Petite Public Art

There is sometimes nothing more rewarding and magical than discovering a hidden treasure. It could be the last slice of cake you already thought you ate, a secondhand book that changes your life, a new cozy café or even discovering a new friend where you never expected. PETITE PUBLIC ART aims to showcase these hidden treasures of the everyday. Small, intimate artworks hidden within the fabric of our often mundane city centre hope to bring a joyful smile into your day.

Part of You Are Here’s jam-packed program for 2012, Petite Public Art is curated by YAH co-producer Yolande Norris, who has been particularly inspired by the more discreet forms of public art. Small interventions such as flowers planted in the cracks of the pavements, or a Lego man diorama in a public toilet. Subtle yet surprising additions to the existing landscape, bringing a smile to anyone lucky enough to notice.

One intended outcome of this event is to demonstrate that public art doesn’t need to be large scale sculptural work in order to make an impression. The small and the discreet can have just as powerful an impact on the viewer. Particularly work which engages the pedestrian to think twice about what they are seeing. As at first some of these works appear to have been created by chance, but on closer inspection reveal themselves to have been carefully placed in the landscape of the city.

Petite Public Art fits nicely within the larger ethos of You Are Here; to encourage the audience, the passerby to open their eyes and look twice at what’s around them. To discover what you may have previously been unaware of, and to take the time to reflect and appreciate everything amazing Canberra has to offer.

Bringing together a wide range of artists, including Jacqui Bradley, Dan Stewart-Moore, Jess Kelly, Al Munro, Fiona Veikkanen, Adam Veikkanen, Natalie Mather, Tiffany Cole, Helani Laisk, Simon Scheuerle, Owen Lewis, Jon Webster and Dan Edwards (plus even more), Petite Public Art promises to be a surprising and diverse exploration through the Canberra CBD. Be on the lookout for tiny sculptures in flowerbeds, on signposts, under park benches and every other nook and cranny of the city you can think of.

Running for the duration of You Are Here, Petite Public Art will be officially opened at The Canberra Museum and Gallery on Friday March 9. CMAG will also be the launch pad for a walking tour of the city, courtesy of Petite Public Art. Pick up your map and get exploring. You will be rewarded with all kinds of unexpected treasures.

Official opening at 5.30pm on Friday March 9, Canberra Museum and Gallery. Petite Public Art will run from Thursday-Sunday March 8-18 around the CBD. Check out youareherecanberra.com.au for more details.

Everything Nothing Projects

Originally published in BMA Magazine, November 2011

You probably haven’t heard about EVERYTHING NOTHING PROJECTS; there’s no flashy advertising campaign or huge media release. Maybe you saw something about it through some form of social media like I did, or you heard a whisper from a friend. And that is just the way David Sequeira, the director of Everything Nothing Projects, wants it. ENP is a place to happen upon, to discover and to delight in. Sequeira’s enthusiasm for this project is palatable and his excitement is contagious. He is hugely passionate about his new gallery space, which will specifically showcase geometric colour art.

Owning and operating a gallery has been a dream for Sequeira for as long as he can remember. Working in a variety of roles within the arts in the last 20 years, he has been constantly immersed in the world of art – as an arts educator for major institutions, a curator, an arts commentator, an artist, as well as recently completing a PhD. And if that weren’t enough, he continues to do it all while running Everything Nothing Projects.

Everything Nothing fills a gap in the Canberra gallery scene, a gap that wasn’t even previously apparent. Sequeira argues that this is in fact a gaping hole all over Australia; a genre specific art gallery. Everything Nothing Projects restricts itself to only art which can be classified as geometric colour. While this may seem highly limiting, Sequeira only sees the possibilities and the joy in challenging the viewer to re-evaluate what they consider to be abstract or geometric art.

