Download Catalogue (pdf 2.9MB) - Watch Arts
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Toyota Community<br />
Spirit Gallery<br />
presents<br />
new DAYS<br />
an exhibition by emerging artistsfrom the communities of<br />
hobsons bay, port phillip + beyond<br />
APRIL 4 TO JUNE 27, 2007<br />
Toyota Australia, 155 Bertie St Port Melbourne<br />
Inquiries phone Ken Wong 03 9690 0902<br />
Gallery Hours Thu & Fri 1pm to 6pm or by appointment
Toyota Community<br />
Spirit Gallery<br />
The Toyota Community Spirit Gallery is an<br />
initiative of Toyota Community Spirit,<br />
Toyota Australia’s corporate<br />
citizenship program.<br />
Toyota Community Spirit develops<br />
partnerships that share Toyota's skills,<br />
networks, expertise and other resources with<br />
the community.<br />
The Toyota Community Spirit Gallery aims<br />
to provide space for artists, especially<br />
emerging artists to show their work. The<br />
space is provided free of charge to exhibiting<br />
artists, no commission is charged on sales<br />
and Toyota provides an exhibition launch<br />
and develops a catalogue for each exhibition.<br />
The Gallery has now shown works by over<br />
200 artists. Toyota has worked with the<br />
Hobsons Bay City Council and the<br />
City of Port Phillip on this project.
new DAYS<br />
Samara Adamson-Pinczewski<br />
Garry Arnephy<br />
Vivian Ashworth<br />
Sharon Billinge<br />
Claire Blake<br />
Robyn Cerretti<br />
Tamar Dolev<br />
John Gambardella<br />
Tanja George<br />
Fiona Halse<br />
Briele Hansen<br />
Trudi Harley<br />
Brian Holton<br />
Annika Koops<br />
Stevie Maree<br />
Marte Newcombe<br />
an exhibition by emerging artistsfrom the communities of<br />
hobsons bay, port phillip + beyond<br />
exhibiting artists<br />
Mardi Nowak<br />
Isabel O'Brien<br />
Carolyn O'Neill<br />
Shini Pararajasingham<br />
Naomi Pitts<br />
Helen Pollard<br />
Chris Rowe<br />
Melanie Scaife<br />
Maggie Smith<br />
Karen Standke<br />
Merryn J Trevethan<br />
Ri Van Veen<br />
Cyrus, Wai-kuen Tang<br />
CHERIE Winter<br />
HEATHER Winter<br />
Daniela Zimmermann<br />
curator Ken Wong<br />
thanks to<br />
Tania Blackwell, Hobsons Bay City Council<br />
Sharyn Dawson, City of Port Phillip<br />
Katarina Persic, Toyota Australia<br />
invitation,catalogue design & editing watch arts<br />
All Images (detail): FRONT COVER: L-R top: Karen Standke, Annika Koops, Merryn J Trevethan, middle row: L-R Helen Pollard, Chris Rowe,<br />
Isabel O’Brien botton row: Fiona Halse, Marte Newcombe, Melanie Scaife INSIDE COVER: Sharon Billinge THIS PAGE: Stevie Maree
CURATOR<br />
KEN<br />
WONG<br />
This exhibition commences the 2007 Toyota Community Spirit Gallery program and is our<br />
fourth annual exhibition dedicated specifically to the works of emerging artists. The profile<br />
of the gallery as a valuable opportunity for artists continues to expand with a record over<br />
one hundred entries for this exhibition, from which thirty-two artists have been selected to<br />
exhibit. Our focus continues to be on local artists with eight from the City of Port Phillip and<br />
seven from Hobsons Bay exhibiting, but this exhibition has also provided opportunity to<br />
seventeen guest artists from outside these areas.<br />
Consequently, NEW DAYS represents a diverse cross section of contemporary emerging art<br />
practice and also serves to highlight significant contemporary themes that are of concern to<br />
not only the artistic community, but also to the wider community to which we all belong.<br />
These themes include the natural and urban environment, global warming and climate<br />
change, technology and consumerism, social isolation and the struggle to find meaning<br />
and make sense of our modern world. None of these issues are new, but there is a level of<br />
conscious concern they hold for many of us in our day to day existence in recent times<br />
that suggests we are facing a new paradigm of unprecedented challenges.<br />
This new paradigm can often be an overwhelming and frightening place, but to me the<br />
existence of the Toyota Community Spirit Gallery program is a small sign that there is also<br />
the potential for positive change. The fact that a major corporation like Toyota recognises<br />
that it has a broader social responsibility that extends beyond it’s employees, customers<br />
and shareholders and is willing to lead the corporate community in this way is in itself a<br />
very positive paradigmatic change.<br />
By supporting artists who quietly grapple with the larger issues that cloud our present and<br />
our future, maybe Toyota is assisting us all to better understand and rise to the challenge<br />
of the new paradigm that confronts us all.<br />
Welcome to NEW DAYS.<br />
Ken Wong is the Director of <strong>Watch</strong> <strong>Arts</strong>, a Melbourne based contemporary arts consultancy. He has worked in the<br />
fine arts industry since 1997 in both commercial and community arts, curating and managing a host of projects<br />
including gallery and outdoor sculpture exhibitions.<br />
NEW DAYS
ARTISTS & WORKS<br />
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19<br />
20<br />
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Samara Adamson-Pinczewski<br />
Strata Metallic Oil on canvas 138 x 71cm 2005 $2400<br />
Garry Arnephy<br />
Albert Park Yacht Club Oil on canvas 61 x 92cm 2006 $800<br />
Vivian Ashworth<br />
Purple Haze Acrylic & glaze on canvas 122 x 91cm 2006 $3800<br />
Sharon Billinge<br />
big city dreaming Silverpoint & mixed media 35 x 35cm 2006 NFS<br />
Claire Blake<br />
Elemental Creeping Ceramic earthenware 22 x 60 x 25cm 2007 $380<br />
Robyn Cerretti<br />
Lightpoems Transparencies/lightboxes Variable 2006 $2000<br />
Tamar Dolev<br />
The Three Wise Women Mixed media 61 x 76cm 2007 $800<br />
John Gambardella<br />
Night Seagulls over the Bolte Bridge Oil on canvas 120 x 90cm 2005 $1500<br />
Tanja George<br />
Red Haring Metal & wood 58 x 37 x 37cm 2006 $550<br />
Fiona Halse<br />
Barcelona 1 Mixed media on paper 130 x 103.5cm 2006 $1500<br />
Briele Hansen<br />
Outsidein DVD installation 194 x 63 x 60cm 2007 POA<br />
Trudi Harley<br />
Study for Respect Graphite on paper 38 x 30cm 2003 $200<br />
Brian Holton<br />
A Day in the Country Acrylic on canvas 71 x 102cm 2006 $820<br />
Annika Koops<br />
Rebel Child Oil on canvas 100 x 70cm 2006 $3000<br />
Stevie Maree<br />
Untitled Pegasus print 100 x 75cm 2006 $2000<br />
Marte Newcombe<br />
Night Rider Silkscreen 44 x 40cm 1995 $550
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23<br />
24<br />
25<br />
26<br />
27<br />
28<br />
29<br />
30<br />
31<br />
32<br />
33<br />
34<br />
35<br />
36<br />
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ARTISTS & WORKS<br />
Mardi Nowak<br />
I wanted to start a revolution Woven tapestry 120 x 90cm 2006 NFS<br />
Isabel O'Brien<br />
Through (1) Photograph/lightbox 50 x 70 x 15cm 2006 POA<br />
Carolyn O'Neill<br />
Stained Glass – Sea of Green Acrylic on canvas 75 x 100cm 2007 $400<br />
Shini Pararajasingham<br />
Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful Mixed media 140 x 93 x 68cm 2006 $2100<br />
Naomi Pitts<br />
Arctic Desert Acrylic on canvas 50 x 40cm 2006 $750<br />
Helen Pollard<br />
Dandenong Ranges Acrylic & printing ink 120 x 70cm 2006 $400<br />
Chris Rowe<br />
Keep Up Mixed media on paper 47 x 39cm 2006 $425<br />
Melanie Scaife<br />
The wholeness, the brokenness of now, of here Oil on canvas 50 x 50cm 2006 NFS<br />
Maggie Smith<br />
Seagull at Sunset Print on canvas 92 x 61cm 2006 $390<br />
Karen Standke<br />
Melancholy Oil on canvas 137 x 183cm 2005 $4200<br />
Merryn J Trevethan<br />
I Don’t Want To Say I Want You Oil on canvas 150 x 150 cm 2006 $4200<br />
