Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2022 i Art Guide Australia

CLAUDIA CHINYERE AKOLE is an exhibiting artist, illustrator, cartoonist, designer, animator, and educator based in Sydney, Australia (Gadigal and Wangal land). She works as a graphic designer in TV broadcast, as a freelance illustrator, and creates comics and illustrations in her personal practice. TIMMAH BALL is a writer of Ballardong Noongar heritage who is influenced by studying and working in the field of urban planning. Her writing has appeared in a range of anthologies and literary journals. SOPHIA CAI is a Melbourne-based curator, arts writer, public programmer and greyhound enthusiast. She is particularly interested in Asian art history, the intersection between contemporary art and craft, as well as feminist methodologies and community-based practices. TRACEY CLEMENT is an artist and freelance writer. She has a PhD in contemporary art, as well…

Destination Sydney: The natural world Manly Art Gallery & Museum, Mosman Art Gallery and S.H. Ervin Gallery 4 January—20 March The title Destination Sydney may read like something lifted from a tourist brochure—and indeed we are invited to travel across the city to three galleries to see the show—but what is on offer in this third and final iteration of the exhibition is not ‘classic postcard views’ of the harbourside metropolis. Instead, a curatorial team of three women presents nine female artists: Joan Ross, Fiona Lowry and Merran Esson at Manly Art Gallery & Museum; Janet Laurence, Caroline Rothwell and Robyn Stacey at Mosman Art Gallery; and Bronwyn Oliver, Juz Kitson and Jennifer Keeler-Milne at S.H. Ervin Gallery. Together these artists use painting, photography, sculpture and ceramics to reflect on…

house that heaves Kate Bohunnis COMA 21 January—26 February Kate Bohunnis works both with and against what she calls the “tired traditions” of gender stereotypes, creating steel and textile sculptures that inhabit a liminal zone between artificially imposed binaries. Her structures not only push the boundaries of gendered preconceptions—a space where tough and masculine metal meets soft and feminine fabric—they poke and prod, searching for, as she puts it “possibility, fluidity and potential for hybridisation.” The Adelaide-based artist’s own skill set illustrates this search. “I fabricate all of my work myself, which is conceptually important in this context,” she explains. “As a queer woman working between two industries—metal fabrication and [textile] craft—I find myself responding to the history of these traditionally gendered materials and subverting our expectations of what they…

TIARNEY MIEKUS Do you remember the first time that you intentionally took a photograph? POLLY BORLAND I don’t know if my memory is correct, but the first sessions I remember doing was when I was in high school in year 12. I was taking photos of two of my sisters in my bedroom, and that was an intentional photoshoot. Whether it’s the first intentional photograph—I don’t remember taking photos as a child, although I’m sure I did. TM Was your family interested in art? PB My father was an architect, and he was an extremely creative modernist architect. We were brought up in an arty family. My mother loved art and we were introduced to furniture designers and artists, and we were aware from a very early age about aesthetics—my…

Decay and renewal are key elements in the work of Jahnne Pasco-White. Blurring the boundaries between painting and installation, Pasco-White engages with a sensory blend of natural and artificial materials to create work imbued with rich colour and tactility. Densely layered, the Melbourne artist's work also takes in the broader concerns of ecology and the human impact on the environment, the result being a vibrantly expressionist practice that illustrates lived experiences from a domestic and global perspective. “In my work, layers of materials are tangled together through a process of cutting, pasting, smearing, soaking and washing to create varied ways of coming together,” she explains. Dyes lifted from avocado skins, spices and beech leaves are mixed with acrylic paint, oil stick and crayon to dictate the colours of her expansive…

Federation Square, Kingsley Street, Rosevear Place, Treloar Crescent, Ainsle Avenue, Wentworth Avenue, London Circuit, Blaxland Crescent, Wentworth Avenue, Kennedy Street, Parkes Place, King Avenue, King Edward Terrace, Anzac Parade, Kendall Lane, Reed Street, Manuka Circle, Aspinall Street Aarwun Gallery www.aarwungallery.com 11 Federation Square, Gold Creek, Nicholls, ACT 2913 [Map 16] 02 6230 2055 Daily 10am–5pm and by appointment in the evening. See our website for latest information. Artists Shed www.artistsshed.com.au 1–3/88 Wollongong Street (lower),Fyshwick, ACT 2609 0418 237 766 Daily 9am–5pm, Sun 10am–4pm. Closed until 3 January. See our website for latest information. Canberra’s largest private gallery. On display is the fine art of Margaret Hadfield-Zorgdrager and rescued, revamped art and craft in the Artistic Vision Gallery. Australian National Capital Artists (ANCA) Gallery www.anca.net.au 1 Rosevear Place (corner Antill street),…

