Issue 99 March 2013

trouble

mar 2013

LISTINGS NSW / ACT

(68)

TASMANIA

(69)

MELBOURNE

(70]

CENTRAL VICTORIA

(78)

MURRAY RIVER

(85)

NORTHERN VICTORIA

(86)

WESTERN VICTORIA

(87)

Issue 99 March 2013 trouble is an independent monthly mag for promotion of arts and culture Published by Newstead Press Pty Ltd, ISSN 14493926 STAFF: administration Vanessa Boyack - admin@ troublemag.com | editorial Steve Proposch - art@ troublemag.com | listings - listings@troublemag.com CONTRIBUTORS: Mandy Ord, Ive Sorocuk, Inga Walton, Mark S. Holsworth, Courtney Symes, Pauline Vetuna, Keith Bunin, Robin Pen, Neil Boyack, Terry Chapman, Ben Laycock, Jase Harper, Matt Bissett-Johnson, Dave O’Donohue. Trouble 100 designs by Horse.

Find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Troublemag Subscribe to our website: www.troublemag.com READER ADVICE: Trouble magazine contains artistic content that may include nudity, adult concepts, coarse language, and the names, images or artworks of deceased Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. Treat Trouble intelligently, as you expect to be treated by others. Collect or dispose of thoughtfully.

FEATURES (06) COMICS FACE

(50) SKULL MOVIES: SCENE 3

(16) THE NECKS

(60) STRALIAN STORIES

Neil Boyack

(20) SOCIAL WORK

(63) A LONG WAY

FROM TOORAK

Terry Chapman

Ive Sorocuk

Steve Proposch Sally Smart

(22) WILL COLES

Mark S. Holsworth

(26) ACTEASE

Courtney Symes

Robin Pen

(78) GREETINGS FROM

LAKE TITICACA

Ben Laycock

(30) MELBURNIN’

Inga Walton

(36) ETHICAL IS

THE NEW BLACK

Pauline Vetuna

(40) MARCH SALON

magnifique

(48) THE CREDEAUX CANVAS

Keith Bunin

COVER: Anatol KNOTEK, Mistapes 2012, tape on wall. The artist will be contributing to Text Alley, an outdoor text art space, as part of the Castlemaine State Festival Visual Arts Biennial, 15 – 24 March 2013 castlemainefestival.com.au/ DIS IS DE DISCLAIMER! The views and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the publisher. To the best of our knowledge all details in this magazine were correct at the time of publication. The publisher does not accept responsibility for errors or omissions. All content in this publication is copyright and may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without prior permission of the publisher. Trouble is distributed online from the first of every month of publication but accepts no responsibility for any inconvenience or financial loss in the event of delays. Phew!

2 MAR TO 14 APR 2013 artgalleryofballarat.com.au

BOX OFFICE AT THE CASTLEMAINE MARKET BUILDING: 03 5472 5123

WWW. CASTLEMAINEFESTIVAL.COM.AU

Season 2013

Henri Szeps in

KAGE

It’s My Party (And I’ll Die If I Want To)

Sundowner

by Elizabeth Coleman

Sat 2 March 8pm

Subscriptions on sale now

Wed 12 June 8pm

Stiletto Sisters Sat 20 July 8pm

Brew Duo

The Australian Ballet presents

Fri 15 March 8pm

The Dancers Company

ACO2 VIC Tour Sun 21 April 8pm

Fri 26 July 7.30pm Sat 27 July 7.30pm A version 1.0 and Merrigong Theatre Company Co-Production

R&J

The Table of Knowledge

Produced by Expressions Dance Company & Queensland Performing Arts Centre

Wed 7 August 8pm Thu 8 August 8pm

Natalie Weir

Tue 7 May 8pm More Than Opera

The Ring.

Wagner.

Animated.

Fri 17 May 8pm An Ensemble Theatre Production

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Tue 20 August 8pm Goldthorpe Creative presents

Chet Baker: Like Someone in Love Tue 10 September 8pm

Frankenstein

by Nick Dear

John Buchan and Alfred Hitchcock’s

Fri 24 May 8pm Sat 25 May 8pm

The 39 Steps

Flinders Quartet

Fri 18 October 8pm Sat 19 October 8pm

with Dmitry Onishchenko (piano) 50 View Street, Bendigo Victoria 3550 Tel: 03 5434 6100 thecapital.com.au

Fri 7 June 8pm

Adapted by Patrick Barlow From an original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon

David Helfgott Sat 26 October 8pm

Box Office Hours: 9.15am to 5.15pm weekdays.

10am to 1pm Saturdays.

One hour before each show.

Details are correct at the time of publication. The Manager reserves the right to add, withdraw or substitute artists and vary the program should the necessity arise.

The Capital is proudly owned and operated by The City of Greater Bendigo

1 MARCH - 5 MAY 2013

OctOber 19 - December 2 2012

Jason PARMINGTON Threshold 1 2012 mixed media 400.0 x 503.0 x 453.0cm

Nat THOMAS Shell Lined Cup For Meret 1 2012 mixed media Collection of the artist

Bundoora Homestead Homestead Art Bundoora ArtCentre Centre historic house• •gallery gallery••café café historic house 7-27 Snake Gully Drive Bundoora ph 9496 1060 7-27 Snake Gully Drive Sat Bundoora • ph 9496 1060 Wed – Fri 11am–4pm & Sun 12noon–5pm Wed-Fri 11am-4pm Sat-Sun 12noon-5pm free admission www.bundoorahomestead.com www.bundoorahomestead.com

until 24 March

ACTION / ABSTRACTION: Jo Davenport / Sally Gabori Todd Hunter / Ildiko Kovacs Aida Tomescu /

30 March - 21 April

ELEMENTAL: MARy-ROSE RILEy and

LIghT & DARk: B채RBEL ULLRICh Paintings & mixed media work by northeast artists

Wangaratta Art gallery

56 Ovens Street Wangaratta VIC 3677 T: 03 5722 0865 E: gallery@wangaratta.vic.gov.au hours:12-5 Mon-Tues 10-5 Wed-Fri 1-4 Sat-Sun

www.wangaratta.vic.gov.au

images above (top-bottom): Aida TOMESCU, Goldfields (detail) 2012, mixed media on canvas, 183 x 153 cm, courtesy the artist & Liverpool St Gallery, Sydney; Mary-Rose RILEy, Lake Hume 2 (detail) 2012, acrylic on canvas;

The Necks

by Steve Proposch

The Necks celebrate what it is to be a musician, living in the moment of the music, where a single note rings out in space and sparks an idea. Not even the band knows where it might lead, but the possibilities are virtually endless. >>

“In that beginning period of intensive workshopping we were intending to never play in public.”

No, no-one ever asks for old faves. People just seem to know. For example, our first album Sex sold well and continues to sell well, 24 years later, such that we’d expect to see some of those buyers rocking up to our shows, but although we get good crowds at our shows, it’s nothing like what you’d expect considering how many copies Sex has sold, so clearly people just know that they’re not going to get the Sex experience The Necks know all the possibilities. at the live show (I’ll tactfully avoid the many Individually they are veteran musos with obvious jokes I could make there). And accomplished careers stretching back to the I’m fine with that. We always have a good early 80s. Together they somehow find their turnout to play to, and I think it’s great to way from silence and nothingness through know we’ve got a whole other stay-atspare bass notes, piano chords and feedback, home audience. to nifty riffs, to driving grooves, to crashing Did you perhaps start out thinking you might crescendos, to some kind of answer. form a straight up rock or pop band?

Lloyd Swanton plays bass for The Necks LS: (Snort.) We formed the band with the and is a three-time winner of Best Bassist specific intention of exploring this modus in the Australian Jazz and Blues Awards. operandi we had in mind. Incredible that a Along with Chris Abrahams (piano), and quarter of a century has passed since.

Tony Buck (drums), he has been lauded in the world press for his work in this band as everything from a genius to some kind of musical shaman-stroke-prophet. The Necks’ performances have been described as “Ecstacy in slow motion ... magically euphoric ...” (Weser Kurier, Bremen, Germany), and “... a kind of religious experience” (The Australian).

We spoke to Swanton in the lead up to an upcoming performance at the Castlemaine State Festival (22 March).

Do you still rehearse together?

LS: We haven’t rehearsed since the six-month period of very intensive workshopping we did when we first formed, except very occasionally if we have an album recording coming up, and one of us actually has an idea for what we might record (often we don’t). In that beginning period of intensive workshopping we were intending to never play in public.

Your music feeds on itself, building from the first You all have other projects you work on note with ideas tried out in the moment... Do individually and meet a only few times a years you ever play a song the same way twice? to play as The Necks. Is your time away from Lloyd Swanton: No, never. Even if we wanted the band important to you? to, we couldn’t.

LS: Yes, very. Although playing the music Is that ever a problem? Do you sometimes of The Necks is a great release and very have audiences requesting an old fave? therapeutic, it’s still very intense, and all LS: Well, people often come up to the three of us need time away personally and merch desk after the show and ask “which musically. Consequently, 25 years along, we’re one did they play tonight?” still getting on just fine.

The Necks / Steve Proposch

Funny, I just read an article today that described us (yet again) as “session” musicians. This seems to be a common misconception, that we need to correct.

We’re not freelance hacks. Even if at most, The Necks only play 50 or 60 shows a year, it’s still the primary focus for all three of us.

We run our own record label and set up a lot of our own touring. Everything else has to fit around The Necks, not the other way around.

How do you generally spend the time away from the band? Can you name any other projects you are working on currently, or some you have worked on in the past?

In reviews your music is often compared to nature, or landscape - “it’s hard not to see their long, endlessly sustained pieces as reflections of the vast Australian landscape” - the Telegraph. Or “it was somewhat like witnessing and hearing the ocean at work” Brian Turner on WFMU Blog. How do you feel about such descriptions?

LS: I think they’re both apt. The Australian landscape one comes up a lot. I don’t know how much you can prove the link between our music and the landscape. All three of us grew up in the city, after all.

You can’t help but be mindful of that vast desert sweltering just over the horizon, but LS: I have my own band The catholics, a lot of music coming out of Norway these which itself has been running over 20 years. days has a similar spaciousness, so what’s It’s a seven-piece acoustic jazz ensemble inspiring them? that draws heavily on dance rhythms from I think the more relevant interpretation around the world. We’re about to release of Australia’s influence on our music is our eighth album, Yonder, on the Bugle more cultural. I think it’s less likely that Records label through Fuse. the three of us would have got together I only ever make enough money from it and workshopped this concept if we lived to keep it alive and performing, but we’re in one of the centres of old culture like still here, and it’s one of the great joys of London or New York. my life.

And I like the ocean allusion. We ourselves Outside of that, there are other wonderful something feel like we’re being tossed ensembles I work with when there are around by great waves too strong for us opportunities - The Alister Spence Trio, to resist.

Phil Slater Quartet, The Field, Mara, and I “One of the greatest bands in the sometimes fill in on bass with The Vampires, world” according to the New York Times, a fabulous younger quartet playing a sort of The Necks will be performing at the Ornette-meets-Bob Marley blend, which I Castlemaine State Festival, in the Town think is a real winner.

Hall, on 22 March, 7.30pm.

I spend time with my young family, I’m an AFL nut (Sydney Swans) but couldn’t care Links: less for any other sport, I write lots of letters to the paper, I read copious books http://castlemainefestival.com.au/ on World War II, particularly the Pacific war and particularly the PoW experience http://www.thenecks.com/ because my uncle died in a Japanese PoW camp. I’m putting together a musical work about his story.

Neil Boyack’s

SOCIAL WORK: Sally

Smart

Which member of your family influenced you the most?

S.S. The Artists in my family.

Do you have a favourite family story?

S.S. Love at first sight.

What do you hope for?

S.S. The World How do you make important decisions?

S.S. Sleep on it.

Do you think things happen for a reason?

S.S. Yes What beliefs do you have that you think will never change?

S.S. I believe in art and love.

Do you believe in the supernatural?

S.S. Yes, I’ve seen a ghost!

Have you ever come close to dying?

S.S. Drowning.

What do you like the best about your body?

S.S. That I am healthy.

Have you ever been lost?

S.S. In Venice.

How do you control your anger?

S.S. Swim.

Is there anything you find irresistible?

S.S. NEW YORK CITY What is stopping you?

S.S. Nothing.

What would you like to do more of?

S.S. Sail and sing, sing and sail.

What was your favourite book as a child?

S.S. Pippi Longstocking.

What do you like most about where you live?

S.S. Walking to my studio.

What stays the same in your life, no matter how much other things change?

S.S. Vivid dreaming.

Sally Smart: Choreographing Collage, Breenspace, Level 3, 17–19 Alberta Street, Sydney (NSW), 22 February – 23 March - www.breenspace.com Photo: Jeff Wassmann

Will Coles

Concrete Chips

by Mark Holsworth

Y

ou might see a sculpture

by Will Coles unexpectedly as you walk around the streets.

It is a public sculpture but not as it was known a century ago.

There is no plinth, there is no bronze statue of a hero; instead it appears to be a crushed can.

But all it is not as it appears, the drink can is cast concrete and it has been glued in place by Will Coles. It marks a new phase in public sculpture.

When Melbourne was established sculpture hadn’t changed in centuries and the purpose of public sculpture had not changed for millennium.

