T H E Q U A R T E R LY B R E N D A M AY
G A L L E R Y | 2 Danks Street Waterloo NSW 2017 | brendamaygallery.com.au
SPRING 2015
VOLUME 1
NUMBER 4
BLA CK BOX PROJECTS
Leslie Oliver, ‘Love Stories’ 2010, film stills
Todd Fuller, ‘adrift’ 2012, film still
Nicole Welch, ‘Lament’ 2012, film still
LOVE. LAMENT. LOSS. 29 September to 24 October Love. Lament. Loss. brings together the work of three artists who have explored these states in their complexity and intensity. Leslie Oliver asks students to recount a time they fell in love, offering stories of loves’ lived and loves’ lost. Todd Fuller’s films explore the strength required to release a burden or a joy, and Nicole Welch stimulates deliberation through the use of loaded symbols. Oliver’s empathetic documentary-style approach is contrasted with the mesmerising time-lapse technique employed by Welch. Fuller’s hand-drawn animations offer a further divergent style of moving image artwork, conveying the varied ways in which the medium of video is being used by artists to create thoughtful and captivating narratives.
NINA ROSS, Untitled #1, 27 October to 21 November
Nina Ross, ‘Untitled #1’ 2015, film still
‘Untitled #1’ is an HD video which draws on the artist’s experiences using and sharing language during pregnancy and with her newborn child. Using selfportraiture performance video, this work seeks to investigate the influence of language at the beginning of an infants life and how one learns how to communicate through interactions with others before any words are spoken. Particular influence in this process and to the work itself includes researching and experiencing the origins of conversation with her own son. - Nina Ross, 2015
Front Cover: Left to Right from back row - Peter Tilley, Megan Fizell, Nicole Welch; Robert Boynes, James Guppy, Melinda Le Guay, Leslie Oliver, Jim Croke, Olivia Welch; Al Munro, Carol Murphy, Brenda May, Lezlie Tilley, Tanmaya Bingham, Sybil Curtis, Waratah Lahy; Mylyn Nguyen, Gemma, Todd Fuller.
29 SEPTEMBER to 24 OCTOBER 2015 MYLYN NGUYEN, Once Upon a Time Once upon a time I broke every watch I was given only to find I could not work out how they worked. Music boxes were dismantled and the music making part pulled apart. The death of each ladybird in my Mylyn made jar garden brought me no closer to knowing why ladybirds didn’t like me. I thought if I stared at my nose, my eyebrows and the shower hose, I would figure them out eventually. I unstitched dolls clothes, unwrapped bindi seeds and stripped toy cars to their wheels and discovered more why. Why a cloud? How do birds fly? How do kites? How does the moon know when to just appear? How does water come from a shower hose? - Mylyn Nguyen, 2015 Mylyn Nguyen, ‘There was a mountain and a cloud’ 2015 watch, wire, cork, flocking, wool, cotton thread, watercolour 15.5 x 6.5 x 4.5cm
Jim Croke ‘Untitled 3’ 2008 acrylic, gouache on canvas 25 x 25cm
UNTITLED SHOW, a curated group exhibition ‘Untitled’ would appear to be the most common name attributed to a work of art. Despite the word denoting nothingness, the power of the untitled work is that it has the ability to express the opposite. Artists usually name works to convey something further about the piece to an audience, whether that is a feeling, a description, or a nod to its inspiration. An untitled work, on the other hand, asks the audience to think and question a little more in order to uncover meaning. Therefore, an encouragement and validation of a plethora of impressions and responses is formed. The works in this exhibition will differ in style, medium, inspiration and affect. The only unifying quality will be that the works do not allow audiences to rely on a title for further instruction, and will instead be entirely open to interpretation.
