Archive : 2024

‘Cookie Dough’ is a body of work that explores the interconnectedness of personal healing and the well-being of our environment. With a dreamy colour palette reminiscent of sweet treats, the artworks represent a journey of self-discovery towards inner peace.

Blending abstraction and figuration, the paintings are created through intricate layering techniques built on gestural brushwork. Inspired by the boundless movement of nature, biomorphic shapes emerge organically, guided by emotion and memory.

Lena Stumpf is a painter and interdisciplinary artist living in Melbourne on the stolen lands of the Wurundjeri people. Her works are held in private and corporate collections across Europe, the Americas, and Australia. Stumpf is a finalist in this year's National Emerging Art Prize.

I visited Hong Kong in 2018 and completed a series of drawings in 2018-2019. These works depict places that no longer exist. Famously in 2022, the Floating Reastaurant on Aberdeen Harbour burnt down in a fire. The drawings capture the intricate urban environments that blend tradition with modernity. Hong Kong is a place of contrasts and these drawings capture the Taoist temples, wet and dry markets, hipster cafes, antique stores and high-end art galleries and boutiques

Picture yourself rummaging through the sale haberdashery section, or digging through fabric offcuts in your local op shop. Picture your kooky friend's childhood bedroom. Picture the weaving shapes and colours of the queer club bathroom exploding around you.

This group show investigates textiles and soft sculpture as objects evocative of, and imbued with play, sensuality and care. Embedded within these tactile, textural objects and their slow creation, is an innate intimacy and comfort owing to their closeness to the body and their kinship with well-worn childhood stuffed toys or blankets.

Textile arts—historically denigrated as ‘low art’, ‘women’s crafts’, or marginalised as mere labour—have been used in queer artforms to navigate and investigate social boundaries. Here, the uncanny valley of sexual and sensual (and ridiculous, over the top, flamboyant et cetera) queer aesthetics overlaid with youthful nostalgia challenges the hierarchy of the traditionally male, individualistic, ‘professional’ white box gallery. Textile arts come with metaphor innately woven into their fabric as literal connective methods and motions that bind and bring together. Meanwhile the works themselves, created in collaboration and conversation joyfully and foolishly interact, connect, and intermingle, in an ode to strongly interconnected communities.

You are invited into our intimate, sensory space, to touch and feel, play and be. Go on, have a giggle. We dare you! ;) 

This exhibition evolved and its overall concept changed with each painting I created. I despise the fact that I have to sum the process up within a paragraph. But if I have to…….

Auras is an exploration of the different ideas of femininity created by society. Most of the pieces are homages to stereotypes society inflicts on women. This series of surrealist watercolour portraits present stereotypical concepts of femininity such as, being feminine is having long hair, women should smile more, women should dress ‘femininely’. 

The one outlier in the series is Sarah, a moment captured mid conversation that I’m sure many of you will invent your own version of what it implies and what she was thinking at the time. Historically, women in art were rarely presented with anything other than a serene expression on their faces and I see no point in continuing with presenting the same idea of what women feel, think and are. 

Tash Jackson is a Melbourne/ Naarm based watercolour artist. Romanticising the world surrounding her is essential to how she experiences and views it. Using predominantly watercolour on paper, Jackson presents her inner romantic views of society, familial relationships and femininity. 

The process of breaking down and dissecting an image allows her to take her time immersing herself in the process of creating a symbolic image. Jackson creates intimacy by spending time with her works. Her compulsion to allow the work to develop at its own pace results in the daydreamed perspective that she conjures up in her mind. She uses imagery that is surrealist, symbolic and figurative in nature, bright and unrealistic in colour to present her romanticised perspective. 

Jackson is currently exploring different avenues of creating large scale paper works. She does this by using multiple panels in a jigsaw formation that seamlessly fit together. This method is complementary to her process of dissecting an image into elements, which is essential to her development of a piece. 

While exploring this avenue of creating large scale works, Jackson was fortunate to be nominated as a finalist for the Biennial Flow Watercolour Artist Prize 2023.

