STROBED
A place to see a few photos and a few words about Sydney art exhibitions when you can't get there yourself. Or when you want to see photos of yourself on the internet.
Petrina Hicks + Maleonn [Stils]
when: Wednesday 7 July 2010, 6pm-8pm. Exhibition until 7 August.
cost: free.
where: Stills Gallery. 36 Gosbell Street, Paddington.
Petrina Hicks – Every Rose Has Its Thorn
Petrina Hicks is adept at using the seductive and glossy language of commercial photography to create works that probe the false promises of perfection.
Every Rose Has Its Thorn, is a precursor to a larger exhibition to be held in early 2011. The works have been created during a number of overseas residencies that became possible after winning the ABN AMRO Emerging Artist Award in 2008 with the unsettling image Lambswool.
In a time when so much fine art photography embraces the banal and anti-aesthetic as a distancing device from ever-seductive commercial imagery, Hicks has taken a radically alternative approach. She seeks to seduce.
Inspired by the overt lushness and tangible quality of Baroque painting and continuing a preoccupation with the aesthetics of advertising, Hicks explores the high and low art of persuasion. As if to understand the mechanics of this art she pulls it apart, extracting, classifying and itemising elements of visual seduction. Perfect pink roses, bunches of grapes, fluffy white kittens, and stone statues of an idealised human form, reappear as Hicks distils recurring motifs, singles-out illusory devises and over-saturates symbolism. It is seduction on steroids.
As if removed from their original placement such as in an historic still life or TV commercial, these usually loaded figures and objects take on an unnerving ambiguity. They are full to the brim with empty promise, deliberately absent of meaning in their context-less, slogan-free state. Using solid-colour backgrounds of sweet pink, electric blue and nuclear greens, her works appear like single-layers in Photoshop, lacking the insertion of generic scenery, the overlayed picture of a perfume bottle or a cleverly placed brand logo.
Cut loose from the products they could potentially promote, faceless glossy heads of hair, for example, float as if held up by a breeze-machine rather than body, hanging in limbo without a pretty shampoo-endorsing model to be retouched and reinstated. Similarly the kittens seem sadly obsolete without rolls of toilet tissue, sympathy messages or easy-open tins of cat food justifying their fluffy frivolity.
By refining and filtering how imagery appeals to our senses and then denying us the satisfaction of clear connotation or desire, Hicks subtly and quietly teases the threads of consumerism and unravels the relationship between beauty and money.
Petrina Hicks’ work has attracted many accolades over her relatively short career. As well as being announced as the Overall Winner in the ABN AMRO Emerging Artist Award in 2008, her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally in ParisPhoto 2008, Contemporary Australia: Optimism, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art 2008, Petrina Hicks: Australia-Japan, The Exchange of Viewpoints, Early Gallery, Osaka, Japan, 2006. Her works are in numerous collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Victoria.
Maleonn (Ma Liang) – Second-hand Tang Poem
Photographer Maleonn (also known as Ma Liang) lives and works in Shanghai. His images contain highly choreographed scenes that blend traditional Chinese mythology and contemporary life. His Second-hand Tang Poem series reflects on the way Tang poems have operated in everyday Chinese life. For centuries, elementary students memorised the poems and used them to learn to read and write and even now they are memorised and recited but their meaning feels somehow second-hand. His work is a visual interpretation and contemporary re-telling of these poems.
The creation of Second-hand Tang Poem was inspired by his reading of a book –“New Annotation on the 300 Tang Poems” by Zhao Changping, which employed a great amount of well-documented and extensive evidence and analysis that Maleonn had never read before, completely different from what he got from his textbooks. He says of the experience; “My heart was quaked by his work and I was astonished. Later, I specially bought a lot of related books and read hours every night for months, in the hope that I could describe what I wanted to say through a group of works”.
He made up the scenes for the creation of this series on a huge table, there was real clay and rocks, artificial trees and moss grass, and traditional landscape by glass. He also made up models of men and architectural features such as alcoves and steps. His own “ugly calligraphy” (as he calls it) was hung by fishing lines. Clouds and fog were produced by a small fog producer, while moisture effect was produced by a water pot.
Usually it took him 2-3 days to construct one scene. He adjusted the scenery again and again based on his digital photography drafts before he finally photographed on film. When the photography was finished he had to destroy the whole scene he had created as he only had one large table. It was really painful but he describes how he “tasted the painful feeling of existence that could never be duplicated in photography.”
