New Days - emerging artists from the communities of Hobsons Bay, Port Phillip + Beyond

Toyota Community Spirit Gallery presents

new new DAYS DAYS an exhibition by emerging artistsfrom the communities of hobsons bay, port phillip + beyond

APRIL 4 TO JUNE 27, 2007

Toyota Australia, 155 Bertie St Port Melbourne Inquiries phone Ken Wong 03 9690 0902 Gallery Hours Thu & Fri 1pm to 6pm or by appointment

Toyota Community Spirit Gallery The Toyota Community Spirit Gallery is an initiative of Toyota Community Spirit, Toyota Australia’s corporate citizenship program.

Toyota Community Spirit develops partnerships that share Toyota's skills, networks, expertise and other resources with the community.

The Toyota Community Spirit Gallery aims to provide space for artists, especially emerging artists to show their work. The space is provided free of charge to exhibiting artists, no commission is charged on sales and Toyota provides an exhibition launch and develops a catalogue for each exhibition.

The Gallery has now shown works by over 200 artists. Toyota has worked with the Hobsons Bay City Council and the City of Port Phillip on this project.

new newDAYS DAYS an exhibition by emerging artistsfrom the communities of hobsons bay, port phillip + beyond

exhibiting artists Mardi Nowak Isabel O'Brien Carolyn O'Neill Shini Pararajasingham Naomi Pitts Helen Pollard Chris Rowe Melanie Scaife Maggie Smith Karen Standke Merryn J Trevethan Ri Van Veen Cyrus, Wai-kuen Tang CHERIE Winter HEATHER Winter Daniela Zimmermann

Samara Adamson-Pinczewski Garry Arnephy Vivian Ashworth Sharon Billinge Claire Blake Robyn Cerretti Tamar Dolev John Gambardella Tanja George Fiona Halse Briele Hansen Trudi Harley Brian Holton Annika Koops Stevie Maree Marte Newcombe

curator

Ken Wong

thanks to

Tania Blackwell, Hobsons Bay City Council Sharyn Dawson, City of Port Phillip Katarina Persic, Toyota Australia

invitation,catalogue design & editing watch arts All Images (detail): FRONT COVER: L-R top: Karen Standke, Annika Koops, Merryn J Trevethan, middle row: L-R Helen Pollard, Chris Rowe, Isabel O’Brien botton row: Fiona Halse, Marte Newcombe, Melanie Scaife INSIDE COVER: Sharon Billinge THIS PAGE: Stevie Maree

KEN WONG CURATOR

This exhibition commences the 2007 Toyota Community Spirit Gallery progra m and is our fourth annual exhibition dedicated specifically to the works of emerging artists. The profile of the gallery as a valuable opportunity for artists continues to expand with a record over one hundred entries for this exhibition, from which thirty-two artists have been selected to exhibit. Our focus continues to be on local artists with eight from the City of Port Phillip and seven from Hobsons Bay exhibiting, but this exhibition has also provided opportunity to seventeen guest artists from outside these areas.

Consequently, NEW DAY S represents a diverse cross section of contemporary emerging art practice and also serves to highlight significant contemporary themes that are of concern to not only the artistic community, but also to the wider community to which we all belong.

These themes include the natural and urban environment, global warming and climate change, technology and consu merism, social isolation and the struggle to find meaning and make sense of our modern world. None of these issues are new, but there is a level of conscious concern they hold for many of us in our day to day existence in recent times that suggests we are facing a new paradigm of unprecedented challenges.

This new paradigm can often be an overwhelming and frightening place, but to me the existence of the Toyota Community Spirit Gallery progra m is a small sign that there is also the potential for positive change. The fact that a major corporation like Toyota recognises that it has a broader social responsibility that extends beyond it’s employees, customers and shareholders and is willing to lead the corporate community in this way is in itself a very positive paradigmatic change.

By supporting artists who quietly grapple with the larger issues that cloud our present and our future, maybe Toyota is assisting us all to better understand and rise to the challenge of the new paradigm that confronts us all.

Welcome to NEW DAY S.

NEW DAYS

Ken Wong is the Director of Watch Arts, a Melbourne based contemporary arts consultancy. He has worked in the fine arts industry since 1997 in both commercial and community arts, curating and managing a host of projects including gallery and outdoor sculpture exhibitions.

ARTISTS & WORKS 06 Samara Adamson-Pinczewski Strata Metallic

Arnephy 07 Garry Albert Park Yacht Club

Oil on canvas

138 x 71cm

2005

$2400

Oil on canvas

61 x 92cm

2006

$800

Ashworth 08 Vivian Purple Haze

Acrylic & glaze on canvas 122 x 91cm

2006

$3800

Billinge 09 Sharon big city dreaming

Silverpoint & mixed media 35 x 35cm

2006

NFS

Blake 10 Claire Elemental Creeping

Ceramic earthenware

2007

$380

Cerretti 11 Robyn Lightpoems

Transparencies/lightboxes Variable

2006

$2000

Dolev 12 Tamar The Three Wise Women

Mixed media

61 x 76cm

2007

$800

120 x 90cm

2005

$1500

58 x 37 x 37cm

2006

$550

Mixed media on paper 130 x 103.5cm

2006

$1500

DVD installation

194 x 63 x 60cm

2007

POA

Graphite on paper

38 x 30cm

2003

$200

Acrylic on canvas

71 x 102cm

2006

$820

Oil on canvas

100 x 70cm

2006

$3000

Pegasus print

100 x 75cm

2006

$2000

Silkscreen

44 x 40cm

1995

$550

13 John Gambardella

Night Seagulls over the Bolte Bridge Oil on canvas

14 Tanja George Red Haring

15 Fiona Halse Barcelona 1

Hansen 16 Briele Outsidein 17 Trudi Harley Study for Respect

Holton 18 Brian A Day in the Country 19 Annika Koops Rebel Child

20 Stevie Maree Untitled

21 Marte Newcombe Night Rider

Metal & wood

22 x 60 x 25cm

ARTISTS & WORKS 22

Mardi Nowak

23

Isabel O'Brien

24

Carolyn O'Neill

25

Shini Pararajasingham

26

Naomi Pitts

27

Helen Pollard

28

Chris Rowe

29

Melanie Scaife

30

Maggie Smith

31

Karen Standke

32

Merryn J Trevethan

33

Ri Van Veen

34

Cyrus, Wai-kuen Tang

35

CHERIE WINTER

36

HEATHER Winter

37

Daniela Zimmermann

I wanted to start a revolution Through (1)

