ROBERT OWEN FEATURED IN ART COLLECTOR

Image: Art Collector Magazine issue 95.

Image: Art Collector Magazine issue 95.

ROBERT OWEN is featured in the latest issue of Art Collector Magazine.

Jacqueline Millner writes about the the artist's forthcoming survey exhibition at Heide Museum of Modern Art, 'Blue Over Time: Robert Owen - A Survey'.

'The Heide survey's title underlines the importance of the colour blue in Owen's practice, with its evocation of infinite space and the possibility of dimensions beyond those we currently know. In Owen's work, blue occupies that place between earthly and otherworldly realms, embodying the reverie and imagination that the artist hopes his art will also spark, along with the capacity to patch and heal what has been fractured. Owen inflects the materiality of colour, light and place through the beauty of mathematics, having some time ago observed that "geometry is a good way to find yourself through a crisis" (a sentiment all too pertinent today)', writes Millner.

'Blue Over Time: Robert Owen - A Survey, curated by Sue Cramer, shows at Heide Museum of Modern Art from 27 February to 23 May 2021.

EUGENIA RASKOPOULOS MONOGRAPH RECOGNISED IN PUBLISHING AWARDS

EUGENIA RASKOPOULOS’ artist monograph, co-published by The Power Institute and Formist, has been recognised with a Highly Commended in the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand’s 2020 Art Writing and Publishing Awards.

Eugenia Raskopoulos: Vestiges of the Tongue was highly commended in the 'Artist-led Publication' category.

The judges described the publication as: 

Eugenia Raskopoulos: Vestiges of the Tongue, 224 pages, 30 x 23 cm, hardcover, published by Formist (Sydney).

Eugenia Raskopoulos: Vestiges of the Tongue, 224 pages, 30 x 23 cm, hardcover, published by Formist (Sydney).

“...a fine book on the artistic practice of Eugenia Raskopoulos, whose family cultural background and experiences of multicultural Australia informs her interest on a range of issues including the feminine body, language, translation, cultural exchange, knowledge and power. Between sumptuous colour plates of images representative of an artistic practice that prompts critical reflection and response, a collection of engaging and insightful essays by curators and academics brings a scholarly rigour to this high quality publication that is to be commended for both its aesthetic and intellectual appeal."

Congratulations to the team!

Buy the book here >

JANET LAURENCE IN MUMA SHOW

Janet Laurence, Conversations with Trees (detail), 2020, duraclear prints and dibond mirror, 120 × 80 cm

Janet Laurence, Conversations with Trees (detail), 2020, duraclear prints and dibond mirror, 120 × 80 cm

JANET LAURENCE is featured in MUMA Monash exhibition Tree Story, opening tomorrow.

Tree Story brings together creative practices from around the world to create a ‘forest’ of ideas relating to critical environmental and sustainability issues. At its foundation—or roots—are Indigenous ways of knowing and a recognition of trees as our ancestors and family. An exhibition, publication and podcast series, Tree Story takes inspiration from the underground networks, information sharing and mutual support understood to exist within tree communities, and poses the question: what can we learn from trees and the importance of Country?

Janet’s exhibited artwork Conversations with Tree’, is based on work that she undertook for her solo exhibition in Taiwan last year. Images of the forest are printed on transparent duraclear and suspended in front of mirrors, recalling greenhouse windows or museum display cases—forms of mediation of nature.

Tree Story continues at Monash University Museum of Art until 10 April.

More information >

PAT BRASSINGTON'S 'NIGHT SWIMMING' EXHIBITION NOW OPEN

One of Australia’s most significant and influential artists, Pat Brassington, returns to ARC ONE with Night Swimming, a new body of work presented as part of the PHOTO 2021 International Festival of Photography. An opening reception will be held on Friday 19 February, 6-8pm.

Pat Brassington’s work uncovers how the endless possibilities of our deep and complex inner states — narratives of sex, memory and identity — run quietly rampant.

Influenced by surrealism, feminism and psychoanalysis, Brassington is known for her ability to combine the ordinary with the unusual, making her work provocatively ambiguous.

Pat Brassington, Footloose, 2019, pigment print, edition of 6, 75 x 75 cm

Pat Brassington, Footloose, 2019, pigment print, edition of 6, 75 x 75 cm

In Night Swimming, she employs photomontage to reveal the power of the mind to transform mundane objects and situations into sites/sights of sensuality, desire, horror or menace. Baulking prior to resolution, Brassington leaves her work open to interpretation; allowing the viewers’ visual mind to make its own associations. Digitally manipulated and evocatively juxtaposed, bodily fragments, inky tones, fetish objects and claustrophobic interiors are rendered abject or sublime, unsettling or seductive by the viewer; exposing our innermost predilections, hopes, biases and fears.

