What does obsessive artwork mean? Is this a new compulsion among artists and what does it mean? The work of Hossein Valamanesh, Fiona Hall, Zhuang Hui, Zhang Huan, Shen Shaomin, Katsuhige Nakahashi are referenced.
Territorial Canberra Contemporary Art Centre June 2007 24 hr Art, Darwin September October 2007 ACT Artists: Silvia Vélez, Bernie Slater, Raquel Ormella NT artists: Franck Gohier, Catriona Stanton, Gary Lee
Melbourne-based artist Ash Keatings art practice is based on an ethic and aesthetic of recycling. He reinvents waste often for site-specific interventions - before disposing of the relics by recycling them responsibly. For 'Press Release' (2005-ongoing) he cut 6,500 copies of the same bird from magazines and has thrown them skywards, letting them soar to the ground, in atriums and galleries from Sydney to Santiago. In his videos he is seen at work deconstructing free newspapers or wrestling with large discarded vinyl banners.
Thresholds of Tolerance curated by Caroline Turner and David Williams, was shown at the ANU School of Art Gallery from 10 May to 5 June, 2007. We Refuse to Become Victims, an art work made by three artists collectives, Culture Kitchen in Canberra, Taring Padi in Jogyakarta and Gembel in Dili, Timor, a four part series of large works on fabric of small woodcuts, screenprints and painting struck Pat Hoffie as political art that really works as it is cross-disciplinary, cross cultural and seems to stretch out back to the fields of production rather than towards the empty field of the gallery.
Shades of the Real: a selective survey of tonal painting Adelaide Central Gallery 20 July - 11 August 2007 artists: Morgan Allender, Nona Burden, Stephanie Crase, Kveta Deans, Louise Feneley, Mary-Jean Richardson, Chelsea Lehmann, Rachel Smyth, Deborah Trusson, Yve Thompson Christian Lock Greenaway Art Gallery 4 -29 July 2007 Kaylie Weir (in Noodle) Premier Art Gallery SALA exhibition 3 August 1 September 2007 Learning to Speak Simone Kennedy Artlab SALA Exhibition 3-19 August 2007
Carly Fischer's work is on the cover of the Work issue of Artlink. Her latest exhibition at Helen Gory Galerie of everyday cleaning items and broken fluorescent tubes made from blue paper is art that is almost invisible but critiques consumerism and the culture of waste.
A retrospective survey of the work of Alan Lukey who died in 2003 aged 51 organised by fellow artist John Foubister with the help of Jill Lukey was shown at New Land Gallery in Port Adelaide, 21 April to 10 June 2007. Lukey was a South Australian artist who painted abstract and meditative works and lived on the Fleurieu Peninsula between 1977 and 2003. He also made public art works often in the shape of waves.
Justine Khamara uses a scalpel to cut out tens of thousands of images from magazines. She then joins the often identical images to make very large assemblages. The artist sees the obsessive busywork that she does with her hands as providing her with space to dream and do the real work of sifting through the stuff in her head.
Reveries: Mortality and photography was curated for the National Portrait Gallery by Helen Ennis and shown from 27 April to 5 August 2007. This touring show will be at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery from 19 March to 18 May 2008. It includes a wide range of approaches from the harrowing to the humorous. It includes work by Axel Poignant a self-portrait with his last roll of film, Anne Ferran, Carol Jerrems, Craig Potton, William Yang, Anne Noble, Ruth Maddison, Bernie ORegan and Jonathon Delacour who stopped taking photographs after this series of babies and their carers in intensive care.