Previously showing at Brenda May Gallery

Through my work I continue to explore my interest in the simplicity of the overlooked: people, places, light and colour. I find inspiration in everyday scenes and images that are often lost in the deluge of contemporary visual culture.

My work is defined by an ongoing investigation into the visual and conceptual effects of working on a small-scale, as well as the use of unorthodox painting supports.

I am especially interested in the synthesis between the painting as image and the painting as object and the way in which it leads to interpreting the possibilities of meaning in new and unexpected directions.

Waratah Lahy 2010

In an over stimulated world peace and quiet is a rare commodity. We have been forced to create internal conduits to another restorative world or void where the pressure on our senses is alleviated and we can retreat, relax and process.

Stripping away stimulus, as if within a sensory deprivation chamber, this void is unconfined by any boundaries, leaving us to float freely, tethered only to our simultaneous experience of the everyday world. Tapping into this vastness allows us to operate at our optimum by balancing the drenching of our senses with the comfort of an infinite absence.

Tanmaya Bingham 2010

I strive to carve simple forms from stone; engaging lines with dynamic planes. My inspiration often comes from the natural world; a broken seashell, leaves in all their complexities, cracks and lines of force in pavement.

There is always an unexpected emergence working with stone; the result of a compromise between what I imagine and what the stone demands. Each piece takes on a life of its own, guided by the gesture I hold in my mind. I give each design the opportunity to evolve while I'm working. This provides intrigue, keeping me hungry and eager to explore new forms.

With the process of carving being fundamentally tactile, it gives me immense satisfaction to see viewers connect with, and feel drawn to touch my sculptures.

The sights and colors of South-East Asia are influencing my painting at present due to the fact that I have temporarily relocated to Hong Kong. It is a visually stimulating city and this inspiration seems to be seeping into my new work. Things here are constantly moving, changing and evolving. It is a collision of two worlds, the East and West, the old and the new.

Life here is frenetic and creates an exciting tension. This is beginning to emerge within my work. I want to concentrate on mark making and see in what direction this can further evolve the paintings. This new development has been encouraging.

Mark Standing 2010

Through gestures, posture and facial expression we communicate without words to the world around us.

Body language is universal as it crosses cultures and languages and does not belong to any conventional code of communication. We tend to express ourselves subconsciously, giving insight into unspoken emotions, thoughts, ideas and truths. Tattoos are an example of a distinct type of decorative body language. Traditionally used as decoration for spiritual purposes, the body becomes a marked canvas conveying a vast array of meanings to the viewer without a sound.

Artists featured include Alex Austin, Julie Bartholomew, Tanmaya Bingham, Robert Boynes, Penelope Cain, Graeme Chambers, Will Coles, Doble & Strong (courtesy of Block Projects, Melbourne), Aniseh Fakhri, Todd Fuller, Irianna Kanellopoulou, Melinda Le Guay, Julian Meagher (courtesy of Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney), Helen Mueller, Katy Mutton, Indigo O'Rourke (courtesy of Lindberg Galleries, Melbourne), Patsy Payne, Josh Raymond, Kate Scardifield, Sylvia Schwenk (courtesy Artereal Gallery, Sydney), Marc Standing, Claire Steele, Leyla Stevens, Liz Stops, Peter Tilley.

This work introduces images, objects, creatures and species that hover between multiple identities. They are open for the viewer to question whether the form they are looking at belongs or is intrusive.

These creatures serve as vessels for a form of displacement in their foreign environment. By decorating their domestic environment it makes everything appear normal. This work acts as a metaphor for the binary nature of insiders and outsiders. It deals with displacement through the use of otherness as a mechanism of protection, inclusion, exclusion, isolation and connection. My work attempts to re-conceptualise the viewers association to the hybrid creatures that the works portray. It aims to provoke inquiry about how we receive, perceive and imagine physical otherness.

These objects, creatures and species have an aliveness in their deception delivering an uneasiness about them and their presence. The work aims to collapse the binary of the familiar and unfamiliar and the ordered and disordered.

Janet Parker-Smith 2010

This body of work shifts between still life tableau and compositions based around the figure. It could be seen as a dialogue with the self while reflecting on issues of the times and the nature of society. A physical manifestation of the personal and the universal through the use of an unassuming figure grouped with everyday objects. There is a recurring meditation on life’s opposing forces of hope/despair, real/wishful, life/death and permanence/decay etc. The form and context of these works will to a large extent be intuitively understood, being derived from concepts commonly encountered. However, at the same time the work can be rich in contradiction and complexity, implying an experience of the real world.

Peter Tilley 2010

In another space,
a place far away that is,
a man forged from charcoal and from clay stands silently.
Taking breath, and taking step,
the drawing dares to move.

Todd Fuller 2010

   Desire. Longing. Craving. Lasciviousness. Lust for flesh. Lust for power. Lust for money. Lust for life. Lust for food. Lust for freedom. Lust for art.
   Lust is that powerful emotion hidden deep within your heart. It can propel you in many directions positive or negative. Are you willing to surrender to your cravings? Are you willing to bare your soul and achieve that secret longing?
   Artists throughout the ages have embraced this emotion to produce extraordinary works. This exhibition takes raw passion into a contemporary context, highlighting our diverse lustful inclinations.
   Surrender to your unbridled desires.

This series of drawings explores the transition from childhood to adolescence and the dualism of integrating fantasy and reality. The work draws from the narratives of Seventeenth Century French Contes de Fees (fairy tales) and children’s games that have elements of magical transformation, fantasy, violence and the macabre.

The narrative in the drawings has an uncanny aspect of being familiar yet strange, incorporating the notion of child or adolescent morphing into an animal.