It hadn’t really changed since the Ancient Greeks. Then, in a few decades contemporary public sculpture in Melbourne changed dramatically. Not simply in style but in materials, location, intention, and in sheer number. The materials from which the sculptures are made have changed from bronze and marble to any materials. The purpose for the sculptures has changed too. The reasons why an artist would make a public sculpture have changed, and so have the reasons why the public admire and use it. continued >>

“Where did I put the remote control?

Is that strange package a bomb?

Will a McDonalds hamburger kill me?”

Originally a public sculpture was intended to record a triumph or to memorialise. It was a traditional way of imposing ideas on the public. It was sculpture for and about an elite group of upper class people, that happened to be located in a public place. The height of a plinth was an indication of the glory of the heroic sculpture. Now the plinths have disappeared completely.

Will Cole’s squashed cans are a development from the American artist Jasper Johns’ beer cans from 1960 – a painted bronze sculpture of two cans of Ballantine Ale on a low plinth. Johns also did bronze paintbrushes and lightbulb sculptures, at the same time marking the point in art history between Dada and Pop Art. Coles has left his sculptures unpainted and without a plinth, but most importantly he has installed them in the streets, and as such they mark a new point in the history of public sculpture.

Will Coles’ squashed drink can, and hamburger with a side of fries have not been commissioned or approved by the local council, but completed without the authorities noticing. Many people don’t even notice the work, but I’m always looking for them.

as a “sculptor, street artist and freelance European.” He exhibits both in galleries and in the streets. Coles casts concrete versions of ordinary objects, drink cans, chips, hamburgers, donuts, faces in masks, remote controls, televisions, mobile phones, teddy bears, footballs, skulls, washing machines and suitcases. They are pop culture references to the consumerist icons of a throwaway society, like the children of Duchamp’s readymades and Barbara Kruger.

Coles’ sculptures critique the stuff of the modern world. Sometimes this ironic comment comes in stamped words on the objects: “stop”, ”dumb”, “lie”, “isolation” on remote controls; and sometimes it is achieved through the placement of the work. They fit into the urban environment of lost objects and fly-tipping. They are where you would half expect to see the object for real. The choice of locations for each of the multiple editions of cast sculptures is, in art speak, ‘site-specific’.

Coles’ objects are sometimes playful, sometimes sinister, reflecting the mood of paranoia of contemporary culture. They allude to questions such as: Where did I put the remote control? Is that strange package a bomb? Will a McDonald’s hamburger kill me?

His cast of a wrapped box, tied with real string and bearing the gold words: “this is not a bomb” is both a reference to Magritte’s paintings and the graffiti term of ‘bombing’. It ties in with the wrapped objects of Christo, while commenting on the War on Terror.

Coles’ street sculptures extends to culturejamming installations. He has installed a copy of a bronze history plaque dedicated to himself. He has placed his concrete Sydney-based artist Will Coles was born in televisions alongside the authorized Warwickshire in 1972 and describes himself sculptures at Bondi’s Sculpture By The Sea.

Will Coles / Mark Holsworth

And, more politically, his protest against “the misuse of Australian soldier icons by big business” in which Coles installed a bust of a blinded and gagged digger on an empty plinth amongst a row of official busts in Sydney. The bust occupied the plinth for one week before it was removed by authorities.

I have found sculptures by Coles around Fitzroy, Brunswick and the city. For me, looking for street art sculptures is like a giant treasure hunt that everyone has been invited to, only you can’t take them home.

These sculptures are secret gifts to the public and should remain that way.

Coles unofficial street art sculptures join plenty of others around Melbourne.

Crateman hasn’t been seen climbing the walls around town for a few years, but there are figures made of junk by Junky Projects, the suggestion boxes by Nick Ilton, and the gremlin heads by Mal Function. These works are the opposite of the old elite memorials; they are democratic sculptures in that they are for and by the people.

If you do want to take a Will Coles home then you can buy one at his first-ever exhibition in a Melbourne gallery I Fucking Love Melbourne, at Dark Horse Experiment, 110 Franklin Street Melbourne (VIC), 8 – 29 March, 2013.

- http://www.darkhorseexperiment.com/ Mark S. Holsworth is a Melbourne-based Art & Culture critic at Black Mark - http:// melbourneartcritic.wordpress.com

ACTease

< Julia BOYD, Fluidity 2012, ink-jet print on table top, 152cm h x 91cm w x 4cm d. Blaze 7, ANCA Gallery until 3 March.

DATELINE: MARCH 2013

by Courtney Symes

2013 is a great year to be in Canberra. Not just because of the political antics that are anticipated in the lead up to the Federal election this September, but because Canberra turns 100 this year. Whilst Canberra’s bir thday celebrations run throughout the year, Canberrans can look forward to a peak in this year-long culture-fest, with Canberra Day falling on 12 March. Canberra’s galleries have pulled out all stops to ensure they present an enticing line-up of exhibitions and events, so get ready to be spoilt for choice over the next few months…

It’s the last few days of ANCA Gallery’s BLAZE 7 exhibition. Don’t miss the oppor tunity to check out the “crème de la crème” of Canberra’s hot new visual ar tists: Hannah Bath, Julia Boyd, Elly Freer, Holly Granville-Edge, Ruby Green, Patrick Larmour, Trish Roan, Roman Stachurski and Steph Wilson. BLAZE 7 has been curated by David Broker from Canberra Contemporary Ar t Space (CCAS) and ANCA Gallery’s Janice Falsone. Broker says, “Blaze 7 at ANCA brings together a group of ar tists whose highly refined experimental practices subver t familiar objects and materials in ways that are more often than not amusing”.

CCAS initiated the annual search and exhibition of Canberra’s emerging ar tists in 2006. CCAS and ANCA have now joined forces to extend their search for Canberra’s hottest new ar t talent. Ar tists have been selected from the CCAS Studio Residency Program, as well as emerging artists’ exhibitions throughout 2012. Works included in the exhibition are varied, ranging from “skilfully hyperrealist drawings to disconcerting photographic por traits and

unpretentious contemplations of everyday phenomena”. This is an unmissable event for any ar t collector or enthusiast, and promises that “audiences will gain a sense of the exciting new work being made by emerging practitioners in the ACT, work that continues to renew and revitalise Canberra’s cultural scene”. Runs until 3 March. www.anca.net.au The Gapuwiyak Community, from northeast Arnhem Land is showcasing a beautiful selection of fibre work from local female ar tists at Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre this month. Women with Clever Hands (Gapuwiyak Miyalkurruwurr Gong Djambatjmala) features a variety of products, such as bags, baskets, jewellery, mats and sculptures that highlight the skill and techniques employed by these talented women as they express their creativity and convey their culture. Young women have been encouraged to get involved in this fibre practice “as a means of economic and cultural benefit”, so work included in this exhibition is from ar tists of different ages, with the majority of works produced from 1995 to 2010. The exhibition has been curated by continued >>

ACTease / Courtney Symes

“The dark green gallery walls provide a striking backdrop to these imposing characters with big faces; big eyes (and other large body parts)” > Dr Louise Hamby and assistant curator Lucy Wanapuyngu and runs until 16 March.

- www.craftact.org.au John Young: The Bridge and the Fruit Tree is a survey of three of Young’s signature projects from the last seven years: Transcultural Humanitarian Project, The Abstract Paintings and The Cardinal Paintings. The Transcultural Humanitarian Project includes Safety Zone, the exhibition centrepiece. Young uses “an extraordinary flux of words and images” to honour the heroic actions of foreign business people and missionaries involved in the horrific 1937 Japanese invasion of Nanjing. The impact of digital media is the focus for Young’s project, Abstract Paintings, whilst Cardinal Paintings creates “a form of contemporary allegory” through a collection of contrasting imagery and techniques. Born in Hong Kong in 1956, Young’s bicultural heritage is an influential factor in many of his works. Young has also exhibited extensively in Australia and abroad. Runs until 24 March - www.anu.edu.au If you’re at a loose end one weekend in March, a trip to Canberra’s High Court of Australia is well rewarded with some uplifting music. Visitors can enjoy free Sunday

afternoon performances from The Heart and Soul Singers (3 March), the Aranda Community Choir (10 March) and A Pocket Score Company (24 March) in the foyer of the High Court. The Heart and Soul Singers have been performing together since August 2009 and are passionate about promoting the health benefits of singing for the Over 50s, no matter how old or how mobile you are. Age is also no limit for the Aranda Community Choir, who encourage young and old to join together in song (their youngest member is 5 years old). Under the instruction of Tim Bevitt, the Aranda Community Choir has been performing together since 2011.

A Pocket Score Company is comprised of “four renaissance blokes”: a countertenor voice combines with two tenors and a bass.

Specialising in the Classical and Religious genres, “with a liking for early music and an openness to the new”, it’s anyone’s guess what they’ll perform, but I’m betting we’ll be in for a good show. Performances at the High Court of Australia continue throughout April, so check out www.hcourt.gov.au for further details.

These music events form part of the The Musical Offering project, which has been created as part of the Canberra Centenary celebrations.

The Musical Offering project celebrates Canberra’s talented and passionate musical community through a series of musical events at unconventional locations. Forget the concert hall or theatre, these musical performances will take place in public venues, ensuring that music becomes part our everyday lives. Pop-up performances will appear in parks, gardens, shopping centres, retirement villages, hospitals, and outside government and office buildings, every day throughout 2013. Performances will be announced in the Canberra Times, on www. musicaloffering.com.au and through social media.

> Amanpuitas, Vanuatu, Malampa Province, Malakula Island, Borumvor village, Batru c.1972, tree fern, ochre. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Purchased by J-M Charpentier on behalf of the Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board.

The word “Kastom” loosely translates to mean “traditional practices”. In Vanuatu, these traditional practices still have a strong presence in this Pacific nation’s culture, despite other external cultural and religious influences. The National Gallery of Australia’s latest exhibition, Kastom: Art of Vanuatu aims to share its unique collection of arts from this region. The NGA’s collection of these pieces was expanded in the early 1970s when an agent was employed to source and collect around 200 pieces from Vanuatu.

Many of these pieces are included in this exhibition, which predominantly consists of striking sculptures created from carved tree ferns and other natural materials. Walking through the exhibition is like stepping back in time into a lost tropical paradise. The dark green gallery walls provide a striking backdrop to these imposing characters with big faces; big eyes (and other large body parts).

One of the most remarkable observations of this exhibition is the similarity of recent artefacts to older ones, highlighting the fact that Vanuatu culture has retained its identity, despite other external influences. Exhibition highlights include the imposing four metre figure, Maghe ni Hivwir, as well as Chubwan, a rare mask that is “one of the oldest scientifically dated works from Vanuatu” (see our front cover - ed). Lisa McDonald will host a free lecture discussing the relationship between kastom, social identity and visual representation in the contemporary art of Vanuatu at 12.45pm on 5 March. Kastom runs until 16 June - www.nga.gov.au

< Deborah Klein, Corporeal-Ethereal 2012, linocut, 60 x 50 cm, printer: Andrew Gunnell.

Photography: Tim Gresham DATELINE: MARCH 2013

by Inga Walton

Curated by artist Rona Green, Corporeal: A Print Exchange Folio (until 12 May, 2013) at Geelong Gallery, presents diverse works on paper from twenty-three contemporary artists responding to the theme of the body; human or animal, both figurative and implied.

Deborah Klein’s starkly beautiful linocut Corporeal/Ethereal (2012) shows a woman in profile, her torso emblazoned with tokens of the natural world. It refers to the lyrics of Mythical Kings and Iguanas (1971)

by American singer-songwriter Dory Previn (1925-2012), “Curse the mind that mounts the clouds/In search of mythical kings/And only mystical things/Mystical things/Cry for the soul that will not face/The body as an equal place...”. Rodney Forbes all but conceals his protagonist, except for her feet and long braids with She Keeps Secrets in Her Hair (2012). “One of my central concerns is how we tell stories and find knowledge, and also the healing dimension of story-telling and image-making”, he explains. “The alterity of stories is secrets and the body’s way of hiding things is via hair, lips, eyelids, turning away”.

Philip Faulks hearkens back to Greek mythology, exploring the idea of transformation and revelation initiated by death, with Demeter in the Underworld (2012). The mother-goddess of the harvest who presided over the sacred law, the sanctity of marriage, and the cycle of life and death is strapped to the back of a giant who clutches an ear of corn in one hand and a skull in the other. Demeter travelled to the underworld to recover her daughter

Persephone who had been abducted by Hades, her imprisonment corresponding with unfruitful seasons and withering crops. Like the dormant seed in the soil, Persephone’s release heralded renewal, “What was buried rises to the surface.

Disguises are removed to illuminate another version of the story. Secrets are unearthed from the depths ...” Faulks comments.

Michael Kempson’s witty etching and aquatint The Body Politic (2012) depicts a large stuffed panda positioned next to a smaller eagle. Amidst rocks strewn on the ground in front of them, an even smaller kangaroo sits next to a kiwi like abandoned toys. The work resulted from a residency at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo, “I was asked to make images of the exhibits, but in a contrary gesture, I was drawn to the soft toy animals sold in the gift shop”, he admits.

