Halinka Orszulok 24 Feb - 17 Mar 2024
Halinka Orszulok Halinka Orszulok is an artist living on the South Coast of NSW. Since obtaining her Masters degree from Sydney College of the Arts in 2002, she has regularly shown her work in both group and solo exhibitions. A finalist in the Fishers Ghost, Sunshine Coast and Sulman art prizes, in 2018 Halinka was the winner of the Glover Art Prize with her work ‘Ponies’. In 2019 she was the curator of ‘Uncertain Territory’ at Artbank, an exhibition examining our multi-layered relationship to landscape as a conceptual space. In 2021 ‘False Sense of Security’, at The Lock Up in Newcastle, reflected on the two-edged nature of structures that underpin feelings of safety. Her work has been collected by Artbank, Gadens Lawyers and the University of Wollongong. “My work is created by painting from photographs which I take at night. Night-time darkness activates the subconscious rendering the familiar strange and introducing elements of the uncanny into the landscape. The paintings deliberately reference the photographic, creating the sense of a stilled moment. With an interest in examining the role our individual subjectivity plays in our perception of place, my work investigates spaces that blur the line between nature and culture, the domestic and the unhomely, history and the present. Increasingly ecology, cultural identity and ownership are themes that I like to tease out in my paintings. The scenes that I paint engender a sense of displacement, challenging our preconceived ways of reading the landscape. Inherent in my representations of the landscape is an acknowledgement that there is nothing of the world that is left untouched by humanity in some way and that the word ‘nature’ has been redefined in the age of the Anthropocene. There is also an understanding of the important role that our connection to place has in reflecting and forming who we are.”
The Great Divide The Great Divide is an exhibition of works by Halinka Orszulok drawn from the ruins of mining industries west of the Great Dividing Range. The exhibition considers a time when underground resources were abundant with wealth and prosperity; when men dug in perilous conditions, and families gathered to form communities spurred by a booming industry.
Newnes, the site of a shale mine and processing plant, creating oil and petroleum products, once housed around 800 people. The town was abandoned in 1932 when operations became unviable, while some buildings were removed, others left to slowly decay into the bush. On the Gwabegar line which lists thirty-eight closed stations, iconic Ben Bullen train station was originally used to load coal from a local mine. It is now a haunt for those wishing to engage in vandalism and mischief under the cover of darkness. Lithgow No. 1 Dam was the first water supply to the region. Decommissioned when a larger dam was built further up the gully, a trickle of water flows through the dam wall, empty on the other side of the open sluice valve, reclaiming part of its course. The Great Divide captures the collective memory of these places through painting, film, photography, and text - but the affect is one of displacement rather than nostalgia, as the narrative of prosperity west of The Great Dividing Range is laid bare. Captured with photographic precision in oil on canvas, Halinka’s paintings bare witness and scars of the slow but steady decay into the vegetation that surrounds them. Painted from photographs taken under artificial light, the nocturnal compositions reveal a human presence in otherwise deserted scenes. The built and natural environments coalesce here, engendering a sense of displacement for both human and non-human life, while once active tunnels and water pipes reach back into the earth as if in retreat. Voices of those who worked underground are resurrected in fragmented text across the exhibition, recalling vivid moments from the underground from almost a century ago. Halinka’s haunting scenes seek to remind us of the role individual subjectivity plays in our perception of place, while considering the historic and deeply political divide that exists between the east and the west of the Great Dividing Range. Here environmental and capitalist concerns are weighed against the need of communities for certainty and connection. In a nation where histories of human habitation are entangled with stories of dispossession and colonial expansion, The Great Divide reminds us that the places we occupy are as vulnerable as the changing fortunes of industry, and of the ongoing narrative of post-colonial habitation. Halinka’s works occupy the often-undefined space that blur the line between nature and culture, the domestic and the unhomely, history and the present, and the temporal nature of these binaries in a changing world.
