2010 Previous EXHIBITIONS

My painting is strongly influenced by the conventions of cinema, which allows me to put together fragments, cuts and dissolves delivering a “movie” in several frames. This is one of the reasons why I work with figures in motion – to create the implication that something has come before and something will happen after the event. Each scene is a fragment of time in the action – a privileged moment in a continuum.

Each image contains the implication of a narrative. This is conveyed by the motion of figures, the way in which they relate and the “noise” of urban colour, surfaces and signage. However, in the end, I want the work to provide a space for contemplation. I aim for a stillness that comes from an arrested moment that is able to continually engage the viewer. My paintings do not reveal themselves quickly; ideally, they are an invitation to bring one’s own experiences to the work and influence its meaning.

Robert Boynes, 2010

I am intrigued by my own vanity as an artist and the motivation that drives me; the narcissism that makes me think I can sell my realised thoughts; the arrogance that holds me to the idea that my thoughts are valuable to the world and the self-importance that my opinions and philosophy are still relevant in this age of consumerism.

Will Coles, 2010

This body of work moves towards a more compatible alignment of material and conceptual content. The porcelain forms I’ve made for some years have always been underpinned by concerns for an environment at risk. As a consequence this show attempts to address my use of resources in object making.

I have changed the way that I work to ensure that there is minimal environmental impact. Most of the power used in firing is supplied by solar panels and steps have been taken to minimise waste in the studio. This journey has also taken me from making works almost exclusively in cast porcelain, through a variety of recycled media into a current obsession with charcoal, which is salvaged from winter fires. Wood for the fire is cut from old fence posts and fallen branches sourced from local farms. Fuel that would otherwise be piled in a paddock and burnt in ways that are much more polluting than my slow combustion stove. Within a wider conceptual framework, charcoal is linked to scientific investigations into biochar as a soil rejuvenator and an effective means of carbon capture. It can also refer to current political debates about carbon trading.

Liz Stops, July 2010

Each work captures a moment in the life of an individual. A small moment or fragment of a story is made significant by the mere fact that it has been acknowledged. The action represented becomes poetic and symbolic.

The human figures are simplified, faceless and psychologically remote. Are they us or people passing through our lives? The
animal figures also propose a story that the viewer can complete.
I continue to use a variety of materials from solid cast iron and bronze to the more spontaneous corrugated iron fragments reshaped and riveted together.

Angela Macdougall, 2010

Green is no longer just a colour in the 21st century. This show will focus on issues such as the environment, conservation and sustainable living. It features the work of artists who use their practice to express their concerns about environmental issues such as the impact of introduced species, deforestation and genetically modified crops.

Artists will include: Lorraine Biggs, Andrew Blackwell, Graham Blondel, Tammie Castles, Gaye Chapman, Jim Croke, Sybil Curtis, Wendy Edwards, Lyndal Hargrave, Barbara Licha, Emily McIntosh and Marcus Dillon, Carol Murphy, Janis Nedela, Tanja Riese, Jimmy Rix, Brenda Runnegar, Michael Schlitz, Liz Stops, Janet Tavener, Peter Tilley, Bronwyn Tuohy, Emily Valentine and Hadyn Wilson.

Image: Lorraine Biggs, “Biodiversity”, 2008, ink on 240gsm Arches paper - edition of five, 24.5 x 18.5cm

In my desire to capture movement I am morphing and animating the opposing forces of the mechanical and natural worlds. I continue to explore ‘organic mechanics’ in an ever changing technological environment. Whilst the use of mild steel referenced an industrial era in previous work, stainless steel evokes the post-industrial technological landscape of today. We are all connected.

Andrew Best, 2010

For this exhibition, ‘Levels of Tolerance’, I have developed a series of artworks about five couples and their levels of tolerance for one another. Each colour pencil and mixed media work provides an otherworldly portrait of one of these couples along with various icons that populate their universe.

The work is based on the assumption that the level of tolerance we have for our partner is determined by how we choose to perceive them. In investigating this idea, I met with each couple and talked with them at length about the dynamic of their relationship in order to gather material to translate into a visual form.

For some, the word “tolerance” evoked pejorative connotations; “If I am tolerating the other person then I would not be with them”. Others were aware that tolerance plays a role in their relationship. The different reactions to this theme have had an impact on how each relationship is depicted.

Tanmaya Bingham, 2010

My current work explores the act of looking: looking at people and the things that they look at. I am fascinated by the changes in physical demeanour, gesture and posture that occur when people look at someone or something of obvious interest to them.

I am particularly interested in moments where a physical change is wrought through the mediated gaze of the camera, especially when people let their cameras capture an experience for them and their bodies twist and contort to capture the perfect shot. These moments of change are fleeting and I, in turn, use my camera to record them.

The painted images I create from these observations retain their photographic influence whilst at the same time suggesting a clearly altered space.

Waratah Lahy, 2010

Symbols are often ambiguous and contradictory. This idea has influenced my recent works; several symbolic meanings may be depicted as a result of different aspects being stressed in different works. As well as the obvious meaning, a symbol can represent ‘something other than itself’, a material object used to represent an unseen concept.

This exhibition engages with existential issues; it addresses feelings of doubt when confronting the unknown and all of the compromises to do with the cycle of living. It’s about what it means to be in an uncertain world with thoughts, feelings, and desires as a vulnerable and sometimes fragile being. The work is ambiguous and sometimes mysterious and just as life is uncertain, so too is the predicament in these three dimensional situations. The protagonist in these works is not revealed – they remain anonymous and could be a universal model of humanity. The simplified forms are intended to be vessels that the viewer can fill with their own meanings and memories.

Peter Tilley, 2010

Paper is such a pervasive material in our everyday lives. We write on it, read it, drink out of it and eat off it, yet in terms of conservation, it is considered one of the most fragile of mediums in the art world.

This exhibition is ostensibly concerned with the nature of paper itself, with works produced on paper, with paper or about paper. It will feature the work of Melinda Le Guay, Lezlie Tilley, Helen Mueller, Fiona Fenech, Nicola Moss, Nicola Dickson, Janet Parker-Smith, Debbie Hill, Helena Leslie, Tammie Castles, Ampersand Duck (Caren Florance), James Blackwell, Nicci Haynes, Wendy Edwards, Susan Buret, Janis Nedela, Thurle Wright and Melinda Capp who are all using this most common and everyday material in creative ways.

I enjoy painting ordinary objects. At first glance they appear plain, but these objects exist in a world of their own – one that often goes unobserved. The more I look at them the more they reveal something about that world.

Objects can also stand for much more than they seem and I often use them as metaphors to comment on things like solidity and transience, or our contemporary political and social conditions. One of the themes of my work is the way that communication can be misunderstood, or used to deceive, which is why I often paint objects that are wrapped or partially concealed.

Michael Edwards, 2010

Without consciously pursuing any particular themes, my work is evolving in its own way. I remain curious about the new forms that emerge when I sit amongst my materials and begin to play. To entertain myself is a force that brings about new forms but for some reason I can’t shake the chairs – something that has held me for thirty years.

Leslie Oliver, 2010

I have approached the visual arts through the medium of printmaking which lends itself to experimentation and risky play.

My printmaking informs my painting. Both develop a nonfigurative language with a focus on my interior world. Exterior reference is apparent, but it is incidental. I don’t begin with an exterior subject, rather an anthrocentric structure developed from within. This structure provides a framework for what is spontaneous. It is what the Chinese call “hou chou”. Translated this means “refined clumsiness”. My work belongs to a stream of primal and calligraphic mark making that meets the objective exterior reality with its own gestural language.

James Whitington, 2010

My life-long fascination with the underwater world has led me to some wonderful places, from icy rivers in northern Scotland to the reefs around small tropical atolls in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The tension between the strange, fragile lifeforms that I saw there and the huge forces of flood, tide and current that surround them is the starting point for my sculpture.

In these works, I aim to reflect the structural strength and resilience of these small marine creatures by capturing their natural biological forms in steel. As a result, each piece keeps to the spirit of a hard-edged industrial object, even while describing the essentially soft, biomorphic structure of a living organism.

Jacek Wankowski, 2010

Sculpture 2010 is presented as part of the annual sculpture series which is on exhibition in selected Sydney galleries each January.

This regular event was established at Access Contemporary Art Gallery in Redfern in 1998 and continues to be an important platform for the promotion of sculpture.

As part of this series, all the galleries at 2 Danks Street will host a gala event on Wednesday 20 January from 6-8pm – we hope to see you there.