NIKE SAVVAS '17 seconds'

Nike Savvas

‘17 secomds’

Title page

“No permanence is ours; we are a wave That flows to fit whatever form it finds” Herman Hesse ‘The Glass Bead Game’

I had a thought that lasted for a brief period of 17 seconds. I then remembered and recorded the thought. The process of remembering leads to a scenario of association perhaps best described as a perceptual collaging of fragments from memory. In this, not all information is recalled and often some parts remain omitted. This is drawn from a notion of chance - where a work results from the conflation of ones imagination, chance thoughts and memory. The process is left open, is often automatic and pre-empts the creation of new work and new meanings. The work in this show continues my interest in mental imaging, perceptual phenomena and the creative process.

The artist would like to thank Amanda Harris, Urban Art Projects (UAP) for their ongoing support, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales - Dr Denise Hickey Memorial Studio at the Cite Internationale Des Arts, for their assistance in the research and realisation of this work.

Photos by Jamie North.

Born Sydney 1964, lives and works in Sydney and London

EDUCATION

1988 Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts), Sydney College of the Arts; 1990 Graduate Diploma (Visual Arts), Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney; 1994 Master of Fine Arts (Honors), College of Fine Arts, UNSW; 1996-97 Associate Research Student, Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Selected SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2016 ’17 seconds’, Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney.

2014 Rally, Art Gallery of New South Wales; Sparks, Arc One Gallery, Melbourne.

2012 Liberty and Anarchy, Survey exhibition, Leeds Art Gallery, UK; No Gods No Kings, Breenspace, Sydney; Shimmer, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Commission for Louis Vuitton, Sydney.

2010 Sliding Ladder, Breenspace, Sydney.

2008 Purple and Pearl, (SNO 37) SNO Contemporary Art Projects, Sydney.

2005 Atomic (Full of Love, Full of Wonder), Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; A Million Suns (Collaboration with Stephen Little), Artspace, Sydney; RMIT Gallery, Melbourne.

2003 A Handful of Air, The Apartment, Athens; Under A White, Sky Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.

Selected GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2016 Quicksilver: 25 Years of Samstag Scholarships, Samstag Museum, Adelaide 2015 Festival of Love, Southbank Centre, London; After 65, Latrobe Regional Gallery; 4,7,11 Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney; Lines of Force, SCA Gallery, Sydney.

2014 Paradigm Store, 5 Howick Place, London; Optical Mix, Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, Melbourne; De Colori, William Wright Artists Projects, Sydney.

2013 The Edge of Painting, Piper Gallery, London.

2012 Volume One: MCA Collection, Museum Of Contemporary Art, Sydney; The Drawing Room, Breenspace, Sydney; ‘There was a world, once’, Märkisches Museum, Witten, Germany; The Baker’s Dozen, UTS Gallery, Sydney; Square One, Wollongong City Art Gallery; Inspiring Artists: Recipients of the Pat Corrigan Artist Grant, Maitland Regional Art Gallery.

2011 Colour Bazaar: Nine Contemporary Works, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; New Psychedelia, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane.

2010 The Garden That You Planted (Collaboration with Rowena Dring), Vital Arts Gallery Space, London; Group show, Breenspace, Sydney; Bar Woteva, Galerie Lisi Hämmerle, Bregenz, Austria; Are You Looking at Me? Laneway Art, Sydney.

2008 To make a work of timeless art, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney; Big Other’s little other, Experimental Art Projects, Nicosia; Rolling Frame Arcade, Experimental Art Projects, Nicosia; Australian, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney.

2007 Salon 2007: New British Painting and Works on Paper, Artwork Productions, London; Summer Daze, Auckland City Art Gallery, Auckland; Paranoia, Freud Museum, London; 15 Years of Urban Art Projects, Queensland University of Technology Art Museum, Brisbane; Dream Idea Machine Off, Mommy Art Projects, Athens.

2006 Balnaves Sculpture Exhibition, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Wild Gift, Ada Street Gallery, London; Paranoia, Leeds City Gallery, UK; I am Australian Too, Casula Powerhouse, Sydney; Architectural Transparencies, Iliana Dounta Contemporary Art Centre, Athens.

