WITH BATED BREATH FINE ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY HONOURS GRADUATE EXHIBITION 2011
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THIS PUBLICATION HAS BEEN SPONSORED BY
COVER: CHRISTINE KO, DUNE, 2010, ARCHIVAL INKJET PRINT. DESIGN: ZIRKA&WOLF. HELLO@ZIRKAWOLF.COM
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ALI BEZER
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SEAN BARRETT
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SOPHIE BOTTOMLEY
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KIRSTY BRUCE
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LIANA EVANS
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CHRISTINE KO
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KATHLEEN HUNT
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JOSH HOWARD
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MITCHELL DONALDSON
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NICOLETTE JOHNSON
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JULIE-ANNE MILINSKI
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MICHELLE MANSFORD
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SHANNA MUSTON
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ANDY LOWRIE
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KATE NASH
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LYNDAL PETZKE
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HANNAH PIPER
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IAN C POOL
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DOMINIC REIDY
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GENEVIEVE REYNOLDS
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JOE RUCKLI
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HELEN JOY ROGERS
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MICHELLE ROBERTS
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MONICA ROHAN
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ALISON SHAND
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KATIE STORMONTH
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JUDE ROBERTS
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BAYLEIGH VEDELAGO
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SARAH WELCH
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JARED WORTHINGTON
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FOREWORD THE THICKENED PRESENT This year the Fine Art Honours students have been an absolute joy. A joy to discuss art and ideas with, to work with, to go on excursions with and plan with! It’s been one of those years that have made me appreciate just how rewarding teaching can be! While chance dynamics of group formation has played a part, the creative talent that each of these students has brought to the group has been a significant factor. As well, I also think it has much to do with the increasing maturity of students coming through the Fine Art undergraduate degree, and the quality of education and the dedication of their lecturers along the way. Undoubtedly students are much more savvy too and seem to be increasingly responsive to opportunities that come their way. Art is a global passport and the opportunities that come through international connections are very energizing and productive for expanding ideas about art. Two students this year have been involved with international projects. As well, all students have benefited greatly from individual and small group studio critiques with New York based artist Dr Ian Burn, an associate of QCA who spends two weeks a year on campus. Art is generally quite an individual pursuit—but a weekly Honours seminar, several shared studio spaces and weekly small group studio critiques have fostered strong collegiate engagement between the students. Interestingly this year, a number of students have investigated and developed in their art practice, in very divergent ways, the phenomenon of memory. Memory has been approached as a challenge to forgetting, as well as a means to forget. Then again, memory has been invoked in the way familiar things are made strangely undecipherable. Emotional memory has caused the world to be viewed as slipping away. Childhood memory has been summoned up through play and transposition.
The memory of sound has taken us all back to other places. The unsettling memory of self at its most vulnerable has been consciously used as a way to select and arrange other images. Objects too, have played a role in triggering the act of remembering, despite efforts to forget. The memory of visiting places where one can feel simultaneously, outside but also inside the space has been harnessed into creating inventive models. Memory of the way previous land use practices have irrevocably damaged the environment has stimulated inquiries about sustainability. There are still other twists and turns drawing on the desire or experience or compulsion to remember. I am curious why this interest should be so apparent this year. Could this be the real condition of contemporaneity— to turn away from the present? Art historian, Professor Terry Smith does not think so. In a recent radio interview he said that what he saw taking place in contemporary art was not a running away from the present but more a renewed interest in the present. The present was not viewed as ‘a blick on the way to the future’ but rather as a ‘thickened’ moment. So while there is uncertainty about what it means to be in the present, there have become many more ways of thinking about the present. The present, Smith says is a more open condition and with different kinds of different ‘presents’. There are connections between these differences but there is no suggestion they are moving on in one way. The idea, I think, of a thickened present does help to understand an increased interest in memory. Memory can provide a way to both untangle the present but also to increase the meaningfulness of the present. Heartfelt congratulations to all the graduating Honours students of 2011. It’s been a tough but rewarding year with stronger and richer art practices emerging—a year that will stand out in everyone’s memory. Susan Ostling Fine Art Honours Convenor 1. www.abc.net.au/rn/artworks/stories/2011/3350541.htm
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SHARPENED PENCILS
If an Honours student were a pencil, it would be new, full length, sharp, an unrecognized brand, beautifully designed and a pleasure to use. Highly visually and verbally literate, students that have completed an Honours year, have a developed personal confidence and perspective that comes from asking some deep questions about what they think about the world they are living in and who they might be in that world. They have been trained to be intellectually sceptical and yet are grounded in a discipline of practical work. This practical aspect of their research is fundamental in forming individuals that have discovered that to think, you also have to do. This kind of thinking in practice reveals unexpected outcomes, things that were unimaginable from a purely intellectual standpoint. This ability to think and do creative things is just what our society needs. We need thinking in action. These students have highly developed skills that may be applied to a myriad of purpose, but it is their art and documentary practice that has focused and developed their attention now. From a cohort of about eighty commencing photography students ten students elect to continue to complete the fourth honours year. This means the collegiality of this small group is familiar and supportive, magnifying peer education and teacher student ratios, extending educational and artistic outcomes as a consequence.
