News

Richard Lewer is now exhibiting at Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tāmaki.

Richard Lewer’s art frequently explores how specific locations become repositories or emotional signposts of shared events. In his New Zealand Disasters sequence of paintings, Lewer re-works the panoramic format of landscape paintings to envisage unforgettable traces left within New Zealand’s landscape and traumatic events in its history.  In doing so, Lewer explores how our relationships and responses to specific places become shaped by the ‘imaginative geographies’ formed by life-changing and unexpected occurrences.

Read from left to right the seven panels chronologically chart a series of New Zealand disasters: the Napier earthquake (1931); the Tangiwai train derailing (1953); the sinking of the Wahine (1968); the Air New Zealand Flight 901 crash at Mt Erebus (1979), the Christchurch earthquake; and the Whakaari/White Island volcanic eruption (2019).

Painted as a series of fragments, the sequence relies upon, and is activated by, the subjective and personal responses which local audiences bring to the artwork’s revisioning and remembering of place and event.

The suburban love story of Herbert Erickson, a Perth-based pensioner, who survived a suicide pact with his wife only to die soon after by drowning himself, prompted Richard Lewer to draw, colour and narrate this animation which addresses a real-life tragedy. Tender and troubling, the video raises issues about love and euthanasia. The title quotes Erikson, who told reporters outside court: ‘I want to be with my partner really, but I’m still here, worst luck.’

Using an overhead projector to create the visuals, Lewer narrates the senior citizen’s tragic story which gives the video animation a tender and personal reality. Reflecting on the work, he commented: ‘Tragic everyday storytelling is something that I have always gravitated towards.’

Exhibition runs: 29 July to 13 Sep 2020
Full details here.

Hugo Michell Gallery invites you to the opening of Lucas Grogan’s ‘Late Last Night’ and Paul Sloan’s ‘Animal Kingdom’.

Of ‘Late Last Night’, Lucas Grogan states:
“It all feels like a bad dream.
I began making this exhibition towards the end of 2019. And I didn’t want to make a body of work about the descending dark age of nationalism, the nightmare of environmental destruction and an ever expanding pandemic. But I kind of did.
Liars, thieves and scumbags globally rose to power. They operate from the same play book of instilling fear, manipulating information and performing to their crowd.
Morrison played a ukulele whilst Australia burnt. The scale of the bushfires were unbelievable – day turned to night and endless scenes of destruction rolled out across our screens. Our studio was turned into a wildlife resource depot with mountains of medical supplies arriving that took up every nook and cranny.
A virus swamped us and will permanently change our way of life. An overnight forced hibernation suddenly became our new norm.
But out of all this I’ve seen people actively reach out to each other; supporting and reconnecting with friends, neighbours and strangers alike. Old modes of cultural and economic connection have rapidly evolved. Social and environmental revolutions are at a tipping point. Though we’re still in the thick of it- I wanted to offer some sort of reprieve. I’m optimistic a new enlightened dawn is inevitable and not far off.”

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Paul Sloan’s Animal Kingdom (2020) measures the beauty, absurdity and looming threat of the animal world using the slide rules of grayscale, hermeticism, and anthropomorphic projection. A cat emerges from inky darkness. A long-tailed tit stares at the viewer, poised and knowing. A falcon takes down a surveillance glider. A guard dog bites a well-known gloved hand. A celebrity leaves a vast fortune to his pet, rather than his family or humanitarian organisations. In this new series of paintings, Sloan selects surprising snapshots from our modern world for closer inspection. Using a restrained grayscale palette and his characteristic, wry wit Sloan addresses the addictive nature of modern media as well as what we trust and fear in ourselves and our surroundings.

Paul Sloan’s ‘Animal Kingdom’ will be exhibited as part of SALA Festival 2020.

Exhibition Opening Thursday 30 July 6-8pm
Exhibition runs from: 30 July – 29 August
*Please note if you wish to join us for the opening of these exhibitions, RSVP is essential.*

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.

Magnum Photos speak with Trent Parke about his series ‘The Crimson Line’ exhibited at Hugo Michell Gallery in 2019.

“At the beginning of the Covid-19 shut down, Trent Parke and his creative collaborator and partner Narelle Autio, were concerned about what it would mean for their livelihoods. A number of exhibitions were planned for Australia, including one at the Michael Reid Gallery in Sydney of Parke’s most recent work “The Crimson Line”. This project is his first since stepping away from photography in 2015, after seven years working intensively on his meditation on Home, The Black Rose. Exhausted, Parke sought to reinvigorate his creativity by exploring film making with Autio. This led to critical success with A Summation of Force, their resulting film and VR production, taking them to film festivals all over the world and ending up at Sundance.”

