Art shows off its playful side
THE playfulness of seasoned artists, an emerging artist grappling with cultural identity, a loved children’s book that sets the scene for interactive adventures, and youngsters exploring personally significant imagery are what give a colourful buzz to local and regional exhibitions. First Coat Studios, 6 Laurel St, is presenting “Hot-Box Healing (and Servo Sunsets),” a collaborative exhibition by Ian McCallum and David Usher. This homage to the great Australian road trip makes a tonguein-cheek comment on the glories of old fashioned fast food with cringe-worthy familiarity. The service stations with the ubiquitous bain-marie of Chiko Rolls, hot sausages, battered savs, spring rolls, works burghers, and potato scallops were neonlit oases in bitumen deserts. They filled the tummy with greasy delights and gave an uneasy, but replete feeling of comfort to the spaced out traveller. McCallum and Usher have captured the brash but simple hype in text and home-style graphics interspersed with the symbolic geometry of the bainmarie. The exhibition is entertaining, it generates discussion and the exchange of “on the road” stories. It is peppered with irony, and seasoned by popular culture and social commentary. The Project Space at First Coat Studios is featuring “Generasian,” a debut solo exhibition by Jennifer Spalding. Using text and graphics combined with expressive gestures and spontaneous, emotional mark making, Spalding comments on ‘to have and have not’ as a point of cultural difference. In Thailand the availability of water can be limited, in Australian it is there at the turn of a tap. The comparisons are etched with guilt, complacency, anger, and greed as Spalding struggles to situate herself in a world of deprivation and plenty in which the word “survival” is a reality check. The Cobb and Co Museum is using a literary favourite, Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” to encourage children to tumble down the rabbit hole and discover, through clever interactive devices, optical illusions, the magic of numbers and words, and snippets of science. The exhibition, on tour from Museums Victoria, endorses the notion that curiosity is a lifelong activity as well as suggesting one is never too old to re-read “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. The Crows Nest Regional Art Gallery is hosting, “Inspired Seasons” an exhibition by Year 9 and 10 students from the Crows Nest State School. By transforming an old artwork and interpreting the theme of “Seasons” the students have created an impressive body of work that also reflects their own particular interests. Subjects have been influenced by video games, Japanese anime characters, family relationships, holiday memories, nature, dinosaurs, horses, and baby elephants. Each work is accompanied by an informative statement. The paintings and the series of sketch books reflect an enthusiastic and personal approach that is sometimes lost once the more rigid curriculum of senior school kicks in.