For Sequeira, geometric art can be anything from minimalism, conceptual art, hard edge abstraction, colour field painting and op art (optical art). These are genres of art which are often considered as belonging to a very specific time and place, in particular the 1960s. The very first Everything Nothing Projects exhibition showcases the work of expat Australian painter, John Vickery (1906-1983). As Sequeira describes it, “Vickery has mastered the creation of powerful optical sensations.” Vickery’s work is quintessential op art; trippy paintings that distort the perception of the viewer and leave you questioning what you truly see.

Sequeira also remarks that this is a “dream show” with which to open his gallery. Vickery’s work encapsulates the style and time period with which op art and abstract expressionism are most associated. These works were completed in New York during the period 1967-1970. This is the time of Woodstock, the Chelsea Hotel and during this period Vickery came into contact with some of the major artists of the era, such as Jackson Pollock and William de Koonig. While these paintings are completely of their time and place, they have an amazing ability to transcend that time and look remarkably contemporary. In particular, Spectrum #45 The Dotted Line could easily be mistaken as digital print of some kind of pixellated distortion.

Everything Nothing Projects is a shoebox of a gallery. Located on the second floor of the old Canberra Centre building, now most known as the location of Academy, Sequeira is inspired by the ‘60s architecture of this Enrico Tagletti-designed building. One of Canberra’s most iconic spaces, the upstairs of the building has for many years been left vacant and underused. The geometry and precision of this space inform the gallery and despite its modest size and surrounds, this little space has great ambition.

The advantage of such a small space is the scope it allows the curator to experiment, whilst still being able to retain creative control. Sequeira views the size of the gallery as an opportunity to produce “tight, focused shows”. The next exhibition to open at Everything Nothing Projects is one such example; it will be a monochrome painting show. It could be argued that monochrome is as controversial a subject in art as pissing Christs and raw meat. Who hasn’t thought ‘that’s not art, it’s a black square. I could do that. A six year old could do that’? As Sequeira states, “A black square, it can be everything and it can be nothing.” Everything Nothing Projects captures that place, that no man’s land where nothing suddenly becomes everything. Sequeira truly lives for that moment.

Included in this upcoming exhibition will be a variety of emerging, mid-career and established local and international artists, all entranced by the monochrome. Artists include David Thomas, John Nixon, Derek O’Connor, Robert Jacks, Louise Blyton, Jane Keech and Craig Easton, as well as David Sequeira.

Despite Everything Nothing Projects being open for barely two weeks now, Sequeira is already thinking about the wider scope of the project. Not letting himself be confined to the dimensions of the gallery space, Sequeira is already developing satellite Everything Nothing Projects around Canberra, in Perth and even as far as Berlin. For Sequeira, Everything Nothing Projects is a “small space with big visions”. This is an extremely personal project for Sequeira, this gallery is built around a desire to engage people with the kind of art which really excites him. Geometric colour art is not everyone’s cup of tea, but my bet is David Sequeira can change your mind.

Everything Nothing Projects is located at Level 1, Centre Cinema Building, 50 Bunda Street, Civic. Open Saturday and Sunday 12-5pm and by appointment. The monochrome painting exhibition starts early December, check everythingnothingprojects.com for more details.

Pagan Pop

Article on Pagan Pop, an exhibition curated by super cool lady Yolande Norris (aka Useless Lines) and as a very dear friend of mine would say, this exhibition blows my hair right back! Published in BMA Magazine. 

It is hard to pinpoint where exactly this collective obsession with all things jeweled, glittered, hyper-coloured and kitsch came from. Nor a love of magical crystals, skulls, fur and all that verges on the macabre. Possibly we all watched too much My Little Pony as children, read too many of Grimm’s fairy tales and ate too much sugar. Luckily for us, these elements will come together in one mega exhibition at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Pagan Pop. An exhibition which curator Yolande Norris hopes will strike the viewer, “like a hammer to the face”.

Norris has brought together the work of nine local and interstate artists for Pagan Pop. Some are young emerging artists and some are nationally recognized including; Celeste Aldahn, Tamara Dean, Julia deVille, Jessica Herrington, Robbie Karmel, Owen Lewis, Kate Rohde, Helen Shelley and Marian Tubbs. These are all artists whose work makes you long for the past. Your forgotten dreams and childhood fantasies will be remembered and your unknown desires ignited. Pagan Pop is all about getting in touch with your more primitive urges, that primal part of yourself that wants nothing more than to get back to nature by dancing naked under the stars.