Ri Van Veen<br />
Drought and Fire Ceramic 52 x 14 x 16 cm 2007 $400<br />
Cyrus, Wai-kuen Tang<br />
Engagement Porcelain 40 x 90 x 90cm 2005 $790<br />
CHERIE WINTER<br />
Sycamore Weave Mixed media 70 x 83cm 2006 $400<br />
HEATHER Winter<br />
Wild Fear Dura trans light box 68 x 106cm 2007 $3500<br />
Daniela Zimmermann<br />
Untitled Clay/mixed media Set of 3, 11 x 30 x 25cm 2006 $360
Samara<br />
Adamson-<br />
Pinczewski represented by SPAN Galleries<br />
GUEST ARTIST<br />
My recent paintings explore and<br />
communicate the expressive,<br />
psychological and decorative possibilities of<br />
colour, shape and design. These works are<br />
characterised by warm coloured grounds,<br />
metallic/iridescent pigments, geometric<br />
patterns, translucent layers of paint, and<br />
stippling.<br />
Many hours are spent investigating<br />
harmonious/discordant colour relationships<br />
and positive/negative shapes. These<br />
visual dualities are employed to<br />
communicate intimacy and/or<br />
theatricality using a wide expressive range.<br />
STRATA METTALIC<br />
Oil on canvas, 2005<br />
138 x 71cm<br />
Samara was born in Melbourne in 1977 and completed a Bachelor of Fine <strong>Arts</strong> in painting at Monash University<br />
going on to complete her Honours at RMIT and her Masters at Victorian College of the <strong>Arts</strong> in 2003. Her studio<br />
practice is based in Melbourne, where she specialises in painting, drawing and collage, pursuing an ongoing<br />
investigation into colour and geometric abstraction. She has held three solo exhibitions since 2000, in Melbourne<br />
and has participated in thirty-six group exhibitions since 1998 in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Taiwan. Over the<br />
past few years she has been selected for the Churchie Emerging Art Exhibition and twice for the Brett Whitely<br />
Travelling Scholarship.<br />
06<br />
NEW DAYS
COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP<br />
GARRY<br />
ARNEPHY<br />
I am passionate with<br />
painting and I enjoy<br />
painting landscapes and<br />
particular types of styles.<br />
I have been developing<br />
my style since Uni by<br />
experimenting with<br />
many different<br />
techniques, colours and<br />
mediums. My landscape<br />
work is inspired by the<br />
places I have visited<br />
and would I like to<br />
share those moments on<br />
canvas and hope I can<br />
convey a feeling, mood<br />
or sensation to the<br />
viewer from what I see.<br />
ALBERT PARK YACHT CLUB<br />
Oil on canvas, 2006<br />
61 x 92cm<br />
Garry was born in South Melbourne in 1967 and has worked in the fashion and graphic industry for twenty years.<br />
In 2002 he returned to study and completed a Diploma of Graphic Art at RMIT. His works are exhibited locally at<br />
various galleries including Gallery 112 in St Kilda. He is currently developing a new body of work for exhibition<br />
based on his interpretation of the War on Terror. His goal is to pursue a career in painting full time. Current works<br />
can be viewed online at www.garryarnephy.a1grafx.com.au<br />
07<br />
NEW DAYS
VIVIAN<br />
ASHWORTH<br />
COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP<br />
All of my work uses colour to express<br />
emotions. My process is a journey of<br />
discovering and exploring feelings which<br />
I attempt to transcribe onto canvas with<br />
bold intensities of colour.<br />
My aim is to make people think and feel<br />
in relationship to my own expression of<br />
feeling.<br />
purple haze<br />
Acrylic & glaze on canvas, 2006<br />
122 x 91cm<br />
Vivian has worked as a make-up artist for the past fifteen years in film, TV and fashion industries throughout<br />
Melbourne, Sydney and Japan. Using her colour and design skills in her paintings has been a natural creative<br />
progression for her. She is a busy working mum who balances the demands of family and work with developing her<br />
career as a painter. A resident of Port Phillip for many years, she held studios at Gasworks <strong>Arts</strong> Park. Her achievements<br />
include a solo exhibition at Smyrnios Gallery in 2005 and various group exhibitions including the Brisbane Art<br />
Fair with Thierry B Contemporary Art Gallery. Her inspiration comes from the people and places in her busy life.<br />
08<br />
NEW DAYS
guest artist<br />
SHARON<br />
BILLINGE<br />
My work is about happiness.<br />
More specifically it is about what<br />
we think will bring us happiness.<br />
In my current work I paint<br />
detailed layered abstracts onto<br />
timber to represent the<br />
happiness that we all feel is<br />
around the corner, the happiness<br />
that we strive towards but can<br />
never quite reach. The figures or<br />
hands in my work twist towards<br />
or around these areas in an<br />
attempt to touch them, sometimes<br />
listless in their approach,<br />
at other times focused and<br />
determined. In some of my work<br />
I paint and draw onto discarded<br />
wood and use the ancient<br />
medium of silverpoint to create<br />
very delicate renditions of the<br />
human body. Silverpoint is an<br />
unforgiving medium and requires<br />
meticulous rendering; mistakes<br />
cannot be erased. It<br />
immediately makes the object<br />
being drawn on precious. Albrecht<br />
Durer worked in silverpoint and<br />
further examples can be found<br />
in other Old Masters work.<br />
big city dreaming<br />
Silverpoint & mixed media on timber, 2006<br />
35 x 35cm<br />
Sharon was born in England in 1974 and trained at St Martins<br />
College in England in fine arts. She became an art teacher and<br />
struggled to balance her teaching work with making art. In 2001,<br />
she left the London college she had been teaching at and went<br />
travelling for two years through South East Asia, India, Nepal<br />
and then finally New Zealand and Australia. It was here that she<br />
decided to focus on making art and has been exhibiting in<br />
various galleries in Melbourne and other parts of Australia since<br />
2004, including a solo exhibition at Red Gallery in 2006. She was<br />
recently a finalist in the Williamstown Festival Tattersall’s<br />
Contemporary Art Prize and the Conrad Jupiters Art Prize.<br />
09<br />
NEW DAYS
CLAiRE<br />
BLAKE<br />
GUEST ARTIST<br />
This work is reminiscent of<br />
land and water.<br />
In some ways they are like<br />
islands that are always on<br />
the verge of shifting and<br />
travelling to new oceans.<br />
However, their movement is<br />
surreptitious and gradual<br />
like my own creative<br />
impulses.<br />
ELEMENTAL CREEPING<br />
Ceramic earthenware, 2007<br />
22 x 60 x 25cm<br />
Born in Ballarat in 1977, Claire completed her Bachelor of Visual <strong>Arts</strong> – Honours (majoring in Ceramics) in 2002.<br />
Since then she has been working part-time and working to develop her artistic career. She has been studying<br />
ceramics in a variety of tertiary environments and is inspired by ‘retro’ design that often appears in op-shops as well<br />
as the organic forms of Gaudi’s architecture. She is currently working as a ceramic technician and teacher in two<br />
universities which allows her constant contact and input from students, a dialogue that she says informs her current<br />
practice in rewarding ways.<br />
10<br />
NEW DAYS
guest artist<br />
ROBYN<br />
CERRETTI<br />
My practice incorporates the use of<br />
phenomena including light, temperature,<br />
sound, and found objects, debris and<br />
dust, together with time-based media;<br />
video, film and photography, to talk about<br />
the human experience of being in the<br />
world, our ability to question the nature of<br />
existence and being, our awareness of the<br />
