Unhurried By Nature / Opening night: 12 Aug: 6pm - 9pm.
Features works by
Presented by
Broadsheet & The Glen
Opening night: 12 Aug: 6pm - 9pm.
Open to public: 13 Aug & 14 Aug: 3pm - 9pm
Tom Ferson / In Love and Isolation
NEW TERRITORIES
Brutal and beautiful. Art inspired by Tasmania’s wild west coast.
In an upcoming exhibition ‘New Territories’, independent Melbourne artist Steve Leadbeater shares a body of work developed in remote Queenstown, Tasmania.
Leadbeater took part in the Q Bank Artist Residency program, living and working within an historic bank building in the town’s centre.
He says, ‘No one, especially me, expected the location to affect my work so dramatically. I was there for three weeks and from day one I was overwhelmed with natural inspiration from the Tasmanian wilderness. It’s impossible to ignore. For the first time in decades I started working on pieces with nature as the subject and even my human subjects became more organic in appearance. The exhibition name ‘New Territories’ seemed to sum up the exploration I’ve done in the work and in the place.’
When asked about Queenstown Leadbeater adds, ‘It’s an historic mining town that was in decline on the state’s rugged west coast, but now real estate is cheap and in demand again. The people have an optimistic sense of town pride, perhaps from living in a lush green valley, surrounded by majestic peaks. The art community is strong, ambitious and very supportive.’
His residency work is unlike what we’ve come to expect from the 47 year old. Although the brutal mark marking and emotionally complex imagery remain.
But not everything in the show is from the residency. There’s also a large and varied body of created over the last two years which haven’t been seen by the public. Here Leadbeater explores his personal experience of Melbourne’s COVID lockdowns with work on found objects, providing a fresh, tactile approach to what could otherwise be an unsurprising theme.
The New Territories show lives up to its name in many ways you won’t want to miss.
UNMISSABLE OPENING NIGHT
Friday 18 FEBRUARY 6 – 11pm
MARFA Gallery
Level 1 / 288 Johnston Street, Abbotsford
Additional drawings and prints available plus complimentary refreshments from Bodriggy Brewing.
@Leadbeater
#NewTerritoriesArt
FB: LeadbeaterArt
‘THE HAPPINESS GARDEN’
Opening night Friday July 16
From 6pm.
Proudly supported by @bodriggybrewingco
Email us for a catalogue.
UPCOMING SHOWS
Formative
An exploration of objective and personal experiences based around the developmental periods in life. A memory of an event or occurrence which had left an impression. Negative vs. positive aspects, nature vs nurture, good and evil.
Isaac Lizardo is a visual artist living and working in Narrm.
In a collision of mediums, he reuses/reworks/adapts dissimilar but common ideas.
With heavy typographic elements and symbolism, his work explores human experience with excessively sentimental imagery.
The artist’s self-reflection, in this work, primary understanding that we are not directly in control of the experiences that shape us as people.
UPCOMING SHOWS
K A R M A P O L I C E
Melbourne, Australia: MARFA Gallery in Abbotsford presents a digital art installation of KARMA POLICE by Melbourne based multi-disciplinary artist Nathan Jokovich. 12 unframed silk panels will be suspended from the ceiling with the eerie accompa-nying sound of data being broken.
This is an exhibition about a song by Radiohead; an unsettling painting; power; data; the Internet as a progenitor of images and conscience; and the threads that weave these narratives together.
Each of the silk panels have been produced by corrupting the text code of an image of the painting Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, 1770 (1902) by E. Phillips FOX, resulting in ambient abstract works that seek to explore our complex relation-ship with technology and national identity.
Artist’s Statement:
This is an exhibition about a song by Radiohead; an unsettling painting; power; data; the Internet as a progenitor of images and conscience; and the threads that weave these narratives together.
Karma Police was released on Radiohead’s iconic album OK Computer in 1997. In 2015, it was revealed that the United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters Covert Operation to surveil the Internet activity of citizens was nicknamed KARMA POLICE. Championing the lyric: “This is what you’ll get if you mess with us,” the intent was to establish a web browsing profile for every user on the Internet by harvesting Internet IP addresses. Billions of digital records of citizens’ online activities were being vacuumed, stored and catalogued in a facility in Cheltenham, England, including visits to social media, news, chat forums, blogs and porn sites.
If we think about the expanse of the British empire, the colonialist ideology and problematic historical and narrative vantage that images such as Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, 1770 (1902) by E. Phillips FOX promotes, this visually represents the trajectory today that nation states and global trillion dollar companies are forging towards with respect to cyber sovereignty shaping political and social economies. The commodification of data becomes a new form of colonial conquest of a seemingly boundless frontier. My intent is not to undermine the framings of such problematic historical figures and works with respect to minority cultures and indigenous histories, but to reframe the work in the vista of looking towards the future in the digital age. In a revisionism of history , through data breaking an appropriated image of Fox’s painting ripped from a Google search on the Internet , the space in between the central figurehead is exposed, which would otherwise be absent visually and otherwise unspoken.
These abstract, floating image files represent cropped, isolated, structural fragments of a much larger conversation, backed by the sonic manifestation of the image data itself; thus positioning the viewer to navigate a contemporary landscape painting. To hear the sound of the data is to hear the image. Will you still be able to hear the image if the sound file disappears? Will you see the image if you close your eyes and only listen to the sound file? Can you feel the sensual touch of satin without lifting a finger?
