JUSTINE KHAMARA

Justine Khamara, Orbital Spin Trick, 2013, UV print and hoop pine, 50x50x50cm.

Congratulations to JUSTINE KHAMARA, who has been included in the Asialink/BLINDSIDE touring group exhibition, VERTIGO: chaos and dislocation in contemporary Australian art, curated by Claire Anna Watson.

Other artists include: Boe-lin Bastian, Cate Consandine, Simon Finn, Bonnie Lane, Kristin McIver, Kiron Robinson, Tania Smith, Kate Shaw and Alice Wormald.

Exhibition text:

"The artists interrogate contemporary life, exploring the fracture, chaos and dislocation that arises in the human condition and in a world which is imbued with flux and change. The experience of dizziness and a loss of perspective are explored within a world that is gripped by an acceleration of time and pace.

Presenting sculptural works, painting, neon, collage, drawing and video, the artists disrupt the ordinariness that can pervade life, building new narratives of human experience. By conveying feelings of anxiety and humour, or by using absurd gestures, the artists in Vertigo attempt to make sense of the world around them, with dizzying effects." 

For more information and to view the catalogue, go click here.

ROBERT OWEN

ROBERT OWEN has unveiled an impressive installation for Qantas’ new Chairman’s Lounge at Melbourne Airport.

The news has been included in the Autumn 2014 issue of the Financial Review's Life & Leisure: the sophisticated traveller magazine, p. 35 (image credit to the magazine). 

Titled Interlude, the work is the central feature of the space, composed of two large and dynamic architectural screens of coloured glass and brushed aluminium, dividing the lounge and dining areas. The colours of Interlude move kinetically within the sculptural form, reflecting and refracting light, responding and interacting with the spectator as they move past, or sit in contemplation. 

"An interlude – as a breathing space, a rest or pause within the cadence of a musical composition – creates levels of feeling and movement akin to the shifting sequences of a journey. Whilst those who visit the Chairman’s lounge will rest and restore themselves during transit, Interlude continues and reflects the movement of travel, the spectrums of colour weaving in and out with shifting sequences of time and rhythm. 

Interlude reflects Owen’s inspired way of fusing integral concepts and experiences into abstract forms, allowing an experience of the orders of sensation; that is, the affect of colour and rhythm on our senses."

- Annabel Holt, December 2013 

PHAPTAWAN SUWANNAKUDT

PHAPTAWAN SUWANNAKUDT has been awarded a 2014 Asialink Arts Residency at Ne'-Na Contemporary Art Space, in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. This artist-run residency program promotes meaningful and enduring cross-cultural relationships between individuals and organisations in Australia and Asia. During her residency in Chiang Mai, Suwannakudt will realise the exhibition Retold-untold stories. The project will investigate local historical materials and the theme of natural disaster from women’s perspectives.

More information on Asialink Arts and the 2014 residents click here.

MARIA FERNANDA CARDOSO

MARIA FERNANDA CARDOSO is participating in a group exhibition at Blacktown Art Centre (NSW) titled Uncovered: Hidden Pleasures of the Day. Uncovered brings together three contemporary visual artists with connections to Blacktown. Each artist explores notions of the commonplace and everyday experience, often overlooked or left uncovered or unrevealed. They share a passion and love for intricacy and complexity in what at first sight might seem common and obvious.

Cardoso’s work with the Tjanpi Desert Weavers emerged from artists’ camps in Central Australia. The resulting exhibition, Kuru Alala, toured nationally and at Blacktown Arts Centre in 2011.  Maria’s new artworks for Blacktown add to her project, the Museum of Copulatory Organs (MoCA) first shown at the Biennale of Sydney 2012.

For Uncovered, Cardoso has ‘undressed’ a variety of flowers, counted how many ‘wives and husbands’ each have, and then proceeded to photograph them ‘naked’.

The program for Uncovered also includes a workshop on Saturday 8 March between 10am to 1pm with Cardoso. In this workshop, participants will undress flowers and create small sculptures.

The workshop is $15 per person and includes workshop materials and lunch, followed by artist talks.

Exhibition dates: Thursday 27 February to Saturday 12 April 2014.

More information.