The emerging artists of this year are perhaps an indicator of the issues most pressing for our society. The photo-documentary practitioners, Nicolette Johnson, Joe Ruckli and Bayleigh Vedelago have challenged the photo documentary tradition of giving voice to others, instead turning the cameras on themselves, exploring difficult questions of subjectivity in their investigations into the visual aesthetics of romantic love, the wake of romantic loss and the complexity of family relationships. The visual art practitioners of this group apply their practice and theory to a world of virtual global networks, popular culture, social uncertainty and rapidly reducing natural environments. In brief synopsis, Sean Barrett decodes and evolves visual literacy through reductive photographic propositions while Jared Worthington sculpturally deconstructs personal branding and identity. Lyndal Petzke’s oversized digitally fabricated handbags question commercial value and values whereas Ian Pool pushes the Y generation spectacle of fame into biblical proportions. Responding to all this social uncertainty, Christine Ko photographs the liminal landscape, metaphorical of transition and evolving identity while Hannah Piper responds to all of the above with sculptural works that aspire to a regained sense of wonder, playfulness and physical engagement. Sarah Welch navigates her personal memories and nostalgia for pristine environment through handmade physical processes and interactive installation. The graduates of 2011 are having important and informed conversations with the world they live in and audiences will be the beneficiaries of their continued practice. On behalf of the university I sincerely thank them for their valued contribution to art and academia and wish each individual success for the future. Associate Professor Marian Drew Photography Honours Convenor
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ALI BEZER BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
‘To me the world is sound. Sound penetrates me, linking me to the world. I give sounds active meaning. By doing this I am assured of being in the sounds, becoming one with them.’ Toru Takemitsu
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Untitled 2010-11 silk cut lino 48 x 48 cm Untitled 2010-11 silk cut lino 48 x 48 cm Untitled 2010-11 silk cut lino 48 x 48 cm
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SEAN BARRETT BACHELOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY (HONOURS)
This body of work seeks to respond to the flow of visual consciousness that has awakened from our sustained exposure to the omnipresence of imagery in contemporary visual culture. Employing a reductive visual language, I am attempting to create ambiguous propositions that blur the line between meaningfulness and meaninglessness in visual communication. Studio photography is juxtaposed with simplistic digitally created images to question the significance of photographic production and consumption in an image saturated world. 6
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Sticks 2011 Colour photograph Manipulation 1 2011 Photograph
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SOPHIE BOTTOMLEY BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
‘One must go beyond logic in order to experience what is large in what is small.’ Gaston Bachelard
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leer (detail) 2011 paper, paint, thread 140 x 100 x 250 cm Who knew there were so many shades of black? 2011 beads, thread 5.5 x 7 x 11 cm Photo: Sam Wright
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Untitled (installation detail) 2011 acrylic and watercolour on paper 20 x 26.5 cm Untitled (installation detail) 2011 acrylic and watercolour on cut-out paper 27.5 x 11.5 cm 10
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KIRSTY BRUCE BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
Visual art is a many-layered thing. There is never any complacency; there is a continual questioning (treating things like objects). Art creates a parallel realm for discussing society, a discussion of how meaning is produced. Visual art is about communication and understanding, there is always an open space—a neutral space where the artistic objective is simple: to create something that is worth looking at and to have a certain kind of touch or sensibility of a different world or way of thinking about images... 11
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LIANA EVANS BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
‘How joyless does the sportsman return when the hare has not had fair play! How lively, and in spirits, even when an old cunning one has baffled, and out-run the dogs!’ William Hogarth
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Untitled 2011 pigment liner on paper 17 x 17 cm Untitled 2011 pigment liner on paper 17 x 17 cm Untitled 2011 pigment liner on paper 17 x 17 cm
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CHRISTINE KO BACHELOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY (HONOURS)
