Please join us for the launch of Kate Just‘s 'A Sign of the Times' and Justine Varga’s ‘Somerville Suite’ at Hugo Michell Gallery on Thursday 5th February, 6-8pm.
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KATE JUST
A Sign of the Times
'A Sign of the Times', is new series of complex hand knitted homages to potent text-based, political, public signs by other artists that continue to resonate in our current political and social climate. The series expands upon her approach in past works such as Feminist Fan and Protest Signs, in which the artist deployed knitting to re-materialise and pay homage to significant historical queer/feminist artworks and protest texts, and affirm their position in the canon of art history.
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JUSTINE VARGA
Somerville Suite
Photography emerged from centuries of scientific inquiry into optics, chemistry, and mechanics. Yet typically, the material components essential to this process—light, chemicals, film, paper—dissolve into invisibility, subsumed within the constructed pictures they produce.
...Somerville Suite (2023-25) reverses this disappearance by reclaiming photography’s experimental origins. (Justine Varga's) prints lay bare an unfamiliar, elemental vision of the medium, gesturing not only outward towards representation of external realities but also inward, revealing layered practices shaped by human touch, skilled labour, and intimate dialogue with history. At first glance, the three prints dazzle with brightly coloured geometric forms in cyan, magenta, and yellow. Looking more closely reveals the artist’s mastery of craft and playful exploration of photography’s hidden processes. - (excerpt from text accompaniment by Erin Pauwels)
KATE JUST
A Sign of the Times
'A Sign of the Times', is new series of complex hand knitted homages to potent text-based, political, public signs by other artists that continue to resonate in our current political and social climate. The series expands upon her approach in past works such as Feminist Fan and Protest Signs, in which the artist deployed knitting to re-materialise and pay homage to significant historical queer/feminist artworks and protest texts, and affirm their position in the canon of art history.
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JUSTINE VARGA
Somerville Suite
Photography emerged from centuries of scientific inquiry into optics, chemistry, and mechanics. Yet typically, the material components essential to this process—light, chemicals, film, paper—dissolve into invisibility, subsumed within the constructed pictures they produce.
...Somerville Suite (2023-25) reverses this disappearance by reclaiming photography’s experimental origins. (Justine Varga's) prints lay bare an unfamiliar, elemental vision of the medium, gesturing not only outward towards representation of external realities but also inward, revealing layered practices shaped by human touch, skilled labour, and intimate dialogue with history. At first glance, the three prints dazzle with brightly coloured geometric forms in cyan, magenta, and yellow. Looking more closely reveals the artist’s mastery of craft and playful exploration of photography’s hidden processes. - (excerpt from text accompaniment by Erin Pauwels)
Justine Varga, Algebra, 2023-24, Chromogenic photograph, edition of 5 + 2AP, 126.7 x 78.2 cm
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Hugo Michell Gallery are proud to partner with Bird in Hand Winery for this opening event.
Hugo Michell Gallery are proud to partner with Bird in Hand Winery for this opening event.
Hugo Michell Gallery acknowledges the Kaurna people as the traditional custodians of the Adelaide region, and that their cultural and heritage beliefs are still as important to the living Kaurna people today.
Pictured Above: Kate Just, A Sign of the Times: A knitted translation of Susan O’Malley, Less Internet More Love, 2015, Kala art institute public artworks project, Berkely, CA, USA, 2026, Hand knitted wool and acrylic yarn, timber, canvas, 51 x 67 x 2.5 cm