Stained Glass – Sea of Green

Woven tapestry

120 x 90cm

2006

NFS

Photograph/lightbox

50 x 70 x 15cm

2006

POA

Acrylic on canvas

75 x 100cm

2007

$400

140 x 93 x 68cm

2006

$2100

Acrylic on canvas

50 x 40cm

2006

$750

Acrylic & printing ink

120 x 70cm

2006

$400

2006

$425

50 x 50cm

2006

NFS

Print on canvas

92 x 61cm

2006

$390

Oil on canvas

137 x 183cm

2005

$4200

Oil on canvas

150 x 150 cm

2006

$4200

Ceramic

52 x 14 x 16 cm

2007

$400

Porcelain

40 x 90 x 90cm

2005

$790

Mixed media

70 x 83cm

2006

$400

Dura trans light box

68 x 106cm

2007

$3500

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful Mixed media Arctic Desert

Dandenong Ranges Keep Up

Mixed media on paper 47 x 39cm

The wholeness, the brokenness of now, of here Oil on canvas Seagull at Sunset Melancholy

I Don’t Want To Say I Want You Drought and Fire Engagement

Sycamore Weave Wild Fear Untitled

Clay/mixed media

Set of 3, 11 x 30 x 25cm 2006

$360

Samara AdamsonPinczewski

represented by SPAN Galleries GUEST ARTIST

My recent paintings explore and communicate the expressive, psychological and decorative possibilities of colour, shape and design. These works are characterised by warm coloured grounds, metallic/iridescent pigments, geometric patterns, translucent layers of paint, and stippling.

Many hours are spent investigating harmonious/discordant colour relationships and positive/negative shapes. These visual dualities are employed to communicate intimacy and/or theatricality using a wide expressive range.

STRATA METTALIC Oil on canvas, 2005 138 x 71cm

NEW DAYS

Samara was born in Melbourne in 1977 and completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting at Monash University going on to complete her Honours at RMIT and her Masters at Victorian College of the Arts in 2003. Her studio practice is based in Melbourne, where she specialises in painting, drawing and collage, pursuing an ongoing investigation into colour and geometric abstraction. She has held three solo exhibitions since 2000, in Melbourne and has participated in thirty-six group exhibitions since 1998 in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Taiwan. Over the past few years she has been selected for the Churchie Emerging Art Exhibition and twice for the Brett Whitely Travelling Scholarship.

06

GARRY ARNEPHY COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP

I a m passionate with painting and I enjoy painting landscapes and particular types of styles.

I have been developing my style since Uni by experimenting with many different techniques, colours and mediu ms. My landscape work is inspired by the places I have visited and would I like to share those moments on canvas and hope I can convey a feeling, mood or sensation to the viewer from what I see.

ALBERT PARK YACHT CLUB Oil on canvas, 2006 61 x 92cm

NEW DAYS

Garry was born in South Melbourne in 1967 and has worked in the fashion and graphic industry for twenty years.

In 2002 he returned to study and completed a Diploma of Graphic Art at RMIT. His works are exhibited locally at various galleries including Gallery 112 in St Kilda. He is currently developing a new body of work for exhibition based on his interpretation of the War on Terror. His goal is to pursue a career in painting full time. Current works can be viewed online at www.garryarnephy.a1grafx.com.au

07

VIVIAN ASHWORTH COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP

All of my work uses colour to express emotions. My process is a journey of discovering and exploring feelings which I attempt to transcribe onto canvas with bold intensities of colour.

My aim is to make people think and feel in relationship to my own expression of feeling.

purple haze

Acrylic & glaze on canvas, 2006 122 x 91cm

08

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Vivian has worked as a make-up artist for the past fifteen years in film, TV and fashion industries throughout Melbourne, Sydney and Japan. Using her colour and design skills in her paintings has been a natural creative progression for her. She is a busy working mum who balances the demands of family and work with developing her career as a painter. A resident of Port Phillip for many years, she held studios at Gasworks Arts Park. Her achievements include a solo exhibition at Smyrnios Gallery in 2005 and various group exhibitions including the Brisbane Art Fair with Thierry B Contemporary Art Gallery. Her inspiration comes from the people and places in her busy life.

SHARON BILLINGE guest artist

big city dreaming

Silverpoint & mixed media on timber, 2006 35 x 35cm

Sharon was born in England in 1974 and trained at St Martins College in England in fine arts. She became an art teacher and struggled to balance her teaching work with making art. In 2001, she left the London college she had been teaching at and went travelling for two years through South East Asia, India, Nepal and then finally New Zealand and Australia. It was here that she decided to focus on making art and has been exhibiting in various galleries in Melbourne and other parts of Australia since 2004, including a solo exhibition at Red Gallery in 2006. She was recently a finalist in the Williamstown Festival Tattersall’s Contemporary Art Prize and the Conrad Jupiters Art Prize.

09

NEW DAYS

My work is about happiness.

More specifically it is about what we think will bring us happiness.