Just as global telecommunications have condensed time and space, computation conflates past with future. That which is possible, is that which is computable. Google has become what people think, in an effort to map every interaction, thought and piece of knowledge. Algorithmic prediction and automated data sets project a tailor-made future that is based on the biased past, which bridges the present, which is in a constant state of flux. This produces an endless feedback loop, establishing networks that demand more and more information, generating more and more data.
In Jonathon Glazer’s music video for Karma Police, a middle-aged male in business attire is sinisterly tracked at night along an isolated road by a vintage Chrysler, before fortunes are flipped in a blaze of fire. The viewer is positioned in the driver’s seat of the vehicle, directly complicit in the unfolding terror.
Perhaps you are Thom Yorke, propped up on the velvet clad rear seat of the Cadillac. Perhaps you like to think you are the driver, seemingly in control. But like the lone figure being chased in the headlights, as you navigate the exhibition, consider that with every click, search, conversation, download and email, we are all potentially being hunted.
Phew, for a minute there, I lost myself.
- Nathan Jokovich.
References
James Bridle. New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future, Verso Publishing, 2019.
Rex Butler (ed). Radical Revisionism: An Anthology of Writings on Australian Art, Institute of Modern Art, 2005.
Ryan Gallagher, From Radiohead to Porn, British Spies Track Web Users’ Online Identities; www.theintercept.com.
This is What You Get: An Oral History of Radiohead’s Karma Police Video. www.pitchfork.com
Exhibition Details
Artist: Nathan Jokovich
Exhibition Title: KARMA POLICE
Opening Night: Friday 7th May, from 6:30PM to 10:00 PM
Exhibition Dates & Times: Saturday 8th May to Monday 10th May, 10AM to 5PM
Location: MARFA Gallery, Level 1, 288 Johnston Street, Abbotsford
PLEASURE PLAYGROUND
Probing the earthly hedonic foundations of la dolce vita (the sweet life), “Pleasure Playground” swings between elements of concrete and abstract avenues of gratification.
Exhibiting the juxtaposition between natural and unnatural through figure, form and framework- Pleasure Playground slides across several bodies (and bodies of work) produced on canvas and board using multiple mediums by Nathan Markham and Paul Spirli.
Confined to their creative studios during the last year, Nathan and Paul have curated several nostalgic considerations comprised of cars and commentary to canines and celestial beings-in an ode to the days when we could freely explore the pleasures of our world without the constraints of a curfew.
Meet us by the monkey bars.
N&P.
wordsbyotto
Paul Spirli
An educated, multifaceted creative whose artistic expression extends from the darkroom to the showroom. Always on the qui vive (alert or lookout) for an opportunity to capture and later compose, Paul- armed with a camera and a gifted eye for detail, produces aesthetically alluring photographs that once developed, are rendered onto canvas and board using an array of artistic mediums.
A Melbourne local, Paul was captivated early in his studies of Picasso and Dali and developed a passion for the arts, later attaining entry into the prestigious Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) in 2011. It was here he flourished, becoming proficient in painting and photography while continually drawing inspiration from the artistic initiatives that surrounded him. In 2013 Paul packed up the easel and picked up the camera, leaving the VCA to explore and indulge in what the world had to offer him.
With the skills he acquired in his tertiary education, Paul churned out several paste ups in his travels throughout North America and South-East Asia, later being commissioned by Revolver Upstairs and Chin Chin to produce some in Melbourne. Additionally over the years, he journeyed through parts of the Middle East, India and Europe too- developing his unique aesthetic in photography along the way.
Returning home with a cultured perspective and newfound worldliness, Paul readjusted his lens to the streets where he once resided. He began flirting with the brush and pen at home before securing a studio in 2020, committing once again to his original love affair- painting. Returning to the dark room and developing his photographs taken in Melbourne and abroad, Paul began reimagining and recreating his images using acrylic, aerosol, charcoal and pastels onto canvas and paper. Utilising techniques harnessed during his time at the VCA and incorporating techniques he’s adapted to along the way, Paul produces observational artwork involving elements both abstract and concrete.
If his academic experience and photographic evolution give us any indication as to his projection as a fine artist, it’s that Paul, like a fine Italian wine, will only get better with age. Furthermore with so much of the world left for him to see, in regards to his artistic potential, we can’t say “we’ve seen it all”- until he has.
Watch where he goes next @paulspirli
Nathan Markham
A self-taught, multi-medium Melbourne-based British fine artist whose work conforms to no one particular style, his modus operandi constantly developing and redefining itself.
From ambitious beginnings in the small market town of Driffield, Yorkshire- Nathan, unfazed by the lack of an artistic community, found solace in drawing, photography and digital production. Dabbling in Dali-inspired digital surrealism to psychedelic symmetry- his creativity began to manifest until a figurative fine artist surfaced. Self-taught and driven by the persistent need to produce, Nathan began working with acrylic and aerosol on canvas to create narratives inspired by sociological observations, nostalgic influences and the ambience of cultural phenomenon that surround him.
Addicted to the sense of accomplishment and elation experienced in finishing a piece, Nathan seeks to regularly absorb and adapt to new techniques with the intention to incorporate them in his present and future works- therefore forever evolving his style and direction. His pieces take form as they’re produced, guided by internal cues as opposed to kinetic ones-with no dictation nor boundaries, they reflect the liberation and individualism he possesses in his creative sovereignty.
