FAM 19.
Foreword Fine Arts at UWA is a celebration of the value and power of art to inspire joy, to advocate for change or challenge the status quo. It is a celebration of art as a liberating force and a creative compulsion. The work on display in this year’s Fine Arts Major exhibition conveys the fundamental drive that humans have towards creating and making things that call on the integration of minds and hands, which shows us who we are, were or might be. The work of these students demonstrates the proficiency that comes with practice, the confidence that comes with experience, the insight that comes with knowledge. In 2019 the Fine Arts major comprises the largest cohort since the major was introduced in 2015. Students from a broad range of backgrounds gather here, many taking two majors: alongside Fine Arts students are concurrently enrolled in majors such as Law & Society, Business and History of Art. We are beginning to see the fruits of the course structure at UWA that encourages students to be broad and flexible in their study paths and their learning. As a group, the students completing this major bring a wonderfully diverse and enriching set of skills and knowledge. Individuals as well as the Fine Arts community are mutual beneficiaries of this crossing of minds. In acknowledgment of the growing potential of this program (and in anticipation of a thriving future for Fine Arts as a discipline) 2020 will introduce a renewed version of the Fine Arts major that will be unique within Australia. Staff expertise as well as student demand underpin the distinctive offering of three streams: Film; Art and Environment; and Art and Biotechnologies. Core skills of drawing, printmaking and painting will continue to be taught and carried into the streams; and the opportunity to learn through immersion in other places and cultures will be a strong feature of the course. We are excited to see this program evolve, and to follow the careers of our graduates as they reflect and transform the environments around them. My congratulations to all of the students completing the Fine Arts major at Level 3 or with Honours, and to the committed group of academic, technical and sessional staff who have inspired and mentored the students through the course. Dr Kate Hislop Dean/Head of School School of Design
Cultural Articulations and New Meanings This year’s artworks made by the Fine Arts students show the diversity of voices within the discipline, as well as the mutual urge to reflect poetically on a changing world. Artists responded from the perspectives of personal query or angst to a global call for change, using a variety of materials, techniques and forms; from digital to material-based, following the genres of film, sculpture, graphic novel, drawings, live performance and more. We are living in times of technological acceleration, ecological emergency and the blur of true and fiction. Ironically, it is through artistic fiction that truths can be revealed. The artworks here demonstrate the powerful role of the arts in making cultural articulations and new meanings for an unknown future. Not less important is the role of the arts in personal growth and wellbeing, through making connections with peers and environment, whether human or more than human. Each artwork presented tells a story that is both personal and global, as we encourage our students to be actively involved in the world they are inheriting. Many of the graduates are completing their studies with a Second Major in a different discipline, whether History of Art, Zoology, Psychology, Law, Business, or other areas. This wide breadth of knowledge and skill is evident in their artworks. Furthermore, we know that the artistic skills, hands-on methodology, aesthetic sensitivities and critical approach will inform their future path in whatever profession they will decide to adopt. With nuanced aesthetics, technical excellence, humour, and a large portion of poetics, the artists make us feel and think. These are the glimpses into the future artists of Australia and beyond. We would like to thank all the students and staff for all their hard work. It was a year of reflection and discovery, and it is time to celebrate your achievements and we wish you all the best in your future journeys. Dr. Ionat Zurr Chair of the Fine Arts Discipline School of Design
Continuing Masters Students: Sacha
Graduating Honours Students:
Samuel, Annie, Saleheh, Richard, Ian
Graduating Fine Arts Major Students:
Madi, Amy C, Jessica, Patrick, Tracie-Leigh, Emma, Alexander, Jasmine, James, S. L, Daniel, Chandler, Emilie, Ysabella, Marite, Neisha, Eden, Amy R, Christopher, Johan, Piper
FAM 19.