In my current work I paint detailed layered abstracts onto timber to represent the happiness that we all feel is around the corner, the happiness that we strive towards but can never quite reach. The figures or hands in my work twist towards or around these areas in an attempt to touch them, sometimes listless in their approach, at other times focused and determined. In some of my work I paint and draw onto discarded wood and use the ancient mediu m of silverpoint to create very delicate renditions of the hu man body. Silverpoint is an unforgiving mediu m and requires meticulous rendering; mistakes cannot be erased. It immediately makes the object being drawn on precious. Albrecht Durer worked in silverpoint and further exa mples can be found in other Old Masters work.

CLAiRE BLAKE GUEST ARTIST

This work is reminiscent of land and water.

In some ways they are like islands that are always on the verge of shifting and travelling to new oceans.

However, their movement is surreptitious and gradual like my own creative impulses.

ELEMENTAL CREEPING Ceramic earthenware, 2007 22 x 60 x 25cm

10

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Born in Ballarat in 1977, Claire completed her Bachelor of Visual Arts – Honours (majoring in Ceramics) in 2002.

Since then she has been working part-time and working to develop her artistic career. She has been studying ceramics in a variety of tertiary environments and is inspired by ‘retro’ design that often appears in op-shops as well as the organic forms of Gaudi’s architecture. She is currently working as a ceramic technician and teacher in two universities which allows her constant contact and input from students, a dialogue that she says informs her current practice in rewarding ways.

ROBYN CERRETTI guest artist

My practice incorporates the use of phenomena including light, temperature, sound, and found objects, debris and dust, together with time-based media; video, film and photography, to talk about the hu man experience of being in the world, our ability to question the nature of existence and being, our awareness of the passage of time and of our own mortality.

Lightpoems explore ideas of duration and of time as an expanded present, holding future and past within it. Using long exposure photography with various light sources to write text and using the ca mera to capture what is seen unaided as an after-image.

The light-boxes display analogue transparencies in relation to authenticity, exploring the idea that photography, like recorded sound, is an exact transfer of what it represents: the real.

lightpoems

5 x 4 colour photographic transparencies, light-boxes, electrical cable, 2006 Installation variable

NEW DAYS

Robyn was born in Italy and migrated to Australia when she was two years old. She was raised and still lives in inner Melbourne. In 2005 she graduated from RMIT University with a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art), Honours 1st Class in painting. She currently tutors art at local community centres and is completing post-graduate studies for her Masters in Fine Art.

11

TAMAR DOLEV GUEST ARTIST

When producing artworks I enjoy experimenting with materials such as soil, sand, sticks, PVA glue, spray paint and anything else that creates a texture.

I believe that one of the advantages of being a visual artist is the ability to explore the texture of different materials before creating an artwork.

Currently I enjoy exploring a nu mber of new mediu ms and textures in my art.

THE THREE WISE WOMEN Mixed media, 2007 61 x 76cm

NEW DAYS

Tamar's love for art began at an early age when she began to draw and sketch in school whilst dreaming of being a visual artist in her community. In 1997 she won the prestigious Maurie Gold memorial award for mixed media whilst studying for her VCE. In 1999, Tamar embarked on a trip to live on a Kibbutz in the North of Israel for four months, where she participated in an art program and graduate exhibition. During this time she created a number of artworks using found objects and natural materials such as soil and leaves. The following year Tamar was diagnosed with cancer and received chemotherapy at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. During her time in hospital she completed a number of pencil drawings and watercolours relating to her experiences, a number of which are still on display there. In 2003 she completed a Bachelor of Fine Art in printmaking at Monash University. Tamar most recently held a solo exhibition at the Muse bar in St Kilda and has also participated in a number of other group and solo exhibitions.

12

JOHN GAMBARDELLA COMMUNITY OF HOBSONS BAY

The Bolte Bridge has become a Melbourne landmark and features predominantly as part of the city entrance from the new Docklands precinct. It is worthy of recognition, not just from an architectural perspective, but also as a subject for painting. I a m so captured by the bridge form that it has become the focus of a series of works.

‘Night Seagulls’, painted in 2005, represents the Bolte Bridge in its contemporary style. The squiggly lines in ‘Night Seagulls’ are meant to capture the movement of the seagulls against the night background and reflective lights shining upwards from the base of its two central pillars. If one was to be there during this time (the best time to view the Bridge), the viewer would be left with that impression.

NIGHT SEAGULLS OVER THE BOLTE BRIDGE Oil on canvas, 2005 120 x 90cm

NEW DAYS

Born in Trieste, Italy, John’s family migrated to Australia in 1954 and settled in Melbourne. Over the years he has continued to live in the inner suburbs of Melbourne – eventually moving to Footscray some years ago. John has always been interested in fine art since his early school days and continued his self-taught painting practice into his early thirties. Changes to his working career contributed to a break in his artistic endeavours until 2005. Since then he has resumed painting with great vigour, motivated not only by a need for self-expression, but also the desire to make a contribution to promoting original art to the public. John’s style of painting has predominately been traditional and has covered many mediums and subjects. He is a realist by nature and that is reflected in his art.

13

TANJA GEORGE COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP

I find inspiration in a critical but often hu morous reflection on every day life. I use mainly steel and wood in the fabrication of my sculptures. A fascination with discarded industrial, mechanical objects and components has been the basis for my recent sculptural work, which acknowledges the beauty and value of these ‘reinvented’ parts. They have been taken out of their purely functional context and given an aesthetic life. Some of my work has been quite surreal and stylised but I also enjoy incorporating many different styles.

RED HARING Metal & wood, 2006 58 x 37 x 37cm

14

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Tanja was born in Vienna, Austria but grew up in Germany where she worked as a journalist for Esquire magazine.

