News

The National 2017: New Australian Art will be launching across multiple sites on March 30. Featuring 48 artists working across a range of mediums, the 2017 exhibition is the first in a series of exhibitions to continue biannually over a six-year period, and spanning across three Sydney locations: the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Carriageworks, and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

A six-year initiative over three editions in 2017, 2019 and 2021, the curatorial vision for the exhibition represents a mix of emerging, mid-career and established artists drawn from around the country and Australian artists practicing overseas. New and commissioned works encompass a diverse range of mediums including painting, video, sculpture, installation, drawing and performance.

Richard Lewer will present a newly commissioned video piece examining the 1983 death in custody of a 16-year-old Yindjibarndi boy, John Pat. Never Shall Be Forgotten – A Mother’s Story presents the work from (John’s mother) Mavis Pat’s perspective. Lewers commitment to research and story-telling is evident in his earnest presentation of drawing, animation, and photography.

Richard Lewer says of the piece:

“My practice deals with contemporary social realism; exploring sub-cultures, fraternity, alienation, and as part of this, I’m interested in experimenting with notions of the artist’s role as commentator or interpreter, which sometimes involves discussing awkward or taboo issues. A key component of my practice is exploring the relationship between studio activity and life outside the studio, and I’m often creatively motivated by my personal response to and active engagement with my subject matter through research and participation. Recent examples of this are bodies of work made during and after immersion in Aboriginal communities in Gumbalimba in the Northern Territory and Parnngurr in the Western Desert, WA; and the Fly-In-Fly-Out mining community in Karratha, WA. Participation in endurance-based performances (such as large-scale wall drawings, boxing and wood-chopping) and the participation of others in the creation of my work is also an integral part of my practice.

The work I proposed to make for the National is a 10-min video animation which continues my examination of extreme behaviour and the resilience of the human condition. I started to look into the subject and wider issues when I was in Karratha researching the impact of FIFO culture on the region. My research led me to look into John Pat’s death in police custody in 1983, and I painted a work called Remembering John Pat (2013).”

Richard Lewer’s work for the exhibition is on display at Carriageworks. The National 2017: New Australian Art is not to be missed!

Exhibition locations and dates are as follows:

• Art Gallery of New South Wales, from March 30 to July 16
• Carriageworks, from March 30 to June 25
• Museum of Contemporary Art, from March 30 to June 18

Hugo Michell Gallery invites you to the opening of Lucas Grogan’s Thoughts & Prayers, and South, North to Indented Head featuring Tia Ansell, Matt Arbuckle, and Gabriel Curtin, curated by Richard Lewer, on Wednesday, May 24 from 6pm!

Lucas Grogan manipulates a controlled palette, pairing an expert use of line and pattern with an acerbic wit. His pithy phrases and vignettes of everyday life make acute observations and connections across a broad spectrum of experiences.

Grogan’s work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Artbank, Deutsche Bank, Wesfarmers, Newcastle Region Art Gallery, Ararat Regional Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Ballarat, and private collections nationally and internationally. He has been widely commissioned for public murals both nationally and internationally.

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South, North to Indented Head, curated by Richard Lewer features three Melbourne-based painters, all born internationally (NZ & UK). Working predominantly in painting and weaving, Tia Ansell’s practice is bound to the idealised nature of techniques of a craftsman and focuses on knowledge gained through touch and movement – the intimate connection between hand and head. For Matt Arbuckle the qualities of a found object present stimulus for creative expansion; a textured ground, a scuffed scrawl or a folded spine elicits a responsive gesture. Presenting a medley of imagery and textures, Gabriel Curtin constructs an arena where new and familiar thoughts coexist.

Please join us in celebrating these the launch of these two exhibitions on Wednesday, May 24!

Hugo Michell Gallery invites you to the opening of Paul Yore’s Obscene, and Will French’s Au Wop Bop A Loo Bop A Wop Bam Boom! on Thursday, March 2 from 6pm!

Obscene brings together over two years of textile works by Melbourne-born artist Paul Yore, in his Adelaide debut. Ranging from intimate textual needlepoints to wall-sized collaged appliqué works, Yore excavates the bedrock of our neurotic globalised civilisation, questioning the foundational myths of Western culture, and the slippery position language plays in structuring our perception of selfhood, time, reality, and sense of place in history. Yore draws on the traditions of classical Greek art, decorative Flemish and French tapestries, trashy pop-culture, gay porn, cartoons, psychedelia, and the frenzied excesses of Rococo style to build up immersive portals abounding in deconstructive linguistic riddle and iconoclastic patchworks of unabashed animalistic carnality.