passage of time and of our own mortality.<br />
Lightpoems explore ideas of duration and<br />
of time as an expanded present, holding<br />
future and past within it. Using long<br />
exposure photography with various light<br />
sources to write text and using the<br />
camera to capture what is seen unaided<br />
as an after-image.<br />
The light-boxes display analogue<br />
transparencies in relation to authenticity,<br />
exploring the idea that photography, like<br />
recorded sound, is an exact transfer of<br />
what it represents: the real.<br />
lightpoems<br />
5 x 4 colour photographic transparencies,<br />
light-boxes, electrical cable, 2006<br />
Installation variable<br />
Robyn was born in Italy and migrated to Australia when she was two years old. She was raised and still lives in inner<br />
Melbourne. In 2005 she graduated from RMIT University with a Bachelor of <strong>Arts</strong> (Fine Art), Honours 1st Class in<br />
painting. She currently tutors art at local community centres and is completing post-graduate studies for her<br />
Masters in Fine Art.<br />
11<br />
NEW DAYS
TAMAR<br />
DOLEV<br />
GUEST ARTIST<br />
THE THREE WISE WOMEN<br />
Mixed media, 2007<br />
61 x 76cm<br />
When producing artworks I<br />
enjoy experimenting with<br />
materials such as soil,<br />
sand, sticks, PVA glue,<br />
spray paint and anything<br />
else that creates a texture.<br />
I believe that one of the<br />
advantages of being a<br />
visual artist is the ability to<br />
explore the texture of<br />
different materials before<br />
creating an artwork.<br />
Currently I enjoy exploring<br />
a number of new mediums<br />
and textures in my art.<br />
Tamar's love for art began at an early age when she began to draw and sketch in school whilst dreaming of being<br />
a visual artist in her community. In 1997 she won the prestigious Maurie Gold memorial award for mixed media<br />
whilst studying for her VCE. In 1999, Tamar embarked on a trip to live on a Kibbutz in the North of Israel for four<br />
months, where she participated in an art program and graduate exhibition. During this time she created a number<br />
of artworks using found objects and natural materials such as soil and leaves. The following year Tamar was<br />
diagnosed with cancer and received chemotherapy at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. During her time in hospital<br />
she completed a number of pencil drawings and watercolours relating to her experiences, a number of which are<br />
still on display there. In 2003 she completed a Bachelor of Fine Art in printmaking at Monash University. Tamar most<br />
recently held a solo exhibition at the Muse bar in St Kilda and has also participated in a number of other group and<br />
solo exhibitions.<br />
12<br />
NEW DAYS
COMMUNITY OF HOBSONS BAY<br />
The Bolte Bridge has become a<br />
Melbourne landmark and features<br />
predominantly as part of the city<br />
entrance from the new Docklands<br />
precinct. It is worthy of recognition, not<br />
just from an architectural perspective, but<br />
also as a subject for painting. I am so<br />
captured by the bridge form that it has<br />
become the focus of a series of works.<br />
‘Night Seagulls’, painted in 2005,<br />
represents the Bolte Bridge in its<br />
contemporary style. The squiggly lines in<br />
‘Night Seagulls’ are meant to capture the<br />
movement of the seagulls against the<br />
night background and reflective lights<br />
shining upwards from the base of its two<br />
central pillars. If one was to be there<br />
during this time (the best time to view<br />
the Bridge), the viewer would be left<br />
with that impression.<br />
JOHN<br />
GAMBARDELLA<br />
NIGHT SEAGULLS OVER<br />
THE BOLTE BRIDGE<br />
Oil on canvas, 2005<br />
120 x 90cm<br />
Born in Trieste, Italy, John’s family migrated to Australia in 1954 and settled in Melbourne. Over the years he has<br />
continued to live in the inner suburbs of Melbourne – eventually moving to Footscray some years ago. John has<br />
always been interested in fine art since his early school days and continued his self-taught painting practice into his<br />
early thirties. Changes to his working career contributed to a break in his artistic endeavours until 2005. Since then<br />
he has resumed painting with great vigour, motivated not only by a need for self-expression, but also the desire to<br />
make a contribution to promoting original art to the public. John’s style of painting has predominately been<br />
traditional and has covered many mediums and subjects. He is a realist by nature and that is reflected in his art.<br />
13<br />
NEW DAYS
TANJA<br />
GEORGE<br />
COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP<br />
I find inspiration in a critical but often<br />
humorous reflection on every day life. I use<br />
mainly steel and wood in the fabrication<br />
of my sculptures. A fascination with<br />
discarded industrial, mechanical objects<br />
and components has been the basis for<br />
my recent sculptural work, which<br />
acknowledges the beauty and value of<br />
these ‘reinvented’ parts. They have been<br />
taken out of their purely functional<br />
context and given an aesthetic life. Some<br />
of my work has been quite surreal and<br />
stylised but I also enjoy incorporating<br />
many different styles.<br />
RED HARING<br />
Metal & wood, 2006<br />
58 x 37 x 37cm<br />
Tanja was born in Vienna, Austria but grew up in Germany where she worked as a journalist for Esquire magazine.<br />
In 1989 she moved to Australia where she studied fine art and film, completing her Bachelor of Film and Television<br />
at Victorian College of the <strong>Arts</strong> in 1995. After graduating she made a semi-documentary called Death and Passion<br />
which was filmed on location in Pamplona and Zaragoza in Spain. In 2004 she travelled 9000 kilometres directing<br />
a travel documentary about Australia for Germany television. Apart from her work in the film industry, Tanja has<br />
recently assisted Geoffrey Ricardo in fabricating sculptures for his 2006 exhibition Herd at Australian Galleries,<br />
Melbourne. She is also creating her own work, mainly in the medium of sculpture and photography. Her first<br />
exhibition of sculpture was held at Lancaster Press Gallery in February 2007.<br />
14<br />
NEW DAYS
epresented by<br />
stephen mclaughlan gallery<br />
guest artist<br />
FIONA<br />
HALSE<br />
‘Barcelona 1’ explores issues regarding<br />
open space and building form through<br />
collage. It also seeks to understand<br />
ambiguous, blurred marks against<br />
focused areas. My work searches for<br />
inner contours, although abstract in its<br />
approach, the linear circular forms derive<br />
from figurative, skeletal sources. I hope<br />
that the calligraphic marks can capture<br />
aspects of Klee’s walking line philosophy<br />
and ideas within his Pedagogical<br />
Sketchbook. The collage approach to<br />
constructing form and space (used by<br />
many Barcelona artists) has been<br />
embedded in this work.<br />
barcelona 1<br />
Mixed media on paper, 2006<br />
130 x 103.5cm<br />
Fiona was born in Sydney in 1974 and later moved to Melbourne where she completed a Bachelor of Fine <strong>Arts</strong> at<br />
Monash University in 1996. She has exhibited in a range of exhibitions including three solo shows, most recently<br />
at Red Gallery in Fitzroy in 2005. She has been the recipient of The Ian Potter Foundation Cultural Trust (1998)<br />
and her works have been reviewed by noted arts writers Robert Nelson and Jeff Makin. In November 2006 she was<br />
awarded a Support Stipend to complete a residency at Can Serrat International Art Centre, Spain.<br />
15<br />
NEW DAYS
BRIELE<br />
HANSEN<br />