In 1989 she moved to Australia where she studied fine art and film, completing her Bachelor of Film and Television at Victorian College of the Arts in 1995. After graduating she made a semi-documentary called Death and Passion which was filmed on location in Pamplona and Zaragoza in Spain. In 2004 she travelled 9000 kilometres directing a travel documentary about Australia for Germany television. Apart from her work in the film industry, Tanja has recently assisted Geoffrey Ricardo in fabricating sculptures for his 2006 exhibition Herd at Australian Galleries, Melbourne. She is also creating her own work, mainly in the medium of sculpture and photography. Her first exhibition of sculpture was held at Lancaster Press Gallery in February 2007.

FIONA HALSE represented by stephen mclaughlan gallery guest artist

‘Barcelona 1’ explores issues regarding open space and building form through collage. It also seeks to understand a mbiguous, blurred marks against focused areas. My work searches for inner contours, although abstract in its approach, the linear circular forms derive from figurative, skeletal sources. I hope that the calligraphic marks can capture aspects of Klee’s walking line philosophy and ideas within his Pedagogical Sketchbook. The collage approach to constructing form and space (used by many Barcelona artists) has been embedded in this work.

barcelona 1

Mixed media on paper, 2006 130 x 103.5cm

NEW DAYS

Fiona was born in Sydney in 1974 and later moved to Melbourne where she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Monash University in 1996. She has exhibited in a range of exhibitions including three solo shows, most recently at Red Gallery in Fitzroy in 2005. She has been the recipient of The Ian Potter Foundation Cultural Trust (1998) and her works have been reviewed by noted arts writers Robert Nelson and Jeff Makin. In November 2006 she was awarded a Support Stipend to complete a residency at Can Serrat International Art Centre, Spain.

15

BRIELE HANSEN GUEST ARTIST

My work explores relationships between the perceptual being, the physical being and the environment.

I seek to evoke real and imagined physical realities through technical dislocations of time, light, object and site.

The experience is a little like cinematic referred pain, the ghost limb of a real event, a n acute sense of longing or reaching towards the absent. I see my work as a kind of butterfly net of time codes and tape loops catching the flutters of physical and psychological states.

outsidein

Wood, digital video & mixed media, 2007 194 x 63 x 60cm

16

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Briele was born in Australia in 1973 and grew up in New Zealand. In 1992 she completed her first course of tertiary education and received an Advance Certificate in Professional Photography from Unitech in Auckland. She also worked within the film industry for a number of years within both Costume and Art Departments. From 1994, Briele lived and studied in Italy for three years. In 1999 she relocated to Melbourne to study and completed a Master of Art by Research at RMIT in 2004. Briele's first solo exhibition spacessence was held at Firstsite Gallery in Melbourne in 2000. Since then she has received two public art installation commissions and been in included in a number of group shows in Melbourne and USA.

TRUDI HARLEY COMMUNITY OF HOBSONS BAY

This work is part of an on going series of works which involve the exploration of pathways, their textural surfaces created both accidentally and specifically, and their surrounding areas. I a m particularly drawn to the abstract qualities that the subject matter offers.

This particular work is part of a series of twelve drawn in 2003, that reflect on the different ‘pathways’ people take in their lives and some of the differing qualities that one needs to stay true to one’s self.

This point was a major crossroad in my life. Somewhere along the path of our lives our inner world seeks to become one with the outer. In my work I now seek that unity.

STUDY FOR RESPECT Graphite on paper, 2003 38 x 30cm

17

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Trudi was born in Korumburra in South Gippsland and graduated with a Bachelor of Education, Art and Craft at Burwood State College in 1984. She has spent much of her adult life teaching art in government and private schools and has lived in China and Sydney during the 1990’s. Over recent years she has found more time to focus on her own practice, exhibiting and furthering her studies with workshops in printmaking at the Australian Printmaking Workshop. A resident of Williamstown, she also does life drawing and teaches drawing at weekend workshops locally. Her works are held in corporate and private collections within Australia and overseas including Hong Kong, England, America and Germany.

BRIAN HOLTON GUEST ARTIST

A DAY IN THE COUNTRY Acrylic on canvas, 2006 71 x 102cm

18

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Brian was born in the UK and attended Luton Art School, going on to train commercially in the Advertising Department of Electrolux UK. He emigrated to Australia in 1962 and was employed by various print houses, Massey Ferguson and the State Electricity Commission. Turning freelance in 1978, he created a print and design advertising service. As a freelance artist, time was at a premium, but over the last five or six years, he has become fully devoted to pursuing his own practice.

I try to express the day-to-day situations of people and places in a multi-image approach.

Colour and freedom is the important element in my work. This is the country town where time has created its own demands. It is sunny, relaxed and the buildings have a patina of age. Buildings rely on co-existence, rather than design. The painting was undertaken without any under drawing, rather a free flowing intuitive approach was taken. This work is in contrast to others I have done of the city and suburbs, where the loose free flowing line work conveys the underlying lack of planning and visual disharmony of modern living.

ANNIKA KOOPS represented by DESPARD GALLERY guest artist

I see the subjects in my paintings as a site for exploring the conflict between the corporeal reality and the flagrant fantasy surrounding bodily representation within consu mer culture. I want my figures to exist within the aesthetic paradigm of consu merism, whilst remaining sufficiently a mbiguous and challenging enough to insinuate the dark problematic area that sits beneath many advertising images, particularly those aimed at the adolescent market. I a m interested in the indefiniteness of the ‘youth’ as a category and it’s valorisation within our society, and the increasing perverse and hybridised nature of commercial depictions of age and sexuality. I intend for my figures to offer themselves not as victims, but as agents for our psychological projections.

