Art expression is a way of attempting to fathom the myriad chaotic inputs entering our consciousness from the everyday world and beyond. Perception, memory and experience may entwine in subsequent scenarios that defy a wholly logical explanation. Veronica Cay describes her collage works and ceramic sculptures as abstract vehicles to encourage reflection upon the human condition. Elucidating the title of her current exhibition, ‘the games that play us and dancing on the moon’, she tells how the altering of a familiar phrase ‘the games we play’ to ‘the games that play us’ connotes the powerful effect words can have on our viewing of a situation: ‘Currently it is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate for the truth of what is happening around us. Given the endless white noise bombarding the senses from so many sources, we may as well be dancing on the moon!’
Sydney-based Sophie Gralton’s new body of work aims to evoke a sense of integration between the past and the present and promote an awareness of the ever-evolving process towards individuation. Her signature imagery of an ‘isolated’ child is largely self-referential but intends a universal relevance. Gralton recounts that the initial inspiration for her oeuvre arose during a trip to Paris in 2007. There she became intrigued with Dutch 17th century portraits of children which were rendered as mini-adults and had hidden layers of meaning encoded in certain symbols and gestures.
‘Everything has a story,’ states Melissa Egan. ‘Not just people, but each creature, tree and stone has a history.’ She understands that the art of story-telling was highly valued in times gone by for it was the means by which a culture’s traditions were kept alive. Melissa’s enchanting visual tales however have a somewhat contrary intent. They transport the viewer far from the everyday and into another world where gravity has been cancelled and specifics of time and place have long since dissolved. In the words of the late Robert Hughes, we are ‘offered a glimpse of a universe into which we can move without strain. It is not the world as it is, but as our starved senses desire it to be.’
At once both intensely personal and universal in implication, Carolyn V Watson’s sculptures and paintings search for a momentary revelation of the inexplicable. There are questions to be asked, riddles to solve. She describes the exhibition as “a playful experiment in expectation”. “I want to activate the audience’s curiosity by inverting the familiar and thereby offer new readings of the known.” The show’s title alludes to the cryptic clues embedded in exaggeration and fables that can unlock a door into another awareness.
The most obvious property of a sculpture is its ‘solidity’ and occupation of real space. Just as in the very earliest shamanistic precursors, sculptures not only describe the shape of things observed but also intuited. The forms may emanate metaphysical and philosophical dimensions that transcend their physical matter. In this exhibition eight artists employing a diverse range of processes and media translate personal understandings of The Shape of Things.
The title of Seabastion Toast’s new body of work embodies the notion of a fleeting, intangible ‘present’. Thought provoking, the apparent contradiction in its conjunction of words serves to liberate the imagination from the confines of convention and a linear reality. “I have a long standing interest in the tension and spaces between dichotomies,” she remarks. “It’s to do with perception. I like the enigmatic title of the show because it speaks of the subjective nature of time; the impermanence of things, the briefly wondrous.”
Rather than ’framing Nature’, Elaine Green’s work has always resonated the 19th century Romantic notion of elevating landscape painting to a metaphysical level. It is seen as the extension of an inner sense of being, a place where Nature and Self are fused. The difference between the observer and the observed is subsumed in a boundless luminosity. ‘Like all artists I am constantly seeking the light,’ she reflects. ‘The troposphere, constantly in motion, provides never-ending inspiration and challenges to capture that light and the changing moods of the environment.’
The title of Seabastion Toast’s new body of work embodies the notion of a fleeting, intangible ‘present’. Thought provoking, the apparent contradiction in its conjunction of words serves to liberate the imagination from the confines of convention and a linear reality. “I have a long standing interest in the tension and spaces between dichotomies,” she remarks. “It’s to do with perception. I like the enigmatic title of the show because it speaks of the subjective nature of time; the impermanence of things, the briefly wondrous.”
The exhibition celebrates Melbourne-based Samantha Everton’s 13 years of internationally recognised and multi-awarded photographic art making. The six series of works each visually explores the ‘straddling of dual worlds’ in a quest for self-identity and transcendence amidst cultural variances. Everton divulges she only subsequently realised that the scenarios and the characters inhabiting them had ‘grown up’ or evolved over the years, finding culmination and resolution in her most recent series, Indochine.
Fanciful, hybrid creatures populate Jill Lewis’s densely textured surfaces. Metaphorical intent imbues the imagery and her ‘silent conversations’. “Painting is my preferred method of communication with the world,” says the Melbourne-based artist. “I think in pictures.” Jill describes herself as a “bit of a people watcher”, revealing that it provides abundant inspiration for her art making. “Observing people’s behaviours from a distance can often tell me more about them than hearing their words. I’m interested in body language and facial expressions, particularly those conveyed in different social situations. It’s about the position characters take when relating to one another within a particular context and space. For me the canvas equates to such a space.”
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