Maleonn graduated from the Fine Arts College of Shanghai University, where he studied in Graphic Design. After working in film for advertising for 10 years he decided to pursue his own art practice. In the few years since focusing on his art career Maleonn is now one of the most respected artists working in this medium in China, and also rapidly making his mark worldwide. His works have been exhibited and collected widely throughout Asia, American and Europe including at the Victoria & Albert Museum London.
HEADGEAR [Mils Gallery]
when: Opening night Wednesday 7 July 2010, 6-8pm. Exhibition continues until Sunday 11 July 2010.
cost: Free.
where: Mils Gallery, 15 Randle Street, Surry Hills.
From Mils Gallery:
18 artists were asked to make a mask each – this is their show.
Participating artists include:
Ann Thomson, Andy Townsend + Suzie Bleach, Huw Lewis, Adriano Rosselli, Bird Hat, Mim Fluhrer, Leah Fraser, Raffaello Rosselli, Tom Savill, Kristi Arnold, Joe Purtle, Todd Fuller, Harrie Fasher, Des Wagner, Ro Murray, Dunch and Bonno, Harry Townsend, Roman Stachurski.
Heart Your Art @ PolyGallery
Lawn Balls - Anthony O'Connor
The premise of “Heart Your Art” at PolyGallery was to create an exhibition for the senses. It was surprisingly confronting to engage with works that are to be experienced with more than just the eyes.
“Lawn Ball” by Anthony O’Connor (above) challenged the viewer to stick their hands into a mystery box and experience tough without a visual reference. Great concept, strange sensation.
Posted in Opening (old) | 1 Comment »Mysterium Magnum – David Kas [Sheffer]
when: Opening night Tuesday 29 June 2010, 6-8pm. Exhibition continues until Saturday 10 July 2010.
cost: Free.
where: Sheffer Gallery, 38 Lander Street, Darlington.
From Sheffer:
Sound Series #5 Polyphony [Hardware]
when: Friday 16 July 2010, 7:30-11pm.
where: Hardware Gallery, 263 Enmore Road, Enmore.
From Hardware:
Sound Series is a monthly night of sound-based performance and installation at Hardware Gallery on Enmore Rd.
#5 Polyphony will feature music and visuals by:
Proliferation – Kath Fries [Gaffa]
when: Opening night Thursday 1 July 2010, 6-8pm. Exhibition continues until Tuesday 13 July 2010.
cost: Free.
where: Gaffa Gallery, 281 Clarence Street, Sydney.
From Kath Fries:
Please join me for the opening night, 6–8pm Thurs 1 July And my artist talk, 2pm Sat 10 July
‘Proliferation’ is a new installation by Kath Fries at Gaffa Sydney that fills the gallery space with hundreds of feathers. The gallery space will appear to be bursting at the seams as hidden stuffing spews forth and strands of feathers trail down the walls and explode out of the cracks between floorboards. The artist will tend the installation daily and viewers will be able to see it change and grow over this period.
Feathers have featured as a consistent motif in Fries’ work over the past three years. In ‘Proliferation’ the artist has used recycled feathers — reclaimed stuffing from an old sofa, an inconsequential material usually dismissed as debris — to comment on humanity’s destructive urges and continued environmental abuse. The use of feathers within this context provokes emotionally volatile responses from attraction to repulsion.
In this installation Fries creates a space that conjures dreamlike connections and evokes cautionary myths and fables. ‘Proliferation’s’ fleeting and temporal qualities resonate a sense of tension, balancing between the immediate present and the possibilities of the unknown.
An artist’s book titled ‘Feather’ will also accompany the installation. The publication features a selection of photographs taken by the artist that present an illuminating insight into her ongoing explorations of this material. Fries’ photography is both informed and complementary to her installation practice and offers a unique perspective on her art practice.
Kath Fries completed a Masters of Visual Art at Sydney College of the Arts, the University of Sydney in 2008. She has been exhibiting at Gaffa Gallery since 2006 and has created site-sensitive temporal installations for numerous national art festivals including Rockingham WA, Hunter Valley NSW, Drummoyne NSW, Lake George NSW and Bryon Bay NSW. She recently completed an artist-residency at Laughing Waters VIC and was awarded a ‘Facetnate’ scholarship from the Japan Foundation’s Emerging Artist Program.