eden. Key collections include: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; University of New South Wales, Sydney; University of Technology, Sydney; Artbank Australia Collection; Macquarie Bank Collection, Melbourne; APA Collection, Nagoya, Japan; Itoki Collection, Tokyo, Japan, S.C.H.E.M.A. Collection, Florence, Italy.
PAT BRASSINGTON
PAT BRASSINGTON AT ACCA
THIS SEASON'S PUBLIC PROGRAMS, ACCA
On À Rebours
Wednesday 29 August, 7pm
Through the lens of feminism, fetishism, surrealism and psychoanalysis, listen to the doyens pull at the seams of Pat Brassington: À Rebours.
With Sexologist, Cyndi Darnell, writer, social commentator and co-author of The Great Feminist Denial, Monica Dux and Psychoanalyst, Milena Mirabelli.
Chaired by: Dr Anne Marsh, Professor of Art Theory (Art Design & Architecture, Monash University) and author of Pat Brassington: This is Not a Photograph (2006)
The gallery and bar will be open from 5pm.
Free. Places are limited.
IMANTS TILLERS
IMANTS TILLERS, The Melbourne Recital Centre.
Saturday 11 August, 8pm.
As part of Spectrum, a solo recital of new works by Australian and British composers, IMANTS TILLERS' vast work, Tabula Rasa (detail), 2012 will be projected onto a large screen during the performance of Rosalind Page’s Being and Time II: Tabula Rasa. This composition draws inspiration from IMANTS TILLERS’ work as an Australian painter.
Spectrum is a recital of innovative contemporary works by a diverse range of Australian and British composers. It was commissioned, and will be performed by the well renowned London-based, Australian pianist Zubin Kanga.
ARC ONE GALLERY AT THE MELBOURNE ART FAIR
ARC ONE GALLERY AT THE MELBOURNE ART FAIR, 1-5 AUGUST
ARC ONE’s curated space at the Melbourne Art Fair brings together works that are both complex and engaging, displaying an ongoing commitment to an expanding field of abstracted visual possibilities.
Narrow salt strips of iridescent blues; geometric grids of painted refracted light; organic contours of artificial colours: these exuberant bursts are the psychedelic exploration of futuristic wonderlands within the framework of consumer culture, technological advances and spiritual ideology. Orbiting the imagination of seven cross-generational artists, these playful and subversive works animate the collaboration of nature and technology through minimalistic hues, abstract forms and judicious shapes. Favouring repetition and geometric pattern, these works create an immersive topography that is evocative of a science-fiction novel exploring exotic lands that are both of and out of this world.
JACKY REDGATE
JACKY REDGATE will be exhibiting at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in CCP Declares: On the Nature of Things from 3 August - 16 September. Curated by Kyla McFarlane, the exhibition brings together work that is loosely connected by their relationship to things, as both subject matter and in the artist's attention to the photographic object.
ANNE SCOTT WILSON
ANNE SCOTT WILSON is collaborating with Alexandra Harrison at Dancehouse from July 31 - August 1 at 6.30pm.
Forest of Gesture is a short video work and live performance capturing people in their rapid trajectories in busy urban spaces. Forest of Gesture attempts to pause and reflect on the excesses of action and create space in movement for alternative and unexpected future possibilities.
For more information, please click here.
PAT BRASSINGTON
PAT BRASSINGTON will be having a major survey at ACCA. This will be the first extensive gathering of her practice and will explore her enigmatic collages from the last thirty years. The exhibition will be from the 11 August - 23 September.
JACKY REDGATE / ROBERT OWEN
JACKY REDGATE and ROBERT OWEN are included in Photographic Abstractions at the Monash Gallery of Art. The exhibition will draw on MGA's significant collection of Australian photographs who employ photography to achieve abstract effects. The exhibition will be open from 3 August and continue until 30 September 2012.
Opening 3pm Saturday 4 August
Curated by Stella Loftus-Hills and Stephen Zagala
ROBERT OWEN
Harry’s Park which features the artwork of ROBERT OWEN recently won an Urban Design Award from the NSW Chapter, Australian Institute of Architects.
The Jury commented:
The Public Park is a fitting tribute to one of Australia’s pre-eminent modernist architects and creates a conclusion to four decades of Seidler building activity along Glen Street. The negotiation the land and the design and construction of the park were done by Penelope Seidler and the office of Harry Seidler and Associate, constituting a significant act of public philanthropy rarely seen in this country.
LYNDELL BROWN & CHARLES GREEN / EUGENIA RASKOPOULOS
LYNDELL BROWN/CHARLES GREEN, LACHLAN PETRAS and EUGENIA RASKOPOULOS are all included in the July - September 2012 issue of Art Collector.