July 2010

Kendal Murray
Imagining The Self

Imagining the Self comprises a body of sculptural artwork that explores the enactment of fantasies of selfhood as they are expressed by, on and through the body, and represented in the performance of various personal identities and personalities.

Kendal Murray, Summertime Pastime, 2010,
mixed media assemblage, 8 x 7.5 x 8.5 cm
Image courtesy the artist and Arthouse Gallery, Sydney

artsCape Biennial

Byron Bay
June 26 to July 11
New South Wales

Environmental sculptures by over 60 invited and selected artists.

Wake Up Time Group, Gala Jandahl: Look at this dilly bag
(Bundjalung dialect), pandanus leaves collected sustainably from local coastal trees with UV and weather protective coating, 200 x 100 x 100 cm

Sam Jinks

Karen Woodbury Gallery
June 30 to July 24
Melbourne

Sam Jinks’ new work expands beyond the figurative and plays with scale and dimension. His hyper-real sculptures create a dialogue on both a technical and emotional level through a strong sensitivity to detail. Created from silicone, fiberglass and human hair these works are irresistible in their striking resemblances to real life.

Sam Jinks, Snails, 2010,
mixed media, dimensions variable

Weapons of Mass Consumption

Town Hall Gallery
June 30 to July 31
Melbourne

Weapons of Mass Consumption shows work by Adam Cruickshank, Karla Marchesi, Jessica Wong, Matthew Sleeth, Ryan Foote, Daniel Kaplon, Huang Xu, Peter Zylstra, Emma-Lee Crane And Ash Keating.
Emma-Lee Crane’s work, Bulk, explores the excessive number of mass-produced products that are in the market place. Bulk is made up of thousands of useless singular objects that together create a display of shimmering red. Creating ‘mass produced’ goods by hand and by ones self contradicts the idea of industrial mass production.

Emma-Lee Crane, Bulk, 2008/09, resin and pins
Image courtesy Charleston Cachuela

Abby Storey
Touchstones

Platform Gallery
July 9 to 31
Melbourne

Touchstones reflects on humanity through images of the things that we value; objects of some form of reverence, altered through the often inelegant necessities of everyday life, the intervention of nature or the human hand. The pictured circumstances question traditional associations, some lightheartedly, others less so.

Abby Storey, Plastic Wrapped Bear, 2010,
photographic inkjet print

Virginia Kaiser
Outback Stories

Ararat Regional Art Gallery
July 1 to August 8
Victoria

Outback Stories is Virginia Kaiser’s personal response to the landscape around Broken Hill where she has lived for the past four years. The exhibition features recent sculpture that exploits organic fibre materials and weaving techniques. Virginia Kaiser, Shapes in the Landscape, 2010, bullrushes and natural rattan core, muehlenbeckia and dyed rattan core, various dimensions

Virginia Kaiser, Shapes in the Landscape, 2010, bullrushes and natural rattan core, muehlenbeckia and dyed rattan core, various dimensions
Photo: Boris Hlavica

Lyndell Brown and Charles Green
Framing Conflict

Australian War Memorial
21 May to August 18
Canberra

In 2007 the Australian War Memorial commissioned artists Lyndell Brown and Charles Green to travel through the Middle East, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf for six weeks as official war artists. Attached to the Australian Defence Force, they visited various Australian bases which were generally part of larger US operations and compounds.
The works that came from that visit continue a tradition of official war art that began in the First World War. The exhibition reveals new and strange configurations of landscape, culture, and technology.

Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, History painting: market,
Tarin Kowt, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan, 2008,
oil on linen

Haya Cohen, Virginia Miller, Sonya G. Peters
Beyond the Given

Tweed River Gallery
June 25 to August 8
New South Wales

The impact of living the contradictions of vertical urban environments and the opposing horizontal orientation of outback Australia is inherent in my response to different spaces and evident in my art. My work investigates a condition I call “Horizon Deficit Syndrome”, an affect on the psyche generated by the restricted horizontal visual field in dense city spaces. My major themes include analysis of two and three-dimensional spaces and the conflict between natural and built environments. - Virginia Miller

Virginia Miller, Monumental folly#1, 2010,
polystyrene, archival inks, transparent medium,
43 x 35 x 14 cm

Phil Roubin
Last Moments

Queensland Centre for Photography
July 17 to August 15
Queensland

Last Momentsportrays an abandoned Art Deco residence, reflecting traces of both its former glory and past inhabitants enhanced by the dream-like, filmic-styled photography.
Creating a sense of mystery through references to the ‘haunted house’, film noir and the family Polaroid collection, the images offer nostalgia and familiarity. The fragmented narrative engages and invites the viewer to journey further and construct a storyline, or simply recognise the incomplete picture as a mirror of how little we know about those around us.

Phil Roubin, Untitled, from the series, Last Moments, 2008, chromogenic print, edition of 6 + 1AP, 102 x 71 cm

Ewen Ross
Warrina Portraits

Anita Traverso Gallery
July 14 to August 8
Melbourne

This body of work presents as a suite of portraits. Metaphorically the palm of my left hand symbolises the natural patterns and rhythms of line found in the landscape along the Glenelg River in the Southern Wimmera, with particular reference to the property where I lived, Warrina.
The concept of looking down and across this country continues to drive the format of my work as does the idea of using fire to peel back the surface of the plywood which often reveals new and mysterious information to work with. Fire is part of the natural ecosystem and a valuable means of cleansing and regenerating new life and truth into this landscape. - Ewen Ross, 2010

Ewen Ross, Palmar Sonata, 2010, engraving and mixed media on plywood, 121.5 x 155.6 cm

