youth art exhibition 10–19 July 2015
THANK YOU 25under25 is a truly collaborative effort of the Fremantle and arts community. The City would like to thank the following groups of people: Judges –– Minaxi May –– Abdul-Rahman Abdullah Selection panel –– Minaxi May –– Abdul-Rahman Abdullah –– Corine Van Hall Exhibiting artists workshop guest speaker –– Erin Coates Installation team –– Tom Freeman –– Andrew Clark A big thank you for the support of Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery for the exhibition space and the Fremantle Arts Centre for the prizes this year.
MAYOR’S ADDRESS The depth of young artistic talent we have here in WA is exceptional and like other years, it’s been really difficult for me to pick a personal favourite. I can only imagine what it’s like for the judging panel to select finalists and winners. The 25 pieces which have made it through to the final were thoughtful, expressive, topical and most importantly, they all make you question the way you see the world. More than just art, what we’re seeing is an important glimpse of the world through the eyes of a new and emerging generation of artists. The City of Fremantle has a long and proud history of young artists and musicians achieving big things from humble beginnings. We will continue to nurture our talented young artists to keep this legacy intact and who knows, the art we see here may eventually become known as the ‘early work’ of the next great artist to come out of this state. We may actually be looking at collectors pieces of the future.
Dr Brad Pettitt Fremantle Mayor
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FROM THE TEAM The City of Fremantle is pleased to present the fourth annual 25under25 art exhibition. 25under25 is a dynamic exhibition showcasing some of Western Australia’s talented young artists. 25under25 is a celebration of emerging creativity, welcoming submissions in all mediums and practices. The City of Fremantle presents this exhibition to support emerging artists in our community so it is really pleasing to see the progression of previous exhibiting artists. Many of the artists have gone on to participate in other group shows, exhibit their own artworks or pursue further studies. We have also seen some artists successfully selected for multiple 25under25 exhibitions which indicates their work continues to be of a high calibre. The exhibition allows an insight into the current issues and themes that are important to today’s young people. It is interesting to note there are a few entries which explore identity, mental health and our place in the world. Art is a powerful medium that can convey difficult themes. It is wonderful to see the variety of artwork presented in this exhibition. The City of Fremantle is proud to present this year’s finalists and we wish all the artists the best in their future endeavours.
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SALES This exhibition gives the opportunity for young artists to showcase their works. If you are interested in purchasing any of these artworks, please contact Christine George the youth officer on christineg@fremantle.wa.gov.au Purchased items will be available on Sunday 19 July from 2pm. Items are for sale at the discretion of the artist, some may not be available for purchase.
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Earth Wasteland Copic markers and black india ink 212cm x 91cm www.hansoloart.com
HANNAH ATCHESON 23
This piece was completed during a two month Art Residency in Fukuoka, Japan. Earth Wasteland was designed to reflect the overwhelming amount of waste we create and the importance of water and plant life. By containing these two things within a glass dome it separates them from the state of the planet. We often ignore world issues as it is easy to keep things out of mind when they are out of sight. This piece brings the glossy, closed off cities together with the chaos which may be caused by such things as fracking, global warming or consumerism.
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KALEM BATEMAN 16
I took this photo in the school carpark, I loved the way the sky is reflected in the car bonnet so that it is not immediately apparent which way up the image should be. I tried to capture that ambiguity with careful application of paint.
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Sky Hood Oil paint on canvas 60cm x 90cm
The work I have submitted is centered around the emergence of Pirating in Somalia. Blurring the line between the rhetoric and the coy, my depiction of this world issue is as much a jest as it is sermon. A mixture of subjects from both life and popular culture articulate a view of pirate mentality that differs greatly from common media and opinions of greedy, violent men. Violence is a reaction you see and a reaction results from external actions and of course we must understand now that it would be very odd indeed for these people to become violent all by their lonesome.
Somali Cave Drawing Circa 2006 Oil paint and graphite on canvas 180cm x 120cm
MATT BROWN 20
Without offering a definitive decision about the issue, my combination of narrative/annotations and crude renderings create an open-ended conversation intended for the viewer’s involvement. Initially overwhelmed by the sheer number of subjects occupying the canvas, the resulting confused brain is most curious and then eager to arrive at a state of knowledge or understanding. To reach understanding the viewer then proceeds to analyse the work, identifying symbols and creating links. The parts of the work interpreted or even how each aspect is interpreted is irrelevant to me. I am concerned only with the encouragement and perhaps even the inducing of intelligent thought and creation of opinion about our world issues. Whatever opinions and decisions about the Pirates that the viewer arrives at, regardless positive or negative, will have been created through their own link making and process, resulting in unquestioned authenticity and through this, strongest reaction/relation to the work.
