THE SECOND > LOUISA BUFARDECI > MALCOM BYWATERS > DONNA MARCUS > HARRY NANKIN > IZABELA PLUTA
> LOUISA BUFARDECI > MALCOM BYWATERS > DONNA MARCUS > HARRY NANKIN > IZABELA PLUTA
In late 2016 Linden New Art celebrated our 30th Birthday. As a home for new art we are open to bold ideas, to different ways of experiencing and seeing the world and oneself. We believe this role is an important part of contemporary art and we aim to foster a curious audience that is open to engaging with art, ideas and approaches to the world. This publication is the second in a series of three that celebrates the impact of Linden as a venue to display work, foster creativity and support artists and curators in their careers. In the second ten years alone significant Australian artists such as: > DEL KATHRYN BARTON > TONY ALBERT > BRENDA CROFT > CHARLES ROBB > CALLUM MORTON have all exhibited at Linden. Our building is testament to the changing fortunes of St Kilda – from a grand home surrounded by a lush garden estate for a successful Jewish émigré and his family, to private hotel and guest house for WWII migrants seeking to establish new lives in Australia; Linden is a building that pays respect to its past by forging a new relationship with its temporary occupants and their work. The gallery emerged in the late1980s in Melbourne at a time when artists and musicians lived, played and worked in St Kilda. The thing that unities artists, curators and visitors alike is their love for the place. The second ten years provides many with an opportunity to tenderly look back with fondness and celebrate the many achievements that have taken place since exhibiting at Linden
We celebrate the second 10 years here – from 1997 to 2006. We thank those artists who have generously shared their journeys:
> LOUISA BUFARDECI > MALCOM BYWATERS > DONNA MARCUS > HARRY NANKIN > IZABELA PLUTA And along the way, many fellow artists, visitors, art collectors and supporters have crisscrossed the paths of these artists and have watched their work develop. Many of these artists have shared a beer or wine in the front garden of Linden on opening night celebrations & the warmth of these celebrations have fostered a continued belief in themselves and their own creativity. We thank them for their contribution to Melbourne’s cultural life.
October 2017
IMAGE > Photograph of Louisa Bufardeci in front of the work 16/04/2009 9°26'46.42"S 107°10'34.73"E from the series The Sea Between A and I, 2014-15, 65.5 x 79.1cm. Photograph: Jil Bartholomeausz. Image courtesy of the artist.
> LOUISA BUFARDECI louisabufardeci.net
Louisa Bufardeci is a practicing Melbourne based artist and teacher. Her career began in 1999 and since that time her practice has utilised a variety of media including neon and needlepoint. She holds a Bachelor of Education in Visual Art from the University of Melbourne, Bachelor of Fine Art from the Victorian College of the Arts and a Masters of Fine Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Having exhibited at Linden a number of times in the early stages of her career, including A Matter of Distance (2000), Louisa remembers the freedom she was afforded “to make whatever [she] wanted.” She believes it is this “open-mindedness and commitment to creativity that makes Linden so special”. Louisa says, “I have seen a number of excellent shows [at Linden] and the Postcard Show is another example of the generosity of the gallery and its staff towards the local art community.” With excitement for Linden to be turning thirty, Louisa thinks it is a “testament to the hard work of all involved over the years and to the commitment of the local government.” She wishes “Happy birthday to Linden! Thanks for being there for me when I needed you.” Since exhibiting at Linden, Louisa has shown extensively in museums and galleries both nationally and internationally. Her work has been collected by a number of art institutions including the National Gallery of Victoria, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney and Art Bank.
IMAGE > Louisa Bufardeci, FugacitĂ (installation view), 1998-9, scrolling drawing, mirror, plant and viewing stand, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne.
IMAGE > Louisa Bufardeci, Hey!, from the series The Calls, 2016-15, wool and cotton, 80 x 80cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne.
IMAGE > Photograph of Malcom Bywaters in his studio writing. Photograph: Max Bywaters. Image courtesy of the artist.
