Here Now
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION Here Now celebrates the work of 19 alumni from the Australian National University (ANU) School of Art & Design as both practicing artists and arts professionals. The exhibition celebrates the significant and multi-faceted contribution to a vibrant, supportive and collaborative Canberra arts community. The ANU School of Art & Design equips students with specialised skills for professional careers in the visual arts, media arts and design industries, and plays a pivotal role in fostering the national and local Arts Community. The School of Art & Design is internationally recognised for studio-based teaching across the disciplines of Ceramics, Design, Furniture, Glass, Jewellery and Object, Painting, Photomedia, Printmedia and Drawing, Sculpture and Spatial Practice, and Textiles. The dedicated Centre for Art History and Art Theory offers acclaimed courses to develop critical thinking and curatorship skills. Our graduates make substantial contributions to the local arts sector, both through their work in various local and national institutions, and through their work as professional artists. Here Now features the work of the following artists: S A Adair Robert Agostino Surya Bajracharya Alexander Boynes Kirsten Farrell Richilde Favell Hannah Gason Clare Jackson Karena Keys Jay Kochel
Anja Loughhead Alex Lundy Ann McMahon Katy Mutton Tom Rowney Shags Kensuke Todo Peter Vandermark Madisyn Zabel
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
S.A.ADAIR S.A.Adair works across disciplines, incorporating sculpture, installation, drawing and printmaking in her practice. Her current installation work responds to the spaces we inhabit by exploring the physical, emotional and psychological undercurrents of personal engagement. Adair attained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from UNSW Art and Design and a Bachelor of Visual Arts Honours (Sculpture) from the ANU School of Art & Design in 2010. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions locally and interstate including Sculpture by the Sea (2009, 2017), Strand Ephemera, Townsville and more recently her site-specific work, Encasement at Canberra Museum and Gallery (Enlighten Festival, 2018). Adair has received several grants and awards including an Australia Council Artstart Grant, The Goulburn Art Prize, the North Sydney Art Prize Emerging Artist Award and more recently the Perrier-Jouet and University of New South Wales Sponsorship Awards for her participation in Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi.
Image credit: S.A.Adair, Grail II (detail), 2019, felt, dimensions variable. Photograph: Dean Butters
ROBERT AGOSTINO Image credit: Robert Agostino, 46 Parts of a Film (detail), 2018, video, dimensions variable
Robert Agostino is an emerging photomedia artist and filmmaker based in Canberra. His work revolves around questions about the creation of narrative, memory and viewer interaction with art. He has exhibited his work broadly across Australia and is represented in public and private collections nationally and abroad.
Image credit: Surya Bajrachyara, Everybody’s Talkin, 2018 lithograph, monotype, 81 x 62 cm
SURYA BAJRACHYARA Working across monotype, screenprinting and lithography, printmaker Surya Bajracharya makes work that oscillates between place, politics and personal experience. Recent bodies of works have included intimate and reflective landscapes to dynamic screenprinted posters making social commentary through found imagery. He graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts Honours majoring in Printmedia from the Drawing the ANU School of Art & Design in 2004, and has since been involved in a wide range of group exhibitions. Recent solo exhibitions include Oceans Apart, Oceans Between at Canberra Contemporary Art Space and Passenger at Megalo Print Studio and Gallery. Bajracharya has been frequently shortlisted for prizes around the country and this year a finalist in Megalo International Print Prize 2019. Bajracharya is currently employed in Conservation and Framing at the National Gallery of Australia.
