Lismore Regional Gallery I 17 August - 13 October 2019
Idle Worship explores contemporary notions of reverence, worship and idolisation. Focusing on personal manifestations the exhibition examines the intimacy of our idols. Worship presents itself here in many forms. The artists feel it, know it, interpret it, challenge it, give in to it and subvert it. Their idols are real and imagined, they come from the past and the future, and are being made right now, taking their power from the present.
To allow oneself to worship is to be able to let go of the self. The title Idle Worship and the exhibition acts as both tongue in cheek reminders of our contemporary frivolousness of worship and at the same time considers and idle worship, one so deep and true that it will continue to run slowly through time and across centuries.
Artists I Jacobus Capone, Consuelo Cavaniglia, Sarah Contos, Mikala Dwyer, Bill Henson, Lindy Lee, Adam Lee, Clare Milledge, Jonny Niesche, Frances Belle Parker, Shireen Taweel, Jodie Whalen, Paul Yore.
Images | Carl Warner
As part of the Invited Artists Program at Byron School of Art we curated an exhibition of ten women artists. We drew on the history of the old garage that now houses the independent artist run school to inform our exhibition, Let Her Rip. In response to these histories we worked with artists who’s work negotiates the perplexing and public nature of being a woman.
Artists | Natalie Baxter (USA), Natalie Bull & Zoë Robinson-Kennedy, Karla Dickens, Corrie Furner, Abbey McCulloch, Raphaela Rosella, Kimberly Rowe (USA), Tania Lou Smith and Amber Wallis.
Images | Casey Fung & Natalie Bull
Heavy is a time, a period in a girls life where childhood gives way to adolescence. Where innocence is reshaped by desire and the longing for independence. Drawing on the artists’ memories of youth, Heavy references a time when strength is needed and female softness is formed. And everything weighs heavy.
Natalie Bull & Zoe Robinson-Kennedy, Heavy, 2018, punching bag, discarded sheet and gold thread, dimensions variable
Our work explores female identity, sexuality, beauty, youth and memory. We work across disciplines using a variety of media including installation, painting, textiles and light.
“Water is a big part of all Bundjalung Dreaming, I have always been a saltwater man.”
Albert (Digby) Moran is an Elder and prominent Bundjalung/ Dungutti artist who grew up on Cabbage Tree Island.
Digby is renowned for his recurring diamond motif in his work said to represent the natural pattern left in the tidal flats on beaches and estuaries as the tide changes. As part of Artstate 2017 public arts program we commissioned Digby and worked with him to produce a site-specific installation further exploring the repetition of this ancient motif and his intimate connection to Bundjalung country.
Commissioned and presented for Artstate 2017 Arts Program
Images | Katelyn-Jane Dunn & Kate Holmes
Increasingly our physical disposition in the 21st century is screen-focused and frontal. We continue to favour vision as central in our sensory hierarchy. Oculus Penumbra, is an offering to not only see with our eyes but also with our other senses, to be drawn in through what could be a tunnel or a wormhole, perhaps towards another time or place. The work is conceived as a portal into the unknown, into the shadow, a call to the void. The viewer is invited to enter a strangely familiar but uncanny world, evoking the imaginal and activating subtle and not-so subtle sensorial triggers.
Installation artist and conjurer Juliana Potts has a keen interest in the architectural, in scale, form and materiality, creating immersive environments that speak of an ‘other worldliness’, often creating structures out of simple everyday materials - garage bags, irrigation pipe, cables ties, and in doing so elevates the status of these materials.
This work was presented for Artstate 2017 Arts Program
Images | Katelyn-Jane Dunn
We’re Closer Than You Think brought together the work of 19 artists based in the Northern Rivers region of NSW. The exhibition questioned the notion of ‘regionality’ and the perception that artists working outside of metropolitan areas are hindered by location. In various stages of their careers and working across a range of disciplines, each artist in the exhibition was chosen for inadvertently refuting the association between location and success, population and production, and that the quality of their practice should be determined by these imaginary borders.
Curated & produced for Artstate 2017 Arts Program
Images | Yield, 2017, Charlotte Haywood, image: , Opening event, image: Katelyn-Jane Dunn, Fun Times, 2017, Natalie Bull and Zoe Robinson Kennedy image: Katelyn-Jane Dunn
Artists | Skye Baker, Amanda Bromfield, Kylie Caldwell, Ben Crawford, Michael Cusack, Karla Dickens, Kathryn Dolby, Penny Evans, Stephen Garrett, Natalie Grono, Charlotte Haywood, Helle Jorgensen, Jenny Kitchener, Mahala Magins, Robert Moore, Jess O'Connor, Kat Shapiro Wood, Amber Wallis, Christine Willcocks
Apollo is a response to the semi submerged room reminiscent of a toy theatre where the exhibition was housed; an assembly without the limits of the square.
Apollo was presented as part of Artstate 2017 arts program curated by Byron School of Art. Apollo was a group show of work from the Byron School of Art’s Project Space Alumni. In 2014, the BSA Project Space in Mullumbimby began as a space for students of this independent art school to gain experience in exhibition practice, now it runs 22 exhibitions a year with local, national and international artists across various disciplines in various stages of their careers.
This exhibition was presented for Artstate 2017 Arts Program
Blank Space Cinema is a large-scale projection exploring moving image artists use of the medium and its ability to ignite the public’s imagination.
Artists |
Charlotte Haywood, Blue, Orange
Karla Dickens, Honey and the Bunny
Paul Andrew, Flame Tree
Rochelle Summerfield, Warning Remote Areas Ahead
Marion Conrow, Autumn Flower
Grayson Cooke, Open Air 2017
Blakboi, DIJ10
Clayton Lloyd, The Day After
Blank Space was presented for Artstate 2017 Arts Program
Image | Paul Andrew, Flame Tree
Strata investigates factors that shape the Earth’s surface. Now covered in a man-made crust of anthropic landscapes the work questions what neo-minerals will surface from their compressed frames in due course.
Amelia Reid’s practice includes sculpture, installation, photography, video, sound and text. She is interested in representing traces of human experience, blurring modes of delivery, and the artist as investigator, interruptive agent and conduit.
This work was presented for Artstate 2017 Arts Program
The sound installation 1974 features field recordings taken along the Wilsons River and its tributaries. Speakers were placed in the central streets of Lismore, NSW during Artstate 2017 at the level where the 1974 flood peaked. The sounds are markers of a geological force, a geographical position, and signifiers of a collective experience.
The sound-based work of Jay-Dea Lopez delves into the psychogeographic aspects of environmental and personal space. Within this field Lopez reflects upon the way in which sound informs our relationship with our social and environmental heritage.
This work was presented for Artstate 2017 Arts Program
https://soundslikenoise.org/
