News

Hugo Michell Gallery welcomes the addition of Min Wong to our represented artists!

Min Wong’s sculpture and installation practice examines metaphysical and cultural esoterica of 1970’s countercultures, ‘New Age’ spirituality and recent renewed interest towards self-help and therapeutic culture. Her installations use strategies of appropriation, corporate branding techniques and nomadic meanings that are contingent and subject to the contemporary dilemma of spirituality.

Her practice explores utopias and esoteric practices to reimagine a renewal of connection between nature, community, and spirituality in coexistence. By looking back to past and present spiritual movements, Min’s installations investigate illusory hopes, desire, failure and seeks to remodel speculative worlds as possible futures within the contemporary dystopic.

Min Wong has exhibited widely across Australia and was recently included in the 2022 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Free/State. Min has undertaken numerous international residencies including in Spain, China and Los Angeles. She has been a finalist in prizes such as Churchie Emerging Art Prize, the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize and in 2019 was the awarded the Sculpture prize for the Ghost Fisher Art Award. Her works are held in the collections of Artbank, Housemuseum, Charles Darwin University and the City of Adelaide.

We congratulate Min on her achievements thus far and look forward to working together in the future!

Min Wong's 'Born to Give not to Get' at Hugo Michell Gallery, 2022

We are thrilled to share that Clara Adolphs and Fiona McMonagle have been shortlisted for the 2022 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize.

The 2022 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize is a signature event that showcases the diversity and excellence of Australian contemporary painting practice. Through these prizes, staged since 1938, the Gallery has amassed an exceptional representation of Australian paintings whilst supporting contemporary practitioners. Showcasing the best of contemporary Australian painting practice, this $30,000 acquisitive award and biennial exhibition will feature 28 works by leading and emerging Australian artists. Collectively, the stylistic approaches and thematic range of these works reflect the currency and relevance of painting today.

The 2022 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize finalist exhibition will be on show at Geelong Gallery in Victoria from 25 June to 11 September 2022, with the recipient of the $30,000 acquisitive 2022 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize to be announced on Friday 15 July at 6pm.

The 2022 Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Art Prize finalists have been announced! 

Richard Lewer  has been announced as a finalist for the Archibald Prize; and Clara Adolphs is a finalist in the Wynne Prize. Congratulations to Richard and Clara!

Presented by Art Gallery of New South Wales, the exhibition will run from 14 May – 28 August 2022.

The Archibald Prize, first awarded in 1921, is Australia’s favourite art award, and one of its most prestigious. Awarded to the best portrait painting, a who’s who of Australian culture – from politicians to celebrities, sporting heroes to artists.

This is the fourth time that Richard Lewer has been represented in the Archibald Prize with a portrait of Elizabeth Laverty. “And I will keep painting her for as long as she’ll let me, or until we win!” says Lewer, whose practice has long explored the endurance, consistency and discipline that is required as an artist.

Laverty and her late husband, Sydney pathologist Colin Laverty, built one of Australia’s most significant collections of contemporary art, while supporting the Indigenous communities they visited.

“Liz is not just involved in the arts; she has many facets to her life. It is an honour to deepen my understanding of her past, present and future with each passing year. Nowadays, Liz is more vulnerable in many ways than when I first met her, yet she remains vibrant and open. She is well-informed on contemporary issues, socially adept and outward-looking. Liz continues to give back,” says Lewer.

“I have painted her daily morning ritual, sitting at the breakfast table surrounded by newspapers, planning her day in her heavily inscribed diary.”

As part of a major commissioning program to celebrate the opening of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ new building in late 2022, Lewer has created portraits of the many people involved in the construction of the Sydney Modern Project.

About this work Clara Adolphs shares: “I began painting clouds as a kind of backdrop for my figurative works, although they soon revealed themselves as the centrepiece. They are figurative beings, towering and monumental. Their formations are in a state of constant flux. The painting is one moment in their time of continuous change.

This particular cloud, a Cumulus congestus, was painted from a formation accumulating on the afternoon of Christmas Day, 2021. These clouds bring rain and unsettled weather, but from afar it was a perfect day.”