Julia deVille takes on the gothic in her sculptural work, which includes a velvet covered horse skull, a sword and a human skull. Yet within this disturbing and macabre subject matter, deVille injects a light hearted humour, such as giving the horse gold teeth or covering the skull in glitter. These pieces recall memento mori’s of the past, dark and twisted yet profoundly compelling.

The photography of Tamara Dean is decadent and lush, hyper-real theatrical scenes that are highly stylised and evoke dreamlike scenarios reminiscent of mythological stories and ancient cultures. Just like a dream, these are scenes which at first seem so familiar, but on closer inspection reveal themselves to be frighteningly strange and foreign.

In contrast to the dark and sinister work of deVille and Dean, Kate Rohde’s work explodes with colour and kitsch. Her hyper-coloured and bejeweled faux taxidermy animals can’t help but bring a smile to your face and are complemented beautifully by Celeste Aldahn’s pink, fluffy dream catchers.

In Pagan Pop, curator Yolande Norris has captured a trend that is prevalent throughout popular culture currently. A trend she describes as a, “collective desire for a time beyond memory…a desire for all things natural, mystical and primitive”. Pagan Pop explores the ways in which artists interpret these desires through their work, knowingly or unknowingly, and questions what this mass nostalgia for a past we never experienced says about our contemporary society. This is one exhibition not to be missed and personally I can’t wait to be struck in the face.

Pagan Pop, curated by Yolande Norris opens at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space from 6pm Friday October 14 and continues until November 19 2011.

My first ever TiNA festival

My review of TiNA, published in BMA Magazine

This year was the very first time I had ever attended TiNA and I’m already lamenting all the years I missed out on. For the uninitiated, This is Not Art is an annual independent arts festival held in Newcastle that showcases the work of emerging and experimental artists from a variety of disciplines all over Australia. TiNA first began in 1998 and has continued to grow and expand ever since and now includes four sub festivals under the TiNA banner; Electrofringe, presenting experimental electronic art; Crack Theatre Festival, everything to do with experimental, fringe, cross art form theatre and performance; Critical Animals, a creative research symposium and the National Young Writers Festival. Entirely free, TiNA is the definition of surviving on the smell of an oily rag.

With four festivals running simultaneously the program of events is slightly overwhelming with around 250 events happening over 5 days. I’m not sure how someone is meant to be able to attend even half that, but try they did! Arriving on the Friday night meant I was already two days behind and so admitting defeat before I had even begun I ended up at TiNA rival, Sound Summit festival to get a much needed beer. Sound Summit used to be a TiNA sub festival but is now its own separate entity, yet still occurs on the same weekend. Arriving late also meant I missed the chance to see three of my friends participate in Writer Wants a Wife, a Perfect Match style event where festival attendees got the chance to find their one true (festival) love.

If I thought heading to Newcastle meant escaping Canberra for the weekend, I quickly realized I was very, very wrong. The TiNA (and Sound Summit) programs were filled with representatives of the national capital and our always underrated contemporary art scene. Canberra arts multitasker extraordinaire and co-producer of You Are Here Festival, Yolande Norris was one of three co-producers for the Critical Animals festival. Canberra graphic designers newbestfriend did the festival program and advertising, The Last Prom celebrated the end of days on Sunday night while Last Man to Die discussed Transcendence, Zoya Patel represented for Canberra writers, while Glen Martin, Christina Hopgood and Holly Orkin were also making sure no one forgot that Canberra was taking over.

My Saturday began with Australian Matter and Memoir, particularly interesting was Jes Tyrrell’s talk on her visual arts PhD project exploring the interpretation and representation of memory through interviews and a future multimedia installation work. This was followed by a discussion of culture jamming including a diverse panel of street artists and one Chaser member, discussing the relevance of culture jamming in the so called ‘digital age’.

