Francesca Mataraga will discuss her installation Spaces For Leisure over a cup of tea at 2.00pm Saturday 14 June. This installation examines the table as a communal space and is paired with a series of wall drawings that are responsive to the adjoining jewellery workshop, SquarePeg Studios. Attention visionary architects: this work would look brilliant in any corporate or apartment foyer or boardroom!
Francesca Mataraga’s ‘Spaces for Leisure (an installation for AirSpace Projects)’ is opening on Thursday 5 June between 6.00 and 8.00pm. The exhibition will run from Friday 6 June until Saturday 21 June. Francesca Mataraga is a site responsive artist who has created some phenomenal installations including ‘a to b (wall work for Articulate Upstairs)’, Vitrine (Kandos Projects) and Elisabet at Queen Street Studios/Frasers. We are thrilled to be hosting ‘Spaces for Leisure (an installation for AirSpace)’ and look forward to seeing how this wonderful artist transforms our space.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
AirSpace Projects and SquarePeg Studios are proud to announce that Ajay Sharma is coming to Marrickville in July to exhibit his work and to run two five-day Miniature Painting workshops. Only a limited number of students will be accepted into the workshop. For more information and enrolment go to SquarePeg Studios.
Sharma is a freelance artist and Master Mughal Miniature Painter of the Rajasthan School who has been supervising a studio of employees and students in Jaipur, India, since 1984. From 1979 until 1984 he was apprenticed under the direct tutelage of Master Painter Mahendra Sharma in Jaipur, India.
Sharma has built an international reputation based upon the many artists and students who have passed through his school and as a result of his teaching and exhibition history both in India and abroad. In 2010 he exhibited his collaborative works with artist Julie Evans in ‘Cowdust’ at the Julie Saul Gallery, New York. The exhibition received significant reviews in Art in America (Anna MeCugni, January 2011), Art Forum (Ida Panicelli, February 2011) and Vogue Italia (Emanuel, Lugli, November 2011). He has taught miniature painting at the Jaipur Virasat Foundation; the Virginia Commonwealth University in Doha; the University of Baroda; the Sanskriti Kendra in New Delhi; the Ahmadabad Fine Arts College and the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in London.
Ajay Sharma is an expert in the field of Mughal miniature painting, conservation and copy work. He has formidable knowledge in the research, preparation and practice in pigments, composition and drawing, brushes and gold leaf. He specialises in all types of miniature and mural painting including Tantra painting, Rajput Painting, Kota School and Jaipur School, Rajput and his practice spans new creations, collaborations, traditional style, portrait painting and commission work. His major preservation and conservation projects include the Heritage Hotel Samode Palace and the Multan Estate in Jaipur, India.
The incredible contemporary textile artist Alex Falkiner is back! Alex is running another of her successful Drawing with Thread Workshops at AirSpace Projects/SquarePeg Studios on Sunday 18 May from 2.00-4.00pm.
For bookings follow this link to Eventbrite
What happens when you approach stitching as a kind of mark marking?
Join visual artist and maker Alex Falkiner to learn a range of mark making techniques using needle and thread. Working with fabric with stitch you’ll have time to experiment, combine, and layer the techniques to create interesting effects. All materials, tea and bickies provided. However you are most welcome to bring along an interesting base cloth (woven only, not stretch fabric) to work into. Bookings Essential.
Suitable for stitchers and non-stitchers, drawers and non-drawers.
What people have been saying about the class:
“I loved the organic nature of this approach. Quite different to how I usually work and an approach I will definitely try out on my next project.”
“I learnt that embroidering doesn’t have to be perfect and that sometimes something that doesn’t have too much structure is what makes it beautiful. I personally resonated with this because lately in my own work I have been trying to achieve a more free approach in what I’m doing and not being scared to make a mistake!”
A bit about Alex Falkiner (aka Alfalky):
My workshops encourage playful, flexible and innovative approaches to hand-making. I like to keep groups small and intimate to allow for individual attention. Alex is excited about textile techniques because they are so portable, accessible, useful, beautiful and adaptable. Please join me in transforming ‘at hand’ materials into unexpected delights!
Experience? I’ve taught workshops for Kinfolk Magazine, Koskela, Object Gallery, Etsy, Bundanon Trust, Headspace, Gaffa Gallery, Q Station Manly, Woollahra Village Weekend, Work-shop, Gallery Lane Cove, Jurassic Lounge & the Sydney Children’s Hospital.
JD Reforma
Love
Artist Talk
2.00pm Friday 9 May
AirSpace Projects 10 Junction Street Marrickville
JD Reforma will discuss the intentions and ideas behind his latest and most wonderful installation ‘Love’
Cancel all engagements on Friday May 2 between 6-8pm. JD Reforma is coming to AirSpace Projects.
JD Reforma, Luvo, 2014
Digital stock image appropriated for promotional use. Image copyright Brian Mueller. Used under license from Shutterstock.com
‘Love’ is an installation in two parts. In the video, a figure swings at a cycle of tennis balls served by an unseen opponent. As the sole player, his motivation wavers until his focus gives way to exhaustion or indifference. It is a game played with no cumulative goal or order and, as it progresses, he loses heart. In the accompanying text – a list – names have been catalogued according to the rhythm of the match.
In exploring the tension between narrative and gesture, ‘Love’ attempts to conflate the rhythm of written language with that of the moving image.
The Landscape Too artists and writers dissect Picnic at Hanging Rock over a glass of wine and pizza on closing night. Hayley Megan French and Carla Liesch have done a brilliant job in bringing this exhibition together. Big thanks to them, the artists and writers who have contributed their talents to this project and to MOP for facilitating this exhibition.
Landscape Too: Pizza at Hanging Rock
It was another great night at AirSpace Projects for the opening of Landscape Too. And to echo ek.1’s video work ‘Make it real (one more time)’ storm clouds and lightening provided a dramatic backdrop but fortunately spared us from the deluge that struck parts of the south coast and tablelands. In the manner of a gothic harbinger fruit bats streamed across the sky to seek refuge in the city, forewarning only those who are inclined to superstition.
The work looks great, a mixture of traditional and new media responses to the enduring concern of landscape. In recent years, new questions have been raised in relation to landscape, framing it not as a shared or agreed upon reality but rather as a subjective experience where its representation reflects the attributes of the culture it emerges from. Some of the questions have been addressed in the work and the accompanying booklet, encouraging viewers and readers to reflect upon their own experience of landscape and to consider how it is socially and culturally manipulated.
Viewing art on the internet doesn’t compare to viewing art in the flesh. Not only is there the variation of scale to consider, some of the works function as sounds and moving images while the more traditional media offer seductive surfaces not easily appreciated when mediated by the virtual world. Here are a few details of work to entice you over to Marrickville. And come enjoy the ambience of AirSpace Projects.
Ron McBurnie, Catherine Parker and Stephen Spurrier. Unraveling a Constellation (detail), 2014. Etching, screenprint and acrylic paint on paper, 20 x 20cm each.
ek.1 (Katie Louise Williams and Emma Hicks). Make it real (one more time) (detail), 2014. Digital print on fabric banner, digital video looped on LCD screen on four panels. 69 x 240cm.
Hayley Megan French. Some Distance (detail), 2014. Acrylic on canvas, 120 x 160cm.
Mark Shorter, Two Sketches for Antipodysseus (detail), 2014. Two channel HD video installation, 9:34. Camera Jürgen Kerkovius.
Landscape Too, curated by Hayley Megan French and Carla Liesch, is on until Saturday 19 April, 5.00pm.
Artists and writers respond to the idea of landscape.
AirSpace Projects 2014-2017 