The Artists Are Present

Sunday 20 March 11-5pm

AirSpace Projects is extending it’s opening hours for the final day of Art Month!

Over the course of Sunday 20 March, between 11-5, the exhibiting artists Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Marie McMahon, Katya Petetskaya and Emily Copp will come and go for informal conversations about their work.

Phaptawan Suwannakudt was born in Thailand and has been living in Australia for twenty years. She is an established artist and began her art career as a temple mural painter. Phaptawan’s contemporary installation and paintings, Reincarnation of the Butterflies, addresses her relocation to Australia from Thailand and the memories emerging from that experience.  Phaptawan’s work is in major collections and was chosen by curators Catherine de Zegher and Gerald McMaster to be represented in the 18th Biennale of Sydney, All Our Relations, 2014.

Marie McMahon, political poster-maker of 1975-90 Tin Sheds fame, has been visiting the Botany Bay National Park one day a week for three years and filling her visuals diaries with colour swatches.  These have been translated into relief models which in turn have been transformed into exquisite landscape paintings of folded colour. As well as being interesting both formally and philosophically, the fold also echoes the architectural facades of 1960s buildings Marie documented while researching in Cambodia.

Katya Petetskaya’s paintings explore the politics of contamination through oil spills. Oil spills shape Australian landscapes economically and politically because Australian companies invest in international companies that are responsible for oil spills both inside and outside of Australia including her birth place, Russia. In addition to painting Katya works as a performance artist, attempting correlationist experiments with alternative forms of knowledge that go beyond thought to understand the co-relation between body and reality.

Emily Copp is passionate about the environment, particularly the impact of unconventional coal seam gas mining on communities and natural resources.  In As Above, So Below Emily translates her concerns into table platters and jewellery through new technologies of 3D printing and hydraulic pressing. Emily has worked closely with the Lock The Gate Alliance during this project and is highly motivated to explore ethical and environmental issues through her work. Emily studied at Enmore College of Design and is a community-minded and contributing tenant – along with her well-trained dog Tiga – at SquarePeg Studios, Marrickville.