We currently live in a globalised world where developments in technology have granted us a level of freedom and abundance of choice never before experienced by previous generations. Along with easy access to travel and new methods of communication, modernity has enabled a sense of global community to emerge where new relationships and ideas are readily formed and shared. However, life in high modernity has also introduced an array of new risks and uncertainties, which has created a society that is radically different from preceding forms of social order. Boundaries and spaces now blur and merge in a continuous state of flux and pre-established structures of which our societies were based are fracturing, leading to an uncertain future. With the fracturing of traditional social structures, the state of modern society is currently caught in a liminal space, or an ‘in-between’ state, characterised by uncertainty and ambiguity. It is a space caught between the past and the future, which has detached from existing structures but where future structures do not yet exist.
If society is caught in a liminal space, how can durable identities and a solid sense of self be created? What kind of impact will these social changes have on the individual and their search for a place within social space? On the other hand, what kind of new possibilities and transformations can take place within liminal spaces? This investigation aims to address these questions through the exploration of a personal relationship with liminal space, whether that be the physical, social or psychological landscapes. The journey traverses through spaces of ambiguity, marginality, visibility and invisibility that appear familiar, yet somehow unreal, in order to reflectively engage with the responses that emerge during the search for one’s identity and position within social space.
Mirage
2010 Archival inkjet print 15
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KATHLEEN HUNT BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
Artist, political activist and politician Joseph Beuys comments on the contemporary culture of exploitation driven by our growthobsessed material economy. Beuys maintains that inherent in the concept of sustainability is a culture of continual reassessment and change—a need to consider ‘what we value, what we make, how we make it and what we make it from’. In the din of the complex and controversial environmental debate I have cause to reflect on my own position. Researching how my studio practice in jewellery and small objects can lead me to a new way of seeing, thinking and doing, I am mining the discards of everyday life. Reclaimed copper wire, newspapers and old books are reconfigured in the context of Beuys’ ‘culture of continual reassessment’ to discover a new form of studio practice.
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Genesis 2011 bible, mig welding wire, beads 45 x 45 x 7 cm The Fourth Estate 2011 newspapers, copper wire, mig welding wire 45 x 40 x 4 cm
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Performance Maker Series 2011 Performance Maker 5050: work together 2011 found material (variable) 2x1x2m Performance Maker 9000 (video stills) 2011 found material, video (variable) 2x2x2m
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JOSH HOWARD BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
‘When you want to know how things really work, study them when they’re coming apart.’ William Gibson, Zero History
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MITCHELL DONALDSON BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
‘Memory leans towards amnesia, the picture —towards abstraction. We often do not know anymore what it is, what it was. And yet it is, clutching desperately to the fringes of memory, refusing to let go, to sink.’ Olga Stanislawska
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Autoluminescent 3 2011 oil on board 24 x 20 cm Autoluminescent 4 2011 oil on board 24 x 20 cm Inscription 2 2011 oil on board 18 x 14 cm
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NICOLETTE JOHNSON BACHELOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY (HONOURS)
We were newly in love, and in the beginning the images served as records of the traces that love leaves in its wake. Now, I am cementing our history through the images. It is a form of security for me, a safety blanket—as I am without family in the country, my partner has become my family, and the images start to build a history of family, of my tribe, of him and me. By inviting the viewer into our two-person-world they are able to consider their own situations in parallel to my own. I seek to heighten the mundane and reveal shades of passion, contentment and devotion in the young lives of ‘us’. The work shows an acute awareness of moments and objects that could otherwise be considered ordinary, dismissible, or even unappealing. The images are monuments to these things— a celebration of flaws.