GUEST ARTIST<br />
My work explores relationships between<br />
the perceptual being, the physical being<br />
and the environment.<br />
I seek to evoke real and imagined<br />
physical realities through technical<br />
dislocations of time, light, object and site.<br />
The experience is a little like cinematic<br />
referred pain, the ghost limb of a real<br />
event, a n acute sense of longing or<br />
reaching towards the absent. I see my<br />
work as a kind of butterfly net of time<br />
codes and tape loops catching the flutters<br />
of physical and psychological states.<br />
outsidein<br />
Wood, digital video & mixed media, 2007<br />
194 x 63 x 60cm<br />
Briele was born in Australia in 1973 and grew up in New Zealand. In 1992 she completed her first course of tertiary<br />
education and received an Advance Certificate in Professional Photography from Unitech in Auckland. She also<br />
worked within the film industry for a number of years within both Costume and Art Departments. From 1994, Briele<br />
lived and studied in Italy for three years. In 1999 she relocated to Melbourne to study and completed a Master of<br />
Art by Research at RMIT in 2004. Briele's first solo exhibition spacessence was held at Firstsite Gallery in<br />
Melbourne in 2000. Since then she has received two public art installation commissions and been in included in a<br />
number of group shows in Melbourne and USA.<br />
16<br />
NEW DAYS
COMMUNITY OF HOBSONS BAY<br />
TRUDI<br />
HARLEY<br />
This work is part of an on going series of<br />
works which involve the exploration of<br />
pathways, their textural surfaces created<br />
both accidentally and specifically, and<br />
their surrounding areas. I am<br />
particularly drawn to the abstract<br />
qualities that the subject matter offers.<br />
This particular work is part of a series of<br />
twelve drawn in 2003, that reflect on the<br />
different ‘pathways’ people take in their<br />
lives and some of the differing qualities<br />
that one needs to stay true to one’s self.<br />
This point was a major crossroad in my<br />
life. Somewhere along the path of our<br />
lives our inner world seeks to become<br />
one with the outer. In my work I now<br />
seek that unity.<br />
STUDY FOR RESPECT<br />
Graphite on paper, 2003<br />
38 x 30cm<br />
Trudi was born in Korumburra in South Gippsland and graduated with a Bachelor of Education, Art and Craft at<br />
Burwood State College in 1984. She has spent much of her adult life teaching art in government and private<br />
schools and has lived in China and Sydney during the 1990’s. Over recent years she has found more time to focus<br />
on her own practice, exhibiting and furthering her studies with workshops in printmaking at the Australian Printmaking<br />
Workshop. A resident of Williamstown, she also does life drawing and teaches drawing at weekend workshops<br />
locally. Her works are held in corporate and private collections within Australia and overseas including Hong Kong,<br />
England, America and Germany.<br />
17<br />
NEW DAYS
BRIAN<br />
HOLTON<br />
GUEST ARTIST<br />
A DAY IN THE COUNTRY<br />
Acrylic on canvas, 2006<br />
71 x 102cm<br />
Brian was born in the UK and attended Luton Art School, going on to train<br />
commercially in the Advertising Department of Electrolux UK. He emigrated<br />
to Australia in 1962 and was employed by various print houses, Massey<br />
Ferguson and the State Electricity Commission. Turning freelance in 1978,<br />
he created a print and design advertising service. As a freelance artist, time<br />
was at a premium, but over the last five or six years, he has become fully<br />
devoted to pursuing his own practice.<br />
I try to express the<br />
day-to-day situations of<br />
people and places in a<br />
multi-image approach.<br />
Colour and freedom is<br />
the important element in<br />
my work. This is the<br />
country town where time<br />
has created its own<br />
demands. It is sunny,<br />
relaxed and the<br />
buildings have a patina<br />
of age. Buildings rely on<br />
co-existence, rather than<br />
design. The painting<br />
was undertaken without<br />
any under drawing,<br />
rather a free flowing<br />
intuitive approach was<br />
taken. This work is in<br />
contrast to others I have<br />
done of the city and<br />
suburbs, where the loose<br />
free flowing line work<br />
conveys the underlying<br />
lack of planning and<br />
visual disharmony of<br />
modern living.<br />
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epresented by DESPARD GALLERY<br />
guest artist<br />
I see the subjects in my paintings as a<br />
site for exploring the conflict between the<br />
corporeal reality and the flagrant fantasy<br />
surrounding bodily representation within<br />
consumer culture. I want my figures to<br />
exist within the aesthetic paradigm of<br />
consumerism, whilst remaining<br />
sufficiently ambiguous and challenging<br />
enough to insinuate the dark<br />
problematic area that sits beneath many<br />
advertising images, particularly those<br />
aimed at the adolescent market. I am<br />
interested in the indefiniteness of the<br />
‘youth’ as a category and it’s valorisation<br />
within our society, and the increasing<br />
perverse and hybridised nature of<br />
commercial depictions of age and<br />
sexuality. I intend for my figures to<br />
offer themselves not as victims, but as<br />
agents for our psychological projections.<br />
ANNIKA<br />
KOOPS<br />
REBEL CHILD<br />
Oil on canvas, 2006<br />
100 x 70cm<br />
Annika was born in 1983 and grew up in an isolated region of Tasmania’s east coast where she cultivated an interest<br />
in art from a young age. In 2000 she moved to Hobart to study at the Hobart School of Art and it was there she began<br />
painting with oil and developing a passion for representing the human figure, with particular interest in painting the<br />
skin and it’s myriad variations and manifestations. She moved to Melbourne in 2004 to complete her studies,<br />
graduating with first class honours at the Victorian College of the <strong>Arts</strong>. In 2005 she set up and moved into a studio in<br />
North Fitzroy, to continue her practice. Annika is represented by Despard Gallery in Hobart and has shown at various<br />
exhibitions including the Melbourne International Art Fair in 2006. She was recently offered her first artist in residence<br />
position at Foundation B.a.d in Rotterdamm, the Netherlands. Beginning in September, Annika departs to spend<br />
four-months travelling and researching European art and gathering information for a body of work to be completed<br />
upon her return.<br />
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STEVIE<br />
MAREE<br />
COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP<br />
As a resident of St Kilda, I feel I am a<br />
member of the local community. The Bay<br />
itself is part of life here and conveys<br />
changing moods and character just like<br />
many of the locals. Having Port Phillip<br />
Bay as a neighbour for the last couple of<br />
years has been inspirational. It is like a<br />
friend. It seems to have provided the<br />
notions and ideas for the direction I have<br />
taken with my photography, as water is a<br />
key symbol in many of my recent works.<br />
I take photographs because that’s how I<br />
express myself. My images are an<br />
extension of my feelings and thoughts.<br />
Untitled<br />
Pegasus Print, 2006<br />
100 x 75cm<br />
Stevie grew up in a quiet coastal town on the Gippsland Lakes in country Victoria. Leaving the safety net of the<br />
family and home behind, she ventured to Melbourne in 2003 to further her understanding and pursue her creative<br />