ALEXANDER BOYNES Alexander Boynes is an Artist, Curator, and the current Program Manager at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space. He received his Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) at the ANU School of Art & Design in Gold and Silversmithing; however, his practice has evolved to include painting, photography, print media, light-based work and video installation. Boynes is represented by Beaver Galleries in Canberra, and is an exhibiting artist with MAYSPACE, Sydney. He is represented in the collections of the Center for Art + Environment, Nevada Museum of Art (USA), Artbank Australia (VIC), the ACT Legislative Assembly (ACT), the University of Canberra (ACT), the Macquarie Group Collection (NSW) as well as numerous private collections throughout Australia and in London. His recent curatorial projects include Straight Outta Canberra (MAYSPACE, Sydney, 2018), and Blaze Twelve 2018 CCAS Gorman Arts Centre, 2018). Previous exhibitions at CCAS include 2°— Art and Climate Change (2016), Footy Fever (2015), and Blaze Nine (2015). In 2013, Boynes established PRAXIS, a multidisciplinary art collective with choreographer/dancer Laura Boynes, and cellist/composer Tristen Parr to explore the link between visual art, performance, and sound. He has also produced a series of major collaborative painting, moving image and sound works with Tristen Parr and visual artist Mandy Martin. In recent years, Boynes was involved in the Arnhembrand project, which aimed to raise awareness of the work undertaken in the Djelk Indigenous Protected Area, Northern Territory, to preserve the unique cultural and ecological environment by promoting healthy country and communities through art, science and stories. In 2018, Boynes exhibited at Sydney Contemporary International Art Fair, and held solo exhibitions at Beaver Galleries, Canberra.e r Galleries, Canberra and MAYSPACE Sydne
Image credit (overleaf): Alexander Boynes Night Shift, 2018 pigment and enamel on aluminium 120 x 120 cm
KIRSTEN FARRELL Kirsten Farrell is a Canberra-based artist, arts professional and academic. Her practice defies material boundaries and she works in painting, installation, drawing, installation, performance and video. The question at the core of her practice is how art makes meaning within an uncertain world. She was awarded a PhD from the ANU School of Art & Design in 2016. She has previously worked as an art handler in the Parliament House Art Collection, and subsequently held positions at Craft ACT (Education and Outreach) and M16 Artspace (Gallery Coordinator). Farrell taught at the ANU Centre for Art History and Art Theory from 2011-2016 before joining the board of Tributary Projects in 2017. Farrell has exhibited her work nationally, most notably at MOP Projects in Sydney, and has been included three times in the Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship Exhibition at Artspace. She has participated in residencies at the Glassworks in Canberra, and in 2016 at UnideĂŠ at Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella, Italy as part of the RESĂ’ residency through Canberra Contemporary Art Space where she also attended a residency in Albania with the artist Adrian Paci.
Image credit: Kirsten Farell, Measure (detail), 2016 plastic bags, filament thread 30 x 450 cm
RICHILDE FLAVELL Richilde Flavell is a Canberra based ceramic artist with a multifaceted practice. She produces a successful tableware and bespoke homeware design business under the name Girl Nomad Ceramics, as well as work for exhibition. Flavell also frequently undertakes collaborative projects with makers in other design fields. She graduated from the ANU School of Art and Design with a Bachelor of Visual Arts majoring in Ceramics in 2015. Flavell’s generous forms evoke the warmth and materiality of clay both in its raw, unfired state and the transformation of the plastic clay into high-fired ceramic form. Her wheel thrown work is developed through experimentation, considered technical adjustments and a strong contemporary design aesthetic. Girl Nomad Ceramics tableware is stocked in stores nationally including the Australian National Gallery Store, the Australian Parliament House Store and the Australian Design Centre’s Object Shop in Sydney. Flavell is an active member of the ceramic community; planning and producing creative events as well as teaching at the Canberra Potter’s Society and through other workshops and private classes.
Image credit: Richilde Flavell Untitled, 2019 stineware, scarva, glaze dimensions variable
HANNAH GASON Originally from Victoria, Hannah Gason moved to Canberra to work as a cartographer. She enrolled at the ANU School of Art & Design, and in 2015, graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours receiving a University Medal. Reflecting her interest in mapping, Hannah’s glass works explore depth, light and perspective and suggest imagined landscapes. Through the kiln forming processes, Hannah creates complex combinations of fragments of colour, shape and gestural markings resulting in loosely-structured fields. Gason works from her studio at the Canberra Glassworks, and has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work is held in private and public collections including the Australian Parliament House Art Collection, the Australian National Art Glass Collection and the ANU Art Collection. She has also been an artist in residence at the Bullseye Glass Company, a visiting artist at Berlin Glas Studio, a teaching assistant at the Corning Museum of Glass and participant at North Lands Creative Glass in Scotland. Gason is currently employed as an Administration Officer at the National Library of Australia.