“The work explores geopolitics, highlighting the dynamics of Australia’s engagement in the Asia/Pacific region. Will we choose to foster relationships based on mutual respect, or are we to hark back to the fear-driven priggishness of our past?”

Rew Hanks revisits just such a diplomatic blunder in the linocut Cook’s Curios (2012) which refers to the death of Captain James Cook at Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii in 1779. continued

> Troy Emery, King of the Mountain 2013, high density taxidermy foam, polyester pompoms, glass eyes, 106 x 83 x 30 cm.

> Hanks ponders Cook’s remnants and the folkloric aspects surrounding his demise, with reference to both his physical remains and the keepsakes returned to his widow, Elizabeth Batts.

Other artists address the impact of technological advances on communication and accountability. Scott Trevelyan’s punchy Untitled (2012) using drypoint, etching, blind embossing and à la poupée concerns, “the interpretation and misinterpretation of words nowadays [which] is more pronounced with the use of SMS-type technology. I am often in doubt as to the meanings of some messages and their being taken out of context”, he acknowledges.

Kaylene Kelly’s screen-print Ctrl-Alt-Delete (2012), with its screen-grabs of the former American Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and a bomb diffusion robot with its operator, expresses Kelly’s unease about digital media, remote-controlled surveillance, and responsibility for militaristic incursions. “What once belonged in the realm of science fiction is becoming a reality in current conflict zones; robots and unmanned weapons systems have been unleashed”, she observes. “As digital warriors become more autonomous who will be held accountable for bloody blunders – programmers, designers, manufacturers, human monitors or their superiors?”

Works by Rona Green, Graeme Drendel, Di Ellis, Susan Fraser, David Frazer, Alexi Keywan, Martin King, Terry Matassoni, Ron McBurnie, Janet Parker-Smith, Travis Paterson, Ben Rak, Heather Shimmen, Stephen Spurrier, Anne Starling, and Clayton Tremlett round out the show.

• Geelong Gallery, Little Mallop Street, Geelong - www.geelonggallery.org.au Troy Emery’s exuberant ‘fake taxidermy’ sculptures mimic the process and the

decorative aspect of the practice without the loaded historical associations and somewhat disquieting result. He uses the anatomically correct high-density foam moulds commonly used by taxidermists, and substitutes the pelts for a vibrant array of textile craft materials. “I was shopping in a craft store one day and I just came to the pompom section and I was so taken aback with the colour and texture. What are pompoms for? I mean, do they have a purpose?” Emery asks.

“They really just struck me like an epiphany one day, and I thought, ‘yeah, I’m going to try these out’. I do get some funny looks and some funny questions, I’m usually too embarrassed to say I’m an artist, so I kind of lie and say they’re for somebody else”.

Pompoms, fringe, and tassels are combined to give Emery’s hypothetical or mythological animals personality, and to suggest movement. “I’ve always had an interest in the materials that go into excessive decoration, the excesses of craft and fashion, sequins, beads, all those things, anything that sparkles or is colourful has always interested me ...

I suppose I’m a bit of a bower bird when it comes to collecting sparkly things”, he confesses. Although these creatures may initially look benign and even bathed in cute, Emery believes his work has a more subversive edge, “I think there’s something really kind of awful about colour. There’s an unsettling affect intense colour has, and I think that really matches well with the sinister qualities of dead animals. I think taxidermy is intriguing because it’s death masquerading as life ... in my work there’s an awkwardness, and an idea that something has gone wrong”.

Emery’s new exhibition Making Friends (until 27 March, 2013) at Gould Galleries includes a searingly bright menagerie of hybrid critters alongside some vividly coloured

Melburnin’ / Inga Walton

works on paper, Black Hole (I-VII). The outlandish colour-palette is an exaggeration of the qualities sought after by trophyhunters and collectors of exotic wildlife.

Emery asks us to consider the various ways in which we respond to animals; populating our lives with cherished ‘real’ pets and their plush toy equivalents; clothing both ourselves and the furniture with animal patterns; browsing for skins and mounted curios at auction and in specialty stores to add to the décor; smothering hats and hair accessories in plumes and feathers; wearing leather and fur items; staring back at the glass-eyed and long-dead specimens in museum displays. >>

Melburnin’ / Inga Walton

> Sonia Payes, BrideScape Series (detail) 2011, c type print, 72 x 92.5 cm. Courtesy of the Artist and Fehily Contemporary, Collingwood.

> “In my early work I was responding to the idea of this kind of sentimentality, of sad animals in museum displays, and maybe playing on that by ramping up this idea of sentimentality, or beauty, or pathos”, Emery says.

dress’ in question was a couture creation by Melbourne design house J’Aton (established in 1995 by Jacob Luppino and Anthony Pittorino) commissioned, at Payes’ suggestion, for her daughter Janine’s wedding in January, 2011.

His more recent work incorporates fake rocks used as display mounts for taxidermy: a fake environment for a faux animal, further skewering notions of the ‘authentic’. “A really key location as a site of inspiration for my artwork is the Natural History Museum. It sets taxidermy and animal objects up as an aesthetic experience, almost like visiting an art gallery”, Emery contends. “I’d really like to one day do an ‘intervention’ in a natural history museum, that’s where artists are able to put their works in unlikely places.

Having a pompom work with the real taxidermy, that would be a really interesting thing”. In the meantime Emery will have to content himself with turning gallery spaces into miniature zoos, although he has tried to ‘reintroduce’ his creatures into the wild up at McClelland sculpture park. Emery’s two metre high polyurethane mannequin and PVC tinsel work Golden Beast (2012) is a finalist in the 2012 Sculpture Survey & Award (until 14 July, 2013).

The works were originally exhibited as part of the paired exhibition Fantastic Dreamland: Contemporary Australian Photography in Shanghai (2012), but curator Diane Soumilas thought they would work well for the Fashion Festival. Three weeks after Janine’s wedding, and before she and her husband left on their honeymoon, mother and daughter reconvened in Payes’ Prahran studio to reinterpret the dress as a mere prop in the wider story of the bride’s future life. Although the new bride had worked intently with Luppino over several consultations and fittings to refine the design for her dress, she was intrigued by Payes’ idea of deconstructing what the garment might actually ‘mean’ to her when removed from its original function and purpose.

In the Western world, wearing white became virtually de rigueur with Queen Victoria’s marriage to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coberg and Gotha (1840). The widely disseminated details and cheap souvenirs of the wedding made Victoria’s example seem emblematic of • Gould Galleries, 270 Toorak Road, South romantic love. As Edwina Ehrman, curator of Yarra - www.gouldgalleries.com fashion and textiles at the Victoria & Albert • McClelland Gallery+Sculpture Park, 390 Museum, London has noted, “for brides who McClelland Drive, Langwarrin - www. could afford white, and who were young and mcclellandgallery.com marrying for the first time, a white wedding Artist site: www.troyemery.blogspot.com.au dress became the norm”. Yet the relative expense of the wedding dress for all classes As part of the Cultural Program for the annual of society, often resulted in more versatile L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival, The White elements being factored into the design to extend its usefulness. Many brides still Dress (7-24 March, 2013) at Glen Eira City elected to have their mother’s dress altered, Council Gallery, is a suite of photographs by Sonia Payes which adds to the wider discourse or continued to choose a coloured dress, about this most anachronistic, stereotypical, and which might then be worn again for formal socially prescribed genre of apparel.The ‘white or evening wear.

There is a certain aesthetic and cultural tyranny exerted by the concept of the ‘white dress’, perhaps best exemplified by the literary character of the embittered Miss Havisham.

Considered to be an unflattering colour by many women, white also seems expressive of outdated and patriarchal notions about virginity and the transfer of ‘ownership’ of the ‘chattel’ from father to husband. Decades of change in women’s social status and the more recent acknowledgement of same-sex civil partnerships has occasioned a concerted reappraisal, both in attitudes to marriage itself, and what women seek from their dress.

Harriet Worsley, an author and lecturer at Central Saint Martin’s College of Arts & Design, echoes this discourse, “Women have a love-hate relationship with the wedding dress – that frequently overpriced, overelaborate meringue so yearned after and, in reality, so feared. No matter how beautiful and fascinating the story, it has always attempted to tell certain fictions about women”.

In re-casting the bride in a different guise in the context of the same dress, Payes creates a more expansive narrative element within these evocative images. “I lose myself when I photograph, I get totally engrossed in the shoot, my perception is entering a totally It is precisely those fictions and elaborate different space. I didn’t pose every shot, we wish-fulfillment spectacles, more like a just went with the flow, every time I move I theatre performance than real life, that Payes see something else”, she remarks. was interested to explore.

However, the emotive pull and symbolism The portmanteau word ‘bridezilla’ has entered of the wedding dress cannot be denied, the vernacular, popularised by the American or entirely transcended; Payes wanted her TV show of the same name (2004-present), daughter to have an extravagant fantasy and conveys the way in which the dress can gown because she so disliked her own. become an object of complete preoccupation The J’Aton dress will be displayed with the for many potential brides. The global works it inspired, but minus the owner. It was commodification of weddings as a multiJanine’s presence that made this particular billion dollar industry reinforces this fixation white dress so memorable and distinctive for to the extent that the bride’s sartorial choice those who saw her wear it. Without her, it often threatens to overshadow even the remains just a beautiful shell. vows on the day itself.Yet for all its perceived • Glen Eira City Council Gallery, Ground importance, as a status symbol and a fashion floor, Glen Eira Town Hall, cnr. Glen Eira & statement, the wedding dress exerts little Hawthorn Roads, Caulfield - www.gleneira. practical influence thereafter, nor will it have vic.gov.au much meaning for the lives the couple might lead following the ceremony.

Artist site: www.soniapayes.com

Ethical is the new black Colour Box Studio Fashion Month

by Pauline Vetuna

March in Melbourne plays host to the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual and lauded festival of style â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a sensual feast that captivates lustful consumers, industry insiders, artists, curators, design students and enterprising couturiers alike, with a city-wide showcase of aesthetics and creative energy.

image: Aacute

continued >>

In recent years, a new kind of discerning fashionista has emerged, and designers from Melbourne’s rich fashion and textile industry have responded to meet the needs of this new design consciousness – one that emphasises not merely high style, but also ethics – in the production of fine couture. New Model Beauty Queen (NMBQ), is one such design team, and one of thirteen design brands to be featured in Colour Box Studio’s Fashion Month Pop Up Shop – the first of its kind in Melbourne’s West.

To coincide with L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival, Artist Run Initiative Colour Box Studio (CBS) will be hosting CBS Fashion Month – its own program of locally and ethically focused fashion industry events, artisanal workshops, vintage and second hand swap meet, and a designer Pop Up Shop showcasing both established and rising stars of Melbourne’s grassroots Ethical fashion scene.

The Pop Up Shop is just one aspect of the Footscray situated CBS’ ambitious undertaking to showcase local designers who fit the Fashion Month’s prescribed theme of ‘SELF’ – Sustainable Ethical Local Fashion. However, CBS Director Amie Batalibasi admits, producing a month long program with designers who fit all aspects of the ‘SELF’ brief was an undertaking not without its challenges.

mentors to the Fashion Month Planning Committee. Together they have offered a great deal of support for the Fashion Month, even screen-printing marketing posters onto paper to promote it. CBS is an Artist Run Space, and artists have led and sustained all aspects of its operations since it opened late last year.

The Fashion Month Planning Committee itself comprises volunteers from the CBS Management team, all of who are artists and creative people working tirelessly in a range of roles. In addition, local fashion designers (such as NMBQ) have brought expertise in fashion design and insider insights into the fashion industry. CBS engages directly with artists with full trust in their skills and perspectives.

Through democratic collaboration, all parties came away with enhanced knowledge and new creative connections. “It’s really great for the young emerging designers in our team to have experience in working with established designers” Batalibasi notes. “I think the Fashion industry can be tough, and they have lots of knowledge and experience to share”.

Most of the designers on board were discovered through personal professional networks, whilst others emerged through a social media “call out” marketing campaign.

And though the task of finding designers who fit into the ‘SELF’ theme was challenging, “In addition to the more established designers CBS have managed to connect with some who probably fit the bill the best, we have seriously inspired creative collaborators. engaged other small emerging designers who are Batalibasi is elated. “We have a wonderful hand-making locally as well, and striving towards group of Melbourne designers on board in the more sustainable ethical practices,” Batalibasi end – I am so excited!” The theme itself, she says. NMBQ were early collaborators, having adds, evolved naturally out of discussions with participated in Colour Box Studio’s Launch Party Melbourne based designers. Label ElandTINO, which included a NMBQ fashion show, and in who will feature in the Pop Up Shop, had Colour Box Studio’s Opening Pop Up Shop. specifically approached CBS with the idea of a Batalibasi reveals Dale and Sharmaine Cornell fashion undertaking. A meeting was set, and the from NMBQ have also played unofficial ball started rolling.

Ethical is the new black / Pauline Vetuna

“Since we had New Model Beauty Queen on board already and they are so passionate about ethical production of fashion, the ‘SELF’ theme evolved”, Batalibasi explains. “The theme was also a natural progression from our first Pop Up Shop program that engaged all local artists, many of whom employ sustainable and ethical practices.” The theme has also been carefully considered in production of the Fashion Month.

