MAGIC EYE

Magic Eye brings together a group of diverse individual and collective contemporary art-makers to fill the Platform cabinets with collage, assemblage and drawing. These artists all share an interest in the uncanny, the perverse and the hallucinatory...

ENRIQUE TOCHEZ ANDERSON
HUGO ATKINS
THEA BAUMANN & DARIO VACIRCA
RACHEL FEERY & LISA STEWART
GREATEST HITS
KATE JUST
ROSIE KAVANAVOCH
LOUISE KLERKS
ANDY MAC
PIPPA MAKGILL
ILIA ROSLI
MARK SILIPO

ENRIQUE TOCHEZ ANDERSON

Enrique Tochez Anderson
paint, fabric, plastic
(installation detail)
© 2009

Enrique Tochez graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) from RMIT in 2007. Since then he has continued to develop his solo practice, as well as developing collaborative multi-disciplinary projects including the upcoming GALAXYHEAD party which will present futuristic installation and new electronic music at the Lobb & Frith Project Space. Further information is available at Bugloss WD.

HUGO ATKINS

Hugo Atkins
tubing, foam, paint, sand, teeth
(installation detail)
© 2009

Hugo Atkins is an emerging artist based in Melbourne. His work was included in Zero & Not at 45Downstairs in August 2009.

THEA BAUMANN & DARIO VACIRCA

Thea Baumann & Dario Vacirca
gold leaf paper, cocktail glasses, neon tubing, toy dinosaurs, video loop on various screens (installation detail)
© 2009

RACHEL FEERY & LISA STEWART

Rachel Feery & Lisa Stewart
acrylic painted backdrop, polystyrene, cardboard, paint, sand
(installation detail)
© 2009

As explorers of imaginary realms, artists Rachel Feery and Lisa Stewart work collaboratively, combining sound, sculpture, video and installation to take people on an adventure through the unknown. Just like a science fiction or storybook plot, they create openings – be it a viewfinder, soundscape, portal or diorama – from which one can enter the magical world of make-believe. These constructions aim to transport the viewer out of the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Rachel Feery completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours at Monash University in 2008. Recent exhibitions include: Hide and Seek, China Club Arts Hub, This is Not Art Festival, Newcastle, 2009, Big!, Queens Theatre, Adelaide, 2009, Wanderlust at C3 Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne, 2009, Make Believe, C3 Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne 2008 and Extended mind: Extended Body, Off The Kerb, Melbourne 2007.

Lisa Stewart completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Photomedia at Monash University in 2007 and a Bachelor of Arts in Film & Television at Monash University in 2009. Recent exhibitions include: Hide and Seek, China Club Arts Hub, This is Not Art Festival, Newcastle, 2009, Post: A Group Show, Place Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne, 2009, Big! Queens Theatre, Adelaide, 2009, The Ecologies Project, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne 2008, Swift: Video art screenings, St Kilda Film Festival, Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, Melbourne 2008, Once Upon a Time: Off the Kerb’s 1st Birthday Show, Off the Kerb Gallery, Melbourne, 2008, Through Different Eyes, George Paton Gallery, Melbourne University, Melbourne 2007.

Past collaborations between Feery & Stewart include, Echoes of Gold at O Projects Gallery, Melbourne 2008 and Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney, 2009, Debut V at Blindside, 2009, and The Craft Exchange Salon at 25A Warehouse as part of The Melbourne Fringe Festival, 2008.

GREATEST HITS

Greatest Hits
Silver paint
© 2009

Greatest Hits (Gavin Bell, Jarrah de Kuijer & Simon McGlinn) is a impulsive paranoia driven collaboration, hellbent on questioning the absurd equilibrium of creation and destruction in the psyche of a group that perversely ravishes the notion of the creation of meaning and interpretation. Ritualistic acts of frustrated futility allude to the inane purpose of artistic endeavour, referencing common notions of the artist and their mysterious drive to push importance over practicality and into a world where the end has no beginning. Narrative collides with genre while systematically combining optimistic possibility with the sweet smell of ever-present failure. Insight into the views of three protagonists' psychological catastrophes, results in a cross-pollinating narrative that continuously feeds back into itself in a churning cycle of connections and potentialities for meaning.