passion. In 2004 she enrolled in an Advanced Diploma of Photography at the Photography Studies College in<br />
Southbank, graduating in 2006. She now calls call Melbourne home but the transition to city life has not always<br />
been easy. ‘I know I survived the hard times by being obsessed about my passion’ she says.<br />
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guest artist<br />
MARTE<br />
NEWCOMBE<br />
I have been living in the U.S. for<br />
the past twenty-four years and<br />
have shown my work there but<br />
coming back to Australia to live<br />
has essentially meant beginning<br />
again here as a new artist. This<br />
print is based on my sculptures<br />
which I made from found objects<br />
and tools and then welded. I<br />
scanned the images into Photoshop<br />
and manipulated them before<br />
outputting them to CMY K plates<br />
and hand-printing them as<br />
silkscreen prints. My work deals in<br />
part with the correlation of<br />
machines to humans and how the<br />
machines we create reflect the<br />
mechanisms of our bodies, both<br />
deliberately and inadvertently.<br />
NIGHT RIDER<br />
Silkscreen, 1995<br />
44 x 40cm<br />
Marte was born in Switzerland but her family became displaced after World War II and immigrated to Australia. She<br />
graduated from the University of Tasmania before moving to the United States where she completed a second<br />
degree in fine arts and lived for 24 years teaching printmaking and computer graphics at Georgetown University,<br />
George Washington University and the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington D.C. She has shown<br />
work in galleries and museums throughout the US and worked for NASA as a graphic artist for the past eight years.<br />
She recently returned to live in Australia.<br />
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MARDI<br />
NOWAK<br />
I WANTED TO START<br />
A REVOLUTION<br />
Woven tapestry, wool, cotton & linen, 2006<br />
120 x 90cm<br />
COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP<br />
Using the historically traditional technique<br />
of weaving, my inspiration comes from the<br />
modern, such as fashion magazines, torn<br />
advertising billboards and street graffiti.<br />
Works are created by collaging together<br />
images and photographs from magazines<br />
with old drawings and photocopies to<br />
reproduce the many layers found on<br />
billboards, similar to wallpaper plastered<br />
over old wallpaper. Notions of time play a<br />
factor in this work. There is a disjunction<br />
between the disposable and fast flow of<br />
images in contemporary mass media<br />
against the deliberation and slowness of a<br />
woven construction. It is the challenge of<br />
turning the contemporary and disposable<br />
images of fashion magazines into a craft<br />
form that has been recognised for<br />
centuries that keeps me excited about<br />
the medium. My tapestries tell a modern<br />
story of the fascination with fashion,<br />
celebrity and consumerism.<br />
Mardi is an artist and curator and currently manages the Town Hall Gallery in Hawthorn. She completed her<br />
Masters of Fine Art at Monash University in 2004 and has exhibited in several group exhibitions in Australia and<br />
overseas. She was recently selected to exhibit works in Munich in the German government funded exhibition<br />
Talente 2007, which features artists aged under thirty years from twenty-five countries who show innovative<br />
excellence in the field of art and craft. She enjoys collaborating on art projects with writers and illustrators and also<br />
mentors a group of young artists in the City of Boroondara. Mardi’s studio practice is based in St Kilda in the City of<br />
Port Phillip.<br />
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COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP<br />
ISABEL<br />
O’BRIEN<br />
This work is from a series<br />
called ‘Enlighten’. It is an<br />
investigation into the workings<br />
of vision, exploring the parallels<br />
between language and vision<br />
– different ways of reading<br />
and interpreting images.<br />
These photographs have<br />
elements concealed, restricting<br />
the visual field, perhaps<br />
drawing the eye to parts that<br />
would not necessarily attract<br />
our attention. This fragmented<br />
format allows the eye, after<br />
initially just seeing an<br />
abstracted image, to bring the<br />
parts together making sense of<br />
what is missing. Another<br />
important aspect of the work is<br />
the use of light. Light is what<br />
allows vision and this also has<br />
significance to the library<br />
setting (a place of knowledge)<br />
and the idea of it as a place<br />
of enlightenment. This is<br />
reflected in the concealing and<br />
the revealing of elements of<br />
the image and the cognition<br />
or understanding by the<br />
viewer of what they see.<br />
THROUGH (1)<br />
Photograph/lightbox, 2006<br />
50 x 70 x 15cm<br />
Isabel was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1976 and moved to<br />
Melbourne in 2001. She has travelled widely through Europe and<br />
Asia and has lived in St Kilda for the past six years. In 2005 she took<br />
up studio space at the St Kilda Bowling Club Studios, a move which<br />
has provided the opportunity to make stronger links with both the<br />
local community and other artists. In 2006 she completed her<br />
Masters of Art in Public Space with high distinction at the University<br />
of RMIT. She is continuing to exhibit and develop her work locally and<br />
was recently selected to exhibit in the Williamstown Festival<br />
Tattersall’s Contemporary Art Prize.<br />
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CAROLYN<br />
O’NEILL<br />
COMMUNITY OF HOBSONS BAY<br />
stained glass - sea of green<br />
Acrylic on canvas, 2007<br />
75 x 100cm<br />
Stained glass has long evoked<br />
a sense of spirituality, peace<br />
and reflection. Take the time<br />
to gaze through these<br />
illuminating fragments of<br />
connection and significance.<br />
Despite our diverse colours,<br />
shapes and sizes we are equal<br />
components of life’s rich<br />
tapestry. The process of<br />
painting this collection has<br />
been both meditative and<br />
liberating; gently reminding<br />
me that we are all one.<br />
Carolyn is a Melbourne artist who began painting in 2003 and has exhibited her work at various local exhibitions.<br />
As an emerging artist, she finds the creative process to be therapeutic and is working to develop her own distinct<br />
style. Art has become a place to express herself without boundaries or limitations; to let go and allow the work to<br />
take on a life of its own. Carolyn paints primarily in acrylic and favours a rich vibrant palette. Her work is often bold,<br />
her brushstrokes generally thick and her expressive style naïve; sometimes inspired by indigenous patterns, dots<br />
and circles. Carolyn lives in Hobsons Bay with her family and is a member of the Hobsons Bay Art Society.<br />
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guest artist<br />
SHINI<br />
PARARAJASINGHAM<br />
“Don’t hate be because I’m beautiful’ was inspired by my<br />
fascination in the torturous rituals women perform on<br />
themselves for the sake of beauty and the ‘ideal body’.<br />
For centuries, it was culturally acceptable for women to be<br />
absorbed in the mutilation of their own bodies to appear<br />
more feminine. Exemplary to this is the corset which began<br />
to appear in the 16th century - clearly a torture instrument<br />
for the sale of feminine perfection. The courting lady had<br />
to get her waist as slim as possible in the hope of<br />
obtaining her future husband. In modern times, “the<br />