Image credit: Hannah Gason, Field of View, kiln formed glass, 20 x 112cm
Image credit: Clare Jackson house, itself, 2017 multi plate aquatint etching 28 x 25.5cm
CLARE JACKSON Clare Jackson is a Canberra-based artist and printmaker. Jackson is currently employed as the Education Manager at Megalo Print Studio and Gallery, where she has worked since her graduation from the Printmedia and Drawing Department of the School of Art and Design in 2013. Her work has been featured in shows around Australia, including Watch this Space in Alice Springs, Brunswick st. Gallery in Melbourne, Saint Cloche in Sydney, and as a finalist in both the Fremantle Print Prize and Peebles Print Prize. In 2017, Clare was selected as one of the annual artists in residence for the Vermont Studio Center USA, for which she received an ArtsACT grant, and last year she received the Early Career Printmaker Award at Inkmasters in Cairns. Clare has undertaken residencies at Bilpin International Grounds for Creative Initiatives in the Wollemi National Park NSW, The Estonian Printing Museum, Tartu, Estonia and will be completing a printmaking residency at The Art Vault, Mildura in February this year.
KARENA KEYS Karena Keys is a Canberra-based visual artist. In 2005, she graduated from the ANU School of Art & Design with a Bachelor of Visual Arts Honours majoring in Painting. She then went on to complete a Master of Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University in 2014. Keys has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally with recent solo exhibitions at Gertrude Contemporary Art Space (2015, Melbourne) and Chosen Ones Reading Room Gallery (2013, London). Keys is currently the Gallery Manager at Australian National Capital Artists (ANCA) Inc.
Image credit: Karena Keys We’ll Float #1, 2011 acrylic paint, tissue paper, cotton, found rock dimensions variable
JAY KOCHEL Dr Jay Kochel is a Canberra-based artist who completed his Doctorate in Philosophy at the ANU School of Art & Design, in 2014. Kochel’s doctoral studies focused on the relationship between fetish, magic and contemporary art. The majority of his fieldwork was conducted at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford and the Musée du quai Branly, Paris, where he researched the history of the fetish object. Recently, his work has focussed on 3D mapping, machine drawing and pattern recognition using augmented reality. In 2014, he was awarded an Arts ACT Project Funding grant and Asialink Residency to the Kyoto Art Centre, Japan. While in Japan, Kochel began working with air – as a literal and metaphorical medium to explore form and immateriality. In 2013, as part of a Vice Chancellor’s Visiting Artist Fellowship, Kochel conducted research on scent and methods of representing the unseen, working with the ANU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the ANU Research School of Chemistry – in particular with Dr Tim Brooke and Associate Professor Russell A. Barrow. Kochel has won several awards including, the 2017 Exploration Artist Award (Flinders Lane Gallery), joint winner of the M16 Artspace Drawing Prize (2016), the Neil Roberts Award (2008); and the Anthony Forge Prize for Anthropology (1994). Prior to completing an honours degree (2001) in sculpture and interactive media, Kochel completed a combined Bachelor of Anthropology and Law in 1996. Kochel is currently represented by Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne. He is the current Exhibition Officer at the National Museum of Australia.
Image credit: Jay Kochel, Tsundoku, 2018 pen and acrylic on composite panel 120 x 120 cm
ANJA LOUGHHEAD Anja Loughhead is an emerging artist, curator and writer based in Queanbeyan, NSW. Loughhead's art practice incorporates photography, drawing, video, performance and archival processes. Through these varying methods of material exploration, Loughhead investigates how Western photography represents culture and the subsequent implications this poses upon personal identity. Using her body as a method for communication, Loughhead engages with theoretical frameworks related to photography and the archive to reveal alternative narratives. The grandchild of Finnish migrants, these diverse approaches to material research enable Loughhead to question the visual construction of national identity, by reflecting upon the self and her ensuing feelings of cultural diaspora as a second generation Australian. In 2013, Loughhead graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Art with Honours majoring in Photomedia from the ANU School of Art & Design. She is currently studying a Master of Art History and Curatorial Studies at the Centre for Art History & Theory (ANU School of Art & Design).
