JANET LAURENCE

Environmental Art of Loss and Wonder

A beautiful article in The New Scientist on JANET LAURENCE's exhibition The Ferment, showing at the Fine Art Society in London until 11 May 2013.

'Standing in front of Broken Hearted Wood, it is as if you are inside the owl's tree, a disconcerting ghostly apparition that won't go away. When you accidentally catch sight of yourself in the glass covering the work, it's really difficult not to feel that you are part of the picture.

That, of course, is what Laurence is about: she wants you to care about the relationship between the natural and the human worlds.

She draws you in with a powerful mixture of paintings, photographic images and installations. There are transparent images on acrylic, mounted on a background that is sometimes the wall, sometimes a mirror or just a coat of paint. And a 'layering' technique adds to the astonishing sense of being there.'

To read the full article click here.

EUGENIA RASKOPOULOS

As part of Federation Square's creative program, presented by dLUX Media Arts, EUGENIA RASKOPOULOS' film Waiting for Lass will at various times be showing on the big screen on Fed Square througout all of April 2013. 

The artists in the program have been hand picked with an aim to showcase Australian video art publicly and in a large format.

PHAPTAWAN SUWANNAKUDT

Phaptawan Suwannakudt’s exhibition, Bhava Series, presents the subjective state of one’s existence within in-between spaces.  Full of a richness of colour, a density of voices and intonations of place, this is Suwannakudt’s fourth solo exhibition at ARC ONE Gallery, 9 April - 11 May 2013.

In Thai, the complexity of the word 'bhava' encompasses ‘existence,’ or ‘the status of being’, which originated from a Pāli word meaning ‘to become’ or ‘a subjective becoming,’ in the sense of living, feeling and ascending within one’s continuous and cyclical worldly existence. In her devotion to her sense of self and discovery, Suwannakudt continues to create works that are contemplative, aesthetic tapestries - condensed communicative murals.

Phaptawan's recent sculptural and collaborative works further extend into the subjectivity of experience, participants writing their private thoughts on cloth made of vegetation fibre picked and woven in Thailand, the remnants of which have been incorporated into some of the works in 'Bhava Series'. Imbued with allegorical and everyday references - like one looking from a window over a landscape rendered both familiar and foreign - these works tell stories of personal memories, dreams and experiences of perpetual movement towards understanding and belonging.

- Annabel Holt, April 2013 

In Bhava Series, Suwannakudt's paint and cloth weave together with the density of a multimedia tapestry, in direct reference to over twenty years of foundational training as a muralist in Bhuddist temples under the master tutorship of her father, Paiboon Suwannakudt. Phaptawan Suwannakudt migrated from Thailand to Australia in 1996, her entry into Australian culture being a disorientating experience.

For all enquiries, please contact Annabel Holt at mail@arc1gallery.com

ROBERT OWEN / IMANTS TILLERS / ANNE ZAHALKA / JULIE RRAP / ROSE FARRELL and GEORGE PARKIN

JULIE RRAP, Persona and Shadow Christ.

ARC ONE are pleased to announce that ROBERT OWEN, IMANTS TILLERS, ANNE ZAHALKA, JULIE RRAP, ROSE FARRELL and GEORGE PARKIN are all included in the exhibition Mixtape 1980's at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Mix Tape 1980s 'explores a decade of dynamic change in contemporary art and culture, from appropriation and sampling in painting and music to the DIY aesthetics of post-punk music, art and fashion; and from postmodern critiques of history, authorship and originality to postcolonial revisions of Australian history and identity.'

The exhibition is open 11 April- 1 September 2013. for more information, click here.

JANET LAURENCE

JANET LAURENCE, recent recipient of the John Glover Price, is opening her first major solo exhibition in the UK. Presented at The Fine Art Society in London, The Ferment is the product of forty years spent examining the complex relationships between natural and man-made environments, making nature at once her subject and her object. 

The Ferment will be on view at The Fine Art Society, London between 12 April and 11 May 2013.

Read the interview with Janet on her upcoming show and other things from blouinartinfo.

PETER DAVERINGTON

Opening 6 April at Linden Contemporary Art Centre, PETER DAVERINGTON is included in the show Innovators 1 with his animation ARCADIA

Innovators 1 presents the work of five artists who explore the human condition. They each comment on the man made versus the organic; past, present and future; concepts of reality and imagination through time-based work. 

From Linded Art Centre.

LYDIA WEGNER

LYDIA WEGNER opened her new show entitled Folded Colour at Melbourne Centre for Contemporary Photography, CCP on 4 April. In the striking new series Lydia has used unconventinal scraps and objets to create abstract colour field images, turning material into shape, grain and colour. 

The show is open till 19 May 2013. For more information, click here.