27 OCTOBER to 21 NOVEMBER 2015 WARATAH LAHY, Not far from the truth My current work explores ideas of truth and the distortion of memory. My images are derived from photographic documentation of events that are both personal, yet ubiquitous. I focus on imagery that suggests a narrative and the resulting painted images are not replicas of the photos; each is distorted and exaggerated in order to enhance a specific mood, feeling or an interpretation of the scene. The differing scale of the paintings also addresses an interpretation of memory – is a small painting more personal and private, is a large painting something to be shared? With this body of work I am asking: what is the truth? Is my memory the truth, or is the act of recreating a truth in itself? - Waratah Lahy, 2015
Waratah Lahy, ‘Umbrella’ 2015, oil on linen, 30 x 30cm
PETER TILLEY, Second Self The shadow is one of the many visual elements within the tableau of everyday icons that populate my artworks. Its context has usually indicated an unseen presence beyond the frame of the work or signified an aspect of that which is casting the shadow. As a result of these earlier works, I have now become preoccupied with the shadow and its possibilities within a 3D format. The shadow as an expressive material object will be the point of difference and focus of investigation in developing my body of work for this exhibition. In some cases becoming the dominant 3D form, shadows will give insight into the figures’ characters and provide linkages between the visual, the psychological and their manifestations. - Peter Tilley, 2015 Peter Tilley, ‘Second Self’ (work in progress) 2015, cast iron, 43cm high Photograph by Liane Audrins
24 NOVEMBER to 19 DECEMBER 2015 Smithy
30 YEARS | 30 ARTISTS | 30 WORKS anniversary exhibition This year marks the 30th year of Brenda May’s career as Gallery Director, from Access Contemporary Art Gallery in Balmain, Forrest Lodge, and Redfern to Brenda May Gallery here at Danks Street. In 2015 we looked through our archives to create a retrospective exhibition featuring one work to represent each year and a small publication looking back over the last three decades. This comprehensive exhibition and accompanying publication will be a celebration of the many artists’ careers the gallery has fostered. Lottie
Gemma
The thirty artists featured in this exhibition are a tiny sample indicative of the scope of the artists represented over the last thirty years: Alex Asch, Jo Bertini, Tanmaya Bingham, Graham Blondel, Robert Boynes, Jim Croke, Sybil Curtis, Kate Dorrough, Caroline Durré, Rachel Ellis, Todd Fuller, James Guppy, Brenda Humble, John Kelly, Waratah Lahy, Barbara Licha, Melinda Le Guay, Al Munro, Carol Murphy, Mylyn Nguyen, Catherine O’Donnell, Leslie Oliver, Leo Robba, Anne Ross, Marc Standing, Peter Tilley, Lezlie Tilley, Jim Thalassoudis, Nicole Welch, and Hadyn Wilson.
Images top to bottom: (not pictured) Access Art Gallery, Smith Street, Balmain, 1985 - 1987; Access Art Gallery, Mullens Street, Balmain, 1988 - 1993; Access Contemporary Art Gallery, Boronia Street, Redfern, 1993 - 2001; Brenda May Gallery, 2 Danks Street, Waterloo, 2001 - present.
G A LLERY N EWS Robert Boynes painting selected by the Art Gallery of NSW Congratulations to Robert Boynes who has had the major work from his last exhibition, In Plain Sight, selected by the AGNSW. Robert Boynes, ‘Blind Leading the Blind’ 2015 acrylic on canvas, timber - triptych, 120 x 321cm
Now Representing Catherine O’Donnell We are delighted to announce the representation of Catherine O’Donnell. O’Donnell is best know for her meticulous and dramatic drawings, most particularly of suburban streetscapes and domestic scenes worked in charcoal. These hauntingly beautiful works are at once animated by light and hidden in darkness, producing work that is complex and imbued with a sense of disquiet. O’Donnell has just completed a residency at the British School at Rome and in 2009 undertook a residency at Scuola International di Grafica in Venice as a result of winning the 2009 Albury Art Prize. Her works are held in the Kedumba Collection, Artbank, and Regional Gallery collections in Australia and NZ. Catherine O’Donnell ‘Garbatella 2’ (detail) 2015 charcoal on paper 77.5 x 56.5cm
B R E N D A M AY
Nicole Welch at Murray Art Museum Albury We are pleased to work in partnership with the newly relaunched Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA) to present Nicole Welch’s exhibition Eastern Interiors: explorations from Bathurst to Albury. The suite of photographs, first exhibited at Brenda May Gallery in September, will be on view at MAMA from 12 November to 13 December 2015.
Nicole Welch ‘Magnificent Prospect #2’ (detail) 2015 giclée print on archival Hahnemühle fine art paper 100 x 200cm
G A L L E R Y
2 D a n k s S t r e e t Wa t e r l o o N S W A u s t r a l i a 2 0 1 7 www.brendamaygallery.com.au info@brendamaygallery.com.au tuesday - friday 11-6 saturday 10-6 t. +61 2 9318 1122