A WORLD APART

Peter Daverington, Uncle Bob, 2012, oil on canvas, 91x61cm.

A WORLD APART, ARC ONE Gallery (29 Jan - 1 March 2014)

Curated by Annabel Holt and Anabelle Lacroix

Reviewed in The Age, Arts and Entertainment, 'In the Galleries', 15 Feb 2014.

'A WORLD APART: The pliability of history, the body and the environment are central to ARC ONE'S first group show of the year.  Featuring works held in major collections or featured in major institutional shows - courtesy of gallery artists Julie Rrap, Pat Brassington, Anne Zahalka, Peter Callas, Peter Daverington, Rose Farrell and George Parkin - A WORLD APART offsets the performative with the visceral, the landscape with the surreal.  Daverington's Uncle Bob is a single work in three parts and three mediums. We're presented with a surrealist phizog painted in the artist's devastatingly meticulous manner, neighboured by an animated video work featuring the same character and a photographic print made from a video still.  Callas' chromogenic print, Japanese Uncle Sam, deals in a kind of cultural and historical mutation that invokes the cultural schema under-pinning an occupied post-war Japan.'

- Dan Rule

To read the article click here.

NIKE SAVVAS

Nike Savvas, Sliding Ladder: yellow with blue pentagon (detail), 2012, wool, wood and steel, 219x231.5x382cm. 

SPARKS
Nike Savvas
5 March - 5 April 2014

ARC ONE GALLERY, Melbourne 

ARC ONE is excited to present Nike Savvas’ first exhibition in Melbourne since her iconic installation Atomic: Full of Love, Full of Wonder at ACCA in 2005.  Sparks will showcase a new series of prints, like molten suns, and feature vibrant wall-vinyls.  The gallery will also be filled with large woven sculptures akin to those exhibited in Liberty and Anarchy, at Leeds Art Gallery, U.K. (2012 -2013).  Sparks will be immersive, humming and true to the masterful use of space for which Savvas is renowned. 

The work Sliding Ladder: yellow with blue pentagon (2012), from Savvas’ Sliding Ladder series inspired Sparks at a very particular moment in the artists’ journey.  Savvas reflects:

“The dynamic optical experience of this work coupled with its playful physical dimension and  immersive luminous shooting rays of yellow wool invoked something primal and poetic within me, as though the sky were giving birth to a million suns. Traumatized and devastated as I was at the time by tragic news, I felt I had metaphysically flat-lined. I had become momentarily lost, and overwhelmed by the powerful and emblematic motif of an exploding Sun, a Sun without limits - a boundless experience that came to embody a deep cathartic release.”

During Sparks, the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) will be unveiling a newly commissioned work by Savvas, Rally (18 March - 22 June 2014).  This large installation will be suspended above the ‘main street’ entrance court of the institution.  Rally, (to publicly protest - and individually, to come back fighting) will be one of the largest works to have ever been installed at the AGNSW.  With emersive colour and flickering movement, the work will comprise over 60,000 coloured plastic strips and be over 50m in length. 

Nike Savvas’ extensive career has developed internationally in tandem with a continued presence in Australia. Recently Savvas held a solo exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery, Liberty and Anarchy (2012-2013) and released  a monograph, Nike Savvas Full of Love Full of Wonder (Black Dog Publishing, London, 2012). Savvas has been included in group exhibitions in Europe, Australasia, the United States and Asia: notably the East International (Norwich, 2003), Visual Music (MoCA, Los Angeles 2005) and the Indian Triennale (New Delhi, 2005) where she won the Jury Prize. In 1998, Savvas’ work featured both in London’s New Contemporaries (Camden Arts Centre) and Sydney’s Primavera (MCA). Further awards include the Museum of Contemporary Art Primavera Acquisitive Art Award, ACT Creative Arts Fellowship and an Australia Council Fellowship. Savvas’ work is held in Australian and international collections, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Artbank Australia, Deutsche Bank, The British Library, Tate Gallery Library and Auckland Art Gallery.  Savvas has completed major commissions, including the AGNSW (2014 forthcoming), NIKE Inc (Nike Town, San Francisco, 2013), the MCA, Sydney (2013), the Westin Hotel (2011) ACCA, Melbourne (2005) and Deutsche Bank (2005).