Seeing Space, Land and Language meant missing out on a discussion of the hackerspace movement, by Canberra’s very own Make Hack Void. However, I was lucky enough to catch a beautifully engaging and lyrical talk by ex-Canberran Emily Stewart on ecopoetics (though I am still unsure what that actually means…) and her own process of writing. Continuing on in the bare surrounds of Newcastle’s former lock up, the very charismatic John Olstad discussed his work studying the linguistics of small atoll communities in Papua New Guinea. He left free no opportunity in which to demonstrate his own prowess of language by speaking a few and emphasizing that he did in fact live on a tropical atoll, no big deal.

A highlight for the whole weekend would have to be the Big Top Ball held at the Festival Club on Saturday night, any excuse to dress in costume is fine with me especially when it could possibly involve seeing men in acrobat outfits and many a beard. Too many festivities that night thought meant Sunday was quite the challenge even without the torrential rain. Not camping was the best decision I ever made.

Struggling through the rain and the pain was worth it to see The Landscape of Crisis, three papers presented by Sophie Lamond, Clancy Wilmott and Rebecca Giggs all of which concerned the discussion and representation of environmental crisis in art. This event would be one of my highlights for the weekend, not only because of the compelling ideas and work presented but also because this was my first encounter with the infamous “serial pest” of Australia, Peter Hore. Well known for interrupting the funeral of Michael Hutchence, he is responsible for numerous shenanigans and always attends as many TiNA events as he can, giving his responses freely and loudly. His issue on this day was with the fact that the moon landing never happened, classic conspiracy theory.

Overall, I have some regrets about not seeing very much performance and sound work. In fact, there was a massive gap in my program regarding Crack and Electrofringe events. For me, TiNA ended up being more of a conference and less of a festival, which was both good and bad. My inevitable and obvious conclusion is that like any festival, TiNA could have been a million things and ultimately it was a choose your own adventure situation. Without the opportunity to go back and take the storyline you missed out on. Well, until next year anyway.

Yhonnie Scarce

From the catalogue essay for an exhibition by John Johnson, Jenni Kemarre Martinello and Yhonnie Scarce at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space Gorman House, 26 August – 1 October 2011. 

In the relatively short amount of time since she graduated from the South Australian School of Art in 2004, Yhonnie Scarce has made an impressive mark on the Australian art scene. She was the 2008 South Australian recipient of the Qantas Foundation Encouragement for Australian Contemporary Art Award, as well as being a finalist in the 2006 Telstra Aboriginal and Islander Contemporary Art Award. Scarce was born in Woomera, South Australia, and belongs to the Kokatha and Nukunu peoples.

For the first time, Canberra audiences will be treated to three of Scarce’s most iconic works in Ectopia. Each of these pieces explores the historic persecution of the Aboriginal culture as a result of colonization. Her work is highly political, but these views are often expressed through the personal, as she uses her own family history and lived experience to expose larger cultural and social issues within Australia.

Shackled (2006) references a story told to Scarce by her mother, who as a teenager witnessed a group of three Aboriginal men chained together and left with no food or water. Indigenous history, people and culture are often represented in Scarce’s work as bush foods cast in glass; long yams, yams and bush bananas, shackled together by the chains of white settlement.

In Oppression, Repression (2004) discarded glass jars contain photographs of Scarce’s family members. They are trapped within the jars, displaced from their traditional culture, represented by the glass yams which sit atop the jars.

Glass can be both an incredibly strong yet intensely fragile material and Scarce is drawn to these strong dichotomies. As a metaphor for Aboriginal culture and experience of the effects of colonisation it has a remarkable impact. As the artist states, “if glass breaks, it’s always going to leave something behind”. Aboriginal culture has been brought to its breaking point by colonization and subsequent persecution, yet it remains intact and hopeful for the future. Exploring our history through art not only reminds people of the tragedies of the past, but can reclaim that history for Indigenous Australians.