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What I Believe To Be True Is Only True For A Moment Fineliner and coloured pencil on paper 29.7cm x 42cm
This work is about the transient nature of mood, belief, opinion, thought and identity. Everything that is human is subject to change. Time and circumstance warps and defines the mind, but only for a few moments. The truths that we hold dear are like droplets in an ocean, readily swept away by the momentum of the waves.
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YI XIAO CHEN 24
www.jyxchen.tumblr.com
Daddy Issues Digital media and film 84.1cm x 118.9cm print and variable screen www.gracemconnors.com
GRACE CONNORS 20
I am exploring the idea of childhood innocence and adult insecurity through the disruption of nostalgia and sentiment. My artwork is one A0 print consisting of 36 screen-captures re appropriated from found film footage. Such as infomercials, fitness VHS’ and personal hand filmed footage. The video element of my work is an ‘inverted’ “Extreme Makeover” video which reverses our strive for perfection and mirrors the A0 print’s aesthetic of SD video and 90’s taste in fashion.
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Night Lights Oil paint on canvas 60cm x 90cm
MITCHEL CORVER 17
I was on my way home from soccer training and we were stopped at an intersection on the red lights. I saw interesting reflections in the wet street and also bouncing off the car windscreen. Luckily I was quick enough to take the photo which was the inspiration for this painting. I decided to paint the work in oils so as I could use the various qualities of oil paint to describe these interesting light effects.
This is a photo I took last year of my friend Kangua at a research station in Gobabeb, Namibia. I love the contrast of the colours as well as the alienated feel the landscape gives. It reminds me of Star Wars.
Kangua Photography 50cm x 75cm
HARRY CUNNINGHAM 18
www.harrycunninghamdoings. tumblr.com
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MICHELLE FISHER 25
Light (Eternity, Infinity, Serenity) was inspired by Earth Hour and the idea of switching off from modern technologies. It’s a wondrous thing to have access to so much knowledge and so many people at a few taps of a screen, bright lights whenever we need and all of that, but I have always loved the moments I’ve spent with family and friends out in the country somewhere far away from the lights and the noise of the city and it’s just silence and stars. Disconnecting and conserving energy for the Earth also serves as a nice escape, a way of recharging one’s self and reconnecting with the animals and people you love.
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Light (Eternity, Infinity, Serenity) Watercolour and ink on heavyweight cartridge paper 102cm x 42cm www.mondays-child.com
Concealment Acrylics, photography and pen 31cm x 59.4cm www.facebook.com/laurafolanart
LAURA FOLAN 24
This work explores the idea of concealment and hiding the darker side to ones personality. Many people put on a ‘face’ in their everyday interactions with friends and strangers, concealing the part of themselves that they do not like and wish to remain hidden. I painted on my friend with acrylics against a painted backdrop. I then took a photo of my friend using my phone, printed the images and drew over them using fine liner to create the swirled patterns. The image to the left represents a cool, calm, and composed identity. The image to the right reveals the breakdown of the concealment as a more negative facet to my friend’s personality is revealed.
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PASCALE GIORGI 23
Make Yourself at Home is a series of four mounted digital prints that examine the relationship between viewers and television content in physical space. Hovering pine boxes extending from the wall mimic the dimension and positioning of televisions, while a low coffee table with a print mounted on its top imitates the experience of television spectators as they watch from their couches. The wall photographs present televisions obscured by fitted fabric coverings, disrupting the gaze. These images play with ideas of simulation and simulacra; instead of the deceptive window of representation, the fitted covers make evident the solidity of the surface of the screen. Fragmented and obscured glimpses of a Hollywood film can be seen through the sensual fabric, piquing the desire for the visual information that usually surrenders itself to the viewer without obstruction.
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Make Yourself at Home Sculpture 60cm x 300cm x 27cm wall installation and 100cm x 40cm x 40cm table www.pascalegiorgi.com
White Wedding Textiles 90cm x 140cm
KIRSTIN HUNTER 21
I have constructed a wedding dress entirely from plastic packaging and a recycled mozzie dome. This mass of plastic was just from 2 days worth of deliveries in a retail store which is a tiny fraction of what goes to waste. I wanted to create something that would make people realise how much plastic goes to waste on a daily basis. If we can’t stop people from using it, we may as well re use and re shape it.