The Fine Arts Major Graduating Exhibition 2019 School of Design Cullity Gallery | First Floor ALVA Studio | Fine Art Building 4-8th November
FINE ARTS HONOURS
SACHA BARKER
Master of Fine Arts (continuing)
Process works Installation/objects, fabric, pins, block prints, sketches, drafting film, inks, paint, binder
One can be protective of their process works because they are imperfect and incomplete. For the artist, much of the creative process is iterative. As each artwork is produced, she often already knows the form of the next; each outcome exposing fertile avenues for new works. These two concept pieces inform of the topic of the artist’s academic research: ‘the maker and the made’. With the artist having works installed in multiple galleries, she is at the stage of critical contemplation with her vestiges: in-process works and those on display. Inter and intra connections of herself, the works, and the world outside the studio.
SAMUEL BEILBY Fine Arts Honours
“User-Friendly” Single channel video, sound, light, blue metal, concrete, miscellaneous electronic components
Reacting with either programmed hostility or affirmation via neutrality, a chain communication occurs within “User-Friendly”. Input phenomena displayed upon the screen pass through a programmed analysis, resulting in an output response from a giant bug zapper and a malfunction-prone autonomous vehicle. The sheer commonality of these technologies has resulted in a user friendly, yet sterile, environment: taking the form of cold artificial light, digital beeping and motor-based whirring. Guided by digital communication, these components exhibited within the installation perform as one stern guiding hand of the supermodernity highway - one that we are barrelling down at an uncontrollable speed.
ANNIE HUANG Fine Arts Honours
Without 境 Video animation projected on objects
Cultivated through a slow and accumulative process, Without 境 (borders) depicts abstract characters which migrate throughout various dimensions. Every mark, form and empty space is made intentional. In the navigation of a personal history as a child of immigrants, Without 境 (borders) works to engage the viewer in the ambiguous yet strangely familiar nature of home and identity. This work references the artists’ own background as a second-generation ChineseAustralian. Drawing on the feelings of alienation and displacement felt in the process of navigating two distinctly different cultures and languages.
SALEHEH GHOLAMI Fine Arts Honours
TO BLUE Videography, photography
TO BLUE explores the experience of asylum seekers in mandatory imprisonment at an Australian detention centre. The work engages performance video, staged photography, sound, and specific objects: signifiers of memories and psychological traces from that incarceration. The psychological effects of such an experience cannot be reduced to words. The installation aims to point at, and highlight, this important social and political issue in a visceral way. Hopefully providing a glimpse to the wider society of what it feels like to be a human (asylum seeker) in an Australian detention centre.
RICHARD JACKSON Fine Arts Honours
Acolytes of the Gilded Photographic semi gloss print, gold acrylic paint
The collection presented is the start of an ongoing project that explores the representation and communication surrounding death. Acolytes of the Gilded focuses on the fleeting beauty of mortality and idealises the human form, similar to historic art styles. External additions of gold, applied by hand, designate an action similar to a Deus ex Machina. The primary subject is personal to the artist, however the work is laced with various references for the audience to generate their own relationship to the work.
IAN NICHOLS Fine Arts Honours
There Will Be Time Drypoint prints on Canson Edition
The title refers to a line in T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J Alfred Prufck: “There will be time, there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.” Eliot’s poem was one of the inspirations for drypoint selfportraits, made over the course of a year. The work focuses on change and how self-image is created as much by the mind, as by the body. An image of self that may not be in accord with that which others see.
FINE ARTS MAJORS
MADI BODYCOAT Fine Arts
Burning Embers Ink, charcoal, machine embroidery on recycled handmade paper
Burning Embers uncovers the devastation of Australian bushfires. It is an exploration of the use of materials and form to piece together the elements of disaster. The work consists of 72 panels to create a large scale work, mapping the impacts of bushfires on all aspects of life. Beyond the flames, the aftermath leaves behind a hauntingly beautiful trail of blackened earth and trees; becoming part of the Australian landscape forever. This paints the history of disasters into the land through scorched markings and deserted clearings.
AMY COLLINS Psychology, Fine Arts
Bodies // of Water North Lake water samples, biomatter, polyethylene, glass, perspex, light
Bodies // of Water illuminates the commodification of our relationship with natural sites. ‘Moments’ of water and biomatter were collected from the Beeliar Wetlands to examine the interplay of water, humans, and micro organic bodies. Instead of being catalogued as scientific samples, each moment of water is shrouded by melted plastic. The liquid form cannot be constrained by its new polyethylene skin. The packaged water and suspended biomatter, still pools and distributes itself as it pleases. The water body is contained but not controlled. Through their capture and displacement from the site, each highlighted moment engages human curiosity in bodies considered ‘other’.
