Thingshow and Still Water at Fontanelle Gallery

Opening 17^th March, 6pm

17/3 till 12/4

The first exhibition of the year for Fontanelle is about the lives of objects, and the thresholds and tensions that they produce. Titled ‘Thingshow’, it seeks to explore the way that things interact and are transformed. Art writer Gertrude Stein once said that ‘Sculpture is made with two instruments and some supports and pretty air’, a sentiment that foregrounds a certain understanding of art objects and of things. When you look at art objects as not just the object, but as the things they sit on and as the air around them, they take on different kind of life.

For the exhibition, curator Ben Leslie has brought together a group of artists from around Australia who practice within the field of things, including Sarah CrowEST, Brooke Babington, Carla Liesch, Sam Songailo, Emily Taylor, Talitha Kennedy and Henry Jock Walker. The objects presented don’t just sit pretty, they operate within the context of the space around them, and in relation to each other; this is the pretty air that Stein was talking about.

Alongside ‘Thingshow’, Canadian glass artist Tyler Rock will be showing in the back gallery. The interactive installation responds to the viewer as they move around the gallery space.

Image: Sarah CrowEST, 'Things (studio), 2013 courtesy of Fontanelle Gallery

TEXT: Copyright Adele Sliuzas, originally published on the Thousands http://thethousands.com.au/adelaide/look/thingshow-and-still-water

Distorted

Tooth and Nail Gallery, Opening 15^th March, 6pm

15th to 29th of March from 11 to 5pm

Sometimes photographers seem to have more in common with mad scientists than with other artists. For them, it’s not just about the moment of capturing an image, but the process of developing in the lab. In the dark, under the soft glow of the red lights, photographers spend hours upon hours conducting experiments with various chemicals and contraptions.

Distorted, opening at Tooth and Nail gallery, brings together seven artists from working with experimental photography and photo-media. Local artists Alex Bishop-Thorpe, Alice Blanch, Andrew Dearman & Aurelia Carbone come together with Pete Punkette, James Tylor and Felix Wilson from Hobart, to present this two-part traveling exhibition. Showing here in Adelaide and later at Constance Gallery in Hobart, it is exciting for us to have this inter-city exchange. Through experimenting in various stages of the photographic process, the artist aim to alter perception and challenge the reality associated with the photographic image. Optical illusions and strange processes join forces with analogue techniques to produce photos that are way beyond the average ‘point and shoot’. Distorted isn’t just about images, it’s about science, experimentation, and the possibilities presented by the photographic medium.

 Image: Alice Blanch, Box Brownie Colour Panorama #9 (detail) / Alice Blanch,Box Brownie Colour Panorama #10(detail
Text: copyright Adele Sliuzas, originally published on the thousands
http://thethousands.com.au/adelaide/look/distorted

Nic Brown, Forestal

Nic Brown, Forestal

Project launch (BYO picnic): 2pm Sunday 24 February 2013

Artist talk: 2pm Saturday 16 March 2013


Venue: Adelaide Botanic Garden, Mallee Section

(beneath Moreton Bay Fig, near East Gate)

The Adelaide Botanic Garden may seem like a strange space to hold an exhibition, but for Nic Brown’s exhibition Forestal, it’s perfect. This isn’t the first time she has exhibited within the gardens, which is reflected in the ease that her work fits in with its surrounds. Unlike in a gallery space, the gardens allow an open conversation between the work and its setting. Nic’s painting and installation work echo and respond to the Moreton bay fig they sit beneath, the trees that surround and the activities that occur within the gated forest.

Nic’s ghostly panoramas speak about the history of the Australian landscape; familiar and dream like, and a little bit uneasy. They are vistas within which one could become lost. The domestic and the wild come together within the installation, as logs are stacked delicately and with precision underneath an Australian pine table. She prompts conversations between trees (and logs, and wooden tables). Some of the trees in the botanic gardens are so old, and have so many stories and memories about our history. Forestal brings all these stories into the present; a history in flux, a dream like landscape.

Images: Nic Brown, Forestal, 2013, courtesy of the artist
Text: Copyright Adele Sliuzas, originally published in the thousands
http://thethousands.com.au/adelaide/look/nic-brown-forestal  

Tony Garifalakis, Angels of the Bottomless Pit

Tony Garifalakis, Angels of the Bottomless Pit

Hugo Michel Gallery

14^th February- 6^th March

Opening, 6pm 14^th February

Looking at the shadowy areas of contemporary culture, Melbourne based artist Tony Garifalakis sees the political as the cultural. He takes on a specific visual language to describe and subvert systems of power and authority. His exhibition, Angels of the Bottomless Pit, questions our ingrained social anxieties, in particular discussing how we understand who is the good guy and who is the bad guy in contemporary culture. Garifalakis investigates the concept of the anti-christ, not as a solitary figure, but as a multiple. The exhibition presents not one but many anti-christs, in figures such as Barack Obama, the Queen and the Pope. These figures sit equally amongst those who are more often seen as the enemy, Yasser Arafat, Osama Bin Laden and Silvio Berlusconi.

Garifalakis’ portraits are subverted; an inverted crucifix slices through the centre of each image in inverted colour. The political, cultural and religious leaders are accused as anti-christ’s, following the practice of extremists like Fred Phelps. The aesthetic of the portraits threatens violence and collapse, where does the line between good and evil exist? Garifalakis uses Christian symbolism, and the technique of inverting the colours to question the fixity of our public understanding of the figures, and of good and evil, power, and extremism.

 Image: Tony Garifalakis, Anti Christs (detail), 2013 courtesy of the artist and Hugo Michell Gallery

TEXT: Copyright Adele Sliuzas, originally published on the thousands 

The Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition 2013

The Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition 2013

Drill Hall, Torrens Parade Ground, Victoria Drive

6pm Thursday 14^th Feb

The Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition has always, in my memory, been held in the Drill Hall. It is about as far away from a ‘white cube’ as you can get, though the high ceilings and cavernous space are reminiscent of industrial-building-turned-gallery (see TATE Modern). It is such a big space, because it is such a big exhibition; there are 35 artists making their debut.

The difference between institutional graduate exhibitions and the Helpmann Academy, is that the Helpmann’s exhibition is curated. The artists have been chosen from amongst 2012’s graduating students. These artists have been identified as the best, the newest, the freshest, and the most interesting. Maybe this idea of harvesting new young talent is a bit naff, but if there is a place for it, it is within this framework. What The Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition offers to the public, beyond this idea of ‘the newest and the best’, is an opportunity to see the parallels and diversity between the practices of students from the Helpmann’s different partner institutions. The variety of techniques and talents presented by the exhibiting artists is always exciting. 

Carly Snoswell and Ebony Heidenreich were both shown in the SASA gallery Project space in 2012, co curated by myself, Ursula Halpin and Madeline Reece. You can read about the exhibition and their work on Ursula's website. 

Images: top, Hailey Lane.com, Your Light Burns Clear, 2012, Giclee print, edition of 5 + ap

Middle, Carly Snoswell, Fasten, Cluster, Wrap, Scatter, 2012, plastic loop ties, dimensions variable

Bottom,  Ebony Heidenreich, Stay Connected‘ 2012, porcelain and earthenware,

TEXT: Copyright Adele Sliuzas, originally published on the thousands