Empty Chaos explores the metamorphosis and the merging spaces of the in-between, through an expanded and experimental jewellery and object practice. We embrace chaos, abstraction and formlessness in metamorphic zones between bodies, objects and spaces. Through investigating the relationships between you and me, inside and outside, self and world, we speculate on new possibilities and perceptions of self. 

The role of jewellery, be it decorative or symbolic, is to add beauty and meaning to our daily lives. However not all that is beautiful is merely seen or even touched. Some things are best felt. 

‘A Sense of Jewellery’ is an exploration into the audible and sensory experience of jewellery. Moving beyond the physical, this exhibition explores a different understanding of the jewellery object, and how its beauty might be realised via its ‘music’. 

Like the sound of tiny chiming bells suspended from your ears or the jingling of metal chains strung around your neck. Like the clacking of your ring as your hand alights the table or the jangling of many bangles as you dance around the room. Small sounds capable of eliciting emotions and even memories, they hold the capacity for a new experience of jewellery.

Dancing on the foggy coast
an expanded and evolving painting project by Mairin Briody

“To find a new world, maybe you have to have lost one. Maybe you have to be lost. The dance of renewal, the dance that made the world, was always danced here at the edge of things, on the brink, on the foggy coast.”― Ursula K Le Guin, 1981

Dancing on the foggy coast is a process driven and experiential, expanded painting project. Improvising with pre-painted canvas strips, my practice aims to engage narratives of the body to explore themes of uncertainty and the unknown.

Inspired by the writing of German art critic and theorist, Isabelle Graw, my practice is consumed with answering questions of how paintings gain agency. How do paintings develop vitality, how do they expand into a life of their own? For me, the answer is to reduce the space between my body and material, and to engage in a process of improvisation so as not to impose a conscious agenda.

For a while now, I’ve been caught on a new question; what is a painting in a world falling apart? It feels as if everything is in tension and I can’t bear to pull a canvas taught across a stretcher bar.

I want to fold, fall. To gather myself up. Let myself go.

My body, like all bodies, is marinating in the tangle of this uncertain time. We are witnessing the vibrancy and vitality of our world be consumed. Stunned by the consequences of this furious and barbaric civilisation. Wrestling with the weight of it. Praying for renewal. Dancing on the foggy coast.

The works in this exhibition were produced on the unceded lands of the Wadawurrung, Dja Dja Wurrung and Narungga peoples. I also acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung peoples on whose land this exhibition is displayed and I pay my respects to the elders past and present. This always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

My thanks to the Ballarat Arts Foundation for the small equipment grant I received allowing me to purchase a camera used to produce these works.

Although different in sculptural conclusions and processes, the three artists engage with materials and concepts with a similar framework of values. By filtering natural phenomena and thoughts through their own experiences and histories, the artists begin experimental anditerative processes, coming to materially rich outcomes. The meeting of the self and material autonomy allows new physical forms to manifest, that merge and hold the trace of the artist's story within the marks made on the objects, while also listening to the material's histories and what they express. 

The connection between our hands and our process is wholehearted. Our hands bear the weight of materials, objects and experiences. Through our hands we hold and hew, so that we may form a material into something close to us.

Adrift in Darkness and Light features a series of hand-printed camera-less photograms, representative of Sarah Ritchie’s ongoing interest in and exploration of the rich, intersecting relationship between darkroom photography and printmaking processes.

Transparent polyester is used as a substrate to create each negative. The polyester is roughened with sandpaper, then smoked in the manner of a hard-ground etching plate with the resulting blackened surface of the soft polyester strategically removed, scratched, and worked with printmaking tools and firm-bristled brushes. These hand-drawn marks create a field of semi-transparent windows through which light can travel in the contact exposure process in the darkroom.

While the aesthetic of the individual photographic prints appears surreal and whimsical, each series is installed in distinct groupings within a grid format to deliberately imply an ordered and controlled view of what could be a topographical map, apertures onto a physical landscape or a chart of an imagined cosmos.

Sarah completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours) at RMIT University in 2002 with a major in printmaking.

Become Whatever is a collection of work that explores sense of self and sense of place, and the chal- lenges faced when you’re a product of contrasting cultures, societal ideologies and minority groups. This identity crisis is manifested through personal symbology, colour, and ghostly forms.

