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

More information

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.

More information.

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.

IMANTS TILLERS / JANET LAURENCE

The work of IMANTS TILLERS Counting: One, Two, Three (1988) and JANET LAURENCE's The Memory of Nature (2010- 12) is currently featured in the Australian Galleries, which has been revitalised and expanded at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

PAT BRASSINGTON / JULIE RRAP

PAT BRASSINGTON and JULIE RRAP works have been included in MONA's Theatre of the World, curated by Jean-Hubert Martin.

Julie Rrap's work Horse's Tail (1999) and Pat Brassington's The Frog (1997) are included in the exhibition that 'engages, and rejects, the widely held notion that ancient and contemporary works of art are inherently different, and that we must burden the past with the weight of history.'
 
MONA, Hobart
OPENING JUNE 23 2012- APRIL 8 2013

PETER DAVERINGTON

PETER DAVERINGTON will be exhibiting in The Santa Fe International New Media Festival/ June 22 - July 8, 2012. Currents 2012, the Third Annual Santa Fe international New Media Festival will be held in Santa Fe, New Mexicco, USA. The festival explores the role of technology and the diverse applications of New Media in the arts.

For more information, click here.

JACKY REDGATE

JACKY REDGATE's works will be on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from 2 June to the 9 September in a major exhibition titled the logic of vision. Taken from the Gallery’s collection the exhibition surveys the artist’s creative trajectory from the 1980s until now.

The exhibition is curated by Judy Annear.   

JANET LAURENCE

JANET LAURENCE is exhibiting at the University of Queensland Art Museum from 12 May - 22 July, titled Animal/Human, curated by Michele Helmrich.  

Artists today are depicting animals in their work with remarkable frequency. The exhibition Animal/Human presents a selection of works by contemporary Australian artists that explore our complex, contradictory and sometimes contentious relationship with other species. Their work variously touches on the psychological, ethical, philosophical, scientific and cultural parameters of the relationship.