Pittwater Life March 2019 Issue

Art Life
Art Life
Getting ‘Familia’
A group of six Brazilian visual artists based in
Sydney are gathering to share their experiences
and collaborate at the Be Brave Art
Space at Avalon. This exhibition, entitled
‘Familia’ is the collaboration resulting from
their individual journeys coming together in a
group – but hurry, it closes March 3.
The exhibition showcases creations by
Cassia Bundock, Fabio Manzini (aka Juxta.
fab), Flavia Julius, Lia Marxx, Marisa Pasicznik
Ross, and Murilo Manzini (aka Muzi).
‘Familia’ invites the spectator to visit their
homeland and to deconstruct stereotypes
and paradigms. As they’ve settled in their
new land, the artists gravitate towards their
roots, renegotiating personal and artistic
identity and connection as they live their
lives and practice their art in an intercultural
dialectic space.
New and previous lives, locations and
families come together; new cultural references
and fresh feelings have merged with
ingrained memories and emotions.
‘Familia’ blends the Brazilian bossa with
the spirit of the Australian bush. It fuses and
renegotiates rhythm and happiness, colours
and dots, the beach and the city.
* 5-7 Careel Head Rd, Avalon Beach.
James’ ‘Express’ delivery
For the 35th year the Art Gallery of
New South Wales is showcasing
outstanding works of art created
by NSW students for the Higher
School Certificate (HSC) Visual Arts
examination.
Recent St Lukes Grammar graduate
James McCoy is one of 56 individuals
whose artworks were selected for the
prestigious exhibition, which runs
until April 28. His selection was a huge
accomplishment, given there were
8770 student works submitted for the
2018 HSC.
These high-achieving works
represent 12 different expressive art
forms including sculpture, drawing,
painting, printmaking, textile and
fibre, graphic design and photomedia.
James’ evocative work is called ‘Eye
Spy With Mt Many I’s’. He explains:
“To see through the eyes of a child is
to experience a state-of-consciousness
untouched by the serious,
authoritative paradigms enforced by
adult-ruled society.
“My body of work, drawing
inspiration from philosopher Alan
Watts, artist Reg Mombassa and from
personal observations, attempts
to embody this innocence and
playfulness, which tends to diminish as
we grow up.
“Being entirely conceived through
the stimulus of spontaneously
drawn ‘scribbles’ (an allusion to
the etcher-sketcher ‘scribble game’
I played as a child), the different
sections demonstrate a progression
of this playful attitude towards life –
schoolbook ‘doodles’ to sketchbook
drawings, to large scale drawings
– bringing one back to a mindscape
where intellect or obligatory social
conformity doesn’t subjugate, to
instead where our imagination,
simplicity, sense of play and eagerness
to act from intuition and natural
inclination prospers.”
Art Gallery of NSW director Michael
Brand said the creation of a visual arts
body of work for the HSC required
an enormous amount of thought,
experimentation, creative thinking and
perseverance.
Shining through in this year’s
40 MARCH 2019
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