On the surface, layers of hand-sewn beads, buttons, and sequins exude a sense of queer frivolity. But this glitzy skin belies darkness beneath the surface, where themes of colonial brutality, debased capitalistic vice, and the collapse of the symbolic order mingle with images of homoerotic fantasy in some kind of grandiose psychosexual melodrama.
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Sampling lyrics from Little Richard’s 1955 breakthrough hit, Tutti Frutti, this work places them in the unlikely context of a national park timber sign. Commonly recognised as a signifier for directions, this beacon instead appears to offer gibberish. ‘Tutti Frutti’ translates to ‘all the fruits’ in Italian; ‘Aw Rooty’ is Louisianan cadence for ‘alright’ (but in truth just sounds like ‘wanna rooty’); and ‘A wop bop a loo bop a wop bam boom’ is onomatopoeic nonsense that emulates a drum beat (but does it have far more suggestive undertones?).

Undeniably sexy and irreverent, this song shaped the evolution of early Rock ‘n’ Roll. Capturing a wild and untamed departure from the mainstream, Rock ‘n’ Roll became a soundtrack for counterculture and defiance, a search for self-awareness and authenticity.

This work presents these three phrases as alternative paths to consider.

Please join us in celebrating these two brilliant exhibitions on March 2!

Janet Laurence is working with the Australian Tapestry Workshop to produce a new commission Listen, to the Sound of Plants. The commission is expected to be completed in late February.

…The original artwork is comprised of images from Laurence’s extensive archive of images of plants. These have been digitally collaged photos of paint poured across glass, to create a layered transparency effect.

ATW weavers Chris Cochius, Pamela Joyce and Cheryl Thornton have selected a wide pallet of green’s to create this tapestry, including cotton yarns – which can be used to highlight areas in tapestry. ATW yarn dyer Tong Stefanovski dyed a new range of green cottons to achieve specific tones for the weaver’s requirements.

In Listen, to the Sound of Plants, the weavers are trying to capture the layers and use of transparencies and glass that are the hallmarks of Laurence’s work. The translation into tapestry is quite challenging for the weavers as they navigate the reflective surface elements of the design. They are working to achieve a soft watery effect by using very subtle colour mixing techniques and using many tones that are close together in the colour range.

For full statement, click here.

Hugo Michell Gallery is pleased to announce that it will exhibit at Art Stage Singapore, from 21 to 24 January 2016.

Art Stage Singapore is the leading Asian art fair connecting the world to the best of Asian contemporary art. Art Stage Singapore presents the diversity of contemporary art rising from the region, including galleries and artists from Southeast Asia, China, India, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand.

William Mackinnon has produced a new short film titled Psychological Landscapes.  “Each painting creates a bridge to the next one. There are no shortcuts or mistakes, it’s layers upon layers until the painting forms.” In this new short, Mackinnon speaks about his process and inspiration as a journey through a psychological landscape.

Congratulations to Stanislava Pinchuk, winner of the Glenfiddich Artist in Residence Prize! Now in its fifteenth year, the Glenfiddich Artist in Residence Prize is valued at $21,000 and includes a three month residency in Dufftown, Scotland. During the residency artists are encouraged to examine the historic and scenic Scottish highlands and distillery. A piece will be acquired by Glenfiddich for the permanent collection as a result of the the residency.

Read more about the residency here!

Press:The Australian, The AU Review

Sera Waters has been announced as the WINNER of the Heysen Prize for Landscape 2016! A huge congratulations to Sera, for taking out this $15,000 acquisitive prize.

“The Heysen Prize was established by the Hahndorf Academy in 1997 to commemorate the nationally and internationally eminent local artist, Sir Hans Heysen (1877-1968).

Sir Hans Heysen had a deep connection with the Australian landscape and is famous for his paintings and drawings of Hahndorf in the Adelaide hills, and the Flinders Ranges. He documented village life in Hahndorf and conserved the mature gums in the surrounding area. Because of the implied realism of his pictures, many think of his art as literal depictions of the landscape that existed in front of him.”

You can see her winning work along with the other finalists at the Hahndorf Academy until December 4th. More details here