JESSICA COTTAM History of Art, Fine Arts
Vital Being Terracotta clay, granite, water, acrylic, steel, plastic
Vital Being recognises the living form of clay and requests it serve as a model for all matter as vital energies. The intention is to reawaken the possibility of a sensuous relationship with nature. The viewing of nature through an anthropomorphic lens registers the natural world as a commodity for human consumption. This type of exploitation has eventuated in the current state of environmental despair, whereby we find ourselves standing on a precipice. Envisioning a sustainable future is somewhat futile if a reframing of the human perception of nature doesn’t occur first. By reconstituting in the mind, the vitality and exuberance non-human bodies possess, a reimagining of the human relationship with the environment may unfold.
PATRICK CULBERT Fine Arts, Philosophy
My Annoying Roommate: The Apocalypse Installation, comics, prints
My Annoying Roommate: The Apocalypse is an expression of the existential reality faced by the younger generations. Those who are continually confronted with the impacts of the impending environmental and economic devastation. The comics show different aspects of a young woman’s day-to-day life while these issues slowly consume her in the form of an inky darkness. In a way, she longs for the end of the world. Only then would she be set free from these endless cycles of anxiety. The installation replicates a mixture of her bedroom and mental state, creating an immersive experience of this grim reality.
TRACIE-LEIGH DALLAVANZI Law & Society, Fine Arts
My Nine Mixed media installation
My Nine is a coming-of-age anecdote and self portrait that takes a modern twist on the significance of power relations in relation to head wear. Through a collection of wearable art, each headpiece describes a different characteristic of the artist; collectively they are her nine most influential elements. The pieces focus on the themes: family, Maori mythology of creation, culture and heritage, food and celebration, beloved pets, athletic hobbies, creative hobbies, political beliefs and ideologies, and a sense of home and belonging. The installation follows the Leo constellation, mirroring the artist’s astrological sun sign.
EMMA DREYER Fine Arts
Can...yu...ear...m? Single Channel Video
Can...yu...ear...m? is a work that highlights emotions of disconnection within relationships that depends on technology to connect. The visual elements of the video create an episodic narrative that jumps from different relationships throughout a person’s life. The imagery of each clip appears nostalgic and joyful. The sound creates a mix of emotive melancholy and disrupted happiness, being compiled and layered from music and voice recordings. The audio of the piece is used as a contrasting element juxtaposed to the imagery. Overall, the work is connecting with an individual but disconnecting that person from the outside world.
ALEXANDER JONES Fine Arts, History of Art
Unto dust they die Digital video
Science depends on the premise that our hypotheses can be continually revised as new information is obtained. This relies on the continuity of causality: if a cause never produces the same effect twice, then it cannot be hypothetically accounted for. In this work, the discovery of a set of geologic micro agents incites a localised corruption of causality. Faceless subjects within this locality are driven to conspiration with, by turns, themselves and others. However, the effects of their causes prove themselves to be wont to change. The depiction of their efforts is counterpointed with narratorial sequences that poetically situate their counterparts.
JASMINE KASPER Zoology, Fine Arts
Alfred Stop motion animation
Alfred is the unfortunate story of an unloved son purposely left behind by his family in the hopes that he perishes. This short film is an exploration into the techniques of stop motion claymation as a method of storytelling. While aspects of this story are clearly based in fantasy, cases of child neglect, endangerment, and abandonment are all too frequent around the world. Animation is able to provide a light way to discuss heavy topics, such as this, because it is capable of removing the human aspect whilst still visibly making reference to it.
JAMES KNIGHT
English Literature, Fine Arts
Headchef Animated Film
When left alone with his thoughts, Chef feels the pain growing deep inside. The short animated film Headchef depicts a man struggling to manage his difficult emotions. By developing a strange coping mechanism Chef hangs on to what little of his existence remains. The film portrays an individual’s personal process of handling dark thoughts.