REBEL CHILD Oil on canvas, 2006 100 x 70cm

NEW DAYS

Annika was born in 1983 and grew up in an isolated region of Tasmania’s east coast where she cultivated an interest in art from a young age. In 2000 she moved to Hobart to study at the Hobart School of Art and it was there she began painting with oil and developing a passion for representing the human figure, with particular interest in painting the skin and it’s myriad variations and manifestations. She moved to Melbourne in 2004 to complete her studies, graduating with first class honours at the Victorian College of the Arts. In 2005 she set up and moved into a studio in North Fitzroy, to continue her practice. Annika is represented by Despard Gallery in Hobart and has shown at various exhibitions including the Melbourne International Art Fair in 2006. She was recently offered her first artist in residence position at Foundation B.a.d in Rotterdamm, the Netherlands. Beginning in September, Annika departs to spend four-months travelling and researching European art and gathering information for a body of work to be completed upon her return.

19

STEVIE MAREE COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP

As a resident of St Kilda, I feel I a m a member of the local community. The Bay itself is part of life here and conveys changing moods and character just like many of the locals. Having Port Phillip Bay as a neighbour for the last couple of years has been inspirational. It is like a friend. It seems to have provided the notions and ideas for the direction I have taken with my photography, as water is a key symbol in many of my recent works.

I take photographs because that’s how I express myself. My images are an extension of my feelings and thoughts.

Untitled

Pegasus Print, 2006 100 x 75cm

20

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Stevie grew up in a quiet coastal town on the Gippsland Lakes in country Victoria. Leaving the safety net of the family and home behind, she ventured to Melbourne in 2003 to further her understanding and pursue her creative passion. In 2004 she enrolled in an Advanced Diploma of Photography at the Photography Studies College in Southbank, graduating in 2006. She now calls call Melbourne home but the transition to city life has not always been easy. ‘I know I survived the hard times by being obsessed about my passion’ she says.

MARTE NEWCOMBE guest artist

I have been living in the U.S. for the past twenty-four years and have shown my work there but coming back to Australia to live has essentially meant beginning again here as a new artist. This print is based on my sculptures which I made from found objects and tools and then welded. I scanned the images into Photoshop and manipulated them before outputting them to CMY K plates and hand-printing them as silkscreen prints. My work deals in part with the correlation of machines to hu mans and how the machines we create reflect the mechanisms of our bodies, both deliberately and inadvertently.

NIGHT RIDER Silkscreen, 1995 44 x 40cm

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Marte was born in Switzerland but her family became displaced after World War II and immigrated to Australia. She graduated from the University of Tasmania before moving to the United States where she completed a second degree in fine arts and lived for 24 years teaching printmaking and computer graphics at Georgetown University, George Washington University and the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington D.C. She has shown work in galleries and museums throughout the US and worked for NASA as a graphic artist for the past eight years.

She recently returned to live in Australia.

21

MARDI NOWAK COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP

Using the historically traditional technique of weaving, my inspiration comes from the modern, such as fashion magazines, torn advertising billboards and street graffiti.

Works are created by collaging together images and photographs from magazines with old drawings and photocopies to reproduce the many layers found on billboards, similar to wallpaper plastered over old wallpaper. Notions of time play a factor in this work. There is a disjunction between the disposable and fast flow of images in contemporary mass media against the deliberation and slowness of a woven construction. It is the challenge of turning the contemporary and disposable images of fashion magazines into a craft form that has been recognised for centuries that keeps me excited about the mediu m. My tapestries tell a modern story of the fascination with fashion, celebrity and consu merism.

I WANTED TO START A REVOLUTION

Woven tapestry, wool, cotton & linen, 2006 120 x 90cm

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Mardi is an artist and curator and currently manages the Town Hall Gallery in Hawthorn. She completed her Masters of Fine Art at Monash University in 2004 and has exhibited in several group exhibitions in Australia and overseas. She was recently selected to exhibit works in Munich in the German government funded exhibition Talente 2007, which features artists aged under thirty years from twenty-five countries who show innovative excellence in the field of art and craft. She enjoys collaborating on art projects with writers and illustrators and also mentors a group of young artists in the City of Boroondara. Mardi’s studio practice is based in St Kilda in the City of Port Phillip.

ISABEL O’BRIEN COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP

THROUGH (1)

Photograph/lightbox, 2006 50 x 70 x 15cm

Isabel was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1976 and moved to Melbourne in 2001. She has travelled widely through Europe and Asia and has lived in St Kilda for the past six years. In 2005 she took up studio space at the St Kilda Bowling Club Studios, a move which has provided the opportunity to make stronger links with both the local community and other artists. In 2006 she completed her Masters of Art in Public Space with high distinction at the University of RMIT. She is continuing to exhibit and develop her work locally and was recently selected to exhibit in the Williamstown Festival Tattersall’s Contemporary Art Prize.

NEW DAYS

This work is from a series called ‘Enlighten’. It is an investigation into the workings of vision, exploring the parallels between language and vision – different ways of reading and interpreting images.

These photographs have elements concealed, restricting the visual field, perhaps drawing the eye to parts that would not necessarily attract our attention. This fragmented format allows the eye, after initially just seeing an abstracted image, to bring the parts together making sense of what is missing. Another important aspect of the work is the use of light. Light is what allows vision and this also has significance to the library setting (a place of knowledge) and the idea of it as a place of enlightenment. This is reflected in the concealing and the revealing of elements of the image and the cognition or understanding by the viewer of what they see.

23

CAROLYN O’NEILL COMMUNITY OF HOBSONS BAY

stained glass - sea of green

Stained glass has long evoked a sense of spirituality, peace and reflection. Take the time to gaze through these illu minating fragments of connection and significance.

Despite our diverse colours, shapes and sizes we are equal components of life’s rich tapestry. The process of painting this collection has been both meditative and liberating; gently reminding me that we are all one.

Acrylic on canvas, 2007 75 x 100cm

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Carolyn is a Melbourne artist who began painting in 2003 and has exhibited her work at various local exhibitions.