JC (he/they) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer based in Melbourne. His work explores the hybridity of his Asian (Filipino) and European (German/Australian) descent and their impact on his experience of identity, sexuality, sense of place and the duality of a perceived otherness.

He completed his BFA at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) and his studies in graphic design at RMIT University.

Focused on the intricacies of silver fragments, 'Silverfish' delves into the intimate and purposeful details, interconnections, and residual imprints that shape our experience. Through a homogenous collection of sculptural, ceramic, and photographic mediums, this showcase inherents a sense of fluidity that characterises the varying rhythms threading through our lives.

Alannah Borg is a Melbourne based sculptural artist. Her work predominantly focuses on small details with traces of memory and the feminine lens through natural and raw mediums such as wood, silver and paper.

Misako's recent works are primarily stripe-based tapestries. Historically, stripes have been used to draw attention, and she is particularly intrigued by this. Additionally, her previous works are predominantly composed of yellow, a color that not only captures attention but also conveys a sense of happiness. During her stay in Melbourne, Misako actively incorporated the techniques she learned at the Australian Tapestry Workshop, where she was an artist-in-residence, to explore new ways of creating colors for her work. She sought to discover new colors to incorporate into her art, experimenting with patterns inspired by everyday discoveries and exploring the interaction of colors.

The exhibition title, "INTERACTION," signifies not only the overlapping of lines and colors but also the relationships between people and objects. It is fluid and never stops, like a towel swaying in the wind.
Misako Nakahira is a textile artist based in Kyoto, Japan. She holds both a bachelor's and a master's degree from Kyoto University of Art. In 2023, she was selected as an overseas fellow by the Pola Art Foundation, which allowed her to spend a year in Melbourne for textile research and creative production. During the same year, she was also chosen as an artist-in-residence at the Australian Tapestry Workshop, where she continued her work. This exhibition showcases the works she created during her time in Melbourne.

Anthea Vayonitis, an emerging contemporary artist, moves through dance and meditation practices to create gesturally embodied and sensory paintings. 'Connective Chromatic Energies and Sensations’ is an immersive exploration of an intuitive process that seeks spiritual contexts and metaphysical energies found in nature. Meditation, music, dance, and nature cultivate channels and pathways for her spontaneous and intuitive art practice. Abstraction and biomorphic formations assist in developing a visual lexicon. Vayonitis' works are an extension of her embodied energy and physical movements. In working on large scale paintings, her limbs are at full extension which can be traced through the energy in her markings. Spatial depth is explored through colour to create sensation and movement. Rhythm and refraction are expressed through her free-flowing bodily movements, creating a play of synergistic directions of gestural brushstrokes.

Material Ecologies explores material ecologies, dualities and tensions through expanded painting, sculpture and installation. A joint exhibition between two female identifying artists, Johanna van der Linden and Brigid Meredith, Material Ecologies explores their ongoing interest in the intersections between materiality, feminism and studio practice. Brigid’s encaustic and metal works explore materiality and the expanse of painting practices. Approaching her process in an intuitive manner, the material explorations facilitate a broader inquiry into notions of the post-human feminist sublime. Johanna presents recent works made as part of an ongoing research project into Catholic materiality and feminism. Alongside new etching work, forged steel chains, spikes and hooks further consider the material entanglements of heaviness, force and embodiment. Using materials such as steel, wax, etching and paint,Material Ecologies consider the ways in which materials can implicate the body through texture, colour, scale and relationality.

Inter - print - ations presents a collective showcase of print honours graduates pushing print media beyond its borders. Our work examines the position of printmaking within a contemporary arts context, investigating how traditional art practices can be expanded to realise complex conceptual ideas. 

Sarsha Demirci, Rubyanna Edwards, Jana Papantoniou, Kat Rae, Drey Willows and Lala Zarei all emerged from their training in printmaking curious to disrupt and extend their foundational print grounding which was rooted in order and tradition. This unlikely group of printmakers have been influenced not just by traditional printmakers and print technique but by mediums such as painting, photography, ceramics, sculpture, installation and digital technologies.