The Pop Up Shop design, created by CBS’ in house design team Practice Makes (Christina Fogale and Jon Kaitler), uses reclaimed materials for clothes racks and shelves.

This maintains integrity with an overarching theme for CBS: Sustainable, Ethical, and Local.

Many of the young emerging designers on the planning committee hand-make their items and are interested in learning more about ethical and sustainable practices as they apply to design work. CBS aims to support them in doing so, by providing the space to launch their work and connect with the appropriate people.

To this end, Fashion Month will also include ‘Fashion Box’ – a Fashion Forum and Industry Night – that will focus on “how to be ethical, sustainable and profitable in fashion”.

Scheduled for 20 March, the evening will bring together established and emerging designers, photographers, stylists, models, fashion writers and connoisseurs, creating a forum for discussion about ‘SELF’, and an opportunity to mingle and network with other stakeholders.

The forum will be led by Dale Cornell from NMBQ, and include invited guest speakers Vicki Sterling (Bonds Clothing), Simon McRae (Ethical Clothing Australia), Tegan Rose (Ink & Spindle), and Grace McQuilten (The Social Studio).

Essentially, the forum will address how designers and artists can match their values with their business, and make it viable – in a welcoming, fun, artist-focused environment.

And the creative hub’s Fashion Month will also feature the launch of a new design label. Julie and Kelly Tran are the artists behind Aacute, a local designer jewellery and soy wood wick candle making business, who will be launching their new fashion label at CBS on 28 March.

Batalibasi is excited to be providing a launching pad for a design duo hailing from Melbourne’s West. After all, supporting artists, ethical practices, and the local community are what CBS is all about. “This is part of what we have always aimed to do.”

CBS’ Fashion Month will be launched on 27 February, and run until 6 April. For more details on all workshops, participating designers and events, visit the Colour Box Studio website.

Links: colourboxstudio.com/ Pauline Vetuna is a Melbourne based writer.

The Social Studio

MARCH SALON

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1. Robbie CONAL, Achtung Baby 2003, offset print. Courtesy the artist © the artist. Got the message? 50 years of political posters, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Lydiard Street Ballarat (VIC), 2 March – 14 April - www.artgalleryofballarat.com.au 2. Gavin BROWN, Spirit of Aphelea 2012, oil on canvas, 61cm x76cm. Urban Scrawl, fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne (VIC), 19 March – 6 April - www.fortyfivedownstairs.com

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3. Rew HANKS, Cook’s curios 2012, linocut. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Watters Gallery, Sydney. Photography: Janet Tavener. Selected works, Geelong Gallery, Little Malop Street, Geelong (VIC), 16 March to 14 April - www.geelonggallery.org.au 4. Baby GUERRILLA, Rejoice: Memories 2012, oil on canvas, 144cm x 96cm. Post Industrial Design. 638 Barkly Street, West Footscray (VIC), 1 – 17 March - postindustrialdesign.com.au

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Vanuatu, Malampa Province, Ambrym Island and Malakula Island Atingting [slit drums] mid 20th century wood. Sculpture Garden, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Kastom, Art of Vanuatu, National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Canberra (ACT), 8 February - 16 June - www.nga.gov.au

5. Kat YOUNG, Shamisen Hero, painted ukulele. Pimp My M.U.F. 4, exhibition of custom painted ukuleles, presented by the Melbourne Ukulele Festival. Bar 303, 303 High Street Northcote (VIC), 1 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 31 March.

6. Katie YOUNG, Bran 2013, watercolour on paper 29 x31cm.

Magnam Linea, Sirens & Heroes, Dome Gallery, Mission to Seafarers, 717 Flinders Street Melbourne (VIC), 14 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 27 March.

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EXCERPT:

The Credeaux Canvas Tap Gallery Theatre 20 March – 6 April 2013

The Credeaux Canvas puts three young people in a guilt frame as they seek to realise their heart’s desires by defrauding the art world.

AMELIA: But what really makes them masterpieces - it’s how they’re all looking at you so intensely. The way their eyes are lit up, it’s like they could burn a hole in you.

But of course what they were really looking at is him. They’re staring at him with such joy and such gratitude, you can tell it’s because in their entire lives nobody ever looked at them the way he’s looking at them.

WINSTON: I never, you know, I never thought of it like that.

AMELIA: And you can tell that the way he’s looking at them, it’s with this tremendous kind of ... well, the only word for it is love.

It’s just a momentary love, and it’s certainly a sick and twisted kind of love, but all the same ... it’s so clear that he loved them.

Written by Keith Bunin | Directed by Byron Kaye | A Sure Foot Production - www.tapgallery.org.au/

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves Dir. Kevin Reynolds

SKULL MOVIES

by Robin Pen

Scene III : Apparatus Arcanus (Being a prelude to the wages of entropy)

He entered the ruined monastery – its terminals all gone to silicon dust, destroyed during the Great Beginning – and pressed an icon on the hilt of his katana. Its readout told him what he knew already: a high level of magic pervaded this place of power, atop the black cliffs, over-looking the Persevering Sea where the coelacanthi frolicked in the surf. Beyond the rotting matrices and the crumbling Pillars of Flagellation lay a chamber seemingly still intact. The entrance was half-concealed by a spun polycotton web – the work of industrious sockworms – and as he cut through the membrane he wondered idly whether the light he let in would activate a defense grid of deadly darklight lasers, or simply send the Canaster Crabs scurrying back into their dank crevices, their eerily familiar clicking sounds like lost D-day Marines. D-day Marines; something from a world long gone or never been. He didn’t know whether to believe those hoary old men who called themselves “Your Host for this Evening”, as no one knew where they’d came from, and they never seemed to shut up long enough for anyone to ask.

continued >>

“Sounds like the political machinations of a species of large South American snake. ... That’s it: Anachronism.” > He suddenly realised he’d been deliberately distracted; by a desensitizing beam, or perhaps a lapse-spell. Whatever the cause, he had temporarily lost spatio-consciousness but, with his sensorium back in real time, he realised something had entered the chamber. There was a new sound in the chill koinóbion, a static hum, separate from the rising and falling buzz of the prosthetic moths; those moths that now watched for no one, had not since the Mediagod Medroth was stripped of his ability to interface and was cast into the Televoid of terminal feedback (only to reappear from behind sheets of static at moments of great portent to murmur “the Horror, the Horror”).

Distracted again! He shook his head, concentrating on the flicker of movement behind the far wall, and suddenly realised it was not a wall of stone at all but a wall of suspended smoke. In its shadow a figure sat, floating in a hover chair, but the katana’s systems showed only the chair; the large white occupant with the long white ears was completely transparent to its meta-Kirlian sensors. And as the hover-chair broke through the still smoke, the occupant spoke.

“Hello Benzidrene,” it said.

Benzidrene raised the katana before him. “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me sir,” he replied. “I do not know your name.”

“Is there a name you like?” the white figure asked.

Benzidrene paused. “Well, I’ve always been fond of Harvey.”

“What a coincidence. Harvey is my name.”

“How do you do, Harvey?”

“How do you do, Benzidrene? Now then, I believe you have a question for me.”

QUESTION: Is Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves a fantasy? What a good question. And is there a good answer? That too is a good question.

Now, let’s see here ... no dragons, no monsters, no magic, no fairies or gnomes; not even a shape-changer. Nothing like that at all. So, it can’t be a fantasy; there’s no fantasy in it!

Besides, the film quite clearly stipulates that it is set during the late eleven-hundreds; the time of the Crusades and jolly King Richard. So then, it’s definitely not a fantasy; it’s a historical period adventure romance.

But hark, what is this word that appears before me? Sounds like the political machinations of a species of large South American snake. ...

That’s it: Anachronism. My that’s a big word, and according to my handy little OED it means “chronological error; thing out of harmony with period” (can you say “continuity fuck-up”, kiddies?). Fancy that. What’s more, it has important connotations for the film we’re talking about. Huh? Where were the anachronisms in Prince of Thieves?

Ah yes; where to begin? For a start, the timekeeping devices of the period were really rather primitive; certainly not accurate enough to determine the “10:30” and “10:45” that the Sheriff specified in his instructions to those two wenches. Crusading knights wore red crosses on white tunics, not white on red.

Shiny steel swords were a real no-no. Not even noble-fellows could get hold of pretty swords like that in those days of yore. And furthermore, the Moor’s scimitar was

Skull Movies scene 3 / Robin Pen

simply unavailable until several centuries later. Barring seven-league boots, you simply cannot walk from the White Cliffs of Dover to Nottingham in a single day (it’s 280km as the crow flies) and neither place was anywhere near Hadrian’s Wall. There were no pine plantations in England at the time but this Sherwood Forest is crammed full of the giant Scandinavian weed. Caesarian birth was not unknown, but I don’t believe the procedure was used on horses as the Moor claimed, and nobody heals that fast, even when the wounds are small. In fact death from infection was very likely; penicillin and Mercurochrome were a long way off yet. At the time the film’s supposedly set Richard I was not free in France but a prisoner in Austria, and while it may have been cute to have the marvellously aging Sean Connery show up as the returning King, Richard was around thirty to thirty five when he returned from the Crusades, and died in his early forties. And finally, where the hell did all that friggin’ gun powder come from?

certainly avoids accuracy with some aplomb.

The film-makers borrowed a few familiar elements we normally associate with the period and concocted the rest from their own commercially sensitive little minds.

So then, the subjective fantasticity of Prince of Thieves is determined principally by the perceptions and knowledge of its audience.

Fantasy depends as much on the eye of the beholder as it does on the intention of the creator; the more inaccuracy you recognise in a film, the likelier you are, consciously or subconsciously, to classify it as fantasy. Who could really believe that a film in which everyone thinks, speaks and acts like terminal residents of the Twentieth Century was actually taking place in the Twelfth? I mean, the portrayal of the Celts alone was enough to convince me that the realms of reality were some considerable distance away.

All the above criticism has, of course, no bearing whatsoever on whether or not I actually liked Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Indeed, one of my favourite films of recent years was constructed But if you didn’t know any of that would it in the same fashion; it took familiar elements, make “a rat’s arse diff ” to whether Robin Hood: elements associated by tradition with a particular Prince of Thieves is a historical period adventure non-fantasy genre, and built with them a totally romance? Probably not. So what’s the problem? fictional world. In the case of Miller’s Crossing Well, there isn’t one really. It’s just that if those elements were the icons of the gangster you’re aware of all these careless and perhaps movie. The use of accepted motif was so “unimportant” inaccuracies, then Prince of effective in Miller’s Crossing that few amongst Thieves shifts further and further into the its audience paused to consider the where and realms of fantasy. In short, though there may when of the world, let alone how it operated. be no distinctive fantasy icons – no twoBut then, all that was actually quite irrelevant; headed fire-chucking dragons or geriatric the world of Miller’s Crossing was, and needed spell throwing shapechangers – Robin Hood: to be, nothing more than what the audience Prince of Thieves is set in a fantasy world; a saw and the characters encountered. The film setting purpose-built for rollicking romance is a beautiful and exceedingly clever character adventure, for entertainment for profit. Indeed, drama set in a pseudo-thirties crime world as though it may be based on a historical place fictitious as the world of Dick Tracy, if perhaps a and time Prince of Thieves was never intended more convincing and realistic one; a fantasy more as an accurate depiction of same, and it suited to the story it told. >>

> Now some of this may sound contradictory but, stated simply, all I’m claiming is that simply because something is cut from the cloth of reality (be it a contemporary or a “period” reality), it does not follow that that thing cannot be pure fantasy. “Fantasy” need not mean “fanciful”. Apocalypse Now, a stunning fantasy film, is a portrayal of the mythological journey of the hero through a world created entirely of imagery from the very real Vietnam War. Luc Besson’s Nikita stands as one of the best fantasy thrillers for some time; its setting – hard-edged, secret, virtual futurism – is a France that simply never was and never will be. All of Besson’s films – The Last Battle, Subway, The Big Blue and Nikita – are fictional constructs built from contemporary icons and, in the case of The Big Blue, chunks of history.

This latter tells, structurally at least, the nonfictional story of French diver Jacques Mayol, but, like Apocalypse Now, it is told in such a fashion that it transcends contemporary boundaries in its attempt to create a new experience. In this, the film is not unsuccessful.

Before proceeding further, it’s important to establish that my concept of Fantasy in “nonfantasy” film does not encompass that which might be termed “poetic licence”. For instance, when the producers of Memphis Belle made use of a British fighter that would not enter the war for a year beyond the temporal setting of the film, for no other reason than that the historically appropriate aircraft was no longer available in a usable state, this was not fantasy. Again in Memphis Belle, when the complete military career histories of the crew were concentrated into one mission, the film-makers were nevertheless, in spirit and within reason, re-telling the factual adventures of a group of young airmen in World War Two. This sort of thing occurs in almost every dramatised account of historical events, and such “poetic licence” is perhaps more

aptly termed “focussed reality”. To include this in the discussion at hand would simply reduce my argument to a dull re-stating of the quintessentially obvious and hallowed truism that: “ALL FILM IS FANTASY” (Amen).

It must be stated that numerous films, films that can rightfully be classified as “mainstream” cinema, use elements of fantasy to enhance the emotional impact of the story or to subtly alter the focus on a perfectly realistic scenario.

Yet such films are not out to alter the picture of the world as we know it, let alone to create a purely fantastic one.

