Please highlight Upcoming Exhibitions under Exhibitions and Proposals on the AirSpace Projects menu to find out more.
Images top to bottom
Marlene Sarroff, Installation view multiple visions and (mis-steps), 2015. Courtesy of the artist.
Allison M. Low, Dorothy, 2015, graphite and gouache on paper, 90 x 71cm. Courtesy of the artist.
Marikit Santiago, Malakas & Maganda, 2015, acrylic, oil and gold leaf on canvas, 120 x 160cm. Courtesy of the artist.
Anna Kirk, Optical Avatar, 2015. Courtesy of the artist.
AND
Throughout her life Brenda has been a prolific painter. Despite her passion and talent, however, domestic and familial responsibilities have always taken priority over her art practice.
In response to this, Brenda and Miranda came up with a domestic-artistic arrangement that would allow Brenda to focus on her painting and produce a significant body of work for this show. It involves the use of housework as a curatorial strategy whereby Miranda, in her role as curator, fulfils a share of her domestic responsibilities each week so that she can maximise her time spent painting.
Here, cleaning, sweeping and mundane errands are ascribed artistic and economic value in the form of contemporary art; i.e. eight hours of washing, tidying and cooking = one small oil painting
Brenda and Miranda’s partnership has given rise to many fruitful discussions regarding women in the art-world, mother-daughter collaborations, the artistic value of housework and reproductive labour, housework as a curatorial strategy, emerging middle-aged female artists, and the contemporary relevance of the 1970’s International Wages For Housework Campaign.
Brenda will exhibit her most recent body of work – a series of small still-life paintings that depict objects emblematic of contemporary consumerist culture. In her impasto renderings of anti-ageing moisturiser bottles, takeaway coffee cups and cans of home-brand beetroot, she invites viewers to reflect on a number of things; the seduction of packaging, our quest for youthfulness and the geopolitics of food consumption to name a few.
Photographs lack the peripheral experience of viewing a scene first hand; images often don’t match up to how we perceive a landscape first hand. This is especially the case when looking out to sea; An Endless Horizon is a series of images exploring the peripheral view. Using a self-developed photographic process, Matt captures images of the ocean that cover a whole roll of 120 photographic slide film, an attempt to make the largest image possible within the constrains of the medium.
Suzy Faiz’ work addresses the materials, conventions, styles and histories of painting. It attempts to extend the traditions that it emerges from. She creates paintings as they allow for the continuation of notions of freedom; something that is significant in both art and life.
Suzy Faiz’ work deals with recent contemporary attitudes towards abstraction and can be seen to be working within and against this framework by experimenting with different techniques and solutions within the practice of painting.
And
We are thrilled to announce that Ajay Sharma is returning to Sydney from Jaipur for his second solo exhibition, Past Continuous, at AirSpace Projects. He will be exhibiting a unique series of works as well as paintings in the Indian miniature painting tradition.
In the series Past Continuous, Ajay Sharma expresses his love and respect for the wonderful legacy of traditions handed down by his ancestors: ‘It is still very much part of us, part of our culture and of our identity.’ Yet all around him Ajay Sharma is witness to the decay of these traditions and the destruction of the exquisite remnants of the past as India undergoes rapid modernisation and social change. His work provides a profound commentary on the collision of old and new and poses the question as to whether or not anything can be done to save this legacy.
This series takes its title from Freud’s term ‘screen memory’, used to describe a vivid but banal memory that functions to hide another, more traumatic one. The series also plays with other ideas related to screens and memory-images, and how one image can give rise to another through association. Screen Memories uses contemporary and historical photographs in a series in which images from different times and places interact, creating an interplay of narratives within the gallery space.
Top Image: Ajay Sharma, 2015. Image courtesy of the Artist.
Bottom Image: Kendal heyes, 2015. Image Coutesy of the Artist.
The exhibition Iconoclasts takes the etymology of the word ‘Iconoclast’ literally as a ‘breaker of images’. Artists explore this concept individually and collaboratively with the directive to ‘break’ each other’s images, resulting in paintings that are layered, excavated and ‘Frankensteined’ in the style of exquisite corpse.
AirSpace Projects is expanding it’s exhibition space into the indoor driveway and basement next door. The new development also includes a workshop/seminar area as well as an outdoor courtyard where Sarah Newall is currently undertaking a three-month sustainability project. To celebrate this expansion, we are holding a group exhibition called Openings. Artists will be interpreting the term as they see fit.
Image Top: Yvette Coppersmith, Arrangement with Grey and Yellow, 2014. Oil on linen, 61cm x 46cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
Image Below: Nuha Saad, Column II, 2011. Acrylic on wood, 63.5 x 29 x 29 cm. Photo credit: Jenni Carter
Alex Falkiner returns with another one of her amazing workshops!
Sunday 12 October 1.00 to 4.00pm
Join visual artist and maker Alex Falkiner to learn how to stitch off the page. This is follow up workshop from Drawing With Thread but can be also be taken independently. Alex will walk you through a variety of techniques using needle and thread to stitch beyond the page. Playing around the edges you’ll learn techniques like netting, fringing and blanket stitch to create different lace-like effects. 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 or stitched piece that you’d like to create an edging for or expand upon. Also bring any beads or embellishments you’d like to experiment with. Bookings Essential.
For more information and bookings go to Eventbrite. Places are limited!
Glenn Locklee has written a lovely positive review of Anie Nheu and Jan Fieldsend’s exhibition Playbox: sixtoeight
Playbox continues from Thursday 7 August to Saturday 9 August and again from 14 to 16 August, 11.00am to 6.00pm Thursday/Friday and to 5.00pm Saturday.
Anie Nheu, Problem Child, 2014. Acrylic paint on wire mesh. Photo credit: AirSpace Projects.
Jan Fieldsend, Quick Sketch, Swan, 2014. Paoers – carbon, crepe, found japanese woodblock. Photo credit: AirSpace Projects.
And just in case you want to know what it’s all about:
Sydney artists Anie Nheu and Jan Fieldsend work independently then collaboratively to bring together a collection of unlikely objects and materials to stunning effect. While the title Playbox holds childhood associations, this exhibition delves into adult considerations of bodies, emotions, memories and inter-cultural space. Seductive hand painted and drawn surfaces are juxtaposed against industrial and manufactured materials that carry signifiers of culture, place and history. The result is a sophisticated installation crafted with intense deliberation and intelligence.
Informed by the thoughts of the Japanese school of thought Mono-ha (Nheu) and the practice of Ikebana (Fieldsend), extensive time and attention has been paid to the arrangement of things to provide a multi-sensorial experience. Western art history has not been overlooked and references to Minimalism, the Pattern and Decoration Movement and Abstraction abound.
While there is a strong sense of play and collaboration in this installation, playmates Nheu and Fieldsend have left behind a sense of nostalgia, and an emotional residue that is unsettling but fascinating. Works titled Problem Child, Disassembled Monument for a Slow-Motion Dancer and The Tooth Fairy are all shaped and placed in such a way that that it leaves no doubt that this installation is not a consequence of child’s play.
AirSpace Projects 2014-2017 