An attentiveness to the real conditions of life is felt throughout this issue of Art Guide. In my interview with Polly Borland we talk about the way the powerful wield their power. The artist, who acknowledged a sense of feeling lost, kept returning to the crises of the moment, most pertinently climate change. As she says, “The world is in the midst of the most awful chaos.” Such attention to environmental threats is given voice throughout this issue, and this voice is global. UK artist James Capper is bringing his walking, hydraulic-powered, machine-like insects to Hobart. These magnificent creations blend engineering, sustainable energy, and art—all with the suggestion of new, sustainable futures. There are also multiple Indigenous perspectives on the harmful treatment of the natural world, and how this is…

Fresh Material: New Australian Textile Art Perc Tucker Regional Gallery 10 December 2021—6 February Jenny Watson is known for being playful, innovative and political, and for transcending conventional ideas about textile art. Her 2020 tapestry-based piece Sunshine of Your Love—showing an ambivalent woman on a flower background next to a stone house—encompasses all these qualities, and these qualities also define Fresh Material: New Australian Textile Art. The initial impetus for Fresh Material, a stylistically diverse and politically charged group exhibition, was curator Jonathan McBurnie’s wish to expand into a tactile, thought-provoking medium: textiles. “As a medium, textiles have a universality,” says McBurnie. “We all deal with textiles every day in a personal way that is quite different to other media.” Among the 20 exhibiting artists, the chosen styles and materials…

Toy Stories Midland Junction Arts Centre 13 November 2021—12 February The history of toys can tell us much about the history of people and culture. And by this logic, Toy Stories reveals a pattern of improvisation, experimentation and ingenuity in Western Australia over the last century. Curator Sarah Toohey has assembled an eclectic and often eccentric collection that both encapsulates and expands the idea of what we consider a toy. The exhibition features both contemporary toys and some that date back as far as the 1920s, all made by Western Australian artisans. And many of the most fascinating works were made in relatively amateur circumstances. “The early toys from the farming areas are all improvised,” says Toohey. “They made use of the materials at hand: knuckle-bones, matches, undyed wool, bits…

An effervescent burst of celebrities and pop iconography flourish in Kaylene Whiskey’s paintings. Her exuberant love of famous subjects, which include Dolly Parton, Cher, David Bowie, Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, Wonder Woman and President Obama, are vividly expressed in distinct comic book style. A unique talent for capturing mainstream culture’s most recognisable personalities is turning the Pitjantjatjara artist from the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands of South Australia into a celebrity of her own making. With flair and vibrancy, Whiskey’s multicoloured canvases bring a Pop Art aesthetic to the Yankunytjatjara, Southern Desert region. The self-taught artist developed her practice through Iwantja Arts, an art centre in the Indulkana Community, and her acclaim is growing. Having won the 2018 Sir John Sulman Prize, the 2019 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander…

A river of stars in the sky. This is what it looks like when Naminapu Maymuru-White paints Milŋiyawuy (a river that has its astral parallel in the Milky Way) in ochre on barks and on larrakitj (hollow logs). Her paintings, such as Milŋiyawuy, 2019, are cast in sublunar light: a series of larger white stars float across a tight lattice of granular white paint, which itself is set against a black and grey background on bark. These are tiny stars seen from the ground, painted in such a way that they seem like bubbles of air rising through water, popping the moment they reach the surface of the river, the bark. This is of course no coincidence—everything is connected; the sky, the ground, the river, the artist’s hand. Maymuru-White’s marks…