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Tom’s back from the series ‘Too little a word’ 2011 digital photograph
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JULIE-ANNE MILINSKI BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
‘She has taken up with the snake now. The other animals are glad, for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them; and I am glad, because the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest. She says the snake advised her to try the fruit of that tree, and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education... I advised her to keep away from the tree. She said she wouldn’t. I foresee trouble. Will emigrate.’ Mark Twain, Extracts from Adam’s Diary, 1904–5.
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re-inventing eden (scenario 3) 2011 installation (detail), mixed media, dimensions variable Photo: Heidi Stevens re-inventing eden (scenario 3) 2011 installation (detail), mixed media dimensions variable Photo: Heidi Stevens 25
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MICHELLE MANSFORD BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
In an endeavour to situate a divergent view of the contemporary sublime Journey Through Visionary Veils is a series of smallscale paintings that explore experiences of the everyday and overlooked as aspects of the contemporary sublime. Through everyday windows and frames a distant engagement with the landscape, facilitated by the overlooked conditioning of perception, allows for the emergence of the first condition of the sublime event: wonder.
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Untitled 5:27 2011 acrylic on panel 25.5 x 23 cm Untitled 7:55 2011 acrylic on panel 25.5 x 23 cm Untitled 6:41 2011 acrylic on panel 25.5 x 23 cm
Joanna Zylinska, On Spiders, Cyborgs and Being Scared: the Feminine and the Sublime (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), 163.
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SHANNA MUSTON BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
I am afraid to forget. After witnessing the effects of dementia on a loved one, I have undertaken a journey to increase my understanding of the phenomenon of memory, with particular attention to its fallibility. In addressing my fear, remembrance can become a preventative measure against forgetting. My jewellery and small objects evoke nostalgia, where in the past one can find comfort and restore a sense of self.
For Reminiscing 2011 sterling silver, fine silver, glass, laminated photographs 4 x 3 x 3 cm Photo: Talys Photography 28
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Remaining Familiarity 2011 sterling silver, bronze 3 x 3 x 1.5 cm Photo: Talys Photography
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ANDY LOWRIE BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
I imagine stories passing through the world—myths and knowledge curiously sharing the same space or, by their absence, leaving empty space for dreamers to explore. Our bones, blood, objects and places anchor and engross us in vast narratives as we think about the meanings of the world. Using hand and material to engage with this discourse, the role I take is like that of a puppeteer—at play with strange characters and unrehearsed dialogue.
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Night Walker, the Cosmologer (Constellation) 2011 silver, vitreous enamel dimensions varied Photo: Michelle Bowden Night Walker, the Cosmologer (Constellation) (detail) 2011 silver, vitreous enamel dimensions varied Photo: Michelle Bowden
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KATE NASH BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
‘I studied the little girl and at last rediscovered my mother. The distinctness of her face, the naïve attitude of her hands, the place she had docilely taken without either showing or hiding herself, and finally her expression, which distinguished her, like Good from Evil, from the hysterical little girl, from the simpering doll who plays at being a grownup.’ Roland Barthes 1980 Camera Lucida p. 69.
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Collage (age 5 and 21) 2011 oil on board 130 x 140 cm First day of school (age 5 and 21) 2011 oil on board 130 x 120 cm 32
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LYNDAL PETZKE BACHELOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY (HONOURS)
This series explores the value systems associated with the luxury commodity in contemporary society. The work envisions the postmodern concept of objects as sign, by using imagery which question perceptions of value in our consumer-driven society. The series replicates images of designer handbags, which are conceptually symbolic of luxury items and the commodity of the sign. Using digital photographic techniques, I create a ‘virtual reality’, and through the use of inter-changing materials, I juxtapose the concept of material value versus monetary value, versus cultural value, in order to encourage people to think more laterally about their perception of value.