Typical of the artist’s work, these monochromatic images bring together a series of fragments which
create a strange and ambiguous world.

Pat Brassington, Precious, 2019, pigment print, edition of 6, 75 x 75 cm

Pat Brassington, Precious, 2019, pigment print, edition of 6, 75 x 75 cm

The parts of the images – a fish slipping down a throat, a jarring clash of sharp fingernails, heads which twist into a strange darkness and feet that curl – are drawn from Brassington’s vast archive of visual material and are deeply personal. These disjointed compositions offer contradictions between the soft charcoal tones of the pigment print, the intimacy of the forms and the unsettling charge of the juxtapositions. Night Swimming rouses a sense of disquiet as the images subtly and humorously scratch at the underbelly of the human condition.

HONEY LONG & PRUE STENT IN 'PINK' EXHIBITION

Honey Long & Prue Stent, Venus Milk, 2015, archival pigment print, 106 x 159cm.

Honey Long & Prue Stent, Venus Milk, 2015, archival pigment print, 106 x 159cm.

HONEY LONG & PRUE STENT are featured in Wyndham Art Gallery’s first show of 2021, ‘PINK’. 

Intended as a platform for dialogue, this exhibition explores where the combination of second wave feminism and neo-liberal feminism has brought women artists today. Covering a range of mediums and styles, the pieces present a variety of creative practices and approaches to feminist narratives, each using pink as an element to strengthen their work, not minimise it. 

‘PINK’ is a digital exhibition curated by Caroline Esbenshade. The online virtual tour will be available until 8 March.

More information >

Listen to Honey & Prue interviewed here >

Read the catalogue essay here >

ROBERT OWEN – A BOOK OF ENCOUNTERS

Introducing Robert Owen – A Book of Encounters – the first major monograph on one of Australia’s most eminent artists. Made in close collaboration with Owen and his studio, this extensive volume assumes at once poetic, critical, historical and biographical modes in its unpacking of six decades of the artist’s archives, offering a comprehensive insight into a figure who has stood at the forefront of contemporary art since the 1960s.

Robert Owen – A Book of Encounters is published to coincide with the survey exhibition Blue Over Time: Robert Owen – A Survey at Heide from February 27 to May 23, 2021.

The book not only examines Owen’s nomadic practice – spanning sculpture, painting, photography and installation – but traces through-lines from his early life in the regional Australian town of Wagga Wagga to Sydney, the Greek island of Hydra, London and Melbourne. In doing so, A Book of Encounters expands into Owen’s wider interests in philosophy, psychology, science, mathematics, music and literature.

The book features essays and texts from some of Australia’s leading writers, curators and artists, including Carolyn Barnes, Sue Cramer, Victoria Lynn, Pippa Milne, Robert Nelson, Alex Selenitsch, Mike Parr, Leslie and Miriam Stein, and Angela Connor.

Published by Perimeter Books and designed by Public Office, the book is available for pre-order here!


Images: ‘Robert Owen - A Book of Encounters’, designed by Stuart Geddes, Paul Mylecharane and Kim Mumm Hansen of public.office. 400 pages, 23.7 x 16.9 cm, leather softcover with OTA bind, Perimeter Editions (Melbourne).

JANET LAURENCE CURATES WEEK-LONG PROGRAM AT SYDNEY FESTIVAL

JANET LAURENCE curated a fantastic programme of events for REQUIEM at the Sydney Festival 2021. Within the ethereal inner chamber of the Paddington Reservoir Gardens on Gadigal land, Janet has curated a stellar line-up of artists and talks exploring how we can mourn and remember the inestimable loss - of animals, of flora, of ecological worlds - wrought by the black summer fires of 2019-2020.

REQUIEM wove together visual art, music, poetry, performance, literature, science, philosophy and environmental advocacy to craft a time-space for us to lament and be present to the reality of loss. Janet also created a new work for the event – ‘Water Bar’ was glistening installation of waters from bushfire-affected regions is an ode to lost aquatic ecosystems.

More information >

NIKE SAVVAS COMPLETE PUBLIC COMMISSION IN NORTH SYDNEY

NIKE SAVVAS has recently completed Chroma Haze, a beautifully-executed art commission for 1 Denison, North Sydney.
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Nike says of the work: "I am actively conscious of the colours around me, both in the real world and also in art and science. I collect, observe and record these colours constantly. I believe in the egalitarian power of colour, this is very important to me. ‘Chroma Haze’ can be compared to an ‘open analogue wave signal’ in that it embraces ephemerality and variation through personal encounter.”