Albermarle Street, Soudan Lane, McLachlan Avenue, Blackfriars Street, Flood Street, Darling Street, Oxford Street, Art Gallery Road, Powerhouse Road, Crown Street, Elizabeth Street, Clarence Street, Glebe Point Road, Darley Street, Circular Quay West, Hickson Road, First Street, Dean Street, Jersey Road, Watson Road, Goodhope Street, Gosbell Street, Observatory Hill, Military Road, Edgeworth David Avenue, Abbott Road, Riley Street, Balfour Street, Blaxland Road, Myahgah Road, Old South Head Road 16albermarle www.16albermarle.com 16 Albermarle Street, Newtown, NSW 2042 [Map 7] 02 9550 1517 or 0433 020 237 Thu to Sat 11am–5pm, by appointment only. See our website for latest information. 16albermarle is a project space showcasing a range of international and Australian art within an intimate space in inner-city Sydney. 29 January—12 March Exhibition #8: Goobalathaldin Dick Roughsey & Friends Goobalathaldin Dick…

Albert Road, Hunter Street, Wilmot Street, Elizabeth Street, Tasma Street, Salamanca Place, Harrington Street, Davey Street, Main Road, Maquarie Street, Castray Esplanade, Stewart Street, Liverpool Street, George Street, Dunn Place, Murray Street Bett Gallery www.bettgallery.com.au Level 1, 65 Murray Street, Hobart, TAS 7000. 03 6231 6511 Mon to Fri 10am–5.30pm, Sat 10am–4pm See our website for latest information. 14 January—5 February Stars Puddled Underfoot Nicola Gower Wallis 14 January—5 February Survivors David Stephenson 18 February—12 March Water[shed] Group exhibition involving 50 artists marking the 50 year anniversary of the damming of Lake Pedder. Contemporary Art Tasmania www.contemporaryarttasmania.org 27 Tasma Street, North Hobart TAS 7000 [Map 17] 03 6231 0445 Wed to Sun, noon–5pm. See our website for latest information. 29 January—6 March Boundaries Tess Campbell, Sam Mountford Curated by Lucy…

Elder Place, Perth Cultural Centre, Wittenoom Street, High Street, Finnerty Street, Aberdeen Street, Glyde Street, Bussell Highway, Kent Street, Stirling Highway, St Georges Terrace, Railway Road, Henry Street, Colin Street, Captains Lane, James Street Art Collective WA www.artcollectivewa.com.au 2/565 Hay Street, Cathedral Square, Perth, WA 6000 [Map 19] 08 9325 7237 Wed to Fri 11am–4pm, Sat 12noon–4pm, or by appointment. 5 February—5 March Less and More Helen Smith Helen Smith explores the binary of minimalism and complexity in a new painting series. Minute details appear secondarily to the large, geometric shapes that seem to flip or vibrate, expand and collapse as a viewing experience. Small works painted on recycled packaging accompany the larger paintings. 5 February—5 March Mono no aware Theo Koning Theo Koning brings awareness to the ephemeral nature…

Perth Ever Present: First Peoples Art of Australia Art Gallery of Western Australia 11 December 2021—18 April Contemplating First Nations art as a tool of resistance and as offering alternative versions of Australian history, curator Tina Baum knew she was embarking on a huge endeavour with Ever Present: First Peoples Art of Australia. No surprise, then, that this exhibition—devised at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) but showing only in Western Australia and Singapore—covers enormous cultural territory, with more than 80 artists. Baum, the NGA’s curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, says the primary aim is for audiences to go beyond stereotypes of what constitutes Indigenous art, in this case drawn from extensive NGA and Wesfarmers Arts collections. “There is a lot of resilience and strength evident,” she…

Your choc-mint pelvik floor is so boring Anna Hoyle Linden New Art 4 December 2021—27 February Anna Hoyle’s colourful gouache paintings skewer advertising, self-help and consumer trends and culture. Your choc-mint pelvik floor is so boring presents Hoyle’s tongue-in-cheek works as both fictional book covers and text-based paintings. The works give a knowing wink to the viewer while putting a satirical spin on well-known cultural tropes and echoing what Hoyle calls “absurd aspirations”. Language is central here. “She asked Belts n Bags.com to stop sending emails to her gynaecologist,” one book cover reads. “Your boobs can fix it,” another declares, with an image of a smiling pair of breasts, nipples as hands, working away at a desk. “I hate IKEA pencils,” shouts a further piece, with the text etched onto—you…