Motivated by the process in some cases more than the final piece itself, Nathan draws inspiration from the likes of Francis Bacon and David Hockney as-well as the aforementioned Salvador Dali, amalgamating the three styles into something reminiscent of the originals.
With total freedom of expression and the relentless approach in developing new methods and exhausting them, we are only yet to see Nathan’s final form (if ever).
Follow him along his artistic journey Nathanmarkham
@wordsbyotto
Smart?Phone
By Simon Swingler
A while back I saw a young man glued to his screen wander off the pavement and into oncoming traffic. If not for the attentiveness and immediate evasive action of an approaching car driver the youngster may have ended up in pieces. Smart?Phone investigates the impact these useful yet insidiously devices have on our awareness, and particularly the disconnection and dissociation they cause.
Simon began painting and exhibiting in 2017. His art tackles the confounding strangeness of human nature.
Opening Night:
Friday March 19, 2021
6:30pm - 10pm
MARFA Gallery
Level 1/288 Johnston St, Abbotsford, Victoria
Exhibition Dates:
March 19 - 23, 2021
NEGATIVE CAPABILITY
An immersive journey into a fictional landscape, curated by Veils of Cirrus.
‘Negative Capability’ explores a parallel plane of senses, grappling with tensions between transience and mortality, permanence and change, romantic ideals and reality. This group installation, showcasing the work of twelve cross-disciplinary local creatives, will be presented at Marfa Gallery from the 23rd - 25th of April 2021. Each participating artist has responded to the same prompt: Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats and his concept of 'Negative Capability'. Using their chosen medium, they will present their interpretation of this theme within five sensory spaces exploring textile, scent, sound, light, visual art, object, moving image and spatial architecture. Visitors will be encouraged to journey through each landscape and physically interact with their surroundings.
Allow this world to permeate your being, bleed into your psyche and transcend you into an altered perception of reality.
Featuring works from the talented:
Beatrice Wharldall – visual artist
Brigita Lastauskaite – multimedia artist
Emme Orbach – sculptural installation artist
Loki Patera; Harry Pickering and Hugo Vos – jewellery designers
Lou Wheeler – sound artist
Tazmyn Slicer and Taro Gadza – filmmaker/visual artist and photographer/designer
Veils of Cirrus; Caitlin Mullaly and Amy Forbes – adornments and objects
Victoria Punturere and Lucy Prudence – spatial architect and multidisciplinary designer
Tickets $15 - $20 (refreshments provided)
OPENING NIGHT: Friday 23rd of April 5pm - 10pm
CLOSES: Sunday 25th of April
Kindly Sponsored by Bodriggy Brewing Company, Konpira Maru and The Good Brew Company.
PAST EXHIBITIONS
The Currents Beneath Our Skin
The world appears to us neatly divided by innumerable surfaces. Our minds & fingers unwittingly trace these boundaries, birthing the concrete distinctions between self & other, human & nature, flesh & air. But what lies beneath these surfaces, beneath the skin of the familiar?
In ‘The Currents Beneath Our Skin’, artworks by Vadim Ragozin and Madeleine Rzesniowiecki invite us to contemplate these ‘concrete’ existential boundaries. Just as peeling away the dermal surface reveals an ever-flowing process of biological motion, visitors are asked to question what other hidden currents underlie the many surfaces which separate us.
To extend on the artworks…
‘The Currents Beneath Our Skin’ will be offering life drawing sessions, collective art making, philosophical dialogues, workshops, and tea. Each will offer an embodied chance to contemplate these boundaries, meet new people and explore these themes as a collective.
PAST EXHIBITIONS
Download Catalogue Here
Thursday 19 March to 28 March, 2020
By Appointment only.
Due to the evolving situation, we have made the decision with @nic_ives and @blackartprojects to adjust the opening hours of Nicholas Ives’ exhibition Sunset Roads. The health and safety of visitors is a priority and as such we will not be having an opening night as planned however we will extend our opening times to the public by appointment only for the duration of the exhibition as we continue to monitor information and advice relating to the COVID-19 outbreak. Installation photographs will be available via DM and a catalogue link for viewing on our website in the coming days. We will also endeavour to bring you continued detailed imagery via our social channels.
In these circumstances it is important that we continue to support each other - family, friends, the broader community and small, local businesses.
Thanks for your support and understanding. Another big thanks to @bodriggybrewingco for your continued support and for keeping the beers coming.
A moment, a minute, a pause. Slowing down the passing of time. Stop and reflect in the present moment, admire the small things, the delicate details. Celebrate the beautiful things, everything is beautiful. Listen.
A journey, no destination, a reflection. A seedbed of self discovery. Plant the seed, care for it, water it, nurture it, watch it grow.
A celebration of the now.
MARFA GALLERY Presents, "Seedbed of Self discovery" a group exhibition curated by Kate Florence featuring works from the amazing:
Charlotte Aldis,
Emma Currie,
Casey Burrill,
Sun Haas,
Kate Florence
Rebeca Kate.
OPENING NIGHT : Friday 6th December 6-10pm
WHERE : MARFA GALLERY 288 Johnston Street, Abbotsford 3076
VISITING HOURS : 10-5pm Monday - Thursday
CLOSES : Thursday 12th December
SPONSORED by BODRIGGY brewing co.