Jenni Kemarre Martinello

From the catalogue essay for an exhibition by John Johnson, Jenni Kemarre Martinello and Yhonnie Scarce at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space Gorman House, 26 August – 1 October 2011. 

Jenni Kemarre Martiniello is undeniably an artistic force to be reckoned with. She is a writer, poet, academic and a visual artist who works with textiles, printmaking and photography as well as glass. Her background is as diverse as her artistic practice; she is of Arrernte, Chinese and Anglo-Celtic descent and her Aboriginal heritage strongly informs all her work.

Entrapment is comprised of all new works, created during a residency at the Canberra Glassworks in 2011. These works explore the ties between country, tradition, family and history through the delicate yet powerful medium of glass.

By reworking traditionally woven eel and fish traps in glass, Martiniello encourages the viewer to refocus on the subject of these works. Striking objects in their own right, woven traps are often sidelined as simply women’s craft, yet they are highly intricate and sophisticated works of art in addition to their practical application. These traps in glass are purely for display and reflection, which highlights not only the beauty of the object, but also questions the removal of Aboriginal people from their traditional lands and the increasing rarity of previously essential traditions such as weaving.

Martiniello explores the loss of land and country not only through displacement but also as the result of industry in her work Pilbara. This piece is influenced by her photography of country and is a celebration of the richness and colour of the land – land that is being increasingly decimated by the mining industry.

In White Mist Rising, photographs of Martinello’s family are trapped behind glass panels that have been partially sandblasted to create a white mist, a blurring out of individuality, identity and culture by colonisation. As much as white Australia tries to cover up the tragic and despicable treatment of Aboriginal people it remains to be seen through the mist and demands to be confronted.

Storytelling is a fundamental aspect of all Martiniello’s work and her heritage. It unites the works in Entrapment, they tell a story that is as subtle as it is powerful.

John Johnson

From the catalogue essay for an exhibition by John Johnson, Jenni Kemarre Martinello and Yhonnie Scarce at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space Gorman House, 26 August – 1 October 2011. 

Resurrection represents both the ending and the beginning of an intensely personal journey for John Johnson. Creating these works has been a rebirth for the artist; after years of personal struggle he is confronting his past experiences through his artwork and looking forward to the future.

John Johnson is descended from the Warramunga and Wambya peoples of the Northern Territory but has been living and working in Canberra for the last 25 years. Primarily a painter, he has also worked as an installation artist, performer and art teacher.

His work is strongly political, addressing social issues such as the treatment of Indigenous Australians since colonial settlement, displacement of peoples, the Stolen Generation, deaths in custody and the environment. Resurrection is a collection of works that explore these highly charged topics. The title reflects not only a personal resurrection, but suggests the continued resurrection of these social issues which directly affect Indigenous people yet continue to be disregarded by white Australia.

Still hunting us is highly emotional mixed media work created in response to an appalling incident which happened in 2009 in Alice Springs, when a young Aboriginal man was beaten to death by a group of five white men who had been systematically terrorizing Aboriginal people in the area. Johnson draws our attention to the explicit and largely unchecked racism which still occurs so prevalently in Australia. He poses the question: how can our country evolve when racism has become so entrenched in the dominant ideology?

Johnson’s work typically incorporates traditional elements of Aboriginal painting such as the colour palette, handprints and elements of the landscape, and distinguishes the work as his own through the addition of imagery such as airplanes and barbed wire. Through the use of a bold palette and arresting imagery John Johnson captures the attention of the viewer directly and draws them into a story of ongoing struggle and heartbreak, with the promise of redemption.

proppaNOW

“Art can absolutely change the world. Will change the world. Fuck beauty, I want to change the world motherfucker!” Richard Bell

There is nothing shy about proppaNOW, that’s the first thing you need to know. They are a confronting, engaging, political machine, an Aboriginal artist’s collective from Brisbane out to change the world. proppaNOW promotes the work of urban Aboriginal artists while also questioning what is Aboriginal art. An upcoming exhibition of new and recent work by the collective at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space will introduce the Canberra audience to the provocative, compelling and mischievous work of proppaNOW.