A thousand different angles McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery 21 February—5 June Renowned sculptor Inge King AM once described her artform as “drawing from a thousand different angles.” Using this idea as a thematic springboard, McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery co-curators Lisa Byrne and Simon Lawrie have spent the last 18 months bringing together the work of 13 female-identifying artists for an exhibition exploring the impact of modernism on contemporary sculptural practice. “King’s quote relates to the experience of sculpture,” explains Lawrie. “We used it in a number of ways when choosing the works in the show—in a literal sense with how we experienced a sculptural object and how it articulates space, and also in a broader sense with artists bringing different perspectives to historical works and processes.” An additional…

Léuli Eshrāghi’s work is about rewriting the script. An artist, writer, researcher and curator, Eshrāghi rejects colonial structures and norms to shift the focus onto the rich cultural histories of communities of colour. “My work is always about projecting into futures of wellness away from the colonial present,” they say. Eshrāghi, who is of Sāmoan, Persian, German and Chinese heritage, and uses the gender-neutral Sāmoan pronoun ‘ia’, creates in various mediums, including performance, installation and video. One of the most unique aspects of Eshrāghi’s work is the use of barkcloth: a customary practice across Oceania in which paper mulberry bark or hibiscus bark is beaten, stretched and dried. In what they describe as “a continuum of cultural practice”, Eshrāghi takes an inventive approach, as seen in their 2020 video work…

Murriland exists on multiple planes. It is both a real place—the unceded Country of the Murri people, which includes most of what is now known as Queensland and part of north-west New South Wales—and an imaginative, contested territory made manifest in the work of Murri artist Gordon Hookey. In the Brisbane artist’s two epic Murriland! paintings—shown together for the first time in the current Asia Pacific Triennial at QAGOMA—and across Hookey’s broader oeuvre, Indigenous heroes are given their due. Here, kangaroos aren’t cuddly plushies for tourists or sycophantic pets like Skippy. Hookey’s kangaroos have attitude: they sport dark shades and sixpack abs. These Indigenous warriors are strong, defiant and heavily armed. Alongside historical human freedom fighters, they resist the lie of terra nullius. All of Hookey’s artwork is a political…

Brookes Street, Macalister Street, Brunswick Street, Doggett Street, Hasking Street, Russell Street, Bundall Road, Fernberg Road, Fortescue Street, Abbott Street, Jacaranda Avenue, Maud Street, Arthur Street, Pelican Street, Village Boulevard, George Street, Oxley Avenue, Bloomfield Street, Victoria Parade, Stanley Place, Ruthven Street, Flinders Street, Wembley Road Art Lovers Gold Coast Gallery www.artloversaustralia.com.au Unit 14, Brickworks Annex, 19 Warehouse Road, Southport, QLD 4215 [Map 13] 1800 278 568 Tues to Sat 10am–4pm. See our website for latest information. Until 5 February Summer A refreshing look at contemporary experiences of the Summer Landscape. 12 February—3 March Absurd Exploring themes of humour and surrealism, Absurd exhibits a wildly imaginative multi-media collection from artists across Australia. From funny and chaotic, to cerebrally challenging and mysterious, this collection taps into the darker and more hidden…

Mulberry Road, North Terrace, South Road, Porter Street, Diagonal Road, Melbourne Street, Rundle Street, Pirie Street, Portrush Road, Morphett Street, Sixth Street, Gibson Street, Thomas Street, Kintore Avenue, King William Road, Grenfell Street ACE Open www.aceopen.art Lion Arts Centre, North Terrace (West End) Kaurna Yarta, Adelaide, SA 5000 [Map 18] 08 8211 7505 Tue to Sat 11am–4pm. See our website for latest information. 1 February—19 February Helpmann academy graduate exhibition Over twenty emerging artists from Flinders University and the University of South Australia showcasing their graduate works. Art Gallery of South Australia www.agsa.sa.gov.au Kaurna Country North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5000 [Map 18] 08 8207 7000 Daily 10am–5pm. Free entry. See our website for latest information. 15 October 2021—30 January Tarnanthi: Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art This…