> MALCOLM BYWATERS utas.edu.au/profiles/staff/art/malcom-bywaters
Dr Malcom Bywaters is a Tasmanian based artist, exhibition curator and gallery director. He is a Senior Lecturer and Director of the Academy Gallery, School of Creative Arts, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Tasmania. He has a specific research interest concerning the domestic space in Australian visual art. Malcom’s experience with Linden began in the mid-eighties as an emerging artist, and later as an emerging exhibition curator. He says that Linden will always hold a special place in his memory. “The very first group exhibition at Linden came at an important time when the belief by others in my artwork was precious, cherished and life enriching.” Malcom went on to say, “I will forever be indebted to the support of Linden for helping with the early career acknowledgement to keep making artworks and large unsellable sculptures.” Malcom once exhibited at Linden a life-size nude photographic self-portrait in the exhibition Exposure (1999). He recalls an amusing scenario that occurred while loading the work into the gallery. Attracting the attention of the passers-by, Malcom muses “needless to say, much of the passing commentary was not printable or repeatable…” Malcom is impressed that Linden has reached the age of thirty. He says, “the St. Kilda of old must change, but I believe Linden will keep going and retain its artistic core so integral to all who live in The City of Port Philip.” When asked about his experience at Linden, Malcom says “on a hot summer night with beer in hand, Linden gave the emerging artist with a skin head bleached blond hair cut, black t-shirt, leather jacket and Doc Martens the belief to keep making.”
IIMAGE > Malcom Bywaters cutting a life-size nude photographic self-portrait exhibited in Exposure (1999) into sections, 2011. Photograph Danielle Thompson. Image courtesy of the artist.
IMAGE > Malcom Bywaters, Finding Home (installation view), 2012, mixed media, 120 x 400 x 420 cm. Photograph: Danielle Thompson. Image courtesy of the artist.
IMAGE > Photograph of Donna Marcus. Photograph: Marian Drew. Image courtesy of the artist.
> DONNA MARCUS donnamarcus.com.au
Donna Marcus is a Brisbane based artist and Adjunct Associate Professor at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University. Donna is best known for her use of discarded kitchenware. The original uses of these found objects are recalled and extended by the process of assemblage as they are combined into the repetitive forms of modernist grids and spheres. Donna is engaged by the stories evoked by these objects, and by the familiarity they engender in many viewers who are often drawn into a world both remembered and imagined. Donna has exhibited nationally and internationally including public spaces in Brisbane, Mackay, Perth, Shanghai and Chengdu, China and KAUST, Saudi Arabia. Donna first exhibited at Linden in 1998 “at a crucial time in my career” she says. She exhibited again in The Retrieved Object curated by Elizabeth Gower in 2000. She fondly refers to the “impressive scale of the domestic architecture of Linden” as the only space that has allowed for a very particular dialogue between two different time periods of domestic interior, filling a nineteenth century living room with the objects from a mid-twentieth century kitchen. With Linden turning thirty, the words that come to mind for Donna are “glad” and “grateful”. She says, “Linden was pivotal to my career. The commitment to both emerging and mid-career artists is an ideal mix to create new audiences and ideas for all exhibiting artists.” Exhibiting at Linden created new opportunities for Donna in Melbourne. Since that time, she has had several solo shows in public and private galleries, completed an extensive series of large sculptures for the public realm both in Australia and overseas, and included in many publications. She has also been the recipient of a number of awards, residencies and grants including the Australia Council residencies in London (2003) and New York, Greene Street (2013).
IMAGE > Donna Marcus, Tripe, 1997, aluminium, 163 x 102 x 10 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
IMAGE > Donna Marcus, Glimmer, 2017, plastic saucepan knobs and aluminium, 34 x 50 x 5cm. Photograph: Mick Richards. Image courtesy of the artist and Andrew Baker Art Dealer.
IMAGE > Photograph of Harry Nankin in the field. Image courtesy of the artist.