'Planetary boundaries' are a framework to describe limits to the impact of human activities on the Earth. Beyond these limits, the environment may not be able to self-regulate or repair any longer and will become uninhabitable for humans and most non-human animals. Crossing a planetary boundary comes at great risk of abrupt environmental change. Much like the pivotal shift from the Holocene to the Anthropocene marks the undeniable influence of humanity on Earth’s natural systems, this series serves as a commentary on the evolving relationship between nature and human civilisation. Each project captures a snapshot of this transitional phase, where elements of nature and humanity coexist, often in conflict. There are many actions that can be taken to slow this transition, but most of us are just along for the ride."

Jemima’s work is about regaining control over the perception of the naked body and creating a safe space for people to not only feel comfortable in themselves but to also be celebrated.

Jemima’s work is inspired by women and non-binary folk’s experiences with how they have been treated based on their bodies. Their aim is to spark conversations about body acceptance and unnecessary sexualisation they have experienced. While providing people, but more specifically fat people, a chance to see their bodies represented in a fine art capacity. There is constant discrimination and sexualisation to deal with when you are fat hence Jemima is regaining control over the perception of the naked body.

One banana, two bananana, three banananana…

Fruit/berry/herb: an irregular plural holds up the banana as an absurd symbol of nuance through a series of text paintings that articulate an alternative grammatical numbering system for the plural form of banana.

Aaron Perkins is a Naarm-based artist with a conceptual text-based practice that playfully explores the role of language within knowledge formation through strategies of graphic, typographic and orthographic abstraction. He has a keen interest in fiction and holds a Doctorate of Philosophy from the Queensland College of Art for his research into the potential of fiction and autofiction within painting.

‘Last Winter’ is an exhibition of paintings from seasons past. Night scenes of moonlit oceans, garden blooms, and vistas become a visual ballad of organic symbolism. Rigby's artistic explorations are embedded in intuitive painting techniques. Layered brushstrokes emerge and reveal as well as conceal and obscure. What remains is the evidencing of gesture in dynamic evolution: a composition that can only happen from building upon what was set down before. Harmonious interplay of a skilfully handled palette of blue hues, ‘Last Winter’ invites viewers to delve into the poetic landscape and melancholic beauty of Rigby’s imagination.

Spilling Over is loud, colourful, and energetic, putting the handmade front and centre through bold brushstrokes. This exhibition features recent abstract expressionist paintings on canvas and ceramics, pushing the materiality of paint to the forefront using layering, fluidity and sculptural forms. Driven by the physicality of paint and colour, Odessa channels them into an active exploration of process. Working quickly, responding immediately, she navigates the interplay of painterly gestures and dynamic compositions to find resolution. Often, borders are created within the canvas, only to be disregarded and dismantled later by extending the paint and blurring lines.

What do we want? We want to bite and hold and care and hug and love and laugh and bark

Who are we? Just creatures. All just creatures

We want to know what makes us. What lives inside us. What internal mess creates a being?

Pack mentality is an exploration of complex interpersonal relationships through the dichotomy of canines and humans. Sophie Johnson presents an idealized version of human connections, contrasted against the simplicity of animal bonds- depicted by Tallulah Ainsworth. Simultaneously, we confront the dynamics of human interactions, emphasizing the struggle between aspiration and the complexities of daily life. How animals interact and form interpersonal connections is a mirror image of human beings but whittled down to a basic level, uncomplicated. Reflective of everything we want to be and everything we loathe to be. Primal instincts reside within us, awaiting the opportunity to break free from the confines of conscious thought, the dogs are unburdened by this. Their companionship is our catharsis.
 

"Nature Bridge" by Dan Withey delves into the intricate interactions between humans and intelligent avian species, challenging notions of human supremacy and emphasizing mutual communication across species boundaries. The exhibition serves as a poignant reflection on humanity's disconnect from nature, highlighting our tendency to construct laws and views based solely on human perspectives, often neglecting the profound impact on the world around us. Through introspective exploration, viewers are invited to reconsider their place within the natural world, acknowledging the damaging consequences of our actions on other beings and ecosystems. By abandoning notions of human supremacy, "Nature Bridge" fosters empathy and encourages viewers to become active participants in the interconnected web of relationships that define our existence.

