Art Gallery of South Australia
We are thrilled to share that Sera Waters’ exhibition ‘Future Traditions’ is now open to the public at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
In this second iteration of the Guildhouse Fellowship, South Australian artist Sera Waters imagines a new future for us all – one where ancient textile traditions can craft hope in the face of climate change.
Waters is well known for her revival of endangered ways of making, whereby age-old embroidery techniques are restored to comment on our complex and often confronting colonial histories. In this exhibition, the past paves the way for a new future and by reclaiming the traditions that our great-great-great-grandmothers performed we can move, together, towards an alternative liveable future.
‘Future Traditions’, presented in Gallery 9, hinges on community and those who have kept this knowledge alive over generations. A shared space, the exhibition includes experiments, artefacts, texts, events, workshops and works of art.
The exhibition will be on display from 26 Nov 2022 to 16 Apr 2023.
Sera Waters, Noticing Sampler, 2022, cotton on repurposed and hand-dyed linen, 50 x 32 cm. Photography by Grant Hancock
“Free/State assembles a group of artists who are fearless; the provocateurs, vanguards and outsiders – challenging histories and art forms, and in the process, offering reflections on an era of multi-faceted global upheaval. The exhibition explores ideas of transcending states, from the spiritual and artistic to the psychological, and embraces notions of freedom in expression, creation and collaboration.”
Sera Waters is an Adelaide based artist, arts writer and academic. Since being awarded a Ruth Tuck Scholarship in 2006 to study hand embroidery at the Royal School of Needlework (UK), Waters’ art practice has been characterised by a darkly stitched meticulousness. Her embroideries and hand-crafted sculptures dwell within the gaps of Australian histories to examine settler-colonial home-making patterns and practices, especially her own genealogical ghostscapes. More recently Waters has been exploring how textile traditions can help navigate a future affected by climate change.
Waters is currently undertaking research and developing her ‘Future Traditions’ project, enabled by being awarded the 2020 Guildhouse Fellowship (with Art Gallery of South Australia, supported by the James & Diana Ramsay Foundation). Her solo exhibition, Domestic Arts, is currently touring South Australian regional galleries with Country Arts SA presented in partnership with ACE Open. This exhibition was developed from being the 2017 recipient of the inaugural ACE Open South Australian artist commission. Other major exhibitions include Dark Portals, at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia (2013), Sappers and Shrapnel at Art Gallery of South Australia (2016) and Going Round in Squares at Ararat Gallery TAMA (2019).
Her works are held by the Cruthers collection of Women’s art, Ararat Regional Gallery, the Art Gallery of South Australia and private collections nationwide. Waters is a studio member of Central Studios, lecturer at Adelaide Central School of Art, and is represented by Hugo Michell Gallery.
Julia Robinson has been announced as exhibiting in the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art Monster Theatres.
Presented throughout the Art Gallery of South Australia as well as partner venue Adelaide Botanic Gardens and its Museum of Economic Botany, the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres will be presented from 29 February to 8 June as the key visual art offering of the Adelaide Festival.
Monster Theatres proposes an arena of speculation, a circus of the unorthodox and the absurd, a shadow play between truth and fiction. The title is inspired by a group of provocative Australian artists. Their urgent works of art are warnings made manifest. These theatres are theirs.’
Leigh Robb, Curator, Monster Theatres
Full list of artists:
Abdul Abdullah (NSW) Mike Bianco (WA) Polly Borland (VIC) Michael Candy (QLD) Megan Cope (VIC) Erin Coates and Anna Nazzari (WA) Julian Day (NSW) Karla Dickens (NSW) Mikala Dwyer (VIC) Brent Harris (VIC) Aldo Iacobelli (SA) Pierre Mukeba (SA) David Noonan (VIC) Mike Parr (NSW) Julia Robinson (SA) Yhonnie Scarce (SA/VIC) Garry Stewart and Australian Dance Theatre (SA) Stelarc (VIC) Kynan Tan (NSW) Mark Valenzuela (SA) Willoh S. Weiland (TAS) Judith Wright (QLD)
Trent Parke's The Black Roseis reaching its final days on show at The Art Gallery of South Australia. The media coverage is pumping!
Here's part 2 for all you Trent Parke junkies:
Review: photographer Trent Parke's double shot of darkness
by John McDonald in The Sydney Morning Herald
Trent Parke's The Black Rose
by Gretchen Shirm in The Saturday Paper
The Black Rose: Trent Parke
by Richard Butler on Visual Arts Hub
In Search of Lost Past in Trent Parke's The Black Rose (paywall)
by Christopher Allen in The Australian
Trent Parke - The Black Rose
in In Daily
Trent Parke's The Black Rose has been open at the Art Gallery of South Australia for almost a month, and the reviews are flooding in.
Here's a taste of some of the media coverage so far:
Trent Parke: The Black Rose
by John Neylon in The Adelaide Review
Review: Trent Parke: Images, stories and rooms like pages turning
by Polly Dance on Raven Contemporary
Trent Parke's photos capture the brilliantly ordinary struggle for life
by Heather L. Robinson on The Conversation
Excavating histories: Trent Parke's Black Rose - in pictures
by Jonny Weeks on The Guardian
The Black Rose: an odyssey born of loss
by Susie Keen on The Conversation
Trent Parke's moving Black Rose photo exhibition at Art Gallery of SA
by Sharon Verghis in The Australian
Interview with: Trent Parke
by Benjamin Chadbond and Patrick Mason in Try Hard Magazine
Trent Parke: The Black Rose, screens 21 April on ABC
by Catherine Hunter on ABC
Adelaide photographer Trent Parke uses The Black Rose exhibition to deal with childhood trauma
by Brett Williamson on ABC
Trent Parke’s The Black Rose, the culmination of 7 years of work, opens on March 14 at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
“Collectively, they represent the fruits of an epic journey Parke began in a coastal Adelaide suburb in 2007, and which would end up yielding more than 3000 photographs, 15,000 words of text, 14 books, and various videos, installations and short films harvested from images taken around the South Australian capital and on road trips across the country over a period of seven years. In March at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Parke, the only Australian full member of the prestigious international Magnum Photos agency, will launch The Black Rose, an intensely personal exhibition born of childhood grief and one he views as the most significant of his career. The exhibition, which will occupy the entire bottom floor of the gallery, will be the largest single exhibition of the artist’s work, featuring everything from 120cm x 150cm silver gelatin prints to a site-specific installation at the entrance of the stairs (the “forest” with birds and bats) at around 26m by 4m.The director of AGSA, Nick Mitzevich, says the institution is honoured to “be the first gallery to present The Black Rose, one of our most ambitious contemporary art projects to date, and presented on a scale seldom seen.””
Read more about the journey of this body of work at The Australian