Consider the use of a nonexistent technology, namely a silent submarine drive, in The Hunt for Red October, which allowed the military and political implications of such a device to be explored in a real-world setting. (The overly large bridge and remarkable visibility underwater can reasonably be categorised as the aforementioned “poetic licence”.)

Curiously, The Hunt for Red October has a more pervasive “hi-tech/hardware” feel to it than most “true SF” movies.

Another example comes in the intentional portrayal of Hannibal Lector (The Silence of the Lambs), not as the socio-psychopath we’re introduced to, but as a modern incarnation of the Boris Karloff Leering Monster (though Anthony Hopkins’ performance in the role is admirable). Yet that should come as no surprise; it’s safer to look into the eyes of a clearly fictitious (rubber-suit) monster than to find yourself face-to-face with something which represents the darkest aspects of human nature. (It’s worth noting that the fantasy monsters created by the likes of Karloff were Cinema’s way of substituting for the real psychos during a period when those real-life creatures were considered inappropriate entertainment for the general public.) >>

Skull Movies scene 3 / Robin Pen

La Femme Nikita Dir. Luc Besson

“Thelma and Louise relates a vision of an American mid-west that arguably may not exist.”

the Seventeenth Century landscape painter Turner, an innovator in the use of colour; sure the story is good – nice narrative, dialogue and characterisation – but gee, the overwhelming expression in the artwork gives the story emotional and intuitive meaning far deeper and more profound than the story itself. No matter Then there’s the ambitious portrayal of fire how faint their application, fantasy stylistics, used as a living, almost sentient being in the visually arresting, if melodramatic and ultimately shallow, appropriately, tend to have this effect.

Backdraft. The film is finally little more than an Now whether you accept all of this as the occasionally interesting attempt to mythologise legitimate application of fantasy depends entirely the relationship between man’s psyche and on your own perception of the fantastiquè. But a colourful thermo-chemical reaction. Am I remember; you apply this same perception to the perhaps stretching the point? Consider: who Comedy, the Musical, to Dance Movies, Action/ can say they found it easy to watch the giant, Adventures, Westerns, Martial Art Films, and to roaring plumes without unconsciously imbuing Imperial Roman, Ancient Greek and Biblical Epics. the flames with a hint of active antagonism; a Certainly the very same brain you use to build glimpse of “the beast” - a malicious adversary up an internal model of the artificial worlds in with hellfire in its soul? these “non-fantasy” films, you utilise to construct a mental picture of the fantastic filmworld.The only Finally, that Man of Pictures, Ridley (“pray he’ll difference, then, between the perception of the always be out there”) Scott, gives us a film that ventures as close as possible towards the fantastic fantasy/SF flick and the real-world period piece is the unconscious consumption and digestion of while managing to stay just on this side of the certain distinct icons we recognise as being solely border. Thelma and Louise relates a vision of an “of the fantastic”.

American mid-west that arguably may not exist.

In the film, Scott treats oil-well pumps like bizarre alien mechanisms and lights giant mesas (using massive lamps, I can tell you) in the rocky desert to create a surreal dreamscape. And perhaps the realisation of dreams, of desires, fears and regrets, is what makes Thelma and Louise so effective.

In externalising the shifting states-of-mind of its central characters, as the two women flee further and further from the world they cannot escape yet can never return to, the film presents the “normal” environment around them with entirely new levels of perception.Their landscape becomes a place where reality is altering with a hopeless inevitability, becoming conceptually alien and subject to different rules of perception and different laws of emotional survival.The visual impact of Thelma and Louise could be likened to that of a comic-book illustrated by

What was the magic word we just used? Was it . . . “Icon” perhaps? My handy big Readers Digest declaims: “image; [as] of a sacred personage, itself regarded as sacred”. Bow down to the almighty icon! Indeed, those who avidly follow the cinematic genres of fantasy and science fiction must, to some degree, be seen as icon junkies. “Oh look darling, its a Wet-Nosed Computer Warbler, and it’s doing a charming little bower-dance outside that cinema billing the Star Wars trilogy. My, isn’t he cute. Now don’t get too close darling, you might catch something and start buying magazines for a rare glimpse of a new Federation starship.” (Now, I’m not chuckling from a great distance and, given the publication you’re reading this in, you should probably consider your own position before laughing too loudly.) >>

Skull Movies scene 3 / Robin Pen

Of course, although the process of mental world-building may be the same, a greater intensity of that good ol’ suspension-ofdisbelief is required when dealing with fantasy.

Extra effort is required to accommodate the fantastic into a consistent internal worldview; Millenium Falcons, inflatable Batman costumes, million-dollar starscapes and beautiful GoMotion dragons all have to be consumed, processed and slotted into a viable mind-state in order to produce a charge big enough to satisfy the SF/Fantasy junkie’s carnal desire for strange flesh, and The Icon adds extra boost to achieve escape velocity (something like salting potatoes or rubbing cocaine across the teeth).

And in a film like Hardware it’s principally the hi-tech icons that junkies sink their teeth into. Hardware is all retro-fit set design; machine decks fitted together in a deliberately compressed fashion, dressed up with smoke, steam, harsh shadows and misty shafts of light through half-drawn blinds. Its images are disjointed; deliberate distractions like glaring back-lighting, heavy washes of red-tinted fill lighting and endless arrays of monitors pumping video static, computer graphics and out of focus images in quick succession, horizontal hold gone to the dogs.

And in the midst of all this, directional lighting reveals blood, sweat, grease and painstakingly accidental beads of water on large, exposed sections of human skin - sort of designer streak marks if you will.

cinema (ala Mad Max 2) but principally via the (patent pending) Ridley Scott Techniques showcased so gloriously in those visual watersheds Alien and Blade Runner. Hardware is a collection of that advertising and video-clip imagery which is becoming the trademark of British sensationalist cinema, trotted out to display the audio/visual iconography of the techno-futurists, the drug culture, the postpunkers (Iggy Pop appears as a background DJ), the Goths, Headbangers (Lemmy of Motorhead played the floating-cab driver), New Wave Horror freaks and, no doubt, a whole swag of other sub-groups that I missed, forgot or failed to interpret. The entire film is a rabid juxtaposition of contrived cinemantics, aimed at forcing terminal sensory overload.

The critical reaction to this barrage of self-conscious post-modernism, surrealist imagery and faddish pseudo-science was as, if not more interesting than the film itself.

Jaded icon junkies seem to find this cultureclasher a sort of cheap but momentarily quite satisfying blast up the increasingly desensitized cerebral sinuses. However, from a clear-headed, “just-say-no” perspective, Hardware is rather ordinary and unoriginal.

It has a story that’s not worth space talking about and is largely cobbled together from standard Horror clichés. More than half the film’s hundred minutes is expended on setting up for the inevitable: the characters being dispatched in various contrived ways in various confined spaces by the Mark 13 (a cute Hardware should bear a label saying Biblical reference, incidentally), a killer machine “Derivative Concentrate: Dilute For that’s sort of a K-Mart Mecha-Alien; a semiDeconstruction”. This film attempts to cram so many pop-sub-cult icons down its cinematic supernatural creature made of junk, topped off with a Terminator’s skull in stars-and-stripes trousers that, ultimately, it can’t help but become bulgingly iconoclastic. It borrows visual (a subtle pointer towards the iconoclastic aspects from Cyberpunk literature (especially tendencies of the picture). The film courts credibility with an embarrassing moralisation stories like Gibson’s Burning Chrome), and from dark-future comics (especially 2000AD), about the dangers of rampant technology that’s handled no less platitudinously than >> perhaps partially by way of post-civilisation

Skull Movies scene 3 / Robin Pen

> “look both ways before you cross the street”, and which actually shows considerable naïveté about the legitimate dangers of computer technology. In the end, the Mark 13 fails to become “the beast”, or even simply a callous machine; it’s nothing more than an inconsistently executed plot device that outstays its welcome even before its beady red eyes begin to glow.

Though Hardware is totally derivative, it is no more guilty of stealing / borrowing / making homage / adapting / improving / focusing than any other icon-drenched SF movie, but it is more guilty of making no effort to hide it. In fact, the last thing I would accuse its director Richard Stanley of is serious pretension. On the contrary, it’s reasonable to conclude that he’s actually taking the piss out of the cultenshrined hallmarks of SF cinéma-nécessité. On those grounds Hardware is rather admirable and enjoyable; a laid-back techno-freak equivalent of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2. Indeed like Raimi, though perhaps lacking much of his innovation and humour, Stanley’s main focus in Hardware was on style.

Yet if stylishness is what Hardware tries to achieve, it occasionally comes a cropper in its attempt to marry a self-conscious technique with an intuitive plot progression, becoming confused and losing direction. The plot gaps eventually widen too far to bridge without further distancing the creator from his audience. In fact, it was often far too easy to remain coldly objective while watching Hardware although, to be fair, there were sequences that possessed a certain dynamic cohesion. Hardware was an interesting stab at creating a stylish synthesis of eroticism, psychosexuality, deformity and post-humanism. It’s just a pity it didn’t work.

Finally, Hardware was most successful as a kaleidoscopic rush of audio-visual sensation;

a sub-cult “experience” in the safety of your own cinema. If it owned a story, it would have serious staying power: After all, its indulgent superficiality provided enough emotive power/ subjective trip capacity to entertain pseudointellectual onanists trying to read more into it than it was ever intended to contain (you don’t have to push too hard, just in the right direction, to be categorized as effective by the art/communication set). In the end – and of this its makers can be justly proud – Hardware was produced for very little money and made a lot of money back. In this regard, if in no other, its objectives were met with complete success and the film deserves the praise it has received.

“Does that answer your question?” asked the white figure.

“I can’t even remember what the question was now,” replied Benzidrene.

“That does not matter. So long as you have learned.”

“Oh I have,” said Benzidrene. “I’ve learned that when going through life you have to be Oh So Clever.”

“Yes,” said the figure, his white ears twitching.

“But there is a time to be Oh So Pleasant.”

As Benzidrene left the Pooka in the chamber he glanced up at a sky turned the colour of a television tuned to a dead channel, and wondered if it had been like that all along.

Settling down at the cliff ’s edge to peer and wonder at the piscine gaiety below, he realised suddenly that what he really felt like was a nice, quiet drink.

Robin Pen is a lapsed blogger. See

The View From Mt Pootmootoo (

http://members.iinet.net.

au/~robinpen/blogger.html ) and

Planet Blog ( www.planetvideo.com. au/blog ). This series originally appeared as The Secret Life of Rubber-Suit Monsters, in Eidolon 10, October 1992 © 1992 Robin Pen.

Hardware Dir: Richard Stanley

stralian stories with Neil Boyack

S

et in the fictional rural, farming town of Eurangandee, 1953

is a rare breed being a verse novel. One may think that this modality would limit the author’s ability to range free and be innovative, yet it is quite the opposite. Page treats his audacious subject matter with breadth and respect, creating seemingly familiar characters who are nevertheless free of cliché. He injects life and vigour into their personalities and in doing so asks the reader to reflect on a period in Australian history that many still remember as golden.

Spare and restrained, 1953 creates a world ruled by universal beliefs that correspond to every character’s acceptance of limited opportunities, powerlessness, the unattainable as fact. Eurangandee is the whole world to many, and a boundary to all. References to the Korean War, American cars, and social strata defined by traditional gender roles support the emotional and social landscape. New Guinea veterans are silent with their children, car dealers hustle, local councillors conspire, and women of the town work, care for children, and position themselves in ways that maintain respect and prestige with room to grasp at satisfactions through secret liaisons and the pleasure of guilty gossip. Travelling shearers spread their seed, and teen mums are sent off to have babies under the guise of “travel”. Government policy limiting Aboriginal movement and removing Aboriginal children is recognised in 1953, underscoring the shameful treatment of Indigenous people and emphasising the Stolen Generation as an immoveable part of Australian-Indigenous culture, not simply a divorceable, historical event.

Character driven, 1953 explores individuals and their roles within the town one by one.

In the process a web of relationships and cultural norms emerge. Building characters one by one is a significant technique here as the reader is trusted to fill gaps. This quickly presents as an enjoyable task and adds to the experience of reading this work. the stillness in the stalking the speed a wild boar has when charging.

He’s known from maybe ten or so just how to drop a leaping rabbit neatly from the air, the way you have to ‘lead’ them depending on the breeze.

He’s done his time out on the range, the .303s with pasted targets Perched here on a three-point stool behind a length of counter he looks towards the door The sensitivity Page exhibits in 1953 is a skilful feature, made more valuable by courageous moments many Australian poets and writers (as well as thinkers, commentators, politicians), may have simply

1953

Geoff Page UQP rrp $24.95

baulked at. I refer here to the Indigenous characters Page has created; a difficult task, especially for a white-fella, no matter how respectful the delivery. He treats his Indigenous characters with a neighbourly knowingness that makes one suspect 1953 is a semiautobiographical piece where Page’s memories of his own life have been carefully noted, thought-through and hand-coloured.

Page’s age certainly tallies with the character who acts in the achingly beautiful final stanza of the book.

Mickey Rourke who owns the Royal Is not so keen on blacks No problem with their money though, Whether it’s a worker’s wage Or just a spot of welfare.