Image credit (left): Anja Loughhead An Internet Explorer #2, 2018 inkjet on Hahnemule 59.4 x 84.1cm Image credit (this page): Alex Lundy Temporal Hiccup II, 2018 CMYK screen print, graphite on paper 82 x 72cm Photograph: Brenton McGeachie
ALEX LUNDY Alex Lundy is a Canberra based emerging artist. She graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts Honours in Printmedia and Drawing at the ANU School of Art & Design in 2017. Upon Graduation, Lundy was awarded a 2018 Megalo Print Studio Residency, as well as the ACT Legislative Assembly Prize through the ANU School of Art and Design Emerging Artist Support Program. Lundy’s latest major body of work, Seen and Foreseen was exhibited at Canberra Contemporary Art Space (CCAS) Manuka, and has been selected to show as part of the annual emerging art exhibition, Blaze at CCAS flagship space at Gorman Arts Centre in early 2019. She is currently a Technical Officer at Megalo Print Studio + Gallery.
ANN MCMAHON Ann McMahon is drawn to the tactile, aesthetic and narrative qualities of textiles. In 2000, she graduated from the ANU School of Art & Design with a Bachelor of Visual Arts Honours (First Class) majoring in Textiles. Since graduating, she has worked extensively in three dimensions with recycled waste and harvested materials using basketry techniques including coiling, twining, lace making and stitching. Her work typically expresses through a merging of form and materiality to explore underlying concerns related to the environment, economic equity and sustainability and implications for human existence, now and in the future. McMahon has developed a multi-faceted practice working in the public, private and artist run sectors as a studio artist, arts administrator, facilitator, arts writer and curator. Since 2012, she has been employed at Belconnen Arts Centre where her focus has been in community arts and cultural development working with a range of artists and communities. McMahon’s achievements include a Canberra Critics Circle Award for her work in Imitation of Life at the Canberra Museum and Gallery (CMAG, 2011), a Canberra Contemporary Art Space Members Show Award (2015) and an ACT Chief Ministers Department Staff Award (2010) for her work in public art on the Woden Flood Memorial. Her artwork is held by CMAG and in private collections in Australia and New Zealand.
Image credit: Ann McMahon Ship of Fools, 2016 stainless steel, recycled plastic strapping 90 x 350 x 110cm Photograph: Sam Cooper
KATY MUTTON Katy Mutton is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose work frequently explores the impact of war, and the proliferation and application of military and surveillance technologies, as well as their impact on popular culture. Her work exploits the manipulation of perception, propaganda and camouflage techniques, and often plays with colour shifts and abstracted topographies. Mutton’s work spans drawing, printmaking, painting, installation and public art. She graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Art from the ANU School of Art and Design in 2010, and she holds a BA in Environmental Design (University of Canberra, 2002). Mutton lives and works in Canberra and is currently the Communications Manager at Megalo Print Studio + Gallery. In 2018, Mutton was the recipient of The Rosalie Gascoigne Memorial Award from the Capital Arts Patrons Organisation and has been the recipient of two Canberra Critics Circle Awards (2017, 2014). In 2016, she was awarded the Print Council of Australia Commission – Artspace Sydney Residency Award for her screen print The Stack.
Image credit: Katy Mutton The Growler, 2016 screen print 110 x 76cm Photograph:Andrew Sikorski
Mutton has created significant large-scale public artworks including a ‘dazzle camouflage’ inspired boat transformation In Plain Sight on Lake Burley Griffin for the festival, Contour 556 (2016). Her largest public work to date was a turf painting commission, Pattern Logic, an ephemeral work spanning 10,000 sqm across Regatta Point in Canberra for Floriade (2017). Katy’s work is held in many public and private collections including The Australian War Memorial, Bega Valley Regional Gallery, City of Yarra VIC, Curtin University Collection WA, Mildura Regional Gallery, The Molonglo Group and The State Library of Victoria.
TOM ROWNEY Tom Rowney has been working in glass for over twenty-five years. During this time, traditional Venetian Techniques of Glassblowing have been his constant source of inspiration. Rowney’s practice combines precision and accuracy used to create an exact piece of glass. He enjoys handling the molten glass, and the sense of flow and timing dictate his working style. Rowney graduated from the ANU School of Art & Design in 1995 with a Bachelor of Visual Arts majoring in Glass. He currently resides in Captains Flat, NSW and is employed as the Technical Manager of the Canberra Glassworks. As one of Australia’s foremost glass blowers, Rowney continues to be sourced for teaching and glassblowing residencies by the leading glass studios and artists in Australia and overseas.