S. L
Fine Arts
Cylhouette Audio, video projection, acrylic sheet, laptop screen
Cylhouette is an audio sequence of collected evidence— recorded from unwanted social interactions the artist has experienced or witnessed online— visually accompanied by portrayals of anonymity through various depictions of silhouettes. Unwanted text messages are re-enacted and layered upon real recordings of abuse to create an unsettling buildup of anxiety in the form of audio. Cylhouette is an introspection of anonymity and how it can empower abusers to destabilise their victims—reflecting on the artist’s personal experiences.
DANIEL MAZZUCATO Chemistry, Fine Arts
The Hands We’re Given Digital prints on white paper
The medium of the graphic novel has long been used to make comments and present ideas about important issues, seriously and satirically. The combination of narrative world building and graphic techniques are used to engage the reader with issues into which they might not otherwise delve. The Hands We’re Given is a narrative set in a post human world, following the journey of a robot on a mission. Musical lyrics act as a pseudo narration of the setting traversed through, linking visual and linguistic imagery. The comic invites the reader to contemplate a number of social and environmental issues that afflict our world.
mg.Mg.M.g
Fine Arts, History of Art
insides Performance
Chandler Abrahams and Alexander Jones are graduating students, working in collaboration with current students Paul Boyé and Lévi McLean. insides is a performance work produced by four School of Design students – meat gape (Chandler), Mother Goo (Paul), Murmur (Alexander) and ginzel (Lévi). The work is partially derived from Jones’ film Unto dust they die (2019), Abrahams’ installation work Open the So-called Body and Spread Out its Surfaces and McLean’s video work.
EMILIE MONTY Fine Arts
On a Scale of 1 to 10 Mixed media, three channel sound installation, triangular room, lighting
On a scale of 1 to 10 is a three channel audio representation of the experience of living with chronic pain. Although each person’s experience of pain is different and unique, the thing that they share is an inability to describe pain in words. We all experience physical pain but we process it, embody it, and describe it in different ways. This complex relationship to our pain means that chronic pain is often an invalidated, undiagnosed and stigmatised condition. With special thanks to Jasmin, Asha and Emma. May your experience always be heard and validated.
YSABELLA MORELLINI Fine Arts, History of Art
Untitled Light boxes, fluorescent lights, wood
Untitled is an immersive installation that explores the sensory overload experienced as a result of a panic attack. Externally appearing as a large white cube, fortyeight fluorescent tubes light the claustrophobic interior of the installation, emitting both a blinding light and low auditory hum. Viewers are encouraged to stand inside the installation, immersing themselves within the overwhelmingly bright and restricted space. Untitled may cause a feeling of unease or panic, ringing in ears and eye floaters.
MARITE NORRIS Fine Arts
Beyond the Visible Video and sound installation
Beyond the Visible is an installation that considers the existence of a transcendental place beyond life, form, the physical, and the visible. The work is an exploration of the transience of the elemental, in relation to worldly grief and the realms that lie beyond. There is an attempt to access an unfamiliar and unknown space, through the conceptual transmission of messages to another plane of consciousness. The videos provide an atmospheric and poetic space: waves of sound, the movement of light, and the natural passing of time. These contribute to the viewer’s experience of the installation in the now, actively engaging in the collective search for light.
NEISHA PHIPPS Mathematics, Fine Arts
204 Plates Plaster, steel
Plate. Thrown across the room like a punch. The embodiment of violence and aggression. Ceramic shards coat the floor, the kitchen falls quiet and the world does too. 204 Plates forms part of an ongoing investigation into the effects of domestic abuse and the unquestionable silence surrounding violence against women. The fragility and tension of the plates reflects that of the homes and lives governed by domestic violence and abuse. The plates will not break this time.
EDEN REHLING
Fine Arts, Human Resource Management
Output Mixed media installation
Output is a mixed media installation exploring the disintegration of fact and meaning, through the mediation of digital social platforms. Output is inspired by contemporary social issues such as the anti vaccination movement and the ‘fake news’ epidemic, and by the works of Bosun Chang and Emily Saltz. It investigates the recurring cycle of misinformation through various technological social platforms, and how the initial input of information can be manipulated and misinterpreted until the output information is almost unrecognisable.