It’s not a feelin’ that I like At that window round the back Dingin’ on the bell But now we’re halfway down the bottle It doesn’t matter all that much One more small humiliation Page paints a familiar farmed landscape for Eurangandee to sit within. Free of Indigenous stories and any sense of traditional ownership, the town is a layer upon the ancient earth of the district, awaiting the produce to ripen. This is the sustenance of Eurangandee. Characters use this landscape as an effective, reflective tool hammering home banality to effect. So much of Australian mythology belongs to farming towns and areas such as Eurangandee. We see these visions in Australian literature, visual art, film, and we cannot escape them as they have shaped the way we live in many

ways. We hear them in stories of journeys, car-break-downs, river-crossings, heat, thirst, and lucky escapes. The bent, tortured tree limbs, the dry creek beds, old pubs, the waiting, the silence in the space that changes the nature of time, the snakes, the buzzing fly, the lone crow hacking away at the endless blue sky. 1953 has this imagery in spades, and I call it audacious because this subject matter has been done to death, yet, Page adroitly avoids cliché through his unique characters who accept their landscape and their lot.

We must’ve both been well away that night we got together, her on sherry, me on beer. she couldn’t do the Ladies Lounge, I couldn’t do the park continued >>

Stralian Stories / Neil Boyack

> With a benevolent eye Page connects modern and post-modern Australia in this work. He jerks from the bumps of poignant street scene to a character’s most personal thoughts seamlessly, elegantly. Page’s descriptions are joyful in their shades and penetration. Page loves these people and he builds a tension and a beauty that is rare in such a format. the murmurings of sorcerers, idolaters and murderers and those who deal in fornication. he sets aside the big book slowly, gets up from his stiff-backed chair, walks three steps then subsides deeply into arms of leather where very soon his dreams, he knows, will swim with newly minted stars a little spoiled, he must surmise by all those barking dogs and whores sorrowing outside the City.

The last stanza of the work needs special mention. Here a 14 year old boy holds

an inner dialogue recalling being bullied at school and “pulls a sickie”, his parents utterly trusting of him. Initially the reader thinks Page is creating the next stage of this story, the symbolic future of Eurangandee through the vessel of the boy. Describing a lad who is beginning to understand his own freedom, his own power to act and dream, someone becoming aware of the mysteries of life, Page builds a symbol of change. This ending demonstrates how good Geoff Page is as a poet.

Geoff Page, an elder statesman of Australian poetry, with a back catalogue as long as your arm. 1953 is the work of a master, working at a craft that at once connects with readers, yet subtly challenges all of us through the ownership of norms and customs that were accepted as a way of life not so long ago. These lives were the contributors to today’s community standards, norms and expectations and show clear links to where we are at as a country in some ways. More a reference than a read, I highly recommend 1953.

Neil Boyack is a writer and social worker. He is creator and director of the Newstead Short Story Tattoo. His new book Self Help and Other Works is out now, Check www.neilboyack.com and www.newsteadtattoo.org

A Long Way From Toorak

by Terry Chapman

GEORGINA DUCKETT came to the shady quiet of Newstead some ten years ago. With partner in tow, child in hand and an easel under her arm, she sought time and space that inner Melbourne just wouldn’t provide, not to mention a cute little weatherboard beneath a couple of monolithic redgums, and yard-space for the dream studio.

A graduate of RMIT’s fine arts school and a vocational artist since (“You don’t really need much money to live”), it was in fact George’s search for space and a bit of quiet that first led her into the arts. “My parents were living overseas and I was years in boarding school at St Catherine’s [Toorak]. I used to go to the art room to escape the claustrophobia, the twenty-four/seven academic environment, the regimentation.” It was in the creative ambience here that George found refuge, and a calling. continued >>

A Long Way From Toorak / Terry Chapman

“It’s about the process more than the product.

There is an element of journey about each piece ...”

The first born’s career choice was not exactly the proud boast at Duckett dinner parties in early days. “Art is something you look at,” went her father’s exasperated counsel.

“Not something you DO!” Of the five kids, George is the only one to have sought a living “outside the mainstream”, and while her parents have made the two-hour journey a few times to visit, it seems to remain that the rustic climes of their daughter’s chosen abode “are a long way from Toorak”.

The tree change had an immediate impact on George’s art, not just her life-style. From the mezzanine art-space aloft in her self-built studio now sharing the shade beneath the big gums, she tells me how the urban influences that had shaped her painting have been supplanted by rural forces that dominate her senses. Most powerfully, the visual. Her artistic expression has undergone changes not just in style and subject, but also medium. “I stopped painting soon after we got here. Now I am into the tactile and emblematic. I like to find real objects, transform them,” she says, digging out the glass casting of a hubcap she’d picked up by the highway. “I went to 3D art, and am playing around with the elements available, both natural and discarded.” Slung over the mezzanine railing are scarf-like cloths, “pojape” apparently, oriental wraps upon which she has patterned pigments from the paddock, extracts from the veggie patch, dyes from the bush. Whether there is a market for such things, she says, is not a factor.

an exhibition up here, let alone have your heart set on selling your work or, gulp, making a living from it. George admits that the moving and shaking needed to get your stuff out there, to have it appreciated, perhaps even consumed, is not her strong point.

“There were so many more avenues to exhibit in Melbourne. It was a lot easier.” Asked whether she finds the local art community (Newstead being known as a bubbling little warm spot for arties) advantageous to her work, she explains that while she enjoys the creative camaraderie that can be tapped into, it does not necessarily lend itself to reaching a wider audience. “I rarely even try to put my stuff out there any more”

So why do it? Well, she just does. Even were she denied the creative space that their lifestyle choice now allows, she says she would “… just make things anyway. It’s about the process more than the product. There is an element of journey about each piece I do, which is within a greater journey, that being the medium I am exploring. When I feel that exploration nearing an end, I look to a new medium, a new journey”. The Korean pojapes draped on the rail are in a sense postcards from her current excursion. The artist seems unfussed as to whether anyone else will read them, nor fazed about where the next exploration might take her. But with the allowance of time (“Never enough, though, is there? Even up here.”), with the space they have bought and with all that stuff lying around out there, George’s journey Indeed, she adds, it is hard enough to arrange options seem plenty.

words & pics: Ben Laycock

LAKE TITICACA

DARKEST PERU PART XI

We say goodbye to La Paz as the autobus lumbers out of the Chasm and sets out across the barren windswept Altiplano, heading for Lake Titicaca. A blind man with a guitar entertains us with a cross between ‘Flutes of the Andes’ and Jimmy Hendrix’s ‘All along the Watch Tower’. Then he makes us buy his C.D. We arrive at the lake and they put the bus on a raft. We bob along past the headquarters of the Bolivian Navy, I kid you not. It is rumored they even have a submarine. Eventually we alight at Copacabana, a very poor replica of its namesake. We slump exhausted around a laminex table under a thatched roof and an intermittently incandescent globe. Wavelets lap at the pebbles under our feet. A grilled fish that was swishing about in blissful ignorance not an hour ago is plonked on the table. The sun sets on 8,000 square kilometres of crystal clear fresh water, four kilometres above the sea, surrounded by snow-capped peaks.

In the middle of the lake is Isla Del Sol, birthplace of Manco Kapac and Mama Oclo, direct descendants of The Sun, who after a little incest, began The Inca Dynasty. Just

next-door is The Island of the Moon, home of the sacrificial virgins, who lived a life of carefree abandon until that fateful tap on the shoulder. Time to do their sacred duty. Their still beating hearts plucked from their open chests as their peers looked on with envy.

Wishing they too could fulfill such an honor for The Great Inca Nation.

After a long and bone jarring donkey ride we had a lovely picnic lunch on the very slab where the young maidens met their grizzly fate. After sitting unused for some 500 years there was not a stain upon it. We shared our chicken sandwiches with the wandering goatherd who could hardly utter a word of Spanish but seemed to understand the goats perfectly well.

Then we discovered the Uros people, who live on floating islands of reeds. They first took up this unusual behavior to escape the Incas, then to escape the Spanish, then to escape the tourists, but after chugging through a labyrinthine network of channels through the reeds we managed to track them down and they were actually quite pleased to see us. A wizened matriarch tried to sell us a stuffed duckling nailed to a piece of wood.

Next episode: Machu Pichu www.benlaycock.com.au

cowra

NSW / ACT

• Cowra Regional Art Gallery See our website for this month’s exhibitions.

77 Darling Street Cowra NSW 2794. Tues to Sat 10am - 4pm, Sun 2 - 4pm. Free Admission. www.cowraartgallery.com.au Image: G.W. Bot Glyphs: Tree of Life (detail) 2012, watercolour and graphite on colombe paper, 100cm x 100cm.

Winner 2012 Calleen Art Award.

sydney • Art Gallery of New South Wales Papunya Tula, works on paper, until 24 March.

ARTEXPRESS 2013, until 14 April. We used to talk about love, Balnaves contemporary: photomedia until 21 April. The fashion of Helmut Newton and Bettina Rheims, until 19 May. Art Gallery Rd, The Domain, Sydney NSW 2000.

T: (02) 9225 1744, www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

HIDDEN ROOK WOOD CEMETERY SCULPTURE WALK

2013 EXHIBITION & $10,000 AWARD CALL FOR ENTRIES OPEN NOW - 6 MAY Go to www.hidden.rookwoodcemetery.com.au

TASMANIA devonport • Devonport Regional Gallery Open Mon - Fri 10am-5pm, Sat 12noon5pm, Sun and Public Holidays 1pm-5pm. 45 Stewart Street, Devonport,Tasmania 7310. E: artgallery@devonport.tas.gov.au T: (03) 6424 8296; www.devonportgallery.com Image: Pulse # 201207 by Paul Snell.

hobart • MONA, Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart Ancient, modern and contemporary art.

Monanism the permanent collection – evolving over time. Our next exhibition opening 20 June, 2013 is The Red Queen curated by DAVID WALSH, OLIVIER VARENNE and NICOLE DURLING. It asks why homo sapiens have always made art – is it integral to human evolution?

Fees: $20/adult; under 18s are free. Autumn/ Winter opening hours: 10am to 5pm, closed Tuesdays. Food, bars, winery, microbrewery, accommodation, bookshop and library. 655 Main Road Berriedale, Tasmania, 7011. T: (03) 6277 9900, www.mona.net.au

box hill • Box Hill Community Arts Centre 5 – 14 March, Kingswood College Graduate Art Show. 19 – 27 March, Discarded – Recycled Art Competition Plastic Fantastic? Awards presented at Whitehorse Sustainability Awards Night Thurs 21 March at BHCAC. 470 Station Street Box Hill T: (03) 9895 8888 www.bhcac.com.au

• Whitehorse Artspace 7 March – 20 April 2013, Byzantine Art and Icons. The Whitehorse Artspace welcomes celebrated iconographic artist ANNA PRIFTI, together with her students, in March and April for a fascinating exhibition of Byzantine Art and Icons.This exhibition explores the timeless tradition of painting ‘icons’ – of Christ, the Virgin or one of a number of revered saints or sacred stories. Demonstrations will be held during the exhibition. Please call 9262 6250 or check www. boxhilltownhall.com.au for further information.

Image: Anna Prifti The Road to Resurrection (detail) 2011, egg tempera and gold leaf on wood, 75cm x 50cm, c the artist.

Hours: Tues and Fri 10am-3pm, Wed and Thurs 9am-5pm, Saturday noon-4pm. T: (03) 9262 6250, 1022 Whitehorse Road, Box Hill VIC 3128, www.boxhilltownhall.com.au

brunswick

• Counihan Gallery in Brunswick 1 to 31 March 2013 Sound & Vision, SARAH DUYSHART, EMMA LASHMAR, ROSS MANNING. Curated by LAUREN SIMMONDS. Opening: Thursday 28 February, 6pm. There will be a variety of public programs and performances throughout the exhibition. Check the website for more details. Image: Emma Lashmar, 100/1 (detail), 2010, glass and thread.

Installation view, MARS Gallery, Melbourne.

Photograph: Andrew Barcham.

233 Sydney Road, Brunswick 3056 T: (03) 9389 8622; www.moreland.vic.gov.au/gallery. E: counihangallery@moreland.vic.gov.au

MELBOURNE

bundoora • Bundoora Homestead Art Centre Northern Lights, 1 March – 5 May. ROSALIND ATKINS, LOUISE BLYTON, JU-YUEN MERRAN CHEW, PETA CLANCY, GEORGINA CUE, RACHEL FEERY, FRANCES GALLAGHER, GWEN GARONI, MARY HAMMOND, SOPHIE HARALAMBAKIS, KATHERINE HATTAM, SIRI HAYES, ANNA HOYLE, HILARY JACKMAN, JUSTINE KHAMARA, HELEN KOCIS EDWARDS, KIRSTEN LYTTLE, BEATRICE MEGALOTTI, REBECCA MAYO, VIV MILLER, POLIXENI PAPAPETROU, CLARE RAE, DIANNE SELBY, JACQUI STOCKDALE, JENNYFER STRATMAN, NAT THOMAS, SARAH VELI, ANNE WARREN, SHARON WEST, ELAINE WILLIAMS, JESSI WONG. Image: Clare Rae, Untitled #2 (magdalen) (detail) 2012, lightbox, 40.0 x 57.0 x 18.0cm.