Stick Works – An introduction
In 2017 I moved from London to Melbourne to pursue a new life.
The effect of moving to the other side of the world from my home was pronounced and almost immediate. I experienced a sense of total disconnection to that of my surroundings. Standing in Melbourne, I felt I could actually feel time and distance. The sheer sense of physical distance from where I had been born and spent all my adult life was palpable, I felt adrift.
These feelings of displacement were subliminally informed by memories of history; a history that saw thousands of British convicts sent to Australia, during the 18th century and beyond. Aside from populating this far-away colony, the sentences for these poor souls was also intended to be a form of mental punishment. Australia was physically the furthest place that a person could be sent away to. Many of those convicts knew that this was to be a journey with no return, removed from their lives and transported to a strange and foreign land. Before prisoners boarded the ships that were destined to take them to the other side of the world many of them made ‘leaded hearts’. These objects were coins that were smoothed and then had messages carved into their surfaces, in order to be left for their loved ones. It only takes reading a small selection of these ‘love tokens’ to understand the profound need for humans to leave physical communication for their nearest & dearest to remember them by when distance forces them apart. As a child, my Dad showed me one such ‘Love Token’ that he had in his possession. The message simply read “Dear Father & Brother, Adue for life”, this heart-achingly simple message was this man’s final communication with his family and haunts my memories to this day.
And thus, my stick creations were, and continue to be, my reaction to my sense of physical and emotional displacement. Words somehow were too specific. I was trying to both capture and make sense of my emotions, and the collecting of and marking of sticks was my solution.
The choice of using sticks was quite deliberate. Sticks have traditionally been used as tools of communication for thousands of years. From the Scytales used by the Spartans in the 3rd century to the story sticks used in Aboriginal culture over tens of thousands of years. With my stick pieces, I’m trying to connect and make sense of my own internal disorder. Sticks by their very nature are irregular and natural in form. However, with the application of lines & colour and then careful placement, I’m trying to achieve a sense of control and order. Despite the deliberately precise nature of the lines and colour choices that I make, my work is created by drawing on my subconscious. Joy and despair can co-exist in the same pieces, optimism and melancholy can sit side by side, simplicity and chaos are brought together. The first series of sticks was named; “A Beautiful turmoil”, which I felt summed up the human condition to a certain extent.
In the end, these sticks are physical embodiments of my feelings and my unanswered conversations with the world around me. I’m trying to reach people and to cross barriers that to a certain extent may only exist in my own mind. The themes of the sea and navigation are very deliberate, the sea representing to me the greatest physical barrier of them all.
Ultimately, we are all just flotsam drifting on infinite oceans, my art serves me as a temporary and much-needed anchor point. If it resonates with other people that is simply a bonus.
FOLLOWED BY
‘forbidden’ is an interactive multi-screen installation, exploring the complexity of our connection to our bodies. This work comprises of video projections, site specific lighting design, site specific sound and production design, dance and the release of experimental film, ‘forbidden,’ which will be played in accompaniment of a live music score by Tres Passings. The installation depicts the restrictions women experience around sexual expression. ‘forbidden’ is an ode to sexual expression and self-exploration.
Burton Projects with Marfa Gallery
presents Allister Paterson’s solo exhibition 2019
Another State of Lapse
Opening night, Friday Novemeber 8 5pm
My nature is constant change, undefined, layers of recognisable and unrecognisable.
‘The nature of my lapse is to shift into brief or temporary disconnection of concentration and or judgement, to exist in the motion of action painting, a gestural visual language and draw on generic memory to be represented at an interval or passage of time.’
Allister Paterson’s works will provide a visual exploration, marrying the nature of ones self within the nature of landscapes captured.
Allister moves instinctively with a frequency at which layers captured are more spread out, swift and appear moving when compared to the frequency and sequence typically used to capture a more refined explanation of what is being seen in the Australian landscape.
Allister gives further insight to this method of creativity with a reference to his child like enjoyment of watching a landscape pass by at speed, and the ability to recognise this in image blur whilst being able to combine or transition out, to recognisable forms.
‘When viewed I want to see my landscapes as they appear whilst incorporating change, movement and thus lapsing state’.
‘I’m happiest taking this depiction beyond a moving vehicle and have works exist in a lapse at a single reference point, and working with bridging the lapse of season, light and the movement of a landscape’.
Allister Paterson provides a unique insight into ones connection with the nature of landscape painting. Without doubt on the way to being recognised as an important addition to Australia’s notable landscape painters.
Burton Projects Darlinghurst NSW
32 Burton street, Darlinghurst Sydney
Friday November 8 5pm till 9pm
Sunday 12 - 4pm and Monday 12-4pm
PAST SHOWS
ARCANA
Opening Night: Fri 4 Oct, 6-9pm
Performance Night Event: Sat 5 Oct, 6-8pm
Exhibition runs: 3 - 8 Oct 2019
Lucy Awol, Rachael Edwards and Katherine Gailer Art weave together a visual narrative in which the power of the Feminine expands, nurtures, and liberates the intuitive self.
This exhibition brings together works created during their residency at Q Bank in Queenstown, Tasmania. It provides a visual record of their time spent in quiet reflection and inward contemplation, during the slowest and most dormant months of the year.