hairless norm; the removal of body hair in women” is<br />
necessary to attain beauty in our culture. A behavioral<br />
science study found that the reasons cited for hair<br />
removal were primarily concerned with a desire for<br />
femininity and attractiveness. In fact, removing<br />
body hair is a practice so normative as to go mostly<br />
un-remarked, but one which contributes<br />
substantially to the notion that women’s bodies<br />
are unacceptable as they are. And yet, having a<br />
head full of long luscious hair is a sign of<br />
femininity. A woman with short hair is considered<br />
to be a ‘tom-boy’. I have married these concepts to<br />
produce this metaphorical and satirical piece.<br />
Shini completed a BA from Monash University in December 2003 and<br />
has exhibited two international solo shows and a number of group<br />
exhibitions in Melbourne, regional Victoria and Brisbane. She has been<br />
a finalist in the prestigious John Leslie Art Prize and the She Series<br />
Competition at Walker Street Gallery in Dandenong and was also the<br />
recipient of the Prato Travelling Scholarship in 2002. She has been a<br />
member of the Board of Directors of Brunswick <strong>Arts</strong>, a non-commercial,<br />
artist run gallery that places its values on community access and<br />
supporting emerging and established artists. Shini is currently<br />
focusing her energies on pursuing and developing her own studio<br />
practice.<br />
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DON’T HATE ME BECAUSE<br />
I’M BEAUTIFUL<br />
Plastic fencing, human &<br />
synthetic hair, 2006<br />
140 x 93 x 68cm
naomi<br />
pitts<br />
GUEST ARTIST<br />
This painting was part of a series<br />
produced out of my continued concern for<br />
the effects of a warming planet. I begin<br />
with a sublime, distant image of a<br />
glacial mountain from the colder regions<br />
of the earth. By adjusting it I had hoped<br />
to emphasise the upheaval and<br />
overwhelming pressure we place on the<br />
earth’s natural systems, to pose the<br />
question “Are we really capable of turning<br />
ice into desert?” Recent statistical<br />
analysis into the global ice melt, as<br />
highlighted recently by Al Gore, has made<br />
this painting even more pertinent to me.<br />
arctic desert<br />
Acrylic on canvas, 2006<br />
50 x 40cm<br />
Naomi completed a Diploma of Visual <strong>Arts</strong> at Barton TAFE in 1997, going on to complete a Bachelor of Fine <strong>Arts</strong><br />
with Honours at the University of RMIT in 2001. She has produced four solo exhibitions of her work, most recently<br />
at Red Gallery in Fitzroy in 2005. She was a finalist in the Metro 5 Art Award in 2005 and has participated in<br />
numerous group exhibitions including an emerging artists show at Span Galleries the same year. In 2006 she was<br />
also a finalist in the City of Banyule Works on Paper Prize and the R & M McGivern Art Prize.<br />
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guest artist<br />
HELEN<br />
POLLARD<br />
I am very passionate<br />
about the arts and I<br />
am always looking for<br />
new and exciting<br />
places to exhibit my<br />
work. My artwork is<br />
abstract, colourful.<br />
vibrant and energetic.<br />
The physical act of<br />
engaging with paint for<br />
me is an inner<br />
investigation and a<br />
process of discovery.<br />
I believe that the<br />
gestural mark is a<br />
direct physical<br />
expression. There is<br />
always an intense<br />
experience, emotion<br />
and feelings that relate<br />
to a memory, time or<br />
place that I aim to<br />
translate in paint.<br />
DANDENONG RANGES<br />
Acrylic & printing ink on canvas, 2006<br />
120 x 70cm<br />
Helen graduated from Lancaster University in England with a Fine <strong>Arts</strong> degree in 2003 before coming to Australia,<br />
where she is currently studying for her Masters in Art and Public Space at the University of RMIT in Melbourne. Over<br />
the past few years she has been working to establish her artistic career having converted her garage at home into<br />
a studio. Her commissions and group projects to date include installations in Xian in China and Sile in Turkey as<br />
well as a laneway installation entitled Colour of Night in the City of Dandenong in 2006.<br />
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CHRIS<br />
ROWE<br />
COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP<br />
keep up<br />
Mixed media on paper, 2006<br />
47 x 39cm<br />
The interaction of people with each other,<br />
and their environment, is the constant<br />
thread that weaves throughout my work.<br />
They gather in groups for unspecified<br />
events. They confer, discuss, investigate,<br />
play, wonder and wait. They merge and<br />
blend with their surrounds whilst still<br />
anchored in their presence. A stillness<br />
exists despite the obvious activities of the<br />
protagonists. The use of text expands my<br />
initial idea and creates further dialogue<br />
within the work, an invitation to the<br />
viewer to create their own story. Collage<br />
is also an important aspect that<br />
strengthens the subtext of the original<br />
idea and also attests to modern issues of<br />
impermanency and consumerism.<br />
The superficial, layered and destroyed in<br />
part and then reworked, echo the search<br />
for meaning.<br />
The desire and need to express herself artistically has been a consistent force in Chris’ life since childhood. She<br />
lists her grandmother who continued painting until the age of 105 as her most significant influence, but she has also<br />
been influenced by other artists including Jim Dine, Oscar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, Georgia O’Keefe and Picasso.<br />
She completed her Bachelor of Fine Art at Monash University in 1989 but until recently her artistic development has<br />
been impeded by the necessity to make a living. Chris lives and works in Port Melbourne and has recently<br />
commenced full time studio practice having worked for many years in accident and emergency nursing. Her work<br />
is fuelled by many years nursing and personal experience, which she seeks to express in a universal context.<br />
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community of hobsons bay<br />
melanie<br />
scaife<br />
I live in Williamstown and make<br />
my art here in my studio<br />
(a glorified shed out the back of<br />
my place). I draw my inspiration<br />
from the Williamstown landscape<br />
which I find bleak but beautiful.<br />
If I am not drawing directly from<br />
the landscape, I use my long<br />
walks around the coastline to work<br />
through visual ideas for my<br />
paintings. This work is a selfportrait<br />
painted at a time of<br />
transition in my life. I wanted to<br />
capture a feeling of reflection and<br />
quiet hope, symbolised by the<br />
figure’s face which is turned<br />
towards a gentle light falling from<br />
a window beyond the frame. The<br />
title of the painting is taken from<br />
a poem by Diane Fahey.<br />
the wholeness,<br />
the brokenness of now, of here<br />
Oil on canvas, 2006<br />
50 x 50cm<br />
Melanie studied fine art (painting) at RMIT University, Melbourne and the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland. Her art<br />
practice incorporates painting, drawing and printmaking and includes figurative and abstract imagery. She is<br />
primarily interested in depicting internal states of being by carefully observing the external world. Her influences<br />
include an eclectic range of abstract and figurative painters and poetry. She is currently working towards a solo<br />
exhibition at fauxPho art space in Footscray.<br />
