contemporary art

Hugo Michell Gallery Opening: Marisa Purcell + Kate Ballis
19
Jun

Hugo Michell Gallery Opening: Marisa Purcell + Kate Ballis

Please join us for the launch of Marisa Purcell’s ‘Light Savour’ and Kate Ballis’ ‘Liminality Antipodes’ on Thursday 27th June from 6-8pm.
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Marisa Purcell
Light Savour
"After a drive back to the city from the bush at dawn, Marisa Purcell, mesmerised by the early morning light and its ability to shapeshift a landscape, drove straight to the studio and started work. With a lush palette of greens, she recreated the moment she had seen through the windscreen — night passing the baton to day, light carried on the fog and splintering through the trees. Purcell has long been interested in windows and frames — both what we see through a window and what we don't see.
To the edges of her paintings are clues to what lies within, a cipher to decode the ceaselessly captivating ambiguity of light and colour. One painting calls to mind the experience of flash blindness; the moment when harsh light floods the retina, causing both an explosion of colour and a temporary loss of vision. Another is like a fragment of Monet’s Water Lilies writ large “Everyone will see a different colour,” she says, on the erraticism of light, perception and colour. “Like a lamp in front of a mirror, these works reflect their own source of light.” – Ariela Bard, exhibition catalogue essay
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Kate Ballis
Liminality Antipodes
In the liminal spaces where the ethereal touches the terrestrial, my infrared exploration of the South Island of New Zealand captures a world both familiar and otherworldly. As alizarin crimson mountains rise and teal waters mirror the rich deposits of pounamu (greenstone), these surreal landscapes bridge the realms of reality and myth.
About this exhibition, writer Dylin Hardcastle writes: “To find a home in Liminality, in the threshold of a horizon, between deep sky and wide lake, where the near and far feel not so far apart, is to surrender, voluptuously, to something felt. It is an ability to sit between regions - opaque and edged - and to feel, instead, the incredible release of shapelessness.”
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Hugo Michell Gallery are proud to partner with Bird in Hand Winery for this opening event.
Please join us in celebrating the launch of these two exhibitions!
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.
Kate Just selected for the 2024 Contemporary Textile Biennial: CONTEXTILE in Guimarães, Portugal
26
Apr

Kate Just selected for the 2024 Contemporary Textile Biennial: CONTEXTILE in Guimarães, Portugal

We are delighted to share that Kate Just has been selected as one of 50 artists across 29 Countries for CONTEXTILE 2024, the 7th Contemporary Textile Biennial in Guimarães, Portugal, with her Self Care Action Series.

About this body of work, Kate shares: “My Self Care Action series explores the radical roots of self care and its origins in community organising. I knitted it to remind myself and others of the ways we have learned to sustain ourselves and support each other through grief, global upheaval, family stress, and life changes. The touch and tactility in each work seeks to translates a message of love and care.”

This edition of CONTEXTILE 2024, proposes a reflection on Touch. ‘We believe touch is the foremost sense capable of repositioning people in relation to the world and from a less ocular-centric perspective. Touch is a powerful tool for fostering closer, collaborative, and healthier human relationships. Touch, when used with respect, consent, and consideration, can create environments where people feel more connected to each other, a fundamental aspect in building stronger communities and more cohesive societies. Ethical touch goes beyond the physical aspect, representing, above all, an expression of recognizing humanity in one another.

CONTEXTILE 2024 will be presented from September to December 2024.

Pictured: Kate Just with ‘Self Care Action Series’, 2023, hand knitted acrylic yarn, canvas, and timber, 55 x 40 cm each.
Hugo Michell Gallery Opening: Sally Bourke + Bridie Gillman
12
Apr

Hugo Michell Gallery Opening: Sally Bourke + Bridie Gillman

Hugo Michell Gallery invites you to the opening of Sally Bourke's 'Silence is just a sound' and Bridie Gillman's 'The Bend' on Thursday 18th April, 6-8pm.

Sally Bourke
Silence is just a sound

In Sally Bourke's exhibition 'Silence is just a sound', abstracted portraits serve as portals to the depths of memory. With a deft hand and keen introspection, Bourke captures the essence of silence—not as absence, but as a profound presence. Through her evocative paintings, she invites the viewer into a realm where silence reverberates with the echoes of the past, offering a nuanced reflection on the complexities of human experience. Her paintings beckon us to listen, to immerse themselves in the quietude where memories echo softly.


Bridie Gillman
The Bend

This exhibition has been made in response to a specific moment experienced while walking in Washpool National Park, NSW, on Gumbaynggirr, Bundjalung and Ngarabal Country. A dramatic shift in light and atmosphere on a bend of the track that called us to pause. From within the bend – hanging, holding vines connect trees to each other, drawing lines to follow from one point to another, left to right, light to dark. This experience and the observations made, act as the starting point for the paintings, translated through colour and line.

Collected field recordings blend seamlessly with Reuben Schafer's instrumentation to create a captivating soundscape.

Bridie Gillman, The Bend I, 2024, oil on linen, 168 x 213cm


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Hugo Michell Gallery are proud to partner with Bird in Hand Winery for this opening event.

Please join us in celebrating the launch of these two exhibitions!

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.