Embellished and stitched tapestry motifs punctuate the paper and the figure, with the combined purpose of being decorative and aggressive, suturing memory and inserting self.

Fiona Fenech, 2010

The linear and geometric forms of Lyndal Hargrave’s wall-mounted sculptures are constructed with found elements, objects of the everyday. The familiarity of the material invites the viewer into the work to consider, investigate and to reinvestigate through repetition.

The structured lines hum with movement as the eye travels along the interwoven contours of the sculpture. A dichotomy is established through the contrast of the rigid form and the soft, emotive qualities of colour. The white of the sculpture’s surface, coupled with the blank palette of the wall, provides a platform for the study of the reflected light and colour.

Lyndal Hargrave, 2011

Crystallography is the field of science which studies the arrangement of atoms within a solid. Prior to the development of x-ray techniques in the early part of the 20th Century, this was primarily based upon the geometrical analysis of the symmetry of geological crystal’s faces and axes.

My work takes as its starting point a number of crystallographic diagrams which function as descriptions of the natural world in terms of mathematical code, but which, like any code or language, can be spoken and written in unintended ways.

Al Munro 2010

My research and work has become increasingly concerned with nurturing, healing and protecting the fragile and vulnerable.

My work currently hinges on the physical and psychological susceptibility of the young female - when issues to do with identity sometimes culminate in self-harm, or body image disorders. A time when self-protection and retreat dominate thinking and negotiation in the world.

Still immersed in materiality, my work is not generated by conscious thought but is experiential and process driven. In my own vulnerability, I also need to withdraw into an internalised space to find stillness and order to keep hold of the thread.

Melinda Le Guay 2010

This year we return with the third in the Art + Humour series following the inaugural show in 2005 and Art + Humour Too of 2007. The exhibition contains a range of artworks from sculptures and paintings to an installation of a cardigan-wearing tree.

Humour will elicit a response from all ages and cultures although the actions to induce it will vary from person to person. Historically, comedy has had an important place within the arts dating back to the dramatic form of Ancient Greece, but currently receives very little critical attention in the contemporary visual arts.

With your amusement in mind, please join Joanna Braithwaite (courtesy of Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney), Julia Burns, Maureen Clack, Will Coles, Louisa Dawson, Mimi Dennett, Todd Fuller, Ghostpatrol, Irianna Kanellopoulou, Megan Keating (courtesy of Criterion Gallery, Hobart), Noel McKenna (courtesy of Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney), Simon McLean, Philippe Moreau, Helen Mueller, Mylyn Nguyen, Janet Parker-Smith, Jimmy Rix, Sue Stewart, Janet Tavener and Emily Valentine for a serious laugh or at the very least a bit of a giggle...

... early memories from the movie, the gladstone bag under a glass dome, a book in the pram, the baby in the bag, my first contact with surrealism? flowers at the cemetery under glass domes, my first garden, mud, the treadle sewing machine, the sweet smell of daphne, holding on to memories, old clothes, dress ups, love of music, old records, dancing, making and losing things. leaving, the misfit, humor, drawing, photography, living in studio spaces, ‘je ne regrette rien', the collection of objects for the security they provide, (too many episodes of Steptoe and Son?) sculpture, the clutter of existence, my chickens, using tools, growing things
- and living a life in earnest.

Carol Murphy 2010

My experience within the Australian punk subculture is explored through my recent sculpture. I am creating sculptures that relate to recordings made by my band, The Bigots, in the late 90s and early 2000s. These songs are fast, loud, raw and unpolished. For a long time they have inspired my sculptural aesthetic.

In 1999 I also documented my interest in rat-motorbikes with a collaborative one-off zine titled Rat Bike. This was produced with Tim Bigot (the other member of The Bigots). Reflecting upon imagery from the Rat Bike zine, I am recreating this punk attitude and aesthetic in my sculpture.

Along with sculptural works, I will be presenting CDs with select Bigots songs and will reprint the Rat Bike zine. As a performance piece related to my sculptural work, The Bigots will perform live at 6pm on the 19th of March.

Joel Bliss 2011

I judge visual art first on abstract standards: mass, lights and darks, rhythms, tonality, technique, the use of detail to form a whole that is aesthetically and emotionally compelling. Shadows and reflections are so complicated that their real appearance may be abandoned and replaced by ones that enhance a composition.
The internal dark spaces of the industrial buildings on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour and agriculture structures illuminated by strong sunlight are the sources for this body of work.

Sybil Curtis 2011

I see my newest bronze sculptures as a series of abstract still life studies. They are strong and grounded monolithic shapes, using perspective and precisely angled planes. I have worked to take away and add segments, creating channels, tunnels and facets that have a quiet and still presence to them. These channels and facets act to draw the viewer into the work and often opposing sides will have quite a different sense of balance and perspective.

I then observe these objects and recreate them in wire, sometimes altering them or inverting some of the shapes during the process. This work challenges the viewer to see the solidity of the shape through its emptiness. If it is viewed from one angle the lines can appear to flatten causing the shape to collapse. However if you engage with the piece and walk around it, viewing it in motion, the surfaces of the planes begin to emerge. Differing from solid objects, which can only be seen one way, these illusory shapes can be seen in different ways in terms of their positive and negative spaces.

Morgan Shimeld 2011

Sculpture 2011 continues the tradition of opening the Gallery year with an exhibition devoted to the best and most interesting contemporary sculpture. This year features work from emerging to senior artists selected from around Australia.

This regular event was established by Brenda May at Access Contemporary Art Gallery in Redfern in 1998 and continues to be an important platform for the promotion and exhibition of sculpture.