Image credit: Tom Rowney Black one hundred & twenty eight, 2012 blown and constructed glass 25 x 25 x 900 cm Photograph: Adam McGrath
SHAGS Shags is a trained printmaker who often uses performance and projection for installations based on text, colour and audio. She also writes experimental music scores and makes low-fi books and zines. Shags graduated from the ANU School of Art & Design in 2017 with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) majoring in Printmedia & Drawing. Having dyslexia and synaesthesia means her processing style makes it possible to see the interconnectivity of everyday surroundings, internal and external, abstract and actual. Most of her work is about alternative forms of communication and spruiking empathy. She understands her environment in non-verbal ways, such as via colour, sensation, noise and tactility. Words are definitely not her first language. Shags is currently the Marketing Communications Coordinator for the National Portrait Gallery.
Image credit: Shags Concrete Crush (NGA), 2018 monotype, relief ink on Stonehenge 76 x 56cm
KENSUKE TODO Kensuke Todo was born and grew up in Kyoto, Japan. He studied a Bachelor of Visual Art in Sculpture at Kyoto Seika University and first travelled to Australia in 1999 as an exchange student to the ANU School of Art & Design. He later returned to study his Master of Arts Visual Arts (Sculpture) at the School graduating in 2004. Since graduating, Todo has lived and worked in Canberra. He has shown his sculptures nationally and internationally in numerous group and solo exhibitions. A major survey exhibition of his work was held at the ANU Drill Hall Gallery in 2014. Todo is currently employed in Conservation and Framing at the National Gallery of Australia.
Image credit: Kensuke Todo, Overpass, underpass, 2010, mild steel, 25 x 121.8 x 186cm Photograph: David Paterson
PETER VANDERMARK Peter Vandermark is a Canberra-based artist. His practice explores the interplay between function and form, with a sustained and often humorous engagement with the modernist desire to integrate art and life on both the domestic level and the larger, more public level. In 1989, Vandermark graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts majoring in Sculpture from the ANU School of Art & Design. Vandermark argues that the human body is never far from the sculptural environment even if it remains unseen. “Sculpture” he says, “is always a study in proxemics, human proxemics”. Proxemics is a theoretical science that is about the way people interact with others in daily life as well as the ways they organise personal living spaces and public spaces. Vandermark understands the gallery as one of these spaces and his work provides audiences with divergent opportunities to consider their physical selves in relation to his work and its positioning within the space of presentation. Vandermark is currently the Project Coordinator, Exhibitions Department at the National Gallery of Australia.
Image credit: Peter Vandermark, Predestination: black & white, 2017 plywood, acrylic paint, acrylic mirror, 25 x 45 x 20cm Photograph: Brenton McGeachie
MADISYN ZABEL Madisyn Zabel is a Canberra-based artist who investigates the dynamic relationships between three-dimensional objects and their two-dimensional representation. Her work is concerned with the growing dialogue between traditional craft processes and digital technology. Within her most recent body of work, Zabel juxtaposes volume and flatness through the combination of cast glass forms with mixed media to create geometric installations that transforms the surrounding space. Zabel graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (First Class Honours majoring in Glass from the Australian National University School of Art & Design, Canberra. During her studies, Zabel travelled abroad to participate in workshops at the Pilchuck Glass School and the Corning Museum of Glass, and upon graduation she Studio Assistantship Residency Program at the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio in Norfolk, Virginia. Zabel’s work has been included in the Corning Museum of Glass’ New Glass Review, and exhibited both nationally and internationally. She has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Warm Glass UK’s The Glass Prize Bullseye Glass Artists Category and the Jutta Cuny-Franz Foundation (Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf) Talent Award. Most recently, Zabel participated in a twomonth residency at Berlin Glas e.V in Berlin, German, and a month-long residency at the Canberra Glassworks. Zabel is currently the Retail Coordinator at the Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre.
Image credit (overleaf): Madisyn Zabel, Outline, 2017 glass, paint, metal, string, dimensions variable Photograph: David Paterson
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