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MAGGIE<br />
SMITH<br />
COMMUNITY OF HOBSONS BAY<br />
I became seriously interested in<br />
photography over the last four years and<br />
have studied Creative Digital Imaging<br />
online at RMIT part time. At present I<br />
am still exploring the way I can increase<br />
my skills and learn new techniques to<br />
bring my ideas to fulfillment.<br />
‘Seagull at Sunset’ is a montage of scenes<br />
photographed in Williamstown and<br />
printed on canvas.<br />
SEAGULL AT SUNSET<br />
Print on canvas, 2006<br />
92 x 61cm<br />
Maggie is a resident of Hobsons Bay and has exhibited in the Art in Public Places program in 2005 and 2006.<br />
Her practice employs traditional photography as well as experimenting with digital media, recently pursuing part<br />
time studies at RMIT. She has successfully exhibited her work internationally and locally, achieving sixty-five<br />
awards and over three hundred acceptances in International and National Salons since 2002. In 2004 she was<br />
awarded a gold medal at the 7th International Unconventional Photography Salon Foto Odlot in Rzeszow, Poland.<br />
Other images have been acquired by the contemporary section of the Museu Internacional de Fotografia in<br />
Cerdanyola del Valles, Spain.<br />
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guest artist<br />
KAREN<br />
STANDKE<br />
My main topic in my<br />
paintings is the<br />
landscape. I have<br />
travelled a fair bit and<br />
my paintings reflect<br />
this. In Australia, I<br />
have been particularly<br />
fascinated by the<br />
outback landscape.<br />
My paintings are at<br />
the same time a<br />
celebration of natural<br />
beauty as well as an<br />
examination of the<br />
land and the people<br />
that inhabit it.<br />
‘Melancholy’ was<br />
inspired by a journey to<br />
Broken Hill in 2005.<br />
melancholy<br />
Oil on canvas, 2005<br />
183 x 137cm<br />
Karen was born in 1973 in Munich, Germany and grew up in Munich and in Ehrwald, Austria. After an apprenticeship<br />
in commercial Lithography she studied at the Academy for Graphic Design and attended the FOS Art School<br />
in Munich. After graduating, she left Europe for Japan, where she lived for one year, mainly in Tokyo. From late<br />
1997 until 2000, Karen lived in Wellington, New Zealand where she studied art at the Learning Connection Art<br />
School, graduating with an Honours Diploma in 1999. Having come to Australia in 2000, Karen has based herself<br />
primarily in Melbourne. In 2004 she travelled to Austria for a self-funded residency at the Zugspitzatelier Mario<br />
Gasser. She returned the following year to Australia and worked on exhibitions both here and in New Zealand. In<br />
2006 she was awarded a residency at Arthur Boyd’s Bundanon in New South Wales and shortly after, at Territory<br />
Craft’s studios in Alice Springs. Work from both of these residencies was shown as her most recent exhibition with<br />
Pivotal Galleries in Richmond.<br />
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merryn j<br />
trevethan<br />
represented by SPAN Galleries<br />
GUEST ARTIST<br />
I don’t want to say i want you<br />
Oil on canvas, 2006<br />
150 x 150cm<br />
My travel experiences around the world<br />
have helped my art practice come together<br />
both visually and conceptually. I find<br />
myself interested in notions of community<br />
and place. The urban environment is the<br />
starting point for these works, but the<br />
subject itself is visual language; the<br />
interaction of colour, form, and shape to<br />
create a sense of space and a heightened<br />
sense of the real. My work aims to<br />
translate the features of the landscape into<br />
shapes and colours that recall memory of<br />
experience, of being in the environment and<br />
on the road. Distorting perceptions, and<br />
playing on the push and pull of space and<br />
colour; creating dreamlike spaces that are at<br />
once embracing and familiar, yet strange<br />
and unsettling. Prompting viewer’s to<br />
reassess their perceptions of the everyday<br />
and the ways we see and experience reality.<br />
Merryn was born in 1976 and grew up in Melbourne’s bayside suburbs. From a young age she always loved art<br />
and wanted to be an artist, and completed a Bachelor of Fine <strong>Arts</strong> at Monash University in 1997. She had also<br />
always had a strong desire to travel the world and after graduating, she backpacked around the globe for thirteen<br />
months, travelling to Austria, Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, the UK, as well as through Canada and<br />
the USA. This afforded her the opportunity to see some of the great masterpieces of art in the flesh and gain<br />
invaluable life experience, often staying off the beaten track with local families and experiencing local culture and<br />
customs. After returning to Melbourne she resumed her studies completing an Honours degree and her Masters of<br />
Fine Art at Monash. She is currently concentrating on developing her artistic career but is also keen to undertake<br />
further travels.<br />
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community of hobsons bay<br />
RI<br />
VAN VEEN<br />
I moved to Williamstown in July 2006 with my<br />
family and I am just starting to make<br />
connections with the community of Hobsons<br />
Bay. I had my first exhibition as part of the<br />
2007 Art in Public Places in Williamstown and<br />
have just become a member of Western Region<br />
<strong>Arts</strong> Network (WRAN) in an attempt to meet<br />
more artists and become involved in supporting<br />
art in this region. Ceramics inspires me not only<br />
in the creation of form but also in the firing<br />
process. The hot, physical and tactile process of<br />
wood and raku as well as the inherent resultant<br />
unpredictability make these firings my favourite.<br />
This environmentally motivated female-form<br />
piece is raku fired. It represents mother earth’s<br />
struggle with pollution and global warming and<br />
the resultant drought and fires.<br />
DROUGHT AND FIRE<br />
Ceramic, 2007<br />
52 x 14 x 16cm<br />
Ri was born to Dutch migrant parents and grew up in Frankston during the 1970’s. Her parents decided on a bush<br />
change in 1980 and her family spent the next 20 years in central Victoria establishing several farming enterprises.<br />
Ri gave birth to three daughters between 1987-93 and in 1999, returned to study completing Bachelor of Teaching.<br />
In 2003, Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome changed Ri’s life and unable to work, she turned to a past love – ceramics.<br />
Working with clay was initially therapeutic, but has gradually become a major focus in her life. In 2005 she returned<br />
to La Trobe University to study Visual <strong>Arts</strong> and ceramics and since moving to Williamstown in 2006, she has<br />
enrolled in a Diploma of <strong>Arts</strong> at Box Hill TAFE. Her works can be viewed at Browz Williamstown and via her website:<br />
www.ri-creations.com.<br />
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Cyrus, Waikuen<br />
Tang<br />
GUEST ARTIST<br />
engagement<br />
Porcelain, 2005<br />
40 x 90 x 90cm<br />
Cyrus, Wai-kuen Tang migrated to Australia in 2003 and graduated from<br />
the Victorian College of the <strong>Arts</strong> in 2004. Since then she has been<br />
working to develop her career, completing an artist residency in<br />
Tokoname in Japan in 2005 and exhibiting in solo and group exhibitions<br />
most recently Stephen McLaughlan Gallery and Westspace Gallery. As<br />
an Asian immigrant, she intends to create a dialogue between east and<br />
the west culture, reflecting her struggle to start her new life and the<br />