The word Arcana meaning secrets comes from the Latin, Arcanus which refers to mysterious or specialised knowledge, language, or information accessible or possessed only by few or chosen people.
Collectively the artists create a portal into the unknown, inviting us on an enchanted journey, where we encounter themes of nature, healing, magic, and metaphysics.
In conversation with 'Magical Realism', the artists base their concepts on contemporary reality, translating them into visual signifiers that tell stories. Each artist brings a unique and enriching perspective, formed by different ways of knowing, a discovery of three intimate landscapes.
This body of work conveys that which cannot be described in words, reclaiming the connection between our spirit and the cycles of nature. A remembering of unauthorised knowledge, rooting us in something larger than ourselves.
Details for Arcana Performance Art Event:
Arcana Exhibition presents a special Performance Art Event featuring three power acts: Mule Ethnodanceology Art, Fleassy Malay, and Sammaneh Poursh.
This carefully curated experience aims to expose the fierceness of three empowered individuals who are constantly affecting social change through their art practice. Together they take us on a ritualistic journey sharing unauthorised knowledge and Feminine resilience. An evening of bewitching contemporary performance and intimate connection awaits.
Ticket $10 (refreshments provided)
ARTIST BIOS
Kathleen Gonzalez
Kathleen Gonzalez Is a Melbourne- based Colombian experimental-contemporary artist, ethnodance writer, dance performer, cultural producer, artistic director and founder of Tunjos y Cantaros Ethnologic Dance Company.
Kathleen’s practice combines multicultural, multi-spiritual and global ancestral origins, investigated through dance laboratories and ritualistic experiences connecting the inner and outer self. Kathleen’s work explores the space between the rationality of the physical senses and the mystery of psychic and mythical lands, combining unusual, experimental, creative and inspirational new performance processes.
SAMMANEH POURSH
Sammaneh Poursh is a genderfluid, queer, Muslim and hereditary witch who arrived in Australia as a refugee after the Iranian Revolution. Her ancestral tribes originate from Oureh, Gilan, and Kurdistan. Poursh is a multidisciplinary artist with a current emphasis on performance and collage. Poursh has had work featured at Manchester Contemporary Art Fair, Sluice Art Fair London, Biennale of Sydney and Pact Theatre (Sydney), and Emerging Writers’ Festival 2019. She is currently writing and producing a stand up comedy show called ‘Like a Persian’ based on her life for the Melbourne Fringe Festival 2019, as well as continuing her hand poked tattooing practice.
FLEASSY MALAY
Two times TEDx speaker and viral poet, Fleassy Malay is an Internationally renowned, evocative and powerful spoken word artist, speaker and coach. A global advocate for Women’s rights and a fierce voice for the power of authenticity and courage as a social change tool.
Founder of Melbourne’s acclaimed Women's Spoken Word event, Mother Tongue. A passionate, powerful, vulnerable and honest performer who's words, workshops and courses leave a profound impression.
A British artist now based in Melbourne, Australia; she studied at the famous London stage institution, The BRIT School, which birthed many strong female talents such as Amy Winehouse, Adele, Kate Tempest and more.
A self-identified queer, erotic, spiritual, mother she has a theatrical and yet deeply authentic performance style, renowned for captivating her audiences with depth, honesty, and humour.
In 2017 she published her book, Sex and God, performed internationally and became the first women to represent Australia at the National Poetry Slam, USA. In 2018 her poem, Witches, went viral on International Women's Day with over one million views in 3 days, with over 2.8 million views to date. Towards the end of the year she completed a US tour, and launched her album of spoken word Unhear This. In 2020 she is set to publish a book of poetry entitled “Static in the Mist” and a non-fiction book entitled “The Courageous Voice”.
Exhibition runs: 3 - 8 Oct 2019
Opening Night: Fri 4 Oct, 6-9pm
Performance Night Event: Sat 5 Oct, 6-8pm
PAST EXHIBITIONS
Allister Paterson solo exhibition 2019
My Natures Lapse
Opening night, Friday 16 August from 6:30pm
My nature is constant change, undefined, layers of recognisable and unrecognisable.
‘The nature of my lapse is to shift into brief or temporary disconnection of concentration and or judgement, to exist in the motion of action painting, a gestural visual language and draw on generic memory to be represented at an interval or passage of time.’
Allister Paterson’s works will provide a visual exploration, marrying the nature of ones self within the nature of landscapes captured.
Allister moves instinctively with a frequency at which layers captured are more spread out, swift and appear moving when compared to the frequency and sequence typically used to capture a more refined explanation of what is being seen in the Australian landscape.
Allister gives further insight to this method of creativity with a reference to his child like enjoyment of watching a landscape pass by at speed, and the ability to recognise this in image blur whilst being able to combine or transition out, to recognisable forms.
‘When viewed I want to see my landscapes as they appear whilst incorporating change, movement and thus lapsing state’.
‘I’m happiest taking this depiction beyond a moving vehicle and have works exist in a lapse at a single reference point, and working with bridging the lapse of season, light and the movement of a landscape’.
Allister Paterson provides a unique insight into ones connection with the nature of landscape painting. Without doubt on the way to being recognised as an important addition to Australia’s notable landscape painters.
My Natures Lapse will open on the 16 August from 6:30pm.