> HARRY NANKIN harrynankin.com
Harry Nankin is a photographer, environmental artist and educator. The focus of his work for over thirty years has been the contested ethical and material relationship with the non-human world. At the core of his practice is the ‘ecological gaze’: an aesthetic and poetic engagement with the ‘space’ between the phenomenology of wonder and a classical Aristotelian conception of Tragedy. Harry’s work has been exhibited, reviewed, short-listed for prizes and acquired for collections both nationally and internationally. He has written widely on environmental and photography questions and lectured on photography and art in tertiary institutions for over twenty years. Harry first exhibited at Linden in his early days as a mid-career artist in the exhibition Tilia Europaea (2001). After exhibiting his work since 1991, it was the first time he had created a 3D non-photographic artwork at a time when he was temporarily without a studio or darkroom. Harry says the support from the other participating artists, Linden staff and curators made this time “wonderfully collegial”. Harry’s career highlights since exhibiting at Linden include receiving grants from Creative Victoria (2003 & 2006) and Australia Council for the Arts (2003 & 2007), acquisition in the collections of National Gallery of Victoria and Nevada Museum of Art, USA, and winning the Scope Galleries Art Award for Art Concerning the Environment at Scope Galleries, Warrnambool (2016). On Linden turning thirty, Harry says it is “an important milestone in the public representation of art in Australia.”
IMAGE > Harry Nankin, As birds hovering, 2001, spotted gum (Eucalyptus maculate), synthetic polymer, pigment, sealing agent, mirror, incandescent light globe and nylon thread, 32 x 21 x 168 cm and 0.5 x 35 x 170 cm. Installation view of Tilia Europaea. Image courtesy of the artist.
IMAGE > Harry Nankin, Suite (Belah), 2017, pigment print on archival rag paper, 89 x 231 cm, Edition 1 of Artists Proof. Image courtesy of the artist.
IMAGE > Photograph of Izabela Pluta in her studio. Photograph: Tom Williams. Image courtesy of the artist.
> IZABELA PLUTA izabelapluta.net
Izabela Pluta is an artist with an interest in expanded photographic practice. She was born in Warsaw, Poland and migrated to Australia in 1987. Exploring how measures of distance could be conveyed through images and operate as a form of gleaning, she draws on the connection between the philosophical terrain of place, nostalgia and diaspora, and the lure of her personal history as a Polish-Australian to make this enquiry. Izabela completed her undergraduate in Fine Art at The University of Newcastle (2002) and has an MFA from the University of New South Wales Art & Design (2009). She is currently completing her PhD in The School of Arts, English and Media at The University of Wollongong. She is represented by This is no fantasy, Melbourne Izabela exhibited at Linden in Exhibition Gallery 3 (2002), the year she graduated her Fine Art degree. She says “the opportunity to have a show so early in my career was timely and important in establishing what I did and how I would later negotiate my working methods and create networks in the art community.” Reflecting on her time at Linden, Izabela says the exhibition was “a very big deal” and presented her with the opportunity to explore new mediums. “This was also the very first time I worked with an image which was transferred onto a multi-panel photomural, printed using a basic CAD plotter,” she says this method was “a precursor to the way in which I work with photographic installation today.” When asked to sum up her experience in one sentence, Izabela says Linden is “instrumental in facilitating and supporting artistic production and playing an essential role in shaping the creative landscape of Australia.” She wishes Linden a warm Happy Thirtieth Birthday, proving “the important role that the gallery has played in careers of so many artists as well as the wider community. A model of such longevity and stability is critical to the visual arts.”
IMAGE > Izabela Pluta, Map (detail), 2002, inkjet print on cartridge paper, resin and perspex, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist and This is no fantasy and Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne.
IMAGE > Izabela Pluta, Uprooted Tree (installation view), 2014, latex-based inkjet print, 280 x 360 cm. Image courtesy of the artist and This is no fantasy and Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne.