artstudentblog

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Press release

Lab 3” is an interactive environment created by Edwin Hamill (fig.1).  Hamill is wanting to encourage people to engage in the biological sciences debate and to explore for themselves some of what goes on behind the scenes.  The audience is presented with processes that they may not normally consider in the production of food, the aim is to encourage a discussion about the process and to present the facts and so develop an informed opinion.

 “I felt that it was more important to show others something that they wouldn’t otherwise see in there day to day life”

 The work consists of a small space with scientific equipment and plants setup in a way that one would a sterile workspace at a scientific lab (fig.2,3,4,5,6). All equipment and plant samples are interactive and it is encouraged that people engage with the environment once inside.  

 The space will be open to the public from the 19th- 20th of September in the White Box Gallery at QCA, 226 Grey Street, Southbank.

Fig.1 Edwin Hamill in his work environment 

Fig. 2 

Fig. 3

Fig 4.

Fig. 5 

Fig.6 

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MONA

  Museum of Everything

 10 June – 2 April 18

  The Museum of Everything is a travelling institution, which opened in London in 2009. Its purpose is to advocate for the visibility of art that falls outside the confines of the commercial art world, the work of ordinary people, working far from the cultural metropolis.

 The museum refrains from using the word ordinary when describing the artists themselves, i.e. ordinary people. Because oftentimes, the art that is being talked about  talking about “it the art of everyone”  happens to be made by people who can only truthfully be described as extraordinary.

These artists don’t have degrees, but they might have visions or compulsions; they are transcendent scientists, self-taught architects, and citizen inventors; sometimes, they are dedicated followers of personal belief systems, or producing art from inside a hospital or prison. Some create their own visual folklore to sit alongside (or challenge) established histories of culture and place.

 ‘Our museum stretches, I hope, the possibility of who has the right to be considered an artist,’ says founder James Brett. But of course, not everybody is an artist. The collection is comprised of the passionate fringe, the outliers who concentrate the human propensity to make and create. They are simultaneously different, because that kind of intensity and ability is not available to us all (and especially not in the absence of the usual art-world rewards, such as money and cultural cachet), and yet they are also somehow the same, more familiar to us than the big art-world names will ever be.

 This extra/ordinary tension complicates the category ‘art’, in its deepest sense. Is art typical, universal, even biological  or is it exceptional? Can we place elite art, that which is clearly tied to the desire for social status, next to apparently private forms of creative expression, and call them by the same name?

 To answer these questions, as well as the important social-justice ones that accompany them, the concept of “art” needs to be expanded on. It stops being about insider/outsider, us and them, and becomes instead a massive net cast over all genres; and once ‘everything’ is included, nothing is, and so the whole problem of terminology and definitions just dissolves, until you’re left with nothing but an action. The will to make thrives everywhere, even in the most unlikely places. That’s what the creators at The Museum of Everything are trying to show.

 The museum of everything includes artwork from an incredible variety of people such as, criminals, psychiatric patients, religious people and every day people. Each person however has something in common, they have a statement that they felt strongly enough about that they needed to create something to express themselves.

The amount of artwork on display was truly amazing, I have gained new amount of inspiration from some of these extraordinary people.

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Catherine Parker - Parallel Worlds   Spiro Grace Art Rooms

Visit Website

26 Aug – 30 Sept

Catherine Parker’s solo exhibition, Parallel Worlds, presents a boy of work which explores the relationships we all have with­­ nature, time and place.

The works meld the familiar with the strange and abstract by including the vague shapes of mountains and cliff sides and integrating vibrant colour schemes from neon pinks to deep indigos.

Parker encourages us to explore the canvas, navigating the different territories physical, psychological, metaphorical, historical as plants, rocks, figures, and blend together.

With their foundations in landscapes as diverse as Magnetic Island and the Himalayas. I found myself trying to follow the loose brushstrokes that create the pieces.

artwork-

Catherine Parker, “Portals to Parallel Worlds”, 2017, acrylic on canvas, 96 X 120 cm

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Freedom Then, Freedom Now

5 May- 1 Oct

state library

 Displaying outtakes about citizenship, censorship and the collective good to marriage, miniskirts and mortgages. “Freedom then, Freedom now” questions our understanding of the freedoms that Queenslanders take for granted.

Freedom Then, Freedom Now is an intriguing journey into our recent past, exploring the freedoms enjoyed and restricted in Queensland and examining what happens when collective good intersects with individual rights. Freedoms often depend on your age, your racial or religious background, gender, income and where you live. Freedoms change over time and with public opinion.

This exhibition draws on the extensive collections of State Library of Queensland to reminisce, reflect, and explore freedoms won and lost in Queensland

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SUNG INTO BEING

ABORIGINAL MASTERWORKS 1984-94 

22 JUL 2017 – 22 OCT 2017 

Qag

'Sung into Being: Aboriginal Masterworks shows off more than 100 works from a period when Aboriginal art began to be more widely shown and appreciated in Australia as fine art. It draws together work by major artists from the Maningrida region in central Arnhem Land, N.T. and the Kimberley, W.A., who were at the forefront of this intensely productive moment of art-making.

The Perth-based Holmes à Court family collected extensively and secured a vital artistic legacy by developing focussed holdings from individuals and artist groups in this period. Works in 'Sung into Being' are predominantly from the Janet Holmes à Court Collection, joined by works from QAGOMA and the National Gallery of Australia.