As an emerging artist, she finds the creative process to be therapeutic and is working to develop her own distinct style. Art has become a place to express herself without boundaries or limitations; to let go and allow the work to take on a life of its own. Carolyn paints primarily in acrylic and favours a rich vibrant palette. Her work is often bold, her brushstrokes generally thick and her expressive style naïve; sometimes inspired by indigenous patterns, dots and circles. Carolyn lives in Hobsons Bay with her family and is a member of the Hobsons Bay Art Society.

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SHINI PARARAJASINGHAM guest artist

“Don’t hate be because I’m beautiful’ was inspired by my fascination in the torturous rituals women perform on themselves for the sake of beauty and the ‘ideal body’.

For centuries, it was culturally acceptable for women to be absorbed in the mutilation of their own bodies to appear more feminine. Exemplary to this is the corset which began to appear in the 16th century - clearly a torture instru ment for the sale of feminine perfection. The courting lady had to get her waist as slim as possible in the hope of obtaining her future husband. In modern times, “the hairless norm; the removal of body hair in women” is necessary to attain beauty in our culture. A behavioral science study found that the reasons cited for hair removal were primarily concerned with a desire for femininity and attractiveness. In fact, removing body hair is a practice so normative as to go mostly un-remarked, but one which contributes substantially to the notion that women’s bodies are unacceptable as they are. And yet, having a head full of long luscious hair is a sign of femininity. A woman with short hair is considered to be a ‘tom-boy’. I have married these concepts to produce this metaphorical and satirical piece.

NEW DAYS

Shini completed a BA from Monash University in December 2003 and has exhibited two international solo shows and a number of group exhibitions in Melbourne, regional Victoria and Brisbane. She has been a finalist in the prestigious John Leslie Art Prize and the She Series Competition at Walker Street Gallery in Dandenong and was also the recipient of the Prato Travelling Scholarship in 2002. She has been a member of the Board of Directors of Brunswick Arts, a non-commercial, artist run gallery that places its values on community access and supporting emerging and established artists. Shini is currently focusing her energies on pursuing and developing her own studio practice.

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DON’T HATE ME BECAUSE I’M BEAUTIFUL Plastic fencing, human & synthetic hair, 2006 140 x 93 x 68cm

naomi pitts GUEST ARTIST

This painting was part of a series produced out of my continued concern for the effects of a warming planet. I begin with a sublime, distant image of a glacial mountain from the colder regions of the earth. By adjusting it I had hoped to emphasise the upheaval and overwhelming pressure we place on the earth’s natural systems, to pose the question “Are we really capable of turning ice into desert?” Recent statistical analysis into the global ice melt, as highlighted recently by Al Gore, has made this painting even more pertinent to me.

arctic desert Acrylic on canvas, 2006 50 x 40cm

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Naomi completed a Diploma of Visual Arts at Barton TAFE in 1997, going on to complete a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours at the University of RMIT in 2001. She has produced four solo exhibitions of her work, most recently at Red Gallery in Fitzroy in 2005. She was a finalist in the Metro 5 Art Award in 2005 and has participated in numerous group exhibitions including an emerging artists show at Span Galleries the same year. In 2006 she was also a finalist in the City of Banyule Works on Paper Prize and the R & M McGivern Art Prize.

HELEN POLLARD guest artist

I a m very passionate about the arts and I a m always looking for new and exciting places to exhibit my work. My artwork is abstract, colourful. vibrant and energetic.

The physical act of engaging with paint for me is an inner investigation and a process of discovery.

I believe that the gestural mark is a direct physical expression. There is always an intense experience, emotion and feelings that relate to a memory, time or place that I aim to translate in paint.

DANDENONG RANGES

Acrylic & printing ink on canvas, 2006 120 x 70cm

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Helen graduated from Lancaster University in England with a Fine Arts degree in 2003 before coming to Australia, where she is currently studying for her Masters in Art and Public Space at the University of RMIT in Melbourne. Over the past few years she has been working to establish her artistic career having converted her garage at home into a studio. Her commissions and group projects to date include installations in Xian in China and Sile in Turkey as well as a laneway installation entitled Colour of Night in the City of Dandenong in 2006.

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CHRIS ROWE COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP

The interaction of people with each other, and their environment, is the constant thread that weaves throughout my work.

They gather in groups for unspecified events. They confer, discuss, investigate, play, wonder and wait. They merge and blend with their surrounds whilst still anchored in their presence. A stillness exists despite the obvious activities of the protagonists. The use of text expands my initial idea and creates further dialogue within the work, an invitation to the viewer to create their own story. Collage is also an important aspect that strengthens the subtext of the original idea and also attests to modern issues of impermanency and consu merism.

The superficial, layered and destroyed in part and then reworked, echo the search for meaning.

keep up

Mixed media on paper, 2006 47 x 39cm

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The desire and need to express herself artistically has been a consistent force in Chris’ life since childhood. She lists her grandmother who continued painting until the age of 105 as her most significant influence, but she has also been influenced by other artists including Jim Dine, Oscar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, Georgia O’Keefe and Picasso.

She completed her Bachelor of Fine Art at Monash University in 1989 but until recently her artistic development has been impeded by the necessity to make a living. Chris lives and works in Port Melbourne and has recently commenced full time studio practice having worked for many years in accident and emergency nursing. Her work is fuelled by many years nursing and personal experience, which she seeks to express in a universal context.

melanie scaife community of hobsons bay

I live in Willia mstown and make my art here in my studio (a glorified shed out the back of my place). I draw my inspiration from the Willia mstown landscape which I find bleak but beautiful.

If I a m not drawing directly from the landscape, I use my long walks around the coastline to work through visual ideas for my paintings. This work is a selfportrait painted at a time of transition in my life. I wanted to capture a feeling of reflection and quiet hope, symbolised by the figure’s face which is turned towards a gentle light falling from a window beyond the fra me. The title of the painting is taken from a poem by Diane Fahey.

the wholeness, the brokenness of now, of here Oil on canvas, 2006 50 x 50cm

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Melanie studied fine art (painting) at RMIT University, Melbourne and the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland. Her art practice incorporates painting, drawing and printmaking and includes figurative and abstract imagery. She is primarily interested in depicting internal states of being by carefully observing the external world. Her influences include an eclectic range of abstract and figurative painters and poetry. She is currently working towards a solo exhibition at fauxPho art space in Footscray.