Sales: Julie Collins - Director gallery@djprojects.net 0417324 795 Free delivery and installation within Victoria. Shipping arranged interstate and Overseas. & Gallery accepts Art Money www.artmoney.com 21 Morce Ave Sorrento, Victoria, Australia www.andgalleryaustralia.net & Gallery is part of the djprojects family of art related businesses. www.djprojects.net
1. Lone Rider Oil on canvas 75cm x 105cm framed $3,600
2. Moonlight, rising mist Oil on canvas 100cm x 150cm $4,500
3. Lithgow no.1 Dam Oil on canvas 100 x 150cm $4,500
4. Heritage Pipe Oil on canvas 75 x 105cm $3,600
5. Newnes Chimneys Oil on canvas 100 x 150cm $4,500
6. Ben Bullen Station Oil on canvas 100 x 150 cm $4,500
7. On the Ground Oil on canvas 100cm x 150cm framed $4,500
8. Newnes Coke Kiln Oil on canvas 100 x 150cm $4,500
9. Honeycomb Kilns, Newnes Oil on canvas 75 x 105cm $3,600
Halinka Orszulok C.V. Education 2001-2002
Master of Visual Arts, Sydney College of the Arts
2000
Honours (first class), Sydney College of the Arts
1995-1999
Bachelor of Visual Arts, Sydney College of the Arts
Solo Exhibitions 2020
‘Black Bob’s Creek’ Wollongong Art Gallery
2018
‘Night on the Outskirts’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
2016
‘Bad Things Happen to Good People’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
2015
‘Swamp Motel’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
2014
‘Don’t Fall Asleep’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
2013
Purgatory Art Space, Gallerysmith, Melbourne
2012
‘Wisdom in Hindsight’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
2010
‘Phantoms of Suburbia’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
2009
‘Springwood’ Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney
2007
‘Melrose Park’ MOP Projects, Sydney
2005
‘Unhomely’ MOP Projects, Sydney
Group Exhibitions 2021
Artist/Curator, ‘False Sense of Security’, The Lock Up, Newcastle
2019
Artist/Curator ‘Uncertain Territory’, Artbank, Sydney
2015
‘Exhibit A’, curated by Carrie Miller, The Lock Up, Newcastle
2013
‘330’, Gallerysmith, Melbourne
2010
‘Painting Alumni Exhibition’ Sydney College of the Arts, curated by Brad Buckley
2008
Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney
‘Toyota Emerging Artist Exhibition’, Melbourne
2007
‘Off the Wall’ Art Melbourne
2006
‘Nigredo’ G&A Gallery, Sydney
2003
‘Axis’ Bungay Art House at Shapiro Actioneers, Melbourne
2002
‘Dark Spaces’ Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney
‘Young Artists @Mary Place’, Mary Place Gallery, Sydney
Publications/Press 2021
Arts Hub, ‘Exhibition review: False Sense of Security’, Andrew Frost
Newcastle Herald, ‘Suburban Nights of Peace and Danger’, Damon Cronshaw, 6th Feb
2020
Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend Visual Art July25-26, ‘In the Neighbourhood’ John McDonald
2019
The Art Life ‘Penalties Apply: The Landscape of Uncertain territory’ Andrew Frost, March 4
2018
Art Guide, Sept, Halinka Orszulok interview - Varia Karipoff
Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend Oct 19, ‘Art: Halinka Orszulok’, John McDonald
The Tasmanian Examiner, March 9
The Tasmanian Mercury, March 9
Artist Profile, March 10, issue 42
2016
The Art Life, New Work Friday #207
2014
The Art Life ‘Halinka Orszulok’, Andrew Frost, April 24
2012
The Art Life, Exhibitions, Nov 16, Carrie Miller
Sydney Morning Herald, Metro Nov 30, Andrew Frost
Strobed, Nov 16
2010
The Art Life ‘Phantoms of Suburbia’ Open Gallery, Dec 4-5
2009
Sydney College of the Arts Handbook, Pub Sydney College of the Arts
2007
The Art Life ‘Shit Hot or Not’, Carrie Lumby, theartlife.com.au, July
Turnrow, December, Desperation Press University of Louisiana
2006
Australian Art Collector 36 ‘Undiscovered Artists’ Carrie Lumby, April June
Russh Magazine, ‘Halinka Orszulok’ Pilar Arevalo, Aug -Sept
2005
The Art Life ‘Special Effects’ Andrew Frost, theartlife.com.au, July
2003
Herald Sun, July 23 ‘A Shot in the Dark’ Alison Barclay
2002
Sydney Morning Herald Jan 18-24 ‘Critics Picks – Young Artists @Mary Place’
Prizes 2019
Fishers Ghost Art Prize - finalist
2018
Glover Art Prize – winner
Sunshine Coast Art Prize - finalist
2017
Fishers Ghost Art Prize - finalist
Sunshine Coast Art Prize – finalist
St Kevins Art Award - finalist
2014
Sulman Art Prize, AGNSW - finalist
2008
Fleurieu Biennale – finalist
2007
Paddington Art Prize - finalist
Collections Gadens Lawyers Art Bank Wollongong University