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Superimposed repetitively on the image is the Arabic word ‘taqiyyah’, denoting the Islamic concept of hiding one’s faith to avoid persecution. This has been a recurrent feature throughout my adolescence while growing up in today’s sociopolitical landscape. As the work is a narrative of displacement created by using myself as the initial subject and corrupting the image, the art is both in this process of corruption (reflecting the effect of marginalisation on youth), and in the resulting aesthetic piece.
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Taqiyyah Digital media 60cm x 20cm
SOMAYRA ISMAILJEE 16
‘Taqiyyah’ is a digital mixed-media diptych printed on acrylic glass. The work results from a combination of photography and various photo-manipulation techniques, including one known as ‘glitch art’ - the corruption of data by editing small sections of the computer code which renders it.
The concept of the piece is to explore issues of mental health through a depiction of the artist’s failed suicide attempt. It is presented as a 3D art installation, with ‘sculptures’ sitting upon podiums. The sculptures represent the various methods in which the artist considered taking his own life; electrocution, drinking bleach, self-harm, hanging, overdose.
The Long-Awaited Death Sculpture ~ 30cm x 30cm x 30cm each
With each sculpture there is a short ‘suicide note’ part, giving context to each method. All 5 notes together come together to form a singular written experience of a suicide attempt, however, each note and sculpture can exist on its own as a piece. It is a way for the artist to connect with the audience on a more personal level and make them feel as if they are observing and living the artist’s experience. Mental health is still an extremely taboo subject in Australia and New Zealand and the artist hopes to open a conversation with audiences, and allow open discussion within society. The artist understands it is an intense work, but an important one.
DALEY KING 22
All of the pieces are spray painted in the same colour of white, as white is the colour of death in the artist’s eyes. The singular colour of white can also represent a freezing in time of the memory, as 1. it did not come to fruition, and 2. the artist has blocked the exact memory in his mind, and this is an attempt to bring the moments back to life, to remember them and deal with them.
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Broken Reality Illustration 5x 21cm x 29.7cm and 1x 60cm x 90cm www.instagram.com/shlives
SHANNON LIVELY 23
This piece has been in a series of character based illustrations I have been working on, they follow a beaked skinny being, entering a psychedlic world where physical and non-physical worlds are blurred. This strange reality is filled with trypophobic imagery and fun strange characters. They are created with intense black and white linework, accompanied by my own take on stippling.
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We used to play ping pong
This work explores the tensions between figures in space. It aims to depict the true energy and atmosphere of the situation rather then the common preconceptions around this kind of activity.
Oil paint on board 130cm x 130cm
SHANNON MCCULLOCH 19
In my practice I am interested in exploring ideas around Australian male adolescents, the search for a sense of belonging and the rituals that come with it.
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Reflections
My oil painting is based on an original photograph that I took of a reflection in still water near a garden path. A base layer of crimson is used as a unifying element within the painting: it is still subtly visible in places even though it has been over-painted with other hues. While it is painted in a realistic style, I also wanted to explore the idea of reflection as a type of unbalanced reality and have tried to create an image that allows the viewer to become engaged with the ambiguity of the space.
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ELLIE MCDONALD 16
Oil paint on canvas 60cm x 90cm
Skin Series Photography 88.9cm x 152.4cm www.hugtheground.com
MADISON MCLERIE 19
The skin series is not about ‘redefining’ beauty, it aims to accept the body in its current state. ‘Redefining’ has connotations of creating a new body ideal. Any body ideal, no matter how thin or large, neglects those who dont fit the criteria. By focusing and examining the body closely through photography, perceived ‘flaws’ add to the composition of the work. From an artistic aesthetic stretch marks, scars, freckles etc are to be celebrated.
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The works attempt to speak on a level that effects all viewers, to both those who can build highly analytical and complicated texts and to those who use language on a basic level. In both instances though I hope for the work to make people question their understanding of our language. The understanding of a deconstructed chaotic language can not be explained by more words, but perhaps art can.
