Past Exhibitions | 2010

Joanna Logue has lived for over 20 years at Essington Park, a property just outside of Oberon, NSW. Past the 150 year old home, past the one room schoolhouse, you glance over to a solitary grave of a child who died in 1863. Down the hill a little - before you reach the donkeys, the chickens and the paddocks stand the conifer and fir trees that are a testament to the beauty of the western plains. Set amongst this partially artificial landscape, sculpted by the hands of generations of farmers and the sheer will of nature is Joanna’s studio. In this converted horse stable with large blank white walls and natural light the painting begins.

 Joanna is a keenly observant and intellectual painter - stealing the inspiration and beauty offered up to her by the changing seasons; the play of light and shadow upon the landscape; the unpredictable effects of the weather and her photographic memory of minute variations over time. It is not the artist’s intent to copy or replicate what she sees - but rather to use these observations as her ‘muse’; and translate them into a unique language and image that speaks singularly to each other and every viewer. By literally attacking the canvas with layering then scraping back again and again, Joanna reinvigorates her paintings and shows us what we were unable to see ourselves. 

 King Street Gallery on William  2010

Adriane Strampp (born USA, education UK) is a Melbourne based artist presently completing a MFA by Research at Monash University. Her current body of work explores earlier concerns, pruned down to core elements both in subject and colour, examining the subtleties and nuances of memory and experience through poetic imagery and personal mythology. It is as much about what is left out as what is said. Current influences range from Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space to the writings and photography of Patti Smith.

A romantic and figurative painter working through series over long periods, Strampp tends to focus on a central image as a vehicle only for the underlying message. It is not about the subject, but rather that which it conveys. The figure is often felt, but remains in absentia. In early work (mid to late 1980’s) the subject was the horse, sometimes heroic, sometimes damaged, but always passionate. This work was largely influenced by both the new German Neo-Expressionists of the time, and by English artist John Walker, who was highly influential during his residency in Melbourne art schools at that time. From the late 1980’s the horse was slowly replaced by the dress, often set in similar backgrounds and landscapes, and this successful series continued until the late 1990’s. After a studio residency in Italy in 1998, and the final series of Renaissance inspired dress paintings, Strampp began to deconstruct earlier work, often reworking a smaller detail into a larger work in its own right, such as a textile detail from the dress, or a background detail into a major landscape.

Today Strampp’s new work takes another look at the horse and the landscape, in a quieter and more contemplative manner, together with the use of a limited palette. Her work continues to explore the intangible and evocative, that communicates before it is understood, and the importance of and relationship between scale, surface and the poetic image through a method of layering and reduction that reflects the experience of connection, through history on either a personal or broader level. Subject and shadow are indeterminate, and the viewer is drawn into the work to decide between what is ‘real’ and what is not. More importantly, it is hoped that the viewer will experience a connection of experience through the work.

In Jan/Feb 2009, Kate and journalist Jonathan Pearlman travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo documenting the wide spread use of rape as a weapon of war and the impact of war on a civilian population who have been living in refugee camps for 15 years. The resulting story became a 2009 Walkeley finalist documentary which can be viewed by clicking here.  

The hauntingly powerful images in Displaced Futures are a narrative for the victims of these crimes. Kate Geraghty’s extraordinary series of photographs raise awareness of the circumstances under which the displaced Congolese people continue to live. 

 

Kate Geraghty and King Street Gallery on William will contribute a percentage of sales from the exhibition to Médecins Sans Frontières. Their ongoing efforts both in DRC and many other countries around the world provide essential services and support to millions of people who would otherwise be left without life saving medical assistance. 

Shelter

While open urban spaces represent democratic, commercial and mainstream social values, disregarded urban spaces represent othernes, displacement and loss of social value.

Invisible spaces are imbued with a sense of having left the safety of social order and are therefore places in which risk becomes a given when encountering that space.

As public urban spaces expand and contract with shifting populations so do the invisible spaces. As a result of this movement these spaces house populations that oscillate between urban normality and moral upheaval. Issues such as race religion illicit social behaviour , sexuality and poverty can all be found floundering in these ‘spaces of no value’, further marginalising them and legitimising their oulaw status.

With passengers seated inside cocooned and protected, the train screams through endless concrete shelters. Dangerous spaces that seem to simmer in an artificial reality.

Paul Ferman