AMY REID
Fine Arts, History of Art
Take Up Arms! Wearable textile, mixed-media installation
Take Up Arms! celebrates op shops’ sustainability, affordability and ability to make a difference. A “coat of arms” that symbolises the artist’s passion for recycled fashion. Australia dumps 6,000 tonnes of textiles into landfill - every ten minutes. The overproduction, overconsumption and overwhelming mass of clothing waste happens as the needy seek basic necessities. This pseudo op shop contrasts the haves and the have-nots, through sleeves. Weighing over 7kg, this laughable coat showcases the ridiculously serious weight behind the plight that is fast fashion. Take up arms against a sea of troubles! A battle cry, calling YOU to fight fast fashion - for good.
CHRISTOPHER SCIDONE Fine Arts
Anti-Facts Graphic novella
Inspired by the anti-vaccine movement, Anti-Facts examines some of the beliefs and reasoning of “anti-vaxxers” through the medium of the graphic novel. The artist takes a satirical approach towards the issue as he creates a world and narrative that aligns with the anti-vaxxer’s way of thinking: vaccines are unsafe and dangerous, and the medical industry is not to be trusted.
JOHAN SULAIMAN Anthropology, Fine Arts
Shadow in the Hive, CCDTV Mixed Media Installation
Shadow in the Hive (four panels) and CCDTV (two screens) are the two principal components of a multimedia project. The artist explores themes of class exploitation and alienation through expressionistic paintings and videos, drawing from academic research in social theory and personal experience of psychological anguish. The work recognises the position of ingratitude for lower-earning individuals in capitalist economies; analogous to the worker bee in the global ecosystem. Using abstract imagery and jarring video cuts, the artist expresses the lives of these beings as patterns of repetition that are inadequately compensated or protected in exchange for their foundational role in society.
PIPER TIERNEY
Fine Arts, Communications and Media Studies
The Espousal of Digital Dependence Laser etched perspex, html javascript poetics, blue light projections, chipboard
The Espousal of Digital Dependence explores the mundane act of exploring the vicissitudes of the Internet, through the technologies of html coding and laser etching. The absorption of virtual worlds is envisioned as a digital playground, made from rigid weld mesh entwined with touches of playful saturated hues. The two structures explicitly reveal the physicality of online web pages through precise etchings. The sand situated within becomes intangible by the force of virtual entrapment.
We wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we meet and create on, the Whadjuk Noongar people. We wish to acknowledge and respect their continuing culture and the contribution to the life of this city and this region. Dr. Kate Hislop Dean/Head of School UWA School of Design Discipline of Fine Arts Staff 2019: Ionat Zurr (Discipline Chair) Vladimir Todorovic (Honours Coordinator) Paul Trinidad Sarah Douglas Andy Quilty Mike Bianco Christopher Markle Nick Mahony We acknowledge and thank visiting artists, curators and academics for their contributions to the School of Design Artists Forums, Curator Talks, Exhibition and Conferences programs and Artist in Residence: Charlotte Hickson, Curator, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art Dr. Ric Spencer, Curator, Fremantle Arts Centre & Art Gallery of Western Australia Dr. Leora Farber , Associate Professor, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA), University of Johannesburg (UJ). Dr. Dejan Grba, Associate Professor ADM/NTU Singapore Dr. Sandy O’Sullivan, Associate Professor, Deputy Head of School, School of Creative Industries, The University of Newcastle, Australia. School of Design Artist in Residence and Masterclass: Nicole Monks FAM 19 organising committee would like thank Sarah Douglas for Curating/Coordinating the Exhibition and Nick Mahony for his outstanding assistance with installation and additional technical assistance from workshop staff Graeme Warburton, Guy Eddington and Dave Marie. Many thanks to Fine Arts Alumni Sohan Ariel Hayes for opening the FAM 2019 Exhibition. Special thanks to Daniel Mazzucato and Neisha Phipps for their work on the catalogue.