Collection of the artist. Photo courtesy of the artist and Beam Contemporary.

7-27 Snake Gully Drive, Bundoora.

(Melways 19 G2) T: (03) 9496 1060; http:// bundoorahomestead.com

deer park • Hunt Club Community Arts Centre Galleries To 16 February DANNY SGRO, Plug 3, Large scale abstract paintings on plywood. 23 February – 29 March Way Out West, works celebrating 10 years of an arts program for people with a disability. Image: Danny Sgro.

Centre open Mon-Thurs 9am - 7.30pm, Fri 9am - 4.30pm, Sat 9am -12.30pm. Closed Public Holidays. 775 Ballarat Road, Deer Park (Melway 25, F8) T: (03) 9249 4600 E: huntclub@brimbank. vic.gov.au www.brimbank.vic.gov.au/arts

doncaster • Manningham Art Gallery Made to Last: The Conservation of Art 27 February – 28 March. A NETS Victoria touring exhibition in partnership with the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne and supported by Latrobe Regional Gallery. Curated

by SHERRYN VARDY. Image: PENNY BYRNE, H5N1 Mutant Strain (detail) 2011, porcelain figurine, vintage action man gas mask, porcelain chickens, epoxy resin, re-touching medium, powder pigments. Courtesy of the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf Fine Art, Sydney MC² (Manningham City Square), 687 Doncaster Road, Doncaster 3108. Mel Ref. 47 F1. Open Tuesday to Saturday 11am to 5pm. T: (03) 98409367. E: gallery@manningham.vic.gov.au; www. manningham.vic.gov.au/gallery Free entry.

east melbourne • The Johnston Collection House Museum & Gallery Fairhall: Barbara Brownlow & Alexandra Brownlow Rearrange Mr Johnston’s Collection 12 March – 19 June. Melbourne interior designers Barbara Brownlow and Alexandra Brownlow rearrange William Johnston’s collection. Against the backdrop of Johnston’s extraordinary collection, this guided tour explores the idea of 21st century living designed around historic objects. Gallery: Women Making History: Writers, Thinkers, Makers, Icons 1700– 1900 12 March – 19 June. Inspired by the bicentenary of the publication of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, explores the role of women as writers, thinkers, makers, archetypes and artistic subjects from the 18th century to the close of the 19th century. Image: attributed to Derby porcelain factory (est. circa 1748-1848), figure (Minerva), circa 1780-1785.

Bookings essential www.johnstoncollection.org

trouble is on twitter too

healesville • TarraWarra Museum of Art 21 December 2012 – 31 March 2013 Master of Stillness: Jeffrey Smart paintings 19402011. A Samstag Museum of Art exhibition in partnership with TarraWarra Museum of Art. Master of Stillness is a major survey exhibition of over forty paintings by one of Australia’s most important living painters. As the curator of the exhibition Barry Pearce has said, ‘JEFFREY SMART created an entirely new vernacular of modern painting. He confronted a brave new universe of technology and architecture and declared that it was beautiful. He became its poet’. Indemnification for this exhibition is provided by the Victorian Government. 21 December 2012 – 14 April 2013 NADINE CHRISTENSEN and ANNE WALLACE: Recent paintings. Image: Jeffrey Smart, Self-portrait at Papini’s (detail) 1984-85, oil and acrylic on canvas, 85 x 115 cm. Private collection © Jeffrey Smart.

Visit website for public programs and events.

Admission: $12 Adults / $8 Concession.

TarraWarra Museum of Art, 311 HealesvilleYarra Glen Road, Healesville. For information and bookings visit twma.com.au

langwarrin • McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park Until 14 July 2013: McClelland Sculpture Survey and Award 2012. Until 9 June – Made in China, Australia. Australia’s leading Sculpture Park and Gallery.

390 McClelland Drive, Langwarrin (Mel. Ref. 103 E3 only 45 min from St Kilda!) T: (03) 9789 1671. Gallery Hours: Tues-Sun 10am-5pm (Entry by donation).

McClelland Gallery Café, Tues-Sun 10am-4.30pm.

Guided Tours: Wed and Thurs 11am and 2pm, and Sat and Sun by appointment only. Prior bookings highly recommended. E: info@mcclellandgallery. com, www.mcclellandgallery.com

WE LIKE TO WATCH ... http://www.youtube.com/user/troublestudios/

melbourne • BLINDSIDE Wednesday 25 February – Saturday 16 March, G1: JOHN HEWITT: Feel the confidence. G2: SARAH BUNTING: Incessant Ruthlessness.

Wednesday 20 March – Saturday 8 April, G1: CAMILLA GALAZ & YUNA CHUN: Uncertain Order, G2: MELANIE UPTON: In the thick of it.

BLINDSIDE, Nicholas Building, 714/37 Swanston St (enter via Cathedral Arcade lifts, cnr Flinders Lane), Melbourne. Hours: Tue to Sat 12-6pm. T: (03) 9650 0093

• fortyfivedownstairs 7 – 24 March Flesh and Bone by KAGE, dance theatre; 14 – 17 March Bonhams presents The Laverty Collection, paintings; 19 March – 6 April Urban Scrawl by GAVIN BROWN, paintings; 19 March – 6 April Delight in the Detail - Consumed By The Everyday by ROBYN RICH, KAREN LLOYD JONES and CATHERINE HULL SINCLAIR, paintings; 27 March – 7 April Bad Boys of Music Theatre: All Washed Up! MICF, comedy cabaret; DC3: The Ringtone Cycle MICF, comical theatre; You’re tearing me apartment: The Roomsical MICF, comical theatre. Image: promotional image for Flesh and Bone by Jeff Busby 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, 3000. T: (03) 9662 9966 www.fortyfivedownstairs.com

moonee ponds • Incinerator Gallery Until 24 March Fire Works: Art and Design By Bright Young Things. An annual art and design exhibition and prize for VCE students who live in, or go to school in Moonee Valley. Dream Home, FRANK VELDZE. A three metre high construction, functioning as both a surreal sculpture and a series of intriguing spaces.

As part of the Garden Project – a program of exciting outdoor sculpture in the Incinerator’s front garden (see image). 22 March – 28 April Dreams of Africa, ABIDI ABDI MOHAMED. Tinga Tinga and other forms of African art.

Opening hours: Tues to Sun, 10am-4pm.

Free Entry. Incinerator Gallery, 180 Holmes Road, Moonee Ponds VIC 3039 T: (03) 8325 1750, E: incinerator@mvcc.vic.gov.au, www. incineratorgallery.com.au

southbank

• ACCA - Australian Centre for Contemporary Art See the artists of the future now in NEW13. ACCA’s annual commissions exhibition, NEW offers rising Australian artists the chance to make a bold, brave new work for the gallery’s large exhibition spaces. Those selected are the artists to watch into the future. For the past five years, the series has been proudly supported by the Balnaves Foundation and is widely considered to be one of the most important commission opportunities for Australian artists. NEW13 has been curated

by ACCA’s Associate Curator, CHARLOTTE DAY. Selected artists are BENJAMIN FORSTER, JESS MACNEIL, ALEX MARTINIS ROE, SANNE MESTROM, SCOTT MITCHELL, LINDA TEGG and JOSHUA PETHERICK. Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 111 Sturt Street, Southbank. Gallery hours: TuesdayFriday 10am–5pm. Weekends 11am-6pm.

st andrews

• The Baldessin Press and Studio Artists / writers retreats, workshops, studio access etc in tranquil bushland 50 kms from Melbourne. T (03) 97101350, www. baldessinpress.com

• The Pharos Centre Workshops – Pathways to Creativity 16 & 17 March, 2013 NINA SELLARS Naked to the Bone, The Skeleton in Life Drawing.

The class adopts the drawing techniques of the Renaissance – think Leonardo. Two days, including lunches and more $450.

The Pharos Centre aims to host the most useful, innovative and exciting workshops. 85 Ninks Road, St Andrews, Vic 3761. T (03) 9710 1516 E pharoseditions@bigpond.com Image: Jill Orr, Venice International Performance Week Dec. 2012 http://jillorr.com.au/

Mondays by appointment. T: (03) 9697 9999 Admission: Free. www.accaonline.org.au

sunshine • Sunshine Art Spaces Artist studios, gallery and shop front. Three new artists – photographer BRAD AXIAK, puppet maker LANA SCHWARZ and environmental artist MICHAEL SHIELL – have recently moved into the studio space located in what was previously a chemist shop. Opposite the studios is a Gallery space, which currently hosts the exhibition Faith 2 Faith: Art in Public Spaces from 1 – 29 March.

Opening hours vary, call to confirm. 2 City Place, Sunshine (Melway 40, H1) T: (03) 9249 4600 E: artspaces@brimbank.vic.gov.au; www. sunshineartspaces.com.au

upwey • Burrinja Gallery Lajamanu: Early Paintings, 28 February - 12 May. Dating back to the beginning of acrylic painting in Central Australia, this exhibition features rarely seen canvasses by Warlpiri men and women from the remote Aboriginal community of Lajamanu, 500km northwest of Alice Springs. Imaginary Ornithology, 2 March – 12 May. An interactive sound installation by PETER MCLLWAIN. Image: Peter McLlwain, Lattice Toucan - Ramphastos latticei (detail).

Cnr Glenfern Rd and Matson Dr. Tue to Sun 10.30am-4pm. T: 9754 8723. W: burrinja.org.au

west footscray • Post Industrial Design BABY GUERRILLA Solo Show, 1 – 17 March 2013. Painting, drawing, temporary tattoos, multi-media. Opening 1 March, 6-8pm, dress theme ‘Masquerade’. Temporary tattoos of the artwork will be available. There will also be a food van and art in plentiful supply.

Post Industrial Design. 638 Barkly Street, West Footscray. T: (03) 9362 7703; postindustrialdesign.com.au

wheelers hill

• Monash Gallery of Art (MGA) 8 February–28 April 2013, PEACE. This important exhibition seeks to find a picture of PEACE and includes photographs made by prominent photographers from the Australian photographic collective DEGREE SOUTH. These photographers include TIM PAGE, ASHLEY GILBERTSON, STEPHEN DUPONT, BEN BOHANE, MICHAEL COYNE, DAVID DARE PARKER, JACK PICONE and the late SEAN FLYNN. Image: Ashley GILBERTSON, Occupy Wall Street demonstrator meditates in Zuccotti Park on November 16 2011, pigment ink-jet print, courtesy of the artist.

860 Ferntree Gully Road, Wheelers Hill 3150.

Tues - Fri 10am to 5pm, Sat - Sun 12 to 5pm, Closed Mon. T: (03) 8544 0500, E: mga@ monash.vic.gov.au, www.mga.org.au

geelong • Geelong Gallery A question of scale – maquettes and small sculpture from the permanent collection, until 21 April. NICK MOUNT – the fabric of work, until 12 May. Corporeal – a print exchange folio, until 12 May. Geelong region artists program: Burnt landscape – Yarra Ranges under fire – DONALD RAMSAY, until 11 March. Selected works, 16 March to 14 April. Image: HEATHER SHIMMEN, Blue blood 2012, linocut and ink.

Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Australian Galleries, Melbourne & Sydney. Photography: Tim Gresham.

Geelong Gallery, Little Malop Street, Geelong 3220. T: (03) 5229 3645, www.geelonggallery. org.au Free entry. Open daily 10am to 5pm.

Closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and Good Friday.

ballarat

CENTRAL VIC

• Art Gallery of Ballarat Exhibitions: 2 February to 24 March Next Gen 2013: VCE Art and Design. 2 March – 14 April Got the Message?: 50 Years of Political Posters.

Image: PAUL GARBETT (detail). Concerts: 3 Mar, 2.30pm Shaking the Tree choir: Songs of Social Protest (free event). 6 Mar, 7.30pm, Adam Simmons with Steve Heather. 18 Mar, 7.30pm, Seraphim Trio: The Poet. Talks: 13 Mar, 12.30pm, Michael Nichols on the Next Gen exhibition. 27 Mar, 12.30pm, Geoff Wallis on Got the message?. Performance: 10 Mar, 12.30pm, 75 Years of Ballarat National Theatre. Let’s Talk Poetry: 12 Mar, 12.30pm.

T: (03) 5320 5858 Free entry. Open daily except Christmas and Boxing Day. E: artgal@ballarat. vic.gov.au; www.artgalleryofballarat.com.au • Ballarat Arts Foundation Grants Rounds for emerging artists: 1 – 31 March and 1 – 30 September. Visit Downloads on www.ballaratartsfoundation.org.au or T: (03) 5332 4824 or M: 0409 352 268

• Ballarat Writers Workshops: throughout 2013 to support established and emerging writers. Readings: First Thursday of the month. Competitions, Opportunities and more. All details available via www.ballaratwriters.com

2 MAR TO 14 APR 2013 artgalleryofballarat.com.au

• Her Majesty’s Friday 15 March 8pm, TRIPOD Men of Substance; Tuesday 19 March 7pm, Sticks, Stones, Broken Bones; Wednesday 20 March 2pm, The Girls from Oz; Friday 22 March 11am and 7pm, Animal Farm by SHAKE & STIR THEATRE COMPANY; Saturday 23 March 7.30pm, DAME KIRI TE KANAWA Live in Recital; Sunday 24 March 1pm, MetHD screening Rigoletto (Verdi).