The designer handbag is an object which signifies luxury, status and wealth but not one that is determined by its material value, where desirability of the bags extends beyond their function, and as such their appeal is a result of constructed scarcity and their associations with class and prestige. The objects value is superficially ‘constructed’ and relies heavily on the influence of media marketing and advertising. I am using a constructed methodology in this work to comment on the ‘constructed’ value system of the consumer object.
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Herme’s Birkin Bag 2011 digital inkjet print 100 x 100 cm Digital imaging allows me to re-construct an object and present it as a virtual reality. This visual paradox, achieved by juxtaposing concepts of original ideologies of photography as an ‘actual’ reality and new ideologies using digital photography as a ‘constructed’ reality, encourages the viewer to see ideas from a new perspective. My reproductions of the Bags are made from photographs of leaves, which have been digitally reconstructed into a replica of the bag. In this series, materiality based on the use of natural materials is a central component of the work, where the juxtaposition of ambiguous materials (man-made vs natural) and (scarce vs common) creates a visual paradox.
Shiro Kuramata’s Copacabana Bag 2011 digital inkjet print 100 x 100 cm Channel’s Classic 2011 digital inkjet print 100 x 100 cm
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Single Greatest Tragedy (installation detail) 2011 Ice cream Dimensions variable This is Not a Rainbow (installation detail) 2011 fluorescent lights 190 x 203 x 7 cm
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HANNAH PIPER BACHELOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY (HONOURS)
This body of work explores visual expectations of lived experience as a result of accumulated cultural knowledge and visual literacy. Creating a refreshed perspective while reattributing sincerity and naivety to vision through recontextualisation, the accepted attributes of the everyday are questioned.
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IAN C POOL BACHELOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY (HONOURS)
The Greatest Story Ever Told II: He’s Back Set in the future, the year 2012, this series acts as a sequel to the 1965 George Stevens Bible Epic; The Greatest Story Ever Told. The story tells of the return to Earth of the Saviour: Jesus Christ, as he revisits Earth in order to save it from the scourge of modernity and the evil plans of Satan and the Anti-Christ, all before the end of the Mayan calendar… In an epic battle for the planet, we follow as Jesus takes on all comers, from the power of the LOL cats to an army of Paris Hilton replicants wielding iPhones™. This satirical photomontage uses the conventions of the Hollywood Bible Epic to scrutinise the foibles of the ones they call… Generation Y.
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Paris Attacks 2011 digital print on archival paper 40 x 135 cm He’s Back: 2012 The Return of Jesus Christ 2011 digital print on archival paper 100 x 80 cm
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DOMINIC REIDY BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
Man mountain 2011 ink on photographic paper 10 x 15 cm
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‘You can’t change the basic shape of your biceps – you can only fail to train hard and consistently enough to develop whatever shape your genetics has given you.’
Untitled 2011 wood, foam, silicone, liquid nails dimensions variable
Shawn Ray
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GENEVIEVE REYNOLDS BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
Contemporary relationships to animals are characterized by abstraction and anthropomorphism. This phenomenon, linked to the ever-widening gap between society and the natural world, is evident in our interactions with pets, onto which human emotions and behaviours are commonly projected. I see the pet as a conduit between the two parallel worlds of nature and culture. It dually exists as a cultural phenomenon, bred for particular aesthetic and behavioural characteristics, and as a complex instinctual being distinct from humanity.
As such, it is subject to fluid interpretation in both directions; as an animal and as a lesser form of human, complete with the needs and desires that implies. Using simplified representations of animals I explore the separation between the anthropocentric abstraction of pets and the complex physical, instinctual animals themselves. I aim to facilitate a refreshed physical engagement in order to ultimately recognize ourselves as one animal amongst many.
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Louis 2011 mixed media 120 x 120 x 70 cm Maria 2011 mixed media 150 x 160 x 140 cm 43
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‘I build my memories with my present. I am rejected, abandoned in the present. I try in vain to rejoin the past: I cannot escape from myself.’ Jean-Paul Sartre.