The collaborative group Greatest Hits are three individuals trying their best to agree long enough to work on creative projects. Their outcomes highlight the dynamic of the group consciousness and how it relates to their world and contemporary art. Solo exhibitions include Keep it together at TCB in September 2009 and TACOCAT at Westspace in June 2009.

KATE JUST

Kate Just
Framed collage on archival paper
78 x 58cm
© 2009

Kate Just is an American born, Melbourne based artist who first became known for her sculptural knitting practice informed strongly by emotional and autobiographical references. Just's practice has also encompassed use of mixed media sculpture, collage, digital print, and video. Experiences of childhood memory, her own migration, and the garden/natural environment as an allegory for the human condition influenced her early works, while more recent works envisage transformations of human (in particular female) bodies into natural and other forms and the landscapes these imagined bodies inhabit. Just’s works incorporate Greek and other mythologies, such as Persephone's descent underground and Daphne's transformation into a laurel tree. She also uses religious and art historical references, studies in feminism and science fiction. Her work posits transformation as a metaphor for personal struggles, loss, awakening, emerging sexuality and creativity.

Just is represented by Nellie Castan Gallery, South Yarra.

LOUISE KLERKS

Louise Klerks
Ink on paper
100 x 70 cm
(detail)
© 2009

Louise Klerks graduated from Sydney College of the Arts in 2005. She completed her Honours degree in sculpture, performance and installation art. Since relocating to Melbourne in 2007, Louise has completed a Diploma of Education at Melbourne University and works as the education coordinator at No Vacancy Gallery. Her particular interests include illustration, performance art and public interventions.

ROSIE KAVANAVOCH

Rosie Kavanavoch
spray paint, miniature canvases, mirror balls, photographs, toys
(installation detail)
© 2009

ANDY MAC

Andy Mac
spray paint, alcohol flask
(installation detail)
© 2009

PIPPA MAKGILL

Pippa Makgill
fabric, wooden poles, plaster casts, toys, wire
(installation detail)
© 2009

My studio is currently filled with plastered objects, plastic animals, $2 shop stuff and material casts of objects. Eclectic maybe? I use 600ml coke bottles a lot, I think I may just be trying to hide the fact that I buy too many of them. Pieces of objects are bound together to make strange and quirky gestures. Play and experimentation are central to creating a language. If my family were artists that influenced me my mum would be Richard Tuttle, my dad would be Hany Armanious, my big sister would be Mikala Dwyer and my little brother would be Gedi Sibony – Franz West would be my favourite uncle.

Pippa graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland in 2004. Her current practice spans sculpture, installation, photography and drawing. Pippa has exhibited with Special Gallery, Enjoy Gallery, High St Project and the Physics Room in New Zealand and C3 Contemporary Art Space in Melbourne. Pippa is currently completing her MFA by Research at Monash University.

ILIA ROSLI

Ilia Rosli
dried orange peels
(installation detail)
© 2009

My practice is defined by an intimate interaction with materials.
Objects of the home and things at hand are used as tools and symbols
to playfully explore ideas of memory, value, time, chance, and logic.
Currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Art, this November I will also
be showing at the VCA Art Graduate exhibition and at Bus Projects in
February. I have previously shown at various group and student
exhibitions at the Margaret Lawrence, George Paton, as well as at
Platform.

MARK SILIPO

Mark Silipo
tattooed doll, texta and ink on paper
individual works with variable dimensions
(installation detail)
© 2009

Mark Silipo is a freelance illustrator and designer based in Melbourne. He completed a Bachelor of Design (Communication Design) degree at RMIT University in 2008 where he majored in doodling. His work mixes surreal psychedelia with pop culture and childhood memories. In 2009 he solely illustrated and designed a 52-page zine called Teen Vomit.

More of Mark's work can be seen at Magic Sweater.

THE INTERVENTIONIST GUIDE TO MELBOURNE

This massive public art intervention took place at Platform and around the streets of the city throughout October. Curated by Lynda Roberts from Public Assembly, The Interventionist Guide to Melbourne featured artists: Ilan Abrahams, Caz Guiney, Ceri Hann, Rayna Fahey, Anthony Magen, Men in Suits, Projector Obscura, Roarawar-feartata-collective, Neil Thomas and Cye Wood. Works included interactive maps in each of the Platform cabinets with radio sound tours, live performance actions, self publishing, and general artistic antics designed to get people excited and involved.