The exhibition will run from 14 May – 28 August 2022 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Congratulations to Narelle Autio and Janet Laurence who have been selected as finalists in the 2022 Bowness Photography Prize!

Over the last 16 years, the Bowness Photography Prize has emerged as an important annual survey of contemporary photographic practice in Australia and one of the most prestigious prizes in the country. The winning work will be awarded $30,000 and will be acquired into Monash Gallery of Art’s nationally significant collection of Australian photographs.

This prize will be announced on Thursday 6th of October. The exhibition will be on display from 29 September to 13 November at the Monash Gallery of Art.

As part of Kate Just’s exhibition PROTEST SIGNS featuring hand knitted homages to protest signs around the world, Just has created a piece to raise funds for charities working on the current Ukrainian humanitarian crisis.

This unique artwork is a hand knitted Ukrainian flag mounted on a plywood board with a Tasmanian oak picket stick. The words PEACE – in black – are knitted into the flag design.

To raise money and go into a draw to win this work, Just is inviting individual members of the public to donate $50 or more to one of three charities: 

Care Australia – a Australian charity raising funds to end global poverty. They have an ongoing focus on women and girls and a specific focus on the Ukraine right now:
Click here to donate!

Go Fund me to support Vulnerable Black people in the Ukraine: Diaspora and Students – Many Black people are facing racism in Ukraine. At the borders trying to escape, they are facing abuse and refused access to trains, busses and support. Members of this Black coalition are working with partner orgs and will be travelling to bordering countries to help bring people home and ensure that this process is done smoothly.
Click here to donate!

Voices of Children – a Ukraine based charity providing psychological assistance and practical evacuation assistance to women, children and families affected by armed conflict.
Click here to donate!

You can donate to any of the three charities. $50 minimum donation, but more is encouraged and welcome.

Provide your name and receipt evidence of your donation to mail@hugomichellgallery.com

You will go into a draw to win the artwork. The draw will be done live on Instagram stories on morning of the 6th of May and the winner will be also notified by email. The more people who enter, the more impact we will have!

Basic rules:
– One entry per person regardless of amount donated
– Individuals only
– Shipping costs covered within Australia only
– Freight will be arranged after the show concludes in mid May

Pictured: Kate Just, Peace (Ukraine), 2022, knitted wool as placard with plywood stand, 56 x 50 cm

We are thrilled to share that James Darling & Lesley Forwood’s collaborative installation ‘Living Rocks: A Fragment of the Universe’ will be presented at ZKM: Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe in Germany as part of the exhibition ‘The Beauty of Early Life. Traces of Early Life’. This exhibition invites us to look at the emergence of life through artistic works from modern times to the present, complemented by scientific exhibits from the early days of life, right now, at this crossroads of a global climate and biodiversity crisis.

First exhibited at Hugo Michell Gallery in 2018 ‘Living Rocks: A Fragment of the Universe’ was selected as an Official Collateral Event of the 58th International Art exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2019, curated by Dr Lisa Slade and supported by The Art Gallery of South Australia.

‘Living Rocks: A Fragment of the Universe’ is a South Australian collaboration between Darling & Forwood, Jumpgate VR, composer Paul Stanhope, and the Australian String Quartet. ‘Living Rocks’ addresses the question: what was our planet three billion years ago? It celebrates the cosmic imperative of microbes in action through the universe, most notably their survival by way of the great events of extinction that have happened or are still to come on our planet. From an extensive pool emerge thrombolites that have been crafted, not by unimaginable time and the force of nature, but by the artists who employ the distinctive roots of an arid land eucalypt to create living rocks.

“The installation connects the present day to the beginning of life. It is a memory of our origin and a prophesy of our future.” – James Darling

‘The Beauty of Early Life. Traces of Early Life’ will be on display at ZKM: Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe from 26 March to 10 July 2022.

See ZKM: Centre for Art and Media website for full details.

Pictured: James Darling & Lesley Forwood’s ‘Living Rocks: A Fragment of the Universe’, installation view at La Biennale di Venezia 2019