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Untitled from the series ‘In Your Wake’ 2011 digital photograph Untitled from the series ‘In Your Wake’ 2011 digital photograph
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JOE RUCKLI BACHELOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY (HONOURS)
‘In Your Wake’ (2011) reveals the emotional and psychological residue subsequent to the collapse of a long-term, intimate relationship. Sites of personal significance charged with affective weight become symbolically scarred; the self-nude transforms the landscape into an allegory of heightened affliction.
Here, the photographic image functions as both product and magnet of memory—a visual eulogy to a love lost, yet never forgotten.
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HELEN JOY ROGERS BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
‘“Visual desperation” is a name for a peculiarly strained and anxious seeing that casts about, trying to construct analogies and retrieve an unknown form into the fold of vision. When it succeeds, we complacently classify the bodies as humans, other animals, plants, and fabulous beasts of various sorts. When it fails, we become blind; we see only chaos or trackless monstrosity.’ James Elkins
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Studio work (detail) 2011 dimensions variable Becoming (detail) 2011 95 x 12 x 70 cm
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MICHELLE ROBERTS BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
‘The undoing of the self in trauma involves a radical disruption of memory, a severing of past from present and, typically, an inability to envision a future. … [Working] through, or remastering, traumatic memory … involves a shift from being the object … of someone else’s … [control]… to being the subject of ones’ own.’
Through my art practice, I aim to determine how the empowering nature of visual art practice can be used to recontextualize traumatic experience and rebuild selfhood. Brison, SJ 1999, ‘Trauma Narratives and the Remaking of the Self ‘, in M Bal, JV Crewe & L Spitzer (eds), Acts of memory: cultural recall in the present, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, pp. 39-54.
Susan J. Brison.
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From object to subject (detail) 2011 mixed media artist’s book (9 parts) dimensions variable 48
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MONICA ROHAN BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
Self-portrait sinking into brick 2011 watercolour on paper 29 x 37 cm
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‘We are sealed vessels afloat on what it is convenient to call reality; and at some moments, the sealing matter cracks; in floods reality.’
Self-portrait falling out of a window 2011 watercolour on paper 19 x 24 cm
Virginia Woolf.
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ALISON SHAND BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
Domesticity is conceived as a private space for comfort, nurture and security. However it can also have connotations of great terror and anxiety. Through using the subject matter of the secure and nurturing environment of the home I am trying to evoke something, perhaps long forgotten and repressed, in the viewer. These tiny worlds of the miniature are both familiar and unfamiliar, intimate and strange, perhaps even something uncanny. The miniature invites close scrutiny and voyeurism, however through using blocking mechanisms like half open doors, the viewer is frustrated by the inability to see into these spaces fully. Nevertheless by drawing from film noir devices I am leading the eye into these small spaces through lighting. Overall I am trying to create sensations in the viewer that they have entered another realm that exists somewhere between dream and nightmare.
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Bon view # 1 2011 copper, bronze, camera mirror, printed card 6 x 5 x 5.8 cm Photo: Michelle Bowden All manor of delights 2011 copper, bronze, acrylic mirror, printed card 7 x 5 x 6.5 cm Photo: Michelle Bowden 53
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‘Objects hang before the eyes of the imagination, continuously re-presenting ourselves to ourselves, and telling the stories of our lives in ways which would be impossible otherwise.’ Susan M. Pearce.
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KATIE STORMONTH BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
Intrigued by the relationship between memory and object, I use fragments and surface impressions of found objects to inspire recollection and in turn an emotional response from the wearer. Through isolating and manipulating surfaces and constructing these wearable pieces I hope to inspire curiosity and initiate interaction in order to trigger recollections of pre-associated memories attached to the objects. Using only objects found in the domestic environment, I intend to create a realm of familiarity between the wearer and the work by drawing on the repetitive daily interactions with these objects. Pearce, S M, 1992, Museums, Objects and Collections: A Cultural Study, Leicester University Press, London, p 47.