2005 Visual Music, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; 11th Triennale of India, Dehli; Accidental Meetings, Nicosia Minicipal Art Centre, Nicosia Cyprus.

2004 There and Back Again (two person show), Program Gallery, London; Cabaret S1/Salon, S1 Artspace, Sheffield; The Shining, Aschenbach + Hofland, Amsterdam; Tonight, Studio Voltaire, London; Whatever Happened To Minimalism, SCA Gallery, Sydney; Summer Breeze, The Apartment, Athens; The Samstag Effect, University of South Australia Museum, (travelling to other venues); Shangrilla, IMA Brisbane; Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, Bathurst; Kingdom, Market, Glasgow.

2003 East International, Norwich Art Gallery, Norwich, UK; Images of Desire 3, The Fields Gallery, Winston Art Hotel, Amsterdam; 15/1(2), 1000000 miles per hour, London.

1998 New Contemporaries, Camden Arts Centre, London; Primavera, MCA, Sydney; Solo X 9, Berry House, London.

1996 Transformers, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland.

COMMISSIONS INCLUDE

2015 Reverie, Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall, London; In Rainbows, Perth Airport, Perth.

2014 Rally, Art Gallery of NSW; Rapture, 140 William Street, Perth; Colours are the Country, Macquarie Group, 1 Martin Place, Sydney; Epic Love, Macquarie Shopping Centre, Sydney.

2013 Epic 8000, Nike Store, San Francisco; Everlasting, The Quays, Docklands, Melbourne.

2012 Liberty and Anarchy, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, UK; Untitled (Something Sparkly), MCA, Louis Vuitton, Sydney.

2010 Transfer Abstracts, Westin Hotel, New Delhi.

2005 Cascade, Deutsche Bank, Sydney; Transcendental, Deutsche Bank, Sydney; Atomic: Full of Love Full of Wonder, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne.

2003 Anthem.

1999 (The Carny) East International, Norwich, UK, Glam Genie, Selfridges, London; Divisional Sampling, Selfridges, London.

COLLECTIONS INCLUDE

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia Ministry of Culture Collection, Cyprus Wollongong City Art Gallery, Australia Deutsche Bank The British Library Tate Gallery Library Artist Multiples Collection, Chelsea College of Art and Design The Royal College of Art Print Archive; Victoria & Albert Museum, UK Griffith University, Brisbane Federal Archive, Canberra PriceWaterhouseCoopers Artbank Australia; Private Collections - National and International.

SELECT AWARDS

2010 Australia Council Fellowship.

2010 Creative Arts Fellowship, Australian Capital Territory.

2005 Jury Prize (Gold Medal), 11th Triennale of India, Dehli.

2003 Primavera Acquisitive Art Award, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

1996 The Anne and Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship.

‘17 seconds (3)’, 2016, White Diamond Dust Print framed with perspex and white frame, 109 x 129 cm, unframed 100 x 120 cm, edition of 5+ 1a.p.

‘Untitled (Waterfall)’, 2003 Foil and acrylic on Canvas, 170 x 168 x 11 cm, framed

‘17 seconds (5)’, 2016, series of four, digital print on acrylic with split batten fixing on rear, 20 x 24 cm each, edition of 3 + 1 a.p.

‘17 seconds (6)’, 2016, Painted stainless steel, stainless steel wire, 4,200 glass orbs, 2.1 x 2.1 x 2.1 m edition of 3

‘Prisoners Cinema (1-10)’, 2016, 10 individual pieces, digital print on acrylic with split batten fixing on rear, 24 x 20 cm, edition of 5 +1a.p

‘17 seconds (2), 2016, Carborundum and diamond dust print, 109 x 129 cm, framed, edition of 5+ 1a.p.

‘Purple and Pearl’, 2008, single channel video, 14:48 min, ediDon of 5 +1 a.p.

‘17 seconds (4)’, 2016, foil and acrylic on canvas, 100 x 120 cm

‘17 seconds (1)’, 2016, foil and acrylic on canvas,199 x 480 cm, edition of 3 + 1a.p.