Energy, ideas reflect diversity
A SOLO exhibition and a fascinating group show present the viewer with thought provoking anomalies about arts practice while the colourful paintings by primary school children offer insights into identity through visual storytelling.
First Coat Studios, 6 Laurel Street, presents exciting, engaging, and rewarding exhibitions underpinned by initiative and innovation.
This is particularly true of the current body of work, “A Social Object.”
It is a collaborative venture between artists Peta Berghofer, Grace Dewar, Ellie Farrington, Theresa Hall, Rianna Hollsten-Provenzano, Kirsty Lee, and Laurie Oxenford.
Each artist has responded to the ‘object’, a large expanse of white fabric. Initially it was unveiled in Queen’s Park where, shaped by the wind, it became an active presence.
This energy was integral to the object and remained a potent force when the fabric was restricted to the studio.
In interrogating the object the artists were also required to look deeply into their own and each other’s practices, establishing a dialogue that was both social and private.
Ellie Farrington has grounded the fabric in an architectural framework that gives material form to space.
The armature also anchors other work such as Peta Berghofer’s fabric-like folded clay shapes.
It makes visual links to Theresa Hall’s filmy and tactile photographs and to Grace Dewar’s geometrical voids that toy with the dichotomy of proximity and distance.
More abstract sculptural elements are seen in Laurie Oxenford’s concrete block, an object of confinement, the scorched edges and ash carrying memories of flame movement.
The installation by Rianna Hollsten-Provenzano and Kirsty Lee consists of a pair of white wash basins and headphones linked to a soundscape.
The iteration of rhythm and words define absence while encouraging the viewer to participate as an active presence.
This notion of exhibition as experience and social discourse has on-going potential.
The Project Space at First Coat is showing “[our] coming of age” a debut solo exhibition by artist and videographer Kirsty Lee.
The video installation explores the emotions and experiences of attachment.
A child on the brink of adulthood is also about a parent in the throes of letting go.
Memories try to veil fears, the logical mind deals with contingencies.
Practical things like learning to shave vie with deeper concerns floating in a sea of uncertainty.
In this polished presentation that includes performance and sound the story is personal but the imperatives are universal.
The Rosalie Gallery in Goombungee is hosting “Playing with Stuff,” a delightful exhibition by youngsters from the Haden State School.
The colourful paintings on display grew out of the school’s artist-in-residency initiative with local artist Sue Wheeler.
The children were encouraged to explore different materials and techniques, and, refreshingly, no set formula developed.
Portraiture becomes a visual essay about identity, scenes are individual narratives, and landscapes show the personality of trees.