Saturday and Sunday 12pm-4pm
Monday through to Wednesday 10am-1pm or by appointment.
Proudly sponsored by Bodriggy Brewing Co. and Terindah Estate
Ellie Hannon
SHELTER
2019 Solo Exhibition July 26 from 6pm. Thursday 27-Tuesday 30th
Ellie Hannon is an emerging Australian artist who works out of her studio in Newcastle NSW. Traversing the fields of painting, drawing, ceramics and mural work in her art practice, Ellie establishes a visual narrative that explores the themes of values, possessions and our relationship with the natural environment, reflecting on how these contribute to our personal identity.
Ellie’s landscapes depict dream like stills of the natural world, inviting the viewer to immerse themselves in spaces of nostalgia, contemplation and mysticism. Vibrant, layered and patch-worked with pattern, Ellie’s mark making draws on inspiration from textiles, and other worldly objects, fascinated with how handmade artefacts can be a time capsule for unique narratives, histories and memories.
Since completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Newcastle University in 2009 Ellie has spent 3 years living in South East Asia working on community art projects. Returning to Australia in 2014 Ellie has focused on her professional practice as an artist exhibiting at the Corner Store Gallery in Orange, Newcastle Art Space, Backwoods Gallery Melbourne and exhibiting as a part of the MAKEit MADEit conference in 2017. Over the past 2 years, Ellie’s practice has lead her into working on large scale site specific murals that depict abstracted scenes from nature, appreciating the resilience and ability of plants to regenerate and reclaim an environment after human intervention.
Brad Teodoruk and Tom Ferson joint exhibition
Opening Friday June 28 6pm-10pm
Closes July 3
Tom Ferson’s artistic output (pictured right) is wildly varied but nevertheless unmistakable.
In addition to having developed a unique and time-consuming process resulting in him being dubbed by Monster Children Magazine as ‘Australia’s most patient Artist’. Tom has applied himself to a variety of media from drawing and painting to cross-stitch and even interactive work. What has emerged through this insatiable exploration are a few unifying signatures - a deft touch, an otherworldly and distinctive colour sensibility, and an inclination toward the subtly surreal and psychedelic.
Born and raised in Sydney and currently living and working in Melbourne, Tom’s next significant body of work is already well underway; a series of paintings with a focus on narrative, relating a fascination with everything love, sexuality and intimacy.
Brad Teodoruk’s work (pictured left) has an air of free association, as though he is showing us a mind-map that is at once personal and drawn from the public domain. The viewer is prompted to immerse themselves by filling in gaps through curiosity and recognition.
A spur-of-the-moment practice as instinctive as Teodoruk’s should almost preclude a disjointed body of work. Nevertheless, the works are united by the common theme of omission and layering, recurring imagery, and the artist’s unmistakably individual style.
PAST EXHIBITIONS
Evanescence Inc is proud to announce their very first exhibition. An event designed to showcase Melbourne’s underground & local creatives.
August 2019
Doors open
23RD / 6PM-10PM 24TH / 2PM-6PM
Ticketed event, available at the door.
FORGOTTEN LANDSCAPES
A group exhibition by Jenny Allnut, Kate Gagliardi, Maria Petrova and Brain Foetus.
Displaying works from their recent artist residency at Qbank Gallery in Queenstown, Tasmania.
Opening 6-10pm MAY 24
LVL 1/288 JOHNSTON ST (ENTRY VIA LULIE ST) ABBOTSFORD
Mitch Walder & Chehehe/DodgyPaper
Gone Walkabout is a joint exhibition of new works by Mitch Walder and fellow Arts Hole studio member Roger Wilkie, aka Chehehe & Dodgy Paper. The new body of work is a visual documentation from their time as artists-in-residence at QBank Gallery in Queenstown, Tasmania.
The month-long residency along the rugged west coast of Tasmania saw the two Melbourne-based artists document their geological and psychological trekking among the regrowth of the town and natural surroundings at the foot of the glorious Mt. Owen.
Walder used the time to explore and experiment with multiple methods of painting and conceptual pathways. Wilkie combined his two personas in a quest to further develop both practices simultaneously. Both were captivated by the land which greeted them through hikes and journeys with locals. In Roger’s case, literally using samples of the minerals from the land in experimental artworks and paper making. Meanwhile, Walder finding inspiration in the local palette and dialogue around town.
The artists also immersed themselves into community activity as they both hosted a local school class as well as tourists and locals into the space. Walder trained with the local football side on the famous gravel oval as well as joining Wilkie in multiple murals around the town.
The show is opening Friday April 26 and runs until April 30. Opening Night sponsor is Bodriggy Brewing Co.
Nadia Hernández
SANGRANTE IMATACA
Opening Thursday 11 April, 7-9pm
Exhibition: 10 - 18 April, 2019
Sangrante Imataca is this body of work. It is also the title of a poem written by my grandfather in 1997. Last year, before I started to create these works I asked my grandfather about his poem. He said:
“Me inspiró escribir el poema la criminal devastación del ecosistema guayanes con la explotacion del oro utilizando metales tóxicos como el mercurio y destruyendo el bosque amazonico. Dejando la tierra arrasada sin vegetación.”
“I was inspired to write the poem about the criminal devastation of the guayanes ecosystem with the exploitation of gold using toxic metals such as mercury destroying the Amazon forest. Leaving the scorched earth without vegetation.”