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Alphabetised; Aabdeehilpst Vinyl on acrylic 86cm x 118cm x 2cm www.hollyomeehanart.blogspot. com.au
HOLLY O’MEEHAN 23
My practice jumps between the de-construction and re-construction of both pre-organised and chaotic scenes, using a range of different methods to capture these processes. More recently I have been focusing on the structure of words and letters with in gallery spaces. A majority of objects within various environments are flexible to be rearranged to establish a sense of control. What I have not been able to physically manipulate however were letters and words, until I discovered the pleasures of vinyls. The alphabetising of exhibition titles and artist statements has allowed a connection with language in a more methodical manner that I have never been able to establish before, focusing on the arranging process and not the content within the words.
Give up, give out, give in Painting 75.5cm x 63.5cm
REBECCA O’NEIL 15
This is a painting that was inspired by a photograph by Sander Vander Veen, a photographer and friend. In this piece I have tried to capture a peaceful suspension, as if the girl in the water is finally at rest. For me this piece represents an escape from apprehension and disquiet. I want people to view this piece and find a deeper meaning or story behind the girl in the pool, and I want it to inspire them to find their place of escape. When I look at this piece I feel calm and tranquil, I want the viewer to feel the same.
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Estimated Ink Levels: Gradient Background 15
Documenting every last drop of the yellow, cyan and magenta cartridges of his HP 5200 home printer, Prior documents the printer’s struggle to produce an unlimited stream of rainbow coloured gradients. From the series, Estimated Ink Levels, this book; Gradient Background 15 pushes the printer to its limits. The often frustrating results of low ink levels and printer malfunctions are transformed into a spectacle as you turn the pages. At first there is little change, but as the mass of prints builds the printer slowly fails to replicate exact copies of the digital image. The prints are collated into the form of a book. The familiar, appealing gradient of a desktop background begins to take on expressive qualities as it is slowly reduced to streaks and lines. The unpredictable nature of this process is reminiscent of the narrative of a story; you can’t help but read the next page.
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AARON PRIOR 22
Artist’s Book 31cm x 220cm x 2.5cm
When I am broken I am whole Fine liner and fine-point marker on paper 100cm x 150cm
SHAUN PRIOR 21
This drawing began as an attempt to abstractly represent the sensation of a migraine. However it soon evolved into a meditation on the mystery and complexity of grey matter. The mind is a universe, with its clusters, its constellations, its networks and its spaces of deep darkness. Through a simple but time-consuming process, I wanted to celebrate the lines of light – the exciting, penetrating, confusing and painful parts of the human psyche and of our universe, and equally celebrate the empty spaces in between. When I am broken I am whole, and when I am whole I am broken.
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JACK RYAN 21
Tapping into the techniques exhibited through the Surrealism movement, this artwork which is a part of a series, showcases a dream like setting, a combination or architecture and nature and the intertwine of the two. Inspired by the radical 50’s architecture firm Superstudio, the print plays with texture as well as provoking the viewer. Bizarre, surreal, fun and arty are words I’d love to be associated with this artwork.
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Solitude Digital media 42cm x 29.7cm www.jackryanstudio.com
The word ‘Glitch’ is derived from the German term ‘Glitschig’, meaning slippery. The notion of a ‘Glitch’ can be perceived as an oddity; a thing which slips from belonging to a uniform identity. This work examines the subjects ability to slip out of its familiar identity, adapting a sort of androgyny and becoming flexible in the way materials can be used to represent it.
Pizza Party (Secretly Breathing) Painting, mixed media 122cm x 102cm
JESSICA TAN 23
www.wwwwoops.blogspot.com
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Taken on arrival in Mexico City, this image depicts a group of Mexican soldiers performing a march through the Zocalo Square in the city’s centre. This image has been captured on 35mm film.
Welcome to Mexico Photography 76cm x 56cm
LACHLAN WATERHOUSE 21
www.lwaterhouse.com
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Still Life Oil paint on canvas 60cm x 90cm
MAYA YAMAMOTOPORTELLI 16
My artwork was inspired by the reflection of light upon surfaces in our every day environment. Through a camera lens, I was able to observe how light bounced off of tiled surfaces, snapshotting the desaturation of colour. I examined as the brightly coloured shampoo and soap bottles turned into a murkiness of greys and browns when reflected onto the wall of my own bathroom. Without alteration of my photo, I transferred my image into oil paint on canvas, paying extra attention to the change in colour from the right hand side to the left.
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25under25 Exhibition 2015 10–19 July 2015 fremantle.wa.gov.au/25under25 @freoyouthevents