interchange between the past and the present. She is currently studying<br />
for her Masters at Monash University.<br />
As a Chinese artist in<br />
Australia, the culture shock<br />
inspires me to investigate the<br />
dialogue between tradition<br />
and contemporary, east and<br />
west. Memory oscillates<br />
between what is remembered<br />
and what is imagined; and<br />
this can reach heightened<br />
poetic consciousness through<br />
the artist’s intervention. Most<br />
of my projects are attempts to<br />
capture the loss of memory.<br />
I believe that dealing with<br />
the negative space or void is a<br />
way to capture the past and<br />
the loss of memory; that the<br />
space between objects is not<br />
empty. It serves an important<br />
purpose in installation.<br />
To me, it seems that the<br />
emptiness has something to<br />
do with time, an element<br />
that may be survived at the<br />
point of invisibility. Poetically,<br />
something happens in the<br />
object allowing the past and<br />
present to converge.<br />
34<br />
NEW DAYS
epresented by<br />
4CATS GALLERY<br />
COMMUNITY OF HOBSONS BAY<br />
CHERIE<br />
WINTER<br />
After purchasing property in the Hobsons<br />
Bay area, I found the wind swept beauty<br />
of the region has inspired me to look at<br />
trees and the environment differently.<br />
Becoming pro-active with the community<br />
(National Plant a Tree Day/Clean up<br />
Australia Day) has helped my personal<br />
and artistic growth. If I asked you to<br />
make me five things with living trees,<br />
what would you make? A fence, a coat<br />
hanger, a seat or what about the swing<br />
set or even a house! It’s true. It can all<br />
be done. My work is a reflection upon<br />
arborsculpture (the sculpting of living<br />
trees into aesthetic, functional and<br />
cultural forms) and societies reaction to<br />
the results. It is a hypothetical vision of<br />
how arborsculpture, an obscure tradition,<br />
can open up avenues and possibilities to<br />
create a broad spectrum of items and<br />
contribute to the environment in a positive<br />
way. It is a merger of print mediums,<br />
which combine to represent a hope for the<br />
future, a belief in the present and the<br />
knowledge of the past. Whether creating<br />
botanical architecture, furniture or<br />
featuring on Ripley’s Believe it or Not,<br />
trees continue to surprise me.<br />
SYCAMORE WEAVE<br />
Lithograph, colour pencil & chin colle, 2006<br />
70 x 83cm<br />
Cherie was born in Nowra in NSW and received her<br />
education at the College of Fine <strong>Arts</strong>, University of<br />
NSW and a Graduate Diploma from Sydney University.<br />
She moved to Melbourne in 2000 and has participated<br />
in solo shows and numerous selected exhibitions<br />
including the 16th Asian International Art Exhibition,<br />
Guandong Museum of Art, China. Cherie has been<br />
working as a technical officer in Visual Media at the<br />
University of Melbourne and completed a Diploma of<br />
Multimedia Design at Holmesglen Institute of TAFE.<br />
She has received awards and grants such at the Collie<br />
Print Trust Emerging Victorian Printmakers Scholarship<br />
from the Australian Print Workshop, Hunter Urban<br />
Division of General Practice Award and the Visual and<br />
Craft Artists’ Grant Scheme from the National Association<br />
for the Visual <strong>Arts</strong>.<br />
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NEW DAYS
HEATHER<br />
WINTER<br />
WILD FEAR<br />
Dura trans light box, 2007<br />
106.3 x 68cm<br />
Heather completed her Masters of Fine <strong>Arts</strong> at<br />
Victorian College of the <strong>Arts</strong> in 1991 and exhibited<br />
widely during the 1990’s before being invited to live<br />
and work overseas at the invitation of the Austrian<br />
<strong>Arts</strong> Council, Bundeskanzlerampt. She has exhibited<br />
in several solo and numerous group exhibitions both<br />
here and overseas and has completed artist residencies<br />
in Bulgaria, Switzerland, Vienna, Thailand and<br />
Australia. For quite some time, her focus has been on<br />
her work overseas and it is only recently since she<br />
has returned to live in Australia that she has begun<br />
work on rebuilding her profile locally. She is currently<br />
studying for her PhD at Melbourne University and<br />
works from her studio in St Kilda West.<br />
36<br />
COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP<br />
Inspired by the behaviour of animals and<br />
nature, I look for the archetypes of human<br />
behaviours and find parallels in the natural<br />
world; an elephant never<br />
forgets, a snake transforms<br />
itself through the shedding<br />
of it’s skin. When sex<br />
becomes stale, does it need<br />
a bolt of lightning ? A Wild<br />
Strike is like a revelation of<br />
truth; sometimes like<br />
delivering shock treatment<br />
to the planet we wake up<br />
and learn our lessons! To<br />
imagine that you’re an<br />
animal you can begin to<br />
experience your life from a<br />
different perspective. The natural world can<br />
allow us to experience transformative powers,<br />
which lie beyond Western rationalism and unite<br />
us with its spiritual essence. I examine fear<br />
through zoomorphic experiences in order to<br />
find liberation. Wild Fear, through digital<br />
technology, attempts to subvert the stereotypical<br />
image of genre film stills ‘Deep Blue Sea’<br />
of a woman pursued by sharks. I jump into<br />
the shark tank and assume the yogi pose in a<br />
gesture of reconciliation. This work is inspired<br />
by theories of fears and aggression. You project<br />
onto others what you fear. Liberation from fear<br />
is achieved through the bodily gesture.<br />
NEW DAYS
guest artist<br />
daniela<br />
zimmermanN<br />
I like to tell stories, but I don’t like to<br />
use words to do so and I also have a<br />
deep seeded suspicion about things,<br />
which appear to be nice. I detest perfect<br />
objects as a main form of artistic<br />
expression. In my observation life is not<br />
nice at all, not perfect and definitely not<br />
smooth and shiny. I oppose the new and<br />
proper. I perceive that broken and<br />
cracked surfaces mirror human struggles<br />
and are equipped with inner strength. I<br />
am interested in the relationship and<br />
contrasts between different clay bodies<br />
and glazes and our surroundings of the<br />
natural and the built environment. I use<br />
found materials, the debris of everyday<br />
life, in combination with hand built<br />
ceramic objects to translate the physical<br />
appearance of modern existence into a<br />
visual language of the human condition.<br />
Photograph © Terence Bogue<br />
untitled<br />
Clay & inserted metal pieces,<br />
glazed & fired to earthenware temperature, 2006<br />
Set of 3 - 11 x 30 x 25cm<br />
Daniela grew up in a German village where her grandfather worked in the village kaolin mine and in his spare time<br />
collected minerals and fossils from all over the world. As a child she was fascinated by the diverse usage of kaolin,<br />
in porcelain and glazes, for making good quality paper and also at that time in the production of toothpaste. Now<br />
that she is living in Australia, she seems to have come full circle, returning to kaolin and minerals again and building<br />
structures which remind her of diverse landscapes, buildings, people and cultures she has observed and lived with<br />
along the way. In 2006 Daniela completed her Diploma of <strong>Arts</strong> in Ceramics at Box Hill Institute and was recently<br />
accepted as a finalist in the 2007 Montalto Sculpture Prize.<br />
37<br />
NEW DAYS