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MAGGIE SMITH COMMUNITY OF HOBSONS BAY

I beca me seriously interested in photography over the last four years and have studied Creative Digital Imaging online at RMIT part time. At present I a m still exploring the way I can increase my skills and learn new techniques to bring my ideas to fulfillment. ‘Seagull at Sunset’ is a montage of scenes photographed in Willia mstown and printed on canvas.

SEAGULL AT SUNSET Print on canvas, 2006 92 x 61cm

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Maggie is a resident of Hobsons Bay and has exhibited in the Art in Public Places program in 2005 and 2006.

Her practice employs traditional photography as well as experimenting with digital media, recently pursuing part time studies at RMIT. She has successfully exhibited her work internationally and locally, achieving sixty-five awards and over three hundred acceptances in International and National Salons since 2002. In 2004 she was awarded a gold medal at the 7th International Unconventional Photography Salon Foto Odlot in Rzeszow, Poland.

Other images have been acquired by the contemporary section of the Museu Internacional de Fotografia in Cerdanyola del Valles, Spain.

KAREN STANDKE guest artist

My main topic in my paintings is the landscape. I have travelled a fair bit and my paintings reflect this. In Australia, I have been particularly fascinated by the outback landscape.

My paintings are at the sa me time a celebration of natural beauty as well as an exa mination of the land and the people that inhabit it.

‘Melancholy’ was inspired by a journey to Broken Hill in 2005.

melancholy Oil on canvas, 2005 183 x 137cm

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Karen was born in 1973 in Munich, Germany and grew up in Munich and in Ehrwald, Austria. After an apprenticeship in commercial Lithography she studied at the Academy for Graphic Design and attended the FOS Art School in Munich. After graduating, she left Europe for Japan, where she lived for one year, mainly in Tokyo. From late 1997 until 2000, Karen lived in Wellington, New Zealand where she studied art at the Learning Connection Art School, graduating with an Honours Diploma in 1999. Having come to Australia in 2000, Karen has based herself primarily in Melbourne. In 2004 she travelled to Austria for a self-funded residency at the Zugspitzatelier Mario Gasser. She returned the following year to Australia and worked on exhibitions both here and in New Zealand. In 2006 she was awarded a residency at Arthur Boyd’s Bundanon in New South Wales and shortly after, at Territory Craft’s studios in Alice Springs. Work from both of these residencies was shown as her most recent exhibition with Pivotal Galleries in Richmond.

merryn j trevethan represented by SPAN Galleries GUEST ARTIST

My travel experiences around the world have helped my art practice come together both visually and conceptually. I find myself interested in notions of community and place. The urban environment is the starting point for these works, but the subject itself is visual language; the interaction of colour, form, and shape to create a sense of space and a heightened sense of the real. My work aims to translate the features of the landscape into shapes and colours that recall memory of experience, of being in the environment and on the road. Distorting perceptions, and playing on the push and pull of space and colour; creating drea mlike spaces that are at once embracing and fa miliar, yet strange and unsettling. Prompting viewer’s to reassess their perceptions of the everyday and the ways we see and experience reality.

I don’t want to say i want you Oil on canvas, 2006 150 x 150cm

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Merryn was born in 1976 and grew up in Melbourne’s bayside suburbs. From a young age she always loved art and wanted to be an artist, and completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Monash University in 1997. She had also always had a strong desire to travel the world and after graduating, she backpacked around the globe for thirteen months, travelling to Austria, Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, the UK, as well as through Canada and the USA. This afforded her the opportunity to see some of the great masterpieces of art in the flesh and gain invaluable life experience, often staying off the beaten track with local families and experiencing local culture and customs. After returning to Melbourne she resumed her studies completing an Honours degree and her Masters of Fine Art at Monash. She is currently concentrating on developing her artistic career but is also keen to undertake further travels.

RI VAN VEEN community of hobsons bay

I moved to Willia mstown in July 2006 with my fa mily and I a m just starting to make connections with the community of Hobsons Bay. I had my first exhibition as part of the 2007 Art in Public Places in Willia mstown and have just become a member of Western Region Arts Network (WRAN) in an attempt to meet more artists and become involved in supporting art in this region. Cera mics inspires me not only in the creation of form but also in the firing process. The hot, physical and tactile process of wood and raku as well as the inherent resultant unpredictability make these firings my favourite.

This environmentally motivated female-form piece is raku fired. It represents mother earth’s struggle with pollution and global warming and the resultant drought and fires.

DROUGHT AND FIRE Ceramic, 2007 52 x 14 x 16cm

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Ri was born to Dutch migrant parents and grew up in Frankston during the 1970’s. Her parents decided on a bush change in 1980 and her family spent the next 20 years in central Victoria establishing several farming enterprises.

Ri gave birth to three daughters between 1987-93 and in 1999, returned to study completing Bachelor of Teaching.

In 2003, Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome changed Ri’s life and unable to work, she turned to a past love – ceramics.

Working with clay was initially therapeutic, but has gradually become a major focus in her life. In 2005 she returned to La Trobe University to study Visual Arts and ceramics and since moving to Williamstown in 2006, she has enrolled in a Diploma of Arts at Box Hill TAFE. Her works can be viewed at Browz Williamstown and via her website: www.ri-creations.com.