In search of a new language to describe the existing social, humanitarian, political and environmental crisis plaguing my home country, Venezuela; and my personal and familial experience in the midst of all this, phrases extracted from my grandfather’s poem take on multiple sentidos (meanings, sentiments, directions, causes), urging consideration for the precarious state of our environment, shared history and future.
Nadia Hernández, 2019
Tom Gerrard
Tom Gerrard’s art career started in the mid-90s where his art could be found on the streets of Melbourne. These days, he’s globally known for painting simplified characters, architecture and nature using a minimal colour palette. The characters and elements that make up his paintings have been inspired by people he’s seen and places he’s been.
Tom’s gallery work is an evolution of style and technique that was learned painting on the streets. He has fused this style with acrylic paints, water colours and any other materials that he can find in his studio.
After eight years of travelling around the world, Tom returned to Melbourne in 2016. Since then he has placed his artistic focus exclusively on Australian life, suburban culture and his natural surroundings. He has utilised his thirteen years working as a graphic designer, and as a result his art has a graphical look as he works with a minimal colour palette and strips back his subjects to simple shape and line work.
Tom has settled back into Melbourne life where he paints murals at large art festivals across the country, exhibits in prestigious galleries such as Bromley & Co and Benalla Art Gallery and collaborates with some of the country’s biggest names in contemporary art.
In February 2016, Tom moved back to Melbourne where he continues to work as an artist and run his art podcast, Bench Talk.
BIOGRAPHY
Ed Bechervaise, otherwise known as Unwell Bunny is an artist and creative based
in Melbourne Australia. Ed’s artistic career began in the early days of 90’s graffiti, in his
home town of Adelaide, following a mix of both letter and character based aerosol art.
After some early studio arts, graphic and conceptual study at Uni SA and RMIT,
Ed moved to Melbourne in 2002 and began following Melbourne street art in 2003.
He quickly began to produce new kinds of work that was largely figurative and character based.
In 2004-5 he began showing work in Melbourne galleries and was also active on the street, leaving paste up and graffitiworks through the lanes and suburbs of Melbourne. Ed had his first solo exhibition at Per-square Metre Gallery in 2006.
After a number of other solo exhibitions in Melbourne, Ed traveled to Europe and lived in
Amsterdam spending time with influencial urban contemporarry artists. After returning to Australia in 2013 he was included in Metro gallery’s
‘International street art exhibition’ Confirming a place as a emerging international Australian urban based artist.
In 2015 Ed had his first international solo show at Gallery LaCroix in Paris,
which saw his aesthetic turn from raw aerosol expressionism to a more graphic geometric,
neo cubist style influenced largely by European painters.
In early 2016 he traveled to the USA and received mentorship by a number of highly influential American artists, which has continued to curve his practice, furthering an interest in the international urban contemporary art scene.
In 2017 Ed had two highly successful solo shows in Melbourne one independently organised at Besser Space in Collingwood in January and the other with Backwoods gallery in October. Ed describes his artistic philosophy and practice as ‘exploring the popular subconscious’.
The mountains we climb:
The mountains we climb is a new body of work in which Ed after visiting, decides to explore Japan, and its sensabilities.
Its layers of feeling, through the chaos of Tokyo to the stillness of Kanazawa hills.
Each image is broken down into fragments, with slabs of colour, texture and tone, that symbolise the experience, weather by night or day, dusk or after dawn. This is a time capsule of travel, but also of the struggle and exploration each of us go through in growing as people and evolving beyond what we know. The mountains we climb is about pushing limits of understanding. Exploring that place that brings discomfort, pushing the elements of your processing ability. For Ed he has done just this with his exploration of abstraction, and re interpretation. Pushing forward a more sophisticated pallete. Deconstructing the elements he has recorded and re shaped through memory and feeling of Japan. Finding new cords with colour and with textual mediums that join together to form landscapes. A subject Ed has decided to explore for the first time.
Its another in a list of evolving themes, and explorations, there is a new constant in abstraction and the influence of neo cubism, self exploration and redefining a new age visual landscape continuously to climb new artistic mountains in search of something new.
One small step...
Marfa Gallery is delighted to announce the arrival of Conrad Bizjak and Christopher Hancock’s recent body of work, created during their artist in residency in Queenstown Tasmania.
Marfa presents QUEENA the talented works of Geena Castellano.
'Geena Castellano is a Melbourne based artist who grew up on the surf coast of Victoria.
Her art practice has always been a communion with her life and experiences. She has been drawing and painting since the age of 4 as a means of understanding her place within the world.
Influenced by her late boyfriends early tag 'simple', this body of work demonstrates the power of simplicity as an invitation for imagination.
This is Geena’s honest expression of herself and the raw nature of the female. The QUEENA inside every woman.'
Begins at 4pm Friday 1st of June.
Opening night Friday June 1 from 4pm to 9:30pm
Saturday and Sunday from 10-5pm
Mic Porter is back with Sulfur Burn a new body of work comprising of paintings, sculptures and installations.
Michael Porter is a renowned Melbourne based contemporary artist. A multi disciplinarian practising in both painting and sculpture and blurring the lines between.
Opening Night 18 May 2018 4pm-9pm
Sat-Sun 2pm-6pm Tue-Thur by appointment only
Marfa Gallery is pleased to present Steven Joshua's latest works.