I can relate strongly with these works as an indigenous, and as of this date there is no surviving artwork of my people. The Mamu tribe of the Atherton Table Lands is where I am from, the language is nearly dead save for a few experts trying to recreate it.

The preservation of indigenous artwork is important to me because I know the feeling of losing something that defines a part of you, the preservation and display of these works are amazing to see because it is a preservation of an entire culture.

 artwork-

Jack Wunuwun

“Morning star sun cycle” 1988 mixed media

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“Travelers” QAG  1Jul-29 Oct

Many different aspects of travel are explored in works by Jeffrey Smart, Jan Senbergs, Hiroaki Takahashi, Craig Koomeeta and others whether it be metaphysical or literally about the trip itself . The idea of the journey raises questions about freedom and physical limitation, the fluidity of identity, the passage of time, and the experience of passing through different spaces and ways of living.

'Travellers' includes decorative objects that transport sustenance and medicine, ancient water vessels from China and the Japanese inrō with carved netsuke  as well as paintings, prints, sculptures and videos that capture images of discovery, trade, pilgrimage and forced relocation.

  Artwork -

  “Study for the traveler”

 Synthetic polymer paint and oil on paper on board

 50 x 60 cm

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Photos from work!

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how I record the multiplication of young plants 

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Understandably, from the outside my work could look a little intimidating in regards to health. But actually, these bags are filled with vermiculite and pearlite. Two minerals used to promote plant growth across the entirety of Australia, used by farmers and scientists alike.

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I work as a scientific assistant at DAFF, this stands for the Department of Agriculture, Forestries and Fisheries. What I do there is work with plants using tissue culture and genetic engineering in order to create disease resistant varieties of plants and to maintain a collection of existing plants in case disaster strikes. 

the aim of my art projects is to show a perspective about my line of work that the public wouldn't often see in order to try to disperse some existing disdain that the public eye has for my line of work.

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Andy Goldsworthy and Sebastian Moody work comparison, land art by Ed H

Andy Goldsworthy, is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist producing site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. The materials used in Goldsworthy’s pieces are all natural, chosen specifically to reduce his impact on nature whilst at the same time withstanding the tests of time. He does not edit the materials he works with, instead he intertwines, balances or links the leaves, rocks, flowers, sticks or sand to create a sculpture from the world around him. For his smaller more intricate works, Goldsworthy often uses only his bare hands, teeth, and found tools to prepare and arrange the materials. However, for his permanent sculptures like “Roof” he has needed to se machinery in order to move the larger specimens around. Although situated in different environments, another artist that can be compared with Goldsworthy is one Sebastian Moody. Moody works in public spaces using text and colours to create large scale works, at first seen on walls, but now expanded to a varying range of objects from coffee mugs, to hang gliders over music festivals. The comparison between Goldsworthy and Moody is that both artists embrace there surrounding environment and look to work with it. Both of these artists have minimal impact on there surroundings while at the same time add something that can be appreciated aesthetically and does not force onlookers to search too deep for a meaning and instead just enjoying the fact that it is there. These forms of art benefit anyone who is willing to appreciate it, whether they are educated in the concepts or not. The text works of Moody are designed to respond to the context they are created in and to be memorable enough to stay in the minds of the viewer. Public artworks have a responsibility to engage the public in positive ways and are often in high-visitation, vehicular, or pedestrian-traffic zones so the text is concise and digestible for people who will only experience the work for small periods of time.

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end sculpture 1 begin sculpture 2

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“junk” artist statement

Junk attempts to encapsulate the idea of manic mentality: the inability to form a complete idea in the process of creating something. Artists are often plagued with the inability to form a complete work, often working on pieces until their concept is lost. My work is relating this concept to my process, where a neurotic fixation on the works development causes it to be abandoned.  Junk consists of a diverse array of quotidian objects including cardboard and paint, mingling together and blurring our comprehension of a completed artwork and garbage. The accumulation of these items are a symbolic representation of the build up of ideas. “Junk” encourages the viewer to walk around the piece and explore the individual artworks that intertwine with boxes and cans.

Being erratic and almost frenzied in the way that actions are performed is part of my everyday experience. I constantly change my minding and have an innate inability to focus on what is in front of me.  Yet I always think of concepts for new works of art. In the case of Junk its concept relates to creation itself. However, the work is endless – I , constantly touch up and edit until the concept behind it is lost or skewed.  Eventually straying from the original concept and being unable to form a complete idea.

Represented loosely by the imagery of the mountain, litres of paint have been used in a series of works that intertwined with rubbish in order to represent abandoned art pieces that have been overworked. It is a congregation of several different works, each piece isn’t made to be viewed individually but as a collaboration of several concept pieces. The overall collection is to be viewed as one piece.

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Artists are often plagued with the inability to form a complete work, often sporadically working on pieces until the concept is lost. In this case I’m relating this concept to my creation process, constantly touching up and editing a work until the idea behind it is lost or skewed.

The pile consists of individual works of art and rubbish, mingling together and blurring the border between what is a completed artwork and what is garbage. The accumulation of the items is a physical representation of the build up of ideas and the continual work.

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Short statement (each image is captioned when clicked on)

“Junk”

Edwin Hamill

found objects and canvas

2017

Artists are often plagued with the inability to form a complete work, often sporadically working on pieces until the concept is lost. In this case I’m relating this concept to my creation process, constantly touching up and editing a work until the idea behind it is lost or skewed. The pile consists of individual works of art and rubbish, mingling together and blurring the border between what is a completed artwork and what is garbage. The accumulation of the items is a physical representation of the build up of ideas and the continual work.