JANET LAURENCE CREATES MASK FOR ANNIVERSARY OF PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT

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To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement, JANET LAURENCE was invited to make a mask for the Art for Change Maskbook campaign.
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Maskbook is an international, collective work of art which raises awareness about the link between health, air pollution and climate change, using the mask as a symbol. Originally created for the COP21 in 2015, Maskbook has been featured at every Climate COP since.
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Janet fashioned a beautiful ginkgo leaf creation for the face of the campaign, Layne Beachley.

Check out the other masks here!

BOWNESS FINALIST EXHIBITION NOW ON

Screenshot from the virtual tour of the exhibition, featuring Cyrus Tang’s work.

Screenshot from the virtual tour of the exhibition, featuring Cyrus Tang’s work.

The Bowness Photography Prize exhibition is in full swing and open to the public Thursday - Sunday at the MGA!
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The Bowness is an important annual survey of contemporary photographic practice in Australia and one of the most prestigious prizes in the country. The prize continues to showcase excellence in photography. ARC ONE artists Honey Long & Prue Stent, Cyrus Tang and Anne Zahalka are finalists in this year’s pool and their works are on display in the exhibition.
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The gallery has also just launched the virtual exhibition if you’re unable to attend in person. Take a tour here.

More information >

ARC ONE'S SUMMER SHOW, 'MINUTIAE'

ARC ONE Gallery is delighted to present Minutiae, a group exhibition for the summer of 2020-21.

“If you look for the minutiae in an artist’s work, particularly a master’s work, then you become part of them, closer to them, locked in their presence.”
– Fran Clark, Director, ARC ONE Gallery

Featuring works by Pat Brassington, Peter Daverington, Janet Laurence, Honey Long & Prue Stent, Vanila Netto, Robert Owen, Jacky Redgate, Julie Rrap, Eugenia Raskopoulos, Cyrus Tang, Catherine Woo, John Young and Anne Zahalka, this exhibition asks you to stop, slow down, and take in the ne details. Celebrating the beauty and ecstasy in lingering over the minutiae, allowing it to unfold as you pause and lean in, the artists’ work across painting, photo-media, and sculpture is layered, intricate and complex. Confounding, subtle and delightful, Minutiae presents places in which we can roam, explore and become intimate. Venture through immersive worlds of deep observation and thought.

Zahalka, Long & Stent, Laurence cluster.jpg

LONG & STENT REFERENCED IN GREAT ART ESSAY

Using HONEY LONG & PRUE STENT’s work as a reference point, Irina Baconsky has penned an insightful essay for the British Journal of Photography on how visual language can productively infiltrate environmental debates.

Honey Long & Prue Stent, Field Sip XVII, 2018, granite stone, blown glass, water sample

Honey Long & Prue Stent, Field Sip XVII, 2018, granite stone, blown glass, water sample

"There is little doubt that documentary image-making has been instrumental in shedding light on the environmental crisis. Yet, the potential of abstract and even utopian imagery can be equally radical. What, then, may we ask, is the role played by the creative visual language and non-documentary mediums amid the urgency of the climate crisis?” questions Baconsky. 

The author goes on to elucidate how Long & Stent’s work dissolves the lines between the human and the natural, allowing us to see ourselves as part of (as opposed to separate from) our broader ecosystem: this being a vital first step it healing the man-inflicted wounds on the environment. 

Read the essay here >

LONG & STENT FEATURED IN MGA'S BOWNESS POSTER PROJECT

Honey Long & Prue Stent's work Mineral Growth from the artists' recent exhibition, Touching Pool, is currently displayed on the corner of Tinning St and Sydney Road, Brunswick.

This year the MGA is creating more opportunities for audiences to get up close and personal with contemporary photography. A selection of ten Bowness Photography Prize finalists’ works are now reproduced as large format posters and can be spotted around inner city suburbs of Melbourne.

In partnership with Shout Out Loud these brilliant works can be seen on the streets until 7 January 2021!

More information >

ANNE ZAHALKA SOLO SHOW IN TASSIE

ANNE ZAHALKA has just opened Lost Landscapes – a solo show at Launceston’s Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery.

In this exhibition, Zahalka turns her lens towards QVMAG’s historic dioramas for the latest iteration of her series Wild Life: a project in which she unearths habitat displays from around Australia and re-imagines them to reflect contemporary concerns about the environment.