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Cyrus, Waikuen Tang GUEST ARTIST

engagement Porcelain, 2005 40 x 90 x 90cm

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Cyrus, Wai-kuen Tang migrated to Australia in 2003 and graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2004. Since then she has been working to develop her career, completing an artist residency in Tokoname in Japan in 2005 and exhibiting in solo and group exhibitions most recently Stephen McLaughlan Gallery and Westspace Gallery. As an Asian immigrant, she intends to create a dialogue between east and the west culture, reflecting her struggle to start her new life and the interchange between the past and the present. She is currently studying for her Masters at Monash University.

As a Chinese artist in Australia, the culture shock inspires me to investigate the dialogue between tradition and contemporary, east and west. Memory oscillates between what is remembered and what is imagined; and this can reach heightened poetic consciousness through the artist’s intervention. Most of my projects are attempts to capture the loss of memory.

I believe that dealing with the negative space or void is a way to capture the past and the loss of memory; that the space between objects is not empty. It serves an important purpose in installation.

To me, it seems that the emptiness has something to do with time, an element that may be survived at the point of invisibility. Poetically, something happens in the object allowing the past and present to converge.

CHERIE WINTER represented by 4CATS GALLERY COMMUNITY OF HOBSONS BAY

After purchasing property in the Hobsons Bay area, I found the wind swept beauty of the region has inspired me to look at trees and the environment differently.

Becoming pro-active with the community (National Plant a Tree Day/Clean up Australia Day) has helped my personal and artistic growth. If I asked you to make me five things with living trees, what would you make? A fence, a coat hanger, a seat or what about the swing set or even a house! It’s true. It can all be done. My work is a reflection upon arborsculpture (the sculpting of living trees into aesthetic, functional and cultural forms) and societies reaction to the results. It is a hypothetical vision of how arborsculpture, an obscure tradition, can open up avenues and possibilities to create a broad spectru m of items and contribute to the environment in a positive way. It is a merger of print mediu ms, which combine to represent a hope for the future, a belief in the present and the knowledge of the past. Whether creating botanical architecture, furniture or featuring on Ripley’s Believe it or Not, trees continue to surprise me.

SYCAMORE WEAVE

Lithograph, colour pencil & chin colle, 2006 70 x 83cm

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Cherie was born in Nowra in NSW and received her education at the College of Fine Arts, University of NSW and a Graduate Diploma from Sydney University.

She moved to Melbourne in 2000 and has participated in solo shows and numerous selected exhibitions including the 16th Asian International Art Exhibition, Guandong Museum of Art, China. Cherie has been working as a technical officer in Visual Media at the University of Melbourne and completed a Diploma of Multimedia Design at Holmesglen Institute of TAFE. She has received awards and grants such at the Collie Print Trust Emerging Victorian Printmakers Scholarship from the Australian Print Workshop, Hunter Urban Division of General Practice Award and the Visual and Craft Artists’ Grant Scheme from the National Association for the Visual Arts.

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HEATHER WINTER COMMUNITY OF PORT PHILLIP

WILD FEAR

Dura trans light box, 2007 106.3 x 68cm

Heather completed her Masters of Fine Arts at Victorian College of the Arts in 1991 and exhibited widely during the 1990’s before being invited to live and work overseas at the invitation of the Austrian Arts Council, Bundeskanzlerampt. She has exhibited in several solo and numerous group exhibitions both here and overseas and has completed artist residencies in Bulgaria, Switzerland, Vienna, Thailand and Australia. For quite some time, her focus has been on her work overseas and it is only recently since she has returned to live in Australia that she has begun work on rebuilding her profile locally. She is currently studying for her PhD at Melbourne University and works from her studio in St Kilda West.

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NEW DAYS

Inspired by the behaviour of animals and nature, I look for the archetypes of hu man behaviours and find parallels in the natural world; an elephant never forgets, a snake transforms itself through the shedding of it’s skin. When sex becomes stale, does it need a bolt of lightning ? A Wild Strike is like a revelation of truth; sometimes like delivering shock treatment to the planet we wake up and learn our lessons! To imagine that you’re an animal you can begin to experience your life from a different perspective. The natural world can allow us to experience transformative powers, which lie beyond Western rationalism and unite us with its spiritual essence. I exa mine fear through zoomorphic experiences in order to find liberation. Wild Fear, through digital technology, attempts to subvert the stereotypical image of genre film stills ‘Deep Blue Sea’ of a woman pursued by sharks. I ju mp into the shark tank and assu me the yogi pose in a gesture of reconciliation. This work is inspired by theories of fears and aggression. You project onto others what you fear. Liberation from fear is achieved through the bodily gesture.

daniela zimmermanN guest artist

Photograph Š Terence Bogue

I like to tell stories, but I don’t like to use words to do so and I also have a deep seeded suspicion about things, which appear to be nice. I detest perfect objects as a main form of artistic expression. In my observation life is not nice at all, not perfect and definitely not smooth and shiny. I oppose the new and proper. I perceive that broken and cracked surfaces mirror hu man struggles and are equipped with inner strength. I a m interested in the relationship and contrasts between different clay bodies and glazes and our surroundings of the natural and the built environment. I use found materials, the debris of everyday life, in combination with hand built cera mic objects to translate the physical appearance of modern existence into a visual language of the hu man condition.

untitled

Clay & inserted metal pieces, glazed & fired to earthenware temperature, 2006 Set of 3 - 11 x 30 x 25cm

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Daniela grew up in a German village where her grandfather worked in the village kaolin mine and in his spare time collected minerals and fossils from all over the world. As a child she was fascinated by the diverse usage of kaolin, in porcelain and glazes, for making good quality paper and also at that time in the production of toothpaste. Now that she is living in Australia, she seems to have come full circle, returning to kaolin and minerals again and building structures which remind her of diverse landscapes, buildings, people and cultures she has observed and lived with along the way. In 2006 Daniela completed her Diploma of Arts in Ceramics at Box Hill Institute and was recently accepted as a finalist in the 2007 Montalto Sculpture Prize.