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Homely Touch #3 2011 925 silver, copper, silk thread and found materials 30 x 18 x 4 cm Photo: Talys Photography Homely Touch #2 2011 925 silver, copper, silk thread and found materials 40 x 6 x 4 cm Photo: Talys Photography Homely Touch #1 2011 925 silver, copper, silk thread and found materials 35 x 15 x 4 cm Photo: Talys Photography
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JUDE ROBERTS BACHELOR OF FINE ART (HONOURS)
My practice investigates how connections between the earth’s surface and the Great Artesian Basin in Australia can be imagined and mapped. The works on paper document human relationships to land particularly the way they interact, construct and visualise these environments. By combining concepts of boundaries, maps and spatial perspectives while allowing moments of chance, I reveal notions of time and change.
The works on paper are an interpretation of landscape as a living cultural phenomenon in a continuing complex interrelationship between people and the land. They are interwoven with rhythms and reverberations, transferred from my own life and from the surfaces I encounter on site. Griffiths,T (ed),’The Outside Country’ 2002 in Bonyhady,T (ed) & Griffiths,T 2002 Words for Country, Landscape and Language in Australia, University of NSW Press, Sydney p.222.
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Untitled (detail) 2011 mixed media on Arches paper 85 x 206 cm
‘As Australians journey inland they become more conscious of water; its luminous and dangerous absence seems to conjure its paradoxical presence. In their encounter with aridity, European explorers dredged out oceanic metaphors to describe the flat choppy plains and to evoke the infinity of the horizon. And they searched for the inland sea.’
Untitled 2011 mixed media on Arches paper 110 x 275 cm
Griffiths 2002
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BAYLEIGH VEDELAGO BACHELOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY (HONOURS)
‘Yesterday’s Tomorrow’ uses family bloodline as an underlying narrative to document the life stories and lived experiences specific to my Italian Australian family, the Vedelagos. Through exploring our family history and the relationship between my father and his siblings, these images document fragments of each life story, and collectively, make up our family identity. The images capture the complexity of family inter-relationships and looks at family connectedness. This project searches for those intangible ties that universally bind families together. The images pause the metanarrative of family life—the unspoken and unacknowledged—and carry with them the weight of expectation, sacrifice and family tradition.
Returning home 2011 digital photograph 59
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SARAH WELCH BACHELOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY (HONOURS)
The head and the body react differently to nature. Our bodies react materially, perception allowing us to navigate the objects that actually influence our physical presence. From this recognition the mind reacts fancifully choosing recognitions, memories, which influence the actions that we make. The mind takes liberties with nature using the play of fancy, the work of imagination, to influence the body that exists within it. Common experiences, such as a trip to a lake, become personal through memory. Photography is often used to share those singular experiences, to unite the personal with the public experience, to overcome a disconnection. Through her latest work Sarah Welch heightens the dualistic response we have to nature. In order to access the central memory, as contained in a series of projected video works, the viewer has to physically navigate via a series of still images