The popularity of dioramas has faded with the advancement of technology in museum displays. Today they are mostly lost or destroyed. This exhibition brings together QVMAG’s historic dioramas, restored as they were originally displayed, alongside Zahalka’s radial interpretations.

In an era of climate change awareness, this exhibition calls us to notice the drastic changes in the Tasmanian environment and our role in it’s degradation or preservation. Using digital manipulation to interrupt the idealistic and static landscapes depicted in the dioramas, Zahalka offers both apocalyptic and utopian visions of what our future could be.

Lost Landscapes continues at QVMAG until October 2021.

More information >

ANNE ZAHALKA IN 'KNOW MY NAME' AT NGA

ANNE ZAHLKA’s The Cleaner is part of ‘Know My Name’ at the NGA.

This work is part of Zahalka's Resemblance series – a group of photographs based on seventeenth- century Dutch genre paintings. In The Cleaner we see the black-and-white tiled floor associated with Vermeer, and a painting on the wall that references the earlier art historical period. But at the same time, the subject wears headphones around her neck.

The image functions as a formal, contemporary portrait of a real person, but in a pastiche style quoting a genre of painting that has been functionally redundant for centuries. As Martyn Jolly observed, Zahalka “stretches the assumptions underpinning our conventions of candid portraiture”.

Through quotation and reference, the artist allows the visual images of the past to enter our contemporary world and create new meanings for new audiences.

More information >

PAT BRASSINGTON AT WOLLONGONG ART GALLERY

PAT BRASSINGTON is featured in the exhibition Every Body, now showing at Wollongong Art Gallery.

This is an exhibition of works from the collection that explores narrative, mythological, historical and reflective depictions of the human body. 

Three of Pat’s pink works from the early 2000’s are included. "It’s not my intention to feminise the image by using pink. It's 'nastier' than that. Pink smothers,” says the artist. 

Every Body continues until July next year.

More information >

PAT BRASSINGTON & ANNE ZAHALKA IN NEW GEELONG GALLERY SHOW

PAT BRASSINGTON & ANNE ZAHALKA are featured in Geelong Gallery’s new exhibition Framing the Figure - contemporary photography and moving image works from the collection.

This exhibition explores artists’ use of the camera to capture their human subjects in both still and moving images. Through performative gestures, constructed narratives or a focus on specific body parts, these lens-based artists work closely with their subjects to compose the figure within the camera’s frame.


Framing the figure opens today and continues until 25 April 2021. Book a free, timed-entry ticket ahead of your visit!

More information >

Pat Brassington, Akimbo, 1999, pigment print, 72 x 52 cm

Pat Brassington, Akimbo, 1999, pigment print, 72 x 52 cm

JULIE RRAP'S FULL SERIES 'PERSONA AND SHADOW' AT NGA

JULIE RRAP was interviewed by Brisbane Times about her series ‘Persona and Shadow’ which is now on show in ‘Know My Name’ at the NGA.

When Julie first showed ‘Persona and Shadow’ in 1984, two of the works were acquired my the NGA. Last year, the remaining seven were obtained so that the full suite may hang in ‘Know My Name’. “You think of the whole series as one set of work”, says Julie, “so it’s significant for me, and I think for the institution, to collect substantial bodies of work like that by women artists."

These works were made after Rrap returned from Europe having seen two major contemporary art exhibitions where only one female artist was represented amongst approximately 80 men. In the photographs, Rrap acts out imagery from paintings by Edvard Munch in an investigation of the stereotypical depiction of women in art and, more widely, in society.

Read the full interview with Julie here.

'Know My Name' (Part 1) continues until 4 July 2021.

JANET LAURENCE 'EARTH CANVAS' EXHIBITION OPEN

Earth Canvas, an exhibition featuring JANET LAURENCE,  is now open at Albury City Library Museum.

This exhibition displays works by leading contemporary artists, developed in response to regenerative farming properties situated between the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers in southern NSW.

Inspired by their immersive contact with both the farmer and the landscape, the artists reveal a mutual creativity, appreciation and understanding of the natural forces that sustain us. 

Janet says of the work she has created for the project:

“My work has been evolving slowly, moving between a performative project held onsite at Yabtree West, and a series of exhibition works that trace the complex symbiotic processes that are being nurtured by Rebecca on the farm. The great trees along the river have taken root in my memory and remain the dominant theme throughout the work. These trees for me express hope and habitat.”

The exhibition was officially launched by Patrice Newell, Phillip Adams and Gill Sanbrook, together with the exhibition curator and some of the artists and farmers involved in the project. Watch the virtual launch here.

More information >