Artists’ Talks
Saturday 17 September 3-5pm
10 Junction Street Marrickville
Just 6 minutes walk along Schwebel Street
from Marrickville station
Pollyxenia Joannou, Anthony Cahill, Kendal Heyes, Francesca Mataraga and Mog&Mog will discuss the ideas underpinning their outstanding exhibitions from 3pm. At 4pm tea and home-baked cakes will be served over casual conversation. Everyone is welcome to show-off their prowess in the kitchen and contribute to what’s on the TableSpace 😜; but don’t fear, we need eaters too. This is another fun, stimulating and community building event presented by AirSpace Projects!
Gallery One
Joannou/Cahill
Red Herring
Pollyxenia Joannou and Anthony Cahill have been friends and colleagues for the past three and a half decades and despite being in close contact/discourse over this time, they have never brought their practices together in a collaborative fashion.
So, during regular discussions about their work and where each artist saw their work to be heading, it was decided that they should work on a collaboration called Red Herring.
The aim of this collaboration was to explore what they surmised to be the similarities of each other’s work when exhibited side by side having been sight unseen by the other. It was decided that a theme could be used to give connection, a starting point for the exhibition. This connection was to be based on the subject of shadow as both artists felt an affinity to this as a concept and hence, Red Herring was born.
Joannou and Cahill settled on a format, proceeded to their studios and over the past 12 months, have produced this body of work.
Gallery Two
Kendal Heyes
Polynesia
Kendal Heyes’ paintings connect to visual experiences associated with Polynesia, in particular, the paintings on velvet of Polynesian women by Edgar Leeteg, popular in the 1930s and 40s, and tapa cloth works, especially the freehand works from Samoa and Niue.
These paintings take from both Leeteg and the Polynesian artists an emphasis on optical effects as an aspect of painting. And like the tapa cloth works they take the form Rosalind Krauss identifies as centripetal grids: ‘Concentrating on the surface of the work as something complete and internally organized,’ each work consists of a series of departures and variations of the grid that frames it.
The Cranny
Francesca Mataraga
stripes and banners
‘stripes and banners’ presents documentation and artefacts from a series of painting and sculpture projects from 2012 onward.
These works differ in scale, scope and delivery quite broadly but are all based on a set of stripe motifs sourced from a series of fabric patterns. Each work was created for or adapted to a specific site or location and explores different ways of using the stripe motif. Some works are large-scale site-specific paintings or murals, other works are sculptural using domestic architecture – specifically the fence as a visual and physical mode of delivery. Further works have evolved into large-scale banners, literally becoming spatial paintings. All the works function as expanded or spatial paintings, situating the stripe motif in the landscape or in relation to existing architecture where the work in-situ is just as important as it’s photographic image.
Deep Space
Mog&Mog
Future self
Mog&Mog are multi-disciplinary artists Alexandra Edmondson and Kate Fennell. As a creative partnership encompassing art, design, writing and film-making, they are interested in exploring perceptions of self and marginality of identity. Their new show, Future self, is an immersive installation exploring the formation of identity through storytelling.
4 images from top to bottom: 1. LHS: Anthony Cahill, Cave & Moon #4, 2016, oil on linen, 90 x 90cm. Photo credit: Anthony Cahill. RHS: Pollyxenia Joannou, Shadow Whisper, 2016, oil, pigment on wood, 90 x 90cm. Photo credit: John McRae. 2. Kendal Heyes, Untitled #10, from Polynesia series, 2016, oil and crushed marble on velvet , 120 x 91.4cm. Photo: Kendal Heyes. 3. Francesca Mataraga, ‘photographic documentation of banner for Sculpture by the Sea 2014 (Tamarama)’. Image courtesy the artist. 4: Mog&Mog, Future self, 2016, digital image.
AirSpace Projects 2014-2017 