contained in rocking light-boxes. The play of fancy is evident and movement activates all the images. The videos are created from still images made over a period of time, rolling versions of the stills from the rocking light-boxes. Nature is severed and turned into sections that our intuition has to reconstruct into something like reality. We are forced to navigate through a fluid environment to access points of stasis made motion. She forces us to acknowledge our physical relationship with nature and attempts to create an awareness of self in relation to place in this mixing of still and motion. Her place, the place she has chosen to make available is an important childhood environment, Lake Mckenzie on Fraser Island. The memory visions of her past mingle with our physical present, reinforcing the point that memory is not contained in the present but does shape our interpretation of it. carl warner 2011
Flotsam 2011 photograph 15 x 67 cm 60
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Bubbles and squeaks 2011 video still dimensions variable 61
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Crest 2011 varnished oak 39 x 28 x 3 cm Oars 2011 varnished oak, rope 120 x 82 x 30 cm
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JARED WORTHINGTON BACHELOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY (HONOURS)
Possessions often function as adornments to the body or home that conspicuously signify personality. However, these objects are ornamental constructions that allow glimpses into the lifestyle of a fabricated persona. In doing so, they create a space in which to analyse how possessions operate as extensions of the self. 63
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CONTACT SEAN BARRETT 0419 131 232 seanbarrett89@gmail.com www.sean-barrett.com ALIJA BEZER 0438 552 989 ali.bezer@gmail.com SOPHIE BOTTOMLEY 0401 670 465 sophiebottomley@live.com
ANDY LOWRIE 0403 603 709 andy.lowrie@gmail.com MICHELLE MANSFORD 0431 945 151 michelle.mansford@yahoo.com JULIE-ANNE MILINSKI 0419 340 204 jamilinski@bigpond.com
MITCHELL DONALDSON mitchell.g.donaldson@gmail.com
SHANNA MUSTON sl.muston@gmail.com www.shannamuston.carbonmade.com
LIANA EVANS 0403 514 678 liana.evans11@gmail.com
KATE NASH 0406 184 904 katenash@live.com.au
JOSH HOWARD 0422 287 703 praxidental.tourist@gmail.com
LYNDAL PETZKE 0407 764 178 lyndalpetzke@hotmail.com www.lyndalpetzke.com.au
KATHLEEN HUNT 0422 700 848 huntys01@bigpond.com NICOLETTE JOHNSON 0419 737 552 nicolettedjohnson@gmail.com www.nicolettejohnson.carbonmade.com CHRISTINE KO 0422 226 257 kerrissteen@yahoo.com.au www.christineko.net
HANNAH PIPER 0413 856 797 hannah.j.piper@gmail.com www.hannahpiper.com IAN C POOL 0418 983 810 iancpool@gmail.com www.holygreencow.com DOMINIC REIDY dreidy9@gmail.com GENEVIEVE REYNOLDS greynolds12@gmail.com
JUDE ROBERTS 0427 738 424 judetaggart26@optusnet.com.au www.visualartist.info/juderoberts MICHELLE ROBERTS 0424 328 020 m.robmail@gmail.com MONICA ROHAN monica.c.rohan@gmail.com JOE RUCKLI 0410 118 057 joeruckli@hotmail.com www.joeruckli.com www.etalphoto.com ALISON SHAND 0409 494 298 mironapostone@gmail.com KATIE STORMONTH 042 3349 216 katie_stormonth@hotmail.com BAYLEIGH VEDELAGO 0422 877 397 bayleighv@optusnet.com.au www.bayleighvedelago.com.au SARAH WELCH 0434 519 594 sarahemilykate@gmail.com sarahemilykate.com JARED WORTHINGTON 0404 783 166 jaredworthington@gmail.com www.jaredworthington.com
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THANK YOU Sean Barrett Chris Bennie Jess Berry Angela Blakely Mostyn Bramley-Moore Ian Burns Laini Burton Ben Byrne Ann Chadwick George Chapman Casper Ray Cook Nathan Corum Russell Craig Jose Da Silva Tom Dawson Sebastian Di Mauro James Donaldson Marian Drew Reggie Eaves Donal Fitzpatrick Jens Forrest Andrew Forsythe Ian Friend Kylie Gartside Miles Hall Rosemary Hawker Stephen Hobson Pat Hoffie Chris Howlett Kelly Hussey-Smith Jennie Jackson Mr & Mrs Kemp Catherine Large David Lloyd Sara Manser Robert Mercer Dan McCabe
Wesley Monts Susan Ostling Alan Owen Kasia Pawlikowski George Petelin Graham Piper Hannah Piper Cordelia Pool Jean-Maree Pool Debra Porch QCA Print Media Department Prudence Maura Reilly Leena Riethmuller Bruce Reynolds Luke Roberts Steven Roberts Dave Sawtell Elizabeth Shaw Martin Smith Michael Snelling Arryn Snowball Amanda Speight Elizabeth Taggart-Speers Anne Taylor Brenda Taylor Carl Warner Carolyn V Watson Libby Woodhams Ross Woodrow Jared Worthington Jay Younger Michael Zavros And a Cast of Thousands‌
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