Shingyo sketchbook 2000-2024: studies, bootlegs and remixes towards a complete s11 Heart Sutra

This exhibition is a survey of more than 20 years work on the Heart Sutra series, which was born of my direct experiences with police and state power at the s11 Protests at Crown Casino, Melbourne in September 2000.

From crowd photographs taken across the three days of protest, individual faces of people directly or indirectly involved were chosen at random to represent each of the characters (ideograms) of the Buddhist text known as Hannya Shingyo, the ‘Heart Sutra’.

In other words, instead of 274 characters, my version of the Heart Sutra has 274 faces.

Although I have previously created both photographic and calligraphic versions of the sutra, last year was the first time I had completed a hand-drawn/painted/written suite of all 274 portraits. The work, entitled 守り Protection, will be exhibited later this year. A commemorative book is also being published and will be available at that time.

This exhibition at Rubicon ARI is my third working with this ‘trans-substantiated’ text. It includes studies for 守り Protection, related works not included in previous shows, and earlier works from my archive showing the origins of my approach to image construction and meaning.

An immersive installation.

The poetic materialisation 

of 

instability,

precarity,

transience and dissonance.

Disparate materials

transformed

into an evolving language 

of 

eccentric 

and misbehaving forms. 

Renegotiating, 

the way we see.

An interplay 

between 

20th century Minimalism, 

quotidian life

and contemporary  

embodied practice.

Kate Stewart (b.1968) is an artist based in Melbourne/Naarm. Her multi-disciplinary practice follows a poetic methodology informed by 20th century modernism, phenomenology, and the vitality that can be generated from material play. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) from VCA and is currently enrolled in the MFA program at RMIT. Her work has featured in multiple group shows and is in private collections around Australia.

“Sad sad tears of a STAR”, which represents safe and inner healing to Piper’s childhood. The eclectic compositions that hold a child-like sensibility, are reminiscent of day dreams. Confusion, chaos and uncertainty masked with playful energy. The playful experimentation of naive style painting and drawing invites the audience to visit their inner child.

Piper is a Boorloo based mixed-medium installation artist who shares a great appreciation of wood work, sculpture, drawing and finger painting. Piper holds a Bachelor of Fine Art at the  University of Western Australia (2019), and a Masters in Art teaching (2023). Most of Piper’s work is heavily inspired by the absurdities of mundanity through painting. Her eclectic compositions have a child-like sensibility, reminiscent of a day dream. Her practise doesn't meander anywhere for too long, this evolutive quality demonstrates her commitment to challenging herself and the constraints of the mediums she works with. Piper’s work is underscored by phreneticenergy, Imbued with a nascent sense of humour, Piper's work doesn't take itself seriously. Perhaps that's the point.

The Leftovers is Avdeikov’s first project focused on abstraction, color and textures. The exhibition consists of a series of textile paintings made with hand embroidery and appliqué. The works are made out of recycled and leftover materials from his other projects. Jesse uses old clothes, textiles and sometimes other found objects such as pieces of old broken radio.

In his recent works he has been closely studying the relation of textile art and painting. Applying his knowledge and abilities as a painter to do embroidery and appliqué. That is why he refers to his textile works as “thread paintings”.

Jesse Avdeikov (b. 1986) earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki in June 2020. The exhibition is supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike).

partytrap

heads high

bottoms up

down the hatches and in we go

OUT

flocks you sort of, not really, ish know

oh 

we spent longer getting ready

and tomorrow’s even longer 

today

partytrap

Harry Bayston (b.1994, UK) is a Naarm based artist who holds a Master of Fine Art with Distinction from RMIT (2022) and a Bachelor of Fine Art with Honours from UNSW AD (2017).

He has exhibited consistently since 2017 in Victoria and New South Wales with multiple solo and group exhibitions at both commercial and artist run galleries. His work is held in private and corporate collections across Australia and Europe, and has been commissioned for several murals, installations and publications.