Her Majesty’s Theatre, 17 Lydiard Street South, Ballarat. Box Office/Ticket Sales: MajesTix T: (03) 5333 5888 Box Office hours - Monday to Friday, 9.15am - 5pm and one hour prior to performance starting times.

• Post Office Gallery Wed 20 Feb – Sat 30 Mar SCOPE 13: Arts Academy staff, Research students and Associates. Sat 13 Apr – Sun 19 May 2013 Guirguis New Art Prize (GNAP). In a new acquisitive $20,000 national art prize, eleven shortlisted contemporary Australian artists present their work at the Post Office Gallery and the Art Gallery of Ballarat. The artists include REBECCA BAUMANN (WA), FERGUS BINNS, (VIC) PETRINA HICKS (NSW), ASH KEATING (VIC), BONNIE LANE (VIC), RICHARD LEWER (WA) ANGELICA MESITI (NSW), DAVID ROSETZKY (VIC), DARREN SYLVESTER (VIC), BRENDAN VAN HEK (NSW) and PAUL YORE (VIC). Further details www.ballarat.edu.au/gnap. www.facebook.com/postofficegallery www.balgal. com. Image: JILL ORR, In the beginning (detail).

Post Office Gallery, University of Ballarat.

Cnr Sturt and Lydiard St Ballarat. VIC. 3350.

Mon/Tue by appt. Wed-Sat 1-4pm. T: (03) 5327 8615, E: s.hinton@ballarat.edu.au www. ballarat.edu.au/pogallery • Radmac Radmac Office Choice (incorporating Radmac Gallery) is on the move. Your one stop shop for office and school supplies, computer consumables, copy and specialty papers, art and craft supplies and much much more is relocating to 110 Armstrong St South. Phone, fax, email and web remain the same.

Radmac Gallery, 110 Armstrong Street South, Ballarat 3350. T: (03) 5333 4617 Hours 8.30am to 5.30pm Mon - Fri, 9am to 12pm Sat.

bendigo • Artsonview Framing and Gallery Expert custom framing by GEOFF SAYER. Conservation and exhibition framing also available. Plus a small but interesting range of original artwork and photography. Ceramics and etchings by RAY PEARCE, limited edition prints by GEOFF HOCKING now in stock. 75 View Street. E: sayer@iinet.net.au; T: (03) 5443 0624

• Bendigo Art Gallery Her Majesty’s Territories: stereographic views of Australian sceneries, 9 February – 1 April 2013. Image: JOHN H JONES (active 1860s), Gold Diggers (detail) albumen silver photograph mounted on card. Collection of Bendigo Art Gallery.

42 View Street, Bendigo. T: (03) 5434 6088. www.bendigoartgallery.com.au

• The Capital - Bendigo’s Performing Arts Centre ACO2 the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s precocious little sister, connects the next generation of talented young Australian musicians with the stars of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, creating a combined ensemble with a fresh, energetic performance style. Accordion player JAMES CRABB is famous around the globe for his passionate performance of the seductive and dramatic tango music of Astor Piazzolla. Hear the exhilarating tangos, Baroque and contemporary classical pieces with the vibrant young musicians of ACO2. Sunday 21 April. Tickets: www.thecapital.com.au

• Community & Cultural Development (CCD) www.bendigo.vic.gov.au - for arts, festivals and events info at your fingertips. Select Council Services, then Arts Festivals and Events for Events Calendar and Arts Register. The CCD Unit is an initiative of the City of Greater Bendigo. E: eventscalendar@bendigo.vic.gov. au T: (03) 5434 6464

• La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre VAC Gallery: To 24 March BRUCE MOWSON + ELLIOT HOWARD The Listening vs Striles of Ming. 27 March to 5 May WENDY KELLY, LOUISE BLYTON, MAGDA CEBOKLI + GORDON MONRO Non-Objective Conversations by 4. Access Gallery: 27 February to 24 March MASON FAMILY TRUST EXHIBITION AWARD: ANN BERG, Prayers of Reparation. Image: Bruce Mowson, The Swing 2008, and Elliot Howard, Tometimes Taughter Lounds Sike Fears, 2008.

121 View St, Bendigo. T: (03) 5441 8724 W: www.latrobe.edu.au/vac

castlemaine • Arts & Culture: Mount Alexander Shire The Castlemaine State Festival is about experiencing the arts in one of Victoria’s vibrant regional towns. A celebration of music, theatre, visual arts, literature and community, don’t miss out on the festivities and come along from 15 – 24 March 2013. Highlights include the premier of the George Fairfax Theatre Award piece The Republic of Trees: a tale between earth and sky; the Visual Art Biennial curated show Periscope located over three venues, Our Collective DNA literature program, Australia’s hippest rock-electro-fusion group The Raah Project, indigenous work Blak Cabaret and its stellar line-up of artists, French singer CAROLINE NIN and much, much more.

Arts & Culture Officer, Tegan Lang, Community Activity and Culture Unit, Mount Alexander Shire Council. T: (03) 5471 1793; M: 0428 394 577; E: arts@mountalexander.vic.gov.au

• Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum Until 10 March R W STURGESS (1892–1932) Works from the Permanent Collection. Over thirty-five works from 1912 to 1930 presented to the Gallery by the artist’s daughter and shown together for the first time. 16 March – 26 May BARRY SINGLETON: A Survey from Public and Private Collections and an Exhibition of Current Work, Higgins Gallery.

Image: R W Sturgess Among the Marigolds (detail) 1923, watercolour.

CAGHM, 14 Lyttleton Street Castlemaine, Vic. For full list of events and exhibitions log onto: www.castlemainegallery.com

• Greengraphics: web and print We design anything, in web or print. Call (03) 5472 5300 or visit www.greengraphics.com.au

maldon • Friday 15 to Sunday 24 March 2013 In Maldon and Newstead 46 shop windows become a gallery for local artists during the Castlemaine State Festival. ALLEX HALL presents the ‘BBC’ – bikes buildings and chooks.

Watercolour and mixed media at Tables and Chairs 16 High Street Maldon, next to the Blacksmiths, south end of town. JULIENNE BEASLEY’s One World – a powerful connection between our world and its creatures. Watercolour and mixed media, next to the Bushells building, across the road at 45 (sic) High Street Maldon.

Contact: 0435 063 451

• Maldon Art Walk 15 – 24 March, a Castlemaine State Festival Event. The historic towns of Maldon and Newstead will become a virtual gallery with art in shop windows, a variety of street activities, open studios, sculpture in the street, a young people’s art exhibition. Presented by the Maldon Art Network. Supported by the Maldon & District Community Bank, the Maldon Neighbourhood Centre, Octagonal Resources, Maldon Inc and Mount Alexander Shire.

newstead • Dig Café 21 February – 3 April, The Society of Newstead Amateur Photographers (SNAP) showing photographic portraits. SNAP are: ANN BOLTON, ROBYN WHITE, JUDITH MUNRO, MAUREEN CRAPPER, GAIL LEECH, AMANDA HOYNE and MARGARET HARRIS. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Open Wednesday and Thursday 9am-4pm, Friday and Saturday 9am - late, Sunday 9am-4pm. Cnr Lyons and Panmure Streets Newstead. T: (03) 5476 2744; www.digcafe.com.au

• Pocket Gallery 11 February – 29 March 2013 paintings by KRISTIN SCHERLIES. 1 April – 31 May 2013 HUGH WALLER. Image: Kristin Scherlies, Moon in morning sky (detail), acrylic, sand, 1mtr x 1.2mtrs.

Pocket Gallery is a community-run art space located at Newstead Rural Transaction Centre (RTC) 45 Lyons Street Newstead VIC 3462.

Artists are invited to exhibit at Pocket for free.

E: pocket@troublemag.com for info or find us on Facebook.

• Karen Pierce Painter, Illustrator, Art Teacher, Community Artist.

Quality prints and cards. Old Post Office Studio, 22 Panmure Street Newstead. T: (03) 5476 2459, www.karenpierceart.com

MURRAY RIVER mildura • The Art Vault To 11 March - ANITA LAURENCE Town & Country; GEOFFREY RICARDO Collection of Works. 13 March – 1 April Stock Show.

Artist in residence GEOFFREY RICARDO; NIC PLOWMAN. Image: Anita Laurence, Our Place 2012, etching, 76h x 56cm, ed 20.

43 Deakin Avenue, Mildura 3500. T: (03) 5022 0013 E: juliechambers@theartvault.com.au www.theartvault.com.au Gallery Director: Julie Chambers. Wed - Sat 10am to 5pm and Sun Mon 10am to 2pm.

• Mildura Arts Centre Mildura Arts Centre, 199 Cureton Avenue, Mildura VIC 3500. T: (03) 5018 8330; F: (03) 5021 1462; www.milduraartscentre.com.au Image credit: Jenny Watson (b.1951), Horse Series No. 1: Palomino with Championship Ribbon, 1973, oil and acrylic on canvas © Mildura Arts Centre Collection.

swan hill • Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery Familiar Unfamiliar: Pictures of Australian experience in print, until 17 March. In[two]art, 22 March – 28 April. In[two]art comprises the works of thirty artist couples. The exhibition demonstrates the varying ways in which they live, work and influence one another. Image: DEBORAH PAAUWE, Untold Story 2010, Giclee print.

Opening hours 10am-5pm Tuesday to Friday, 11am-5pm Saturday and Sunday. Horseshoe Bend, Swan Hill, 3585. T:(03) 5036 2430 E:artgal@ swanhill.vic.gov.au; www.swanhillart.com

NORTHERN VIC

benalla • Benalla Art Gallery Opening hours 10am - 5pm. Benalla Art Gallery, Bridge Street, Benalla, Victoria, 3672. T: (03) 5760 2619; E: gallery@benalla.vic.gov.au; www. benallaartgallery.com

shepparton • Shepparton Art Museum 7 March to 2 June: The Golden Age of Colour Prints: Ukiyo-e from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Until 30 June: Occasional Miracles: Contemporary Artists Respond to the SAM Ceramics Collection. Until 19 January 2014: Crawling Through Mud: Australian Ceramics and the Japanese Tradition.

70 Welsford Street, Shepparton VIC 3630; T: (03) 5832 9861; E: art.museum@shepparton. vic.gov.au; www.sheppartonartmuseum.com.au Director: Kirsten Paisley. Open 7 days, 10am to 4pm (public holidays 1pm to 4pm).

LAUNCH PARTY Saturday 18 February 2012

wangaratta • Wangaratta Art Gallery Until 24 March Action / Abstraction, JO DAVENPORT, SALLY GABORI, TODD HUNTER, ILDIKO KOVACS, AIDA TOMESCU. 30 March - 21 April Elemental: MARY-ROSE RILEY and Light & Dark: BÄRBEL ULLRICH. Paintings & mixed media work by northeast artists. Image: Mary-Rose Riley, Lake Hume 2 (detail) 2012, acrylic on canvas.

56 Ovens Street Wangaratta. Director: Dianne Mangan, Hours: Mon-Tues 12-5pm; Wed-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat-Sun 1-4pm. T: (03) 5722 0865, F: (03) 5722 2969, E: d.mangan@wangaratta. vic.gov.au or gallery@wangaratta.vic.gov.au; www.wangaratta.vic.gov.au then follow the links to the gallery. Follow us on Facebook.

• Free arts activities, live music & tours of SAM: 10.00am to 5.00pm • Sir John Longstaff: Portrait of a Lady Exhibition • 2011 Indigenous Ceramic Art Award Exhibition • 6 New Permanent Collection Galleries For more information visit sheppartonartmuseum.com.au 70 Welsford St, Shepparton, 3630 VIC p 03 5832 9861 f 03 58318480 e art.museum@shepparton.vic.gov.au

WESTERN VIC ararat • Ararat Regional Art Gallery Waradgerie Weaver – LORRAINE CONNELLYNORTHEY, to 10 March 2013. House/Self, KAY LAWRENCE, to 3 April 2013. The Wandering: Moving images from the MCA collection and Four Generative Videos, GORDON MONRO, 14 March to 14 April. Plastic Fantastic, ANNABELLE COLLETT, 14 March to 28 April. Image: Gordon Monro, still from Shaping Evolution (2011).

Town Hall, Vincent Street, Ararat. Mon to Fri 10am-4.30pm, w/ends 12-4pm. Free entry. T: (03) 5352 2836; E: gallery@ararat.vic.gov.au; www.facebook.com/araratgallery

horsham • Horsham Regional Art Gallery Until 14 April 2013: SKATER – portraits by NIKKI TOOLE of skateboarders. A National Portrait Gallery and Geelong Gallery touring exhibition.

Curated by Dr C Chapman, NPG Senior Curator.

21 Roberts Ave, Horsham. Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat-Sun 1-4.30pm. T: (03) 5362 2888; E: hrag@ hrcc.vic.gov.au; www.horshamartgallery.com.au

• Print Council of Australia Inc. Printmakers and print collectors stay in touch with print exhibitions, events and technical issues through IMPRINT magazine. Members receive frequent email updates and information about opportunities (courses, forums, group exhibitions and competitions). Subscriptions $65/year or $45 concessions see website: www.printcouncil.org.au or phone T: (03) 9328 8991 for membership details

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