Read the full article here.

Hugo Michell Gallery invites you to the opening of Fiona McMonagle’s ‘Titled’ and Jahnne Pasco-White’s ‘becoming-with (reconfigured)’.

Fiona McMonagle’s recent body of work ‘Titled’ speaks to the complexity and conflict via the portrayal of women in pop culture. The paintings in this series challenge us to question how we feel about powerful independent women, as well as exploring the way in which these portrayals may be viewed as either strengthening or marginalising.

The portraits in ‘Titled’ are of women who are variously considered Queens and Princesses – Crowned by the people. Traditional views of Queens and Princesses evoke images of greatness, divinity, fame and power. Images of Divas in particular are often idealised, figures of perfection, of almost divine beauty and radiance.

In ‘Titled’, McMonagle provokes the limitations and potential oppression of female empowerment by examining the compelling legacies and narratives of such popular icons across both the 20th and 21st centuries. Through these portrayals of pop icons who are: fragile and powerful; feminine and strong and independent, ‘Titled’ questions the role(s) of the empowered female. What sacrifices have these women made for their celebrity and what accolades have they been afforded? Finally, ‘Titled’ is a celebration of women – their struggles, complexities and their strengths.

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Jahnne Pasco-White’s expanded painting practice considers the intersections between materiality and temporality. Her work is characterised by the labouring of delicate supports. Specifically, she is interested in the layers of authorship that are variously evidenced and concealed by the artist’s mark-making, as well as their continual processes of decay and renewal.

‘becoming-with (reconfigured)’ draws upon works made whilst a studio artist at Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne, and later shown at Gertrude Glasshouse in November 2019.

For the artist, to think and act ecologically implies an interconnectedness, in one form or another. Donna Haraway maps the implications of such interconnectedness as ‘becoming-with’, such that human-nature separation is refashioned as a myriad of bodily connections. Timothy Morton prefers ‘the mesh’. More concretely, the late Deborah Bird Rose emphasised instead ’embodied knots of multispecies time’, which usefully gets us closer to ecological processes of decay and renewal.

Jahnne Pasco-White is represented by STATION Gallery. ‘becoming-with (reconfigured)’ has been generously supported by the Marten Bequest and the Australia Council for the Arts.

Exhibition Opening Thursday 25 June 6-8pm
Exhibition runs from: 25 June – 25 July
*Please note if you wish to join us for the opening of these exhibitions, RSVP is essential.*

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.

Elvis Richardson speaks with Daniel Mudie Cunningham about her ‘Settlement’ series which will be exhibited later this year at Hugo Michell Gallery! Thanks to Art Collector for the feature in their ‘Pull Focus’ video series.

“In her ongoing interrogation of domestic settings and the notion of ‘home’, Richardson’s work communicates a certain precarity and anxiety. The sculptural forms in ‘Settlement’ explore ideas around how we settle in domestic spaces, the relationship of our homes with the earth beneath them, as well as what we ‘settle for’.”

View the full article here.

We’re back!

Hugo Michell Gallery are delighted to welcome you back – in person, to our gallery spaces. Bringing you a new exhibition, Plan B with a selection of incredible works from our storeroom, many of which hav not been exhibited before. Featuring; Sally Bourke, James Dodd, Tony Garifalakis, Lucas Grogan, Rob Howe, Ildiko Kovacs, Trent Parke, Justine Varga, Sera Waters and Amy Joy Watson.

Plan B: 2 June – 20 June

Exhibition runs from 2 June until 20 June.

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.

Australasia’s most progressive forum for contemporary art and ideas, Melbourne Art Fair has launched a free Virtual Art Fair, running 1–7 June. Hugo Michell Gallery is pleased to preview a selection of works, including a solo exhibition by established artist Richard Lewer, titled ‘Richard’s Disasters’.

“While the physical fair slated for this year is rescheduled to February 2021, Melbourne Art Foundation is partnering with Ocula to present the Melbourne Art Fair Viewing Rooms, showcasing new and iconic works online.”

Ocula Viewing Room

Thanks to Citymag for featuring our exhibition, ‘New Collectors’ in VR!
It’s the final days of the exhibition in the gallery, but you can still view the exhibition at anytime – with thanks to Jumpgate VR.

‘New Collectors’ | until 23 May

Featuring: Narelle Autio, Sally Bourke, Gerwyn Davies, Bridie Gillman, Eliza Gosse, Rob Howe, Amy Joy Watson & Andy Nowell
Open by appointment.

View the exhibition in VR here.

Read the Citymag article here.