Established officially in 2004, proppaNOW includes some of Australia’s most successful contemporary Aboriginal artists. The seven artists in the collective currently are; Richard Bell, Vernon Ah Kee (who represented Australia at the 2009 Venice Biennale), Tony Albert, Jennifer Herd, Bianca Beetson, Laurie Nilsen and Gordon Hookey. Each of these artists is successful in their own right, but together the collective forms a supportive, close-knit and intergenerational working relationship between the artists. They produce work that is distinct and individual yet the work of all seven artists is fundamentally concerned with issues of racism, inequality and identity and strives to overturn established stereotypes, preconceptions and misconceptions both of Aboriginal art and Australian history.

The interests of urban Aboriginal artists are often overlooked by government funding and are underrepresented in galleries in favour of more traditional work by regional artists. The proppaNOW collective was established to give a voice and political agency to a sidelined group. The “proppa” in proppaNOW, refers to the Aboriginal phrase “proper way” meaning the proper way of doing things which both respects the community and codes of behavior and references an Aboriginal way of doing things. The work of proppaNOW is also about now, it concerns current conceptions of culture and race, current political issues as well as issues such as displacement and authenticity. The artists are still very much influenced by their heritage and their community, but approach their work from a contemporary art perspective and using a variety of media.

For the CCAS exhibition, all the artists will be experimenting with forms of new media and for some this will be an exploration outside of their comfort zone. Works will be presented as primarily photography or video works, familiar territory for artists such as Richard Bell. For Bell there is “no better way to convey messages and ideas than moving images”, particularly evident in his 2008 video work Scratch an Aussie. In this work Bell is a self styled black Sigmund Freud, psychoanalyzing attractive, half naked young men and women, questioning the often prevalent racism of white Australia with a good dash of biting satire.

Bianca Beetson’s work also employs humour and satire to convey issues in her almost always pink, frequently sequined work that is primarily concerned with individual Aboriginal identity. Somewhere between painting and sculpture Beetson combines kitsch and pop culture references with elements of traditional work such as dot painting and burial poles. Her work critiques both what it means to create authentic Aboriginal art as well the roles of beauty and the feminine in art. One of Beetson’s most provocative works is her gingerbread man series. These works deal with skin and her own issues with identity, being a fair skinned Aboriginal woman and being constantly questioned about how Aboriginal she is and the authenticity of her work as a result.

One motif the proppaNOW group shares is the image of the target, seen in works such as Tony Albert’s No Place 2 (2009). On two levels it represents both how the collective is often seen as an easy target for criticism both from the outside and within the indigenous community, because they like to stir up trouble and create controversy with their work and their actions. In 2003, to accept the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Richard Bell chose to wear a t-shirt which was emblazoned with the words, “White girls can’t hump”. It is actions such as this that form part of the strength of the proppaNOW collective. They often deliberately make themselves a target for criticism and debate, simultaneously causing interest in their art and their collective message.

The director of the Canberra Contemporary Art Space, David Broker, views this proppaNOW exhibition as vitally important for the Canberra art scene. “proppaNOW”, states Broker, “are an exceptional example of collective activity and can set a great example for Canberra artists”. Part of the potential future outcomes that Broker foresees from this exhibition is that by showing the work of such a successful group as proppaNOW will encourage local Aboriginal artists in their practice and therefore produce the opportunity to show more local work in the coming years.

The upcoming exhibition at CCAS, proppaNOW: new-recent work promises to be surprising, captivating and hopefully controversial. If we are very lucky Gordon Hookey may even recite his new poem, an ode to Bob Katter. This exhibition is a rare opportunity to see Australia’s hottest collective in a group show outside of Queensland. It is an opportunity not to be missed by Canberra audiences to the see the work of such a talented group of artists producing such compelling and intelligent art that hopes to change Australia, but also the world.

proppaNOW: new-recent work  at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space Gorman House January 2011. For more information visit www.ccas.com.au.