Animal - Vipoo Srivilasa, Troy Emery, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran

Is It The Animal In Them?

Nicholas Projects presents

Friday, 7th October – Saturday, 22nd October 2016

 

 

Jam Every Other Day - Collaborative works by Georgia Harvey and Dawn Vachon

A brave exchange and interesting conceptual parameter applied to this collaborative project.

Tinning Street Presents
5/29 Tinning Street
Brunswick 3056

6-16 October 2016

Very intrigued by the title of this exhibition and very happy to visit one of may favourite exhibition spaces. 'Jam every other day' conjured pikelete tableware.  However, I was completely off-beam with the use of  the term jam, in this instance relating to the act of free flowing 'jamming' in music not preserves.

Dawn & Georgia set a pretty rigorous exchange of finished works that had a weekly turn-around. A new work was given as inspiration. The result is a aesthetically cohesive exhibition of 'the best' works produced from this structure.  Both artist's practice already lent towards a seemingly spontaneous sculptural outcome and strong palette of colour; making them a natural artistic match. The gallery listing explained that very few works were the combination of both artist's hand. I greatly enjoyed the visual pursuit of 'guessing' whose work was whose, noting Georgia's penchant for crystalline, organic accretions of colour and texture. Dawn's syrupy colours, pellets and droops were a joy to reveal.

From Georgia's website:

For 6 months, ceramicists Georgia Harvey and Dawn Vachon have jammed every other day. Through a process of exchange, each has provided the other with material to work with, be influenced by, rebuff or outright poach – all the while pondering the nature of influence and the pervasive artistic drive for originality. This exhibition, bringing together the collated results of this playful exploration, tells a story greater - or stranger - than its parts.

From Dawn's website: 

One issue that is coming up for me is the fuzzy boundaries between inspiration and theft.  I had notions before of what amount of ‘inspiration’ was acceptable (very little). And then some part of me has decided that this project has given me the right to thieve. And after doing it I feel little bits of guilt and shame and then other bits are justifying it.    To be clear I’m not referring to actually taking an art object from someone else and signing my name to it.  I just saw something on instagram (a textile art piece) that I liked and I made a vaguely similar form in clay, which I’ve handed off to Georgia for her to finish/glaze.  But I never would have allowed myself to do such a thing before.  And it’s liberating.  And a little frightening.  Too easy, but perhaps worth exploring as a notion.

COMMONPOTTERY

Stephen Benwell, Kim Jaeger, Tessy King, Kirstne Perry, Jessilla Rogers, Mark Whalen

Curated by Sigourney Jacks & Liv Jackson

Mailbox Art Space 141-143 Flinders Lane

5-29 October 2016

Sarah Ormonde - Water Lines

Sensitive surface treatment in response to the precious rain in a dry land

 

21 September - 8 October 2016

Red Gallery 157 St Georges Rd, North Fitzroy

Even though it has been pissing down this month; water use, it's collection and the effects of climate change on our world and specifically in south-eastern Australia remains a prescient issue.  Ormode's surfaces are so cracklingly dry that I can imagine the smell eucalyptus oil, feel the head and dust and my throat becomes parched. This is a substantial exhibition allowing Ormode to express her visual themes across a range of sculptural forms. I particularly like the bowl vessels and they evoke collection of water and the rain gauge series is visually stunning but could have made use of further story telling evidencing measurement.

Installation view

Rain Gauge Series, porcelain, terracotta.

 Sarah used evocative titles for her vessels such as Soak, Wash,Store, Keep, Collect & Reservoir. 

Water Line Series

River Flow #1 & #2

Movement Makes The Richest Sense When Set Within A Frame of Stillness, drawing on canvas