Steven is an emerging artist based in Melbourne. He is affiliated with the Hawthorn Artist Society and focuses on painting with the use of acrylics.
'In life, we find ourselves either colouring inside the lines or moving freely to see where it takes us'.
'There has to be a constant tension between these two. Too much structure and you become rigid, unable to move forward. Too much freedom and you lose touch of reality, losing track of the goal at hand'.
In “Ambivalence” Steven looks at the relationship between structure and organic movement. How do we marry the two so we have balance? Can we truly join them or is there a constant ambivalence?
Instagram : stevenjoshua.art
Marfa Gallery is proud to announce, Where's your helmet, sweetheart?, its next joint show comprising the amazing body of work done by Melbourne based artists Goodie and Kitt during their residency and opening show at QBank Gallery, Queenstown on the 3rd of March, before heading to Marfa Gallery on the 15th of March.
Goodie:
How does one look at all objects and people as friends? This is the sense you get from Goodie's art.
Like one of her influences, the surrealist René Magritte, you immediately feel a connection to her subjects, even though they are out of place or perspective.
This is because she is ultimately influenced by her friends. And this is not only the artists she knows and admires.
"Anything can be a friend," she says, "whether it’s an object, feeling, place or otherwise."
It's the essential aspect her underlying interest in notions of familiarity and association, particularly how recognisable objects, people and spaces can be defamiliarised and re-understood through different narratives or structures. Originally from Canberra, Goodie is now ensconced in Melbourne, where she graduated from VCA. As an interdisciplinary artist working predominantly in painting as well as installation, performance, sculpture and poetry.
Learn more:
https://www.instagram.com/goodie_was_here/
http://www.goodie-was-here.com/
Kitt Bennett:
You know you're in Kitt Bennett's artistic world when you find everything full of life, even typically inanimate objects like discarded bicycles and skeletons.
The latter recently featured in a huge mural by him across three basketball courts. It's a fascination he's had since a child when he started collecting bones, including human fingers.
Primarily an illustrator, Kitt is constantly exploring new media and techniques that help him develop and evolve.
But the common threads that inspire him to create art are his infectious dark humour and the examination of individuality and the mysterious phenomena that surround us.
Learn more:
https://www.instagram.com/kitt_bennett/
Don't miss this and we'll look forward to seeing you there.
Marfa Gallery is pleased to announce the first show for 2018 being the extremely talented Mark Chu, with his opening show titled OPUS.
// OPENING NIGHT: 1 February 6-9pm
Drinks provided by Goose Island Brewery//
Catalog https://goo.gl/5Za73D
// EXHIBITION HOURS: 1 - 4 February 12-6pm
For catalogue and inquiries: a.ouzas@exileent.com and or marfa@marfagallery.com
marfagallery.com
// O P U S is a word from my childhood // Painting is a performance with a delayed audience // I like sinewy faces // My subjects are taken from everywhere // Faces are easy to abstract //
Chu returns from his New York studio for his fourth solo exhibition, showcasing a vast body of over 80 new works. O P U S centres on portraits, using gestural brushwork and strident colour to generate the questioning expressions that characterise Chu's work.
Presented by Exile Entertainment // Produced by Alexi Ouzas and Cara Friedman // Photos by Jesper Hede.
MICHAEL PORTER
UNIQUE RELICS OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Paintings and sculptures by Michael Porter.
A new body of work comprising of paintings, sculptures and installations. Exploring ideas of beauty, conformity and the self.
Michael Porter is a renowned Melbourne based contemporary artist. A multi disciplinarian practising in both painting and sculpture and blurring the lines between.
Opening Night 15 December 2017 4pm-9pm
Sat-Sun 2pm-6pm Tue-Thur by appointment only
Dec 15 to Dec 22
MARK WHALEN
PRESSURE
The figures in Mark Whalen's works often appear to be in a state of unrest; whether amongst an angst-ridden room full of frenetic activity or metaphorically, where the state of mind appears trapped within a combative juncture. Across a new series of paintings Whalen has his figures – androgynous beings – strapped down and bound, in what has become an ongoing study into the complexities of displacement.
Opening Friday 10 November, 7-9pm
Exhibition: 9 - 18 November, 2017
Tue-Fri 10am - 3pm
Sat 12am - 4pm
HOKUSAI'S CHILDREN
Hokusai's Children, an exhibition inspired by the great Master Katsushika Hokusai.
Original artworks by ATG Members
Opening Night- Thursday 12th Oct Marfa Gallery, level 1/288 Johnston st, Abbotsford, Melbourne.
By appointment thereafter until 20 Oct. 2017
Sponsored by @moondogbrewing
Marfa Gallery presents Ben Goad and Danny Awes showcasing their recent works in a joint exhibition.
September 14 from 6:30pm.
Look forward to seeing you there.
Special thanks
@moondogbrewing and @squealingpigwines thanks also to @studiopardon, #loopcolours and @dukeygrimo for their support.
IN SOME WAY
Presenting Melbourne based and Marfa Gallery's resident artist Allister Paterson.
Showcasing a new body of work comprising of oil paintings that explore landscapes that redefine the nature of which they are identified.
18 MAY 2017
6:30pm till 9:00pm
Sponsored by Terindah Estate