Adam Nudelman
A Generous Allotment

Hill Smith Gallery
June 25 to July 19
South Australia

“… Nudelman’s work goes far beyond the mere representational. It is more than just making it look real. His works are a collage, a composite, a constructed reality… Nudelman’s recent landscapes are punctuated with long cavernous ship hulls, the graphic ghosts of modernist architecture and solitary survey markers: structures familiar but often in a different guise and context."
- Vincent Alessi, Artistic Director, LUMA La Trobe University Museum of Art, Melbourne

Adam Nudelman, A Generous Allotment,
oil on canvas, 122 x 152 cm

Linda Lou Murphy, Ali Baker and Yoko Kajio
Flight of a bird, life in performance

SASA Gallery
June 30 to July 30
South Australia

Curated by Ali Baker, Keith Giles and Yoko Kajio, this exhibition explores risk through ephemeral performance, video and sculptural installation.
“Flight of a bird, life in performance proposes more subtle and continuing relations between risk, the performed body and its products/artefacts. This is possible ‘using the very shapes and movements’ that the artist has entrusted to us… Because this work continues to endure, it is entirely possible that this and future events celebrating Linda Lou Murphy’s breathtaking oeuvre will again ‘take wing’.”
- Pamela Zeplin, Senior Lecturer,
University of South Australia

Linda Lou Murphy (9.1. 58 – 30. 8. 09) was a friend and colleague at the School of Art, Architecture & Design, University of South Australia.

Linda Lou Murphy, un/gather, 2008, EAF performance

Pierre Bismuth
The Most Read Book in the Least Spoken Language

Fremantle Arts Centre
May 26 to July 28
Western Australia

Expressing a curiosity about miscommunication in all its guises, Pierre Bismuth’s exhibition is underpinned by a deep engagement with language and his sense of humour. In The Most Read Book in the Least Spoken Language, Bismuth collects and arranges Bibles from across the world reflecting his interest in the relationships between oral, written and digital communication.

Pierre Bismuth, The Most Read Book in the Least Spoken Language (detail), 2010
Courtesy and © the artist. Photo: Thomas Rowe

All About Art

Alcaston Gallery
July 13 to August 14
Melbourne

All About Art is the Alcaston Gallery annual collectors’ exhibition which this year features works by Christine Yukenbarri, as well as sculpture and paintings by Pedro Wonaeamirri and Gulumbu Yunupingu. Wonaeamirri and Gulumbu work in their traditional medium of natural ochre on wood and bark. All About Art will also début emerging Lockhart River artist, Cheryl Accoom.

Christine Yukenbarri, Winpurpurla, 2009, synthetic polymer paint on linen, 130 x 300 cm
Image courtesy the Artist, Warlayirti Artists, WA and Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne

Batik of Java: Poetics and Politics

Caloundra Regional Gallery
July 7 to August 15
Queensland

In 2009, UNESCO recognised Javanese batik as an item of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. To celebrate this, the Gallery presents an exhibition, curated by Dr Maria Friend, which explores the links between the batik collection of Greg Roberts and Ian Reed, and the collection now held as memory and represented in the recent paintings by contemporary Indonesian artist, Dadang Christano.
Dadang Christano’s paintings express controversial and politically critical subject matter. His images reflect the memories of his mother’s collection of batiks which were lost in tragic circumstances.

Dadang Christanto, Batik Has Been Burnt #6, 2008, acrylic on Belgian linen, 137 x 167 cm
Private Collection

Margaret Roberts
TWIN

Factory 49
July 29 to August 7
Sydney

The TWIN project includes coloured perspex panels derived from the upright architectural structure used as an outside exhibition space.
TWIN is an exploration of relationships between art and architecture. It is also part of the broader site-specific project concerned with relationships between artworks and their physical location, and with the construction of alternatives to the modern art-convention of spatial autonomy. It is hoped that in recognising and re-valuing their own physical locations, works such as TWIN can contribute to the broad social movement needed to better care for the physical environment.

Margaret Roberts, TWIN, (outside wall work #14), 2010, perspex panels, dimensions variable
Photo: Pam Aitken, 2010

Elisabeth Cummings
Paper Trail: 30 Years

King Street Gallery on William
June 29 to July 24
Sydney

Elisabeth Cummings, Near Arkaroola, 2005,
etching, edition of 35, 40 x 51 cm

Sculpture 22

Robin Gibson Gallery
26 June to 21 July
Sydney

Over 20 years ago, when it was more difficult to stimulate collectors’ interest in sculpture, Robin Gibson decided to say farewell to the sculptors he was representing with a group sculpture exhibition. Ironically the exhibition was such a success that it became an annual exhibition, this year being it’s 22nd anniversary.
Many well-known sculptors as well as younger and emerging artists are represented in Sculpture 22, including Clement Meadmore, Erwin Fabian, Terry Stringer, Geoff Harvey and Sergio Hernandez.

Clement Meadmore, Scronch, 1994,
bronze, 23 x 28 x 28 cm

Nick Leahy
Petroliana

Adagio
July 3 to 25
Sydney

“Petroliana” and “Garagenalia” are terms used for vintage and retro car related products. The quirky images of these products provide a snapshot of the oil-dominated past where emphasis was on prosperity at the expense of the environment.
The rusting surfaces of some of the artworks from this series by Brisbane-based artist Nick Leahy, symbolise not only the decay of an oil reliant culture, but also the demise of iconic Australian brand names.
Ampol, Kangaroo, Golden Fleece, C.O.R. and other companies took great pride in their “Australianism” through patriotic symbols like the kangaroo and the Australian map.

Nick Leahy, Ampol Motor Oil - It’s Safe!, acrylic on linen, 76 x 61 cm