For all enquiries, please contact Annabel Holt at mail@arc1gallery.com

PAT BRASSINGTON

Pat Brassington, Fathoms Deep, 2013, pigment print, 72x50cm

BLOUIN ARTINFO Australia has selected PAT BRASSINGTON as one of Australia’s leading artists to collect in 2014.  The twelve artists were selected on their contribution to the Australian contemporary art scene in 2013.

Other artists include: Danie Mellor, Emily Floyd, Baden Pailthorpe, Ben Quilty, Bindi Cole, Sydney Ball, Alex Seton, Ricky Swallow, Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, Abdul-Rahman Abdullah and Anthony Lister.

For more information click here.

JANET LAURENCE

Janet Laurence, installation image from the exhibition Avalanche (2012), at ARC ONE Gallery.

JANET LAURENCE is participating in the group exhibition Australia: Contemporary Voices at The Fine Art Society in London, which has now been extended into February.  This exhibition brings together the diverse narratives that reflect Australia’s complex and evolving society, and will be on show from 12 November 2013 – 31 February 2014.

Other artists included are: Alexander Seton, Julia de Ville, Kim Buck, Maria Kontis, Sam Leach, Michael Zavros, Del Kathryn Barton, Adrienne Doig, Joan Ross, Sean Cordeiro and Clare Healy.

For more information go click here.

JOHN YOUNG

JOHN YOUNG has been commissioned by the City of Ballarat to create a major public artwork acknowledging and celebrating the historical and contemporary Chinese influence on the fabric of the city. 

The monument will consider this context as an open historical event, specific to Ballarat, and encourage future generations to relate to new understandings of this period in Ballarat's history. Construction of the monument will begin in July 2014.

A WORLD APART

Peter Callas, Japanese Uncle Sam, (Neo Geo Squareize Series), 100 x 100cm, chromogenic print edition of 10, 2003.

A WORLD APART, ARC ONE Gallery, 29 JANUARY - 1 MARCH 2014

Curated by Annabel Holt and Anabelle Lacroix

Julie Rrap, Anne Zahalka, Peter Daverington, Rose Farrell/George Parkin, Peter Callas & Pat Brassington.

A WORLD APART is a group exhibition selected from the diverse ranks of ARC ONE’s artists, presenting key works across various media.

A WORLD APART plays at dissecting and re-representing reality, conceptually and aesthetically. Through this re-construction, attention is called to that which displaces our ingrained perceptions; the boundaries shift, a duality emerges, exploring the con­stant challenge between seeing and understanding.

Comprised of highly significant pieces, the works in A WORLD APART are all either included in large collections or featured in institutional exhibitions in Australia or internationally. For example, Farrell and Parkin’s Elastic Electromagnetic Waves (2010) is in the collection of The National Gallery of Aus­tralia (NGA), Canberra and their Unforseen Circumstances, Act Two (2004/05) is in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Sydney, together with Julie Rrap’s Camouflage #4 (Eiko) (2000). One of Peter Callas’ video works from the Anti-Terrain series has been shown at the Museum of Art (MOMA), New York and Anne Zahalka’s The Cleaner (1986) is in the collection of the Monash Gallery of Art (MGA). Pat Brassington’s work The Wedding Guest is currently on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), in the collections of Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), Art Gal­lery of South Australia and the Horsham Regional Art Gallery.

TRACY SARROFF

Tracy Sarroff, Rooted No. 4, 2011, ballpoint pen on paper, 31.5 x 41.5 cm.

TRACY SARROFF is artist in residence at Testing Grounds, Melbourne, from January 13 – 19. During this time, Sarroff will be working on a series of drawings and conversing with the public at the open-house event space. The drawings will be exhibited alongside other works in a closing event finissage on Sunday 19th, 2-4pm.

Testing Grounds is located at 1 - 23 City Road, Southbank, just behind the Arts Centre.

Testing Grounds is a free open-air art space. It is a place for experimentation and testing ideas, for public gatherings and educational opportunities in the heart of Melbourne's arts and cultural precinct.

For further information click here.