DANI MARTI has been included in the exhibition From Madonna to Madonna at Domus Artium, Salamanca, Spain.
The exhibition aims to (De)construct the image of femininity in contemporary society, presenting us with a more complex scenario. From Madonna to Madonna is curated by Paco Barragán and includes works by 57 national and international artists.
More info through DA2 (Domus Artium 2002), Salamanca.
GUAN WEI
GUAN WEI's new work, The Journey to Australia (2013) is now complete and on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, (MCA), Sydney, as the 2013 foyer commission.
This large scale mural painting is an important and visually vibrant piece, shining a daring light on current political debate in Australia.
From the MCA:
'Guan Wei’s new work The Journey to Australia (2013) is a figurative painting that references the MCA’s location at the site where the First Fleet came ashore on Gadigal land in 1788 and the artist’s experiences as an immigrant to Australia from China in 1989'.
Guan Wei comments: ‘From a historical point of view, the MCA’s location at Circular Quay is a place where, in the past, many immigrants have landed - a place which links the past with the present, you with me, and Australia with the world.’
The work is also inspired by current debates about immigration and refugees in Australia; in particular the heated commentary that often surrounds the arrival of people to this country by boat.
As Guan Wei says: ‘I have observed that much of our daily news is filled with stories of refugee ships arriving in Australian waters… As an Australian immigrant and as an artist, I am able to not only identify with but also to help relate and bear witness to [the refugees] solemn, stirring and tragic story…’
MCA Curator Anna Davis said: ‘Guan Wei has a highly original vision and is a significant figure in both the Australian and Chinese contemporary art scenes. For the past 25 years he has been creating work that interweaves imagery from his Chinese heritage, personal mythology and life experience. Guan Wei has a long history with the MCA. He was an artist-in-residence in 1992 and was the first artist to have a solo exhibition on Level 4 in 1999. Several of his works have been acquired for the MCA Collection, some of which are currently on display in Volume One: MCA Collection. The scale and ambition of his new mural is impressive and will be a fantastic addition to the MCA series of wall commissions.’
More information here.
MURRAY FREDERICKS
Following the great success of his Lake Eyre SALT series of photographs, and multi award winning documentary from 2009, Murray Fredericks' new film Nothing on Earth premieres at the Sydney film festival on 9 June 2013, and on ABC1 on Sunday 23rd of June at 10.25pm.
Set atop a melting glacier in the uninhabitable landscapes of Greenland,director and producer Michael Angus (Salt, Ooldea, The Fight Game)follows Fredericks as he battles the elements in his quest for original and breathtaking imagery.
Murray finds himself alone in a landscape he's never been, hoping this time he hasn't taken his quest too far.
The photographic results of Fredericks' Greenland project will be showing at ARC ONE from the 5th of November 2013.
See the preview of Nothing on Earth here.
See ABC1's review/article of Nothing on Earth here.
See Dylan Rainforth's review of Nothing on Earth for Art Guide Australia here.
ROBERT OWEN
ROBERT OWEN is featured in an extensive exhibition of Australian abstract art entitled Vibrant Matter currently showing at Tarrawarra Museum of Art, Healesville. The exhibition is open 20 April - 16 June 2013.
From Tarrawarra: 'Vibrant Matter includes paintings and sculptures from the past six decades which resonate with a vital materiality.
The exhibition features work by artists for whom both the materiality and the ‘facture’ of the work – including its line, composition, tone, colour and texture – rather than the use of narrative and figuration, is the primary means by which they express their insights, emotions and ideas.’
For more information at Tarrawarra Museum of Art.
PHAPTAWAN SUWANNAKUDT
PHAPTAWAN SUWANNAKUDT’s Buddha lives, a six panel acrylic on canvas work, has been included in the permanent collection at The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
Suwannakudt's new Bhava series is on view at ARC ONE until 11 May 2013.
Additionally, Suwannakudt is also currently in a show at Sundaram Tagore Gallery in New York and is also included in the group show ORIENTing: With or Without you, currently on view at Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, 4 May-13 July 2013, U.W.A., Western Australia.
SAM SHMITH
PLATE GLASS
14 May - 15 June 2013 at ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
In Plate Glass, Sam Shmith’s seven new large-scale landscapes operate as a portrait of our own contemplative attempts to grasp that which we are existent within, yet secluded from. Shmith’s photographic mastery elucidates the polyvalent function of plate glass; offering transparency, perspective, protection and reflection. It is the particular function of windows to permit the interior and exterior, the inside and the outside, to be united. Yet, in looking out a window, we also demarcate our own private, sheltered enclaves, our own contemplation.
Depicting expansive composite landscapes, often as they are encountered in states of transit, Shmith’s photo-works take us to places unrecognizable, yet strangely familiar. Digitally layered from an image bank of over 60,000 self-harvested photographs, Shmith choreographs a hybrid of images from his personal archives into each photo-work.
Thematically, Shmith cites Flight to Arras (the Antoine de Saint-Exupery autobiography), describing the poet’s task as being ‘to erect images like ramparts round (a) thing in order to capture it. To capture it in a snare of images.’ The poetic nature of Plate Glass oscillates around a combination of the familiar broad strokes of one’s view of the landscape, the sky, the earth, with the specific and unsettling moment of understanding oneself within it – one’s reflection in the glass. We are taken to a bird’s eye view of a city, the ink black of night skillfully illuminated and captured from an aeroplane window as the craft slowly descends. We are struck by the eerie stillness of a train, the landscape hustling past its passengers and the passengers gliding away, captured within a fluorescent glow.
- Annabel Holt, May 2013
Currently living between Melbourne and New York, Shmith finds himself in bustling locations bursting with diversity and the potential for the expansion of experience. Following the success of the exhibition In Spates (2011), Plate Glass is Shmith’s third solo exhibition at ARC ONE Gallery. Recently, Shmith was awarded the Macquarie Group Emerging Artist Prize in December 2012 with the work, Untitled (In Spates 7), and was a finalist in the Albury Art Prize. In 2011 and 2010 he was shortlisted for the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, as well as the Hutchins Art Prize (2011). In 2010 Shmith was awarded GQ’s Artist of the Year and was a finalist in the National Photography Prize, among many other awards and grants.
Shmith’s works appear in the collections of the Macquarie Group Collection, National Gallery of Victoria, Parliament House Collection, Art Bank, the Albury Art Gallery, the collection of Patrick Corrigan and private collections throughout Australia and the United Kingdom.
For all enquiries, please contact Annabel Holt at mail@arc1gallery.com