For full details documentation, free zines and interventionist downloads, visit the Interventionist Guide.

MADDIE SHARROCK

Maddie Sharrock
Untitled
false wall, convex & concave mirrors
Variable dimensions
© 2009

Like Yayoi Kusama’s Peep Shop/Endless Love Show (1966), Untitled intends to investigate the act of staring. By replacing the windows of the Sample cabinet with a white wall and strategically affixing two squared mirrors - one concave and the other convex, which hold at each centre a peephole - the viewer is invited to peer into two darkened spaces. When they do, they will feel nothing but a light breath of air on their eye.

Sharrock's Untitled is an investigation into subjective perception, using ingredients such as darkness, light and mirrors to heighten the viewer’s awareness of their bodily senses and proximities. The work's engagement with the viewer is subtle and aims to quietly ‘nudge’ the limitations of perception.

Maddie is currently studying Sculpture and Spatial Practice at the VCA, and has previously exhibited as part of the Victoria Harbour Young Artists Initiative at Docklands.

POLLY DEDMAN

Polly Dedman
The Gap
hand drawn animation still (detail)
installation with DVD, looped, colour, 35:45 minutes
© 2009

The Gap is an animated split-screen panorama, which explores imaginary landscapes both above and below ground. As part of a work in progress, these landscapes will ultimately create the backdrop to the story of an individual lost 'below' and map a journey passing through time, space, light, darkness, sound, silence and the forgotten places in between.

Polly Dedman is an illustrator and animator with a practice based in pencil drawings, printmaking and collage. Her work has been printed in local magazines, fashion journals and featured on limited edition t-shirts and various online media. Polly has participated in numerous group shows and collaborations both local (Grey Matters, CINCH, Fat Loves Art) and international (Mail Me Art, London and Greetings From…, Tokyo). Polly recently completed an animation for the community group Project Respect, highlighting human rights violations and the human trafficking industry in Australia. Her animation The Gap is a work in progress funded by the City Of Melbourne Young Artist's Grant 2009 and is scheduled for completion in early 2010.

JULIE SHIELS

Julie Shiels
Rubbish Theory
Flocked plaster cast packaging
Variable dimensions
Photos courtesy of John Brash
© 2009

At the beginning of 2006, I picked up the casing of a strange looking object that had been dropped on the pavement between the sex shop and the local hardware in St Kilda. It wasn’t the packaging that interested me but the empty space that was left after an object had been consumed. This single act turned out to be the catalyst for a collection of other plastic packages that held more mundane objects: toys, office supplies, hardware stuff. I then started plaster casting the empty spaces in the packaging and flocking them in luminescent colours. I produced hundreds of these objects and attached them directly to the wall in patterns that suggested three-dimensional wallpaper in a site-specific installation called Flock.

Rubbish Theory extends and relocates this work into the Platform display cases that were once the advertising space for a now defunct department store. Each window will be hung to suggest the typologies of a department store such as kitchenware, bathroom and menswear. The new work will explore some of Michael Thompson’s ideas from Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value, which is an investigation of material culture in relation to circulation and scarcity, transience and durability and how changing tastes affect the meaning and value of objects.

Each display window has a different pattern: patterns of use that reference products that could have been sold in the now defunct department store: computer gear, toys, confection, etc. Other arrangements, mostly crowded, suggest movement and echo the way people pass through the arcade. Apart from being a mad critique of mass production and the era of the $2 dollar shop this work explores the ideas of material culture and asks questions about what objects will survive and become meaningful beyond their looming use by date. How do changing tastes affect the meaning and value of an object? How will this stuff be viewed in twenty years time? Will we laugh about the old technologies and the crap that filled our lives or will some of these objects have a new meanings and significance? The same question could be asked about this artwork.

Julie Shiels makes work for the gallery and public space, including the web. Her practice includes installation and photography but she also stencils discarded furniture in the street with quotes, truisms and stories. Julie has had two solo shows this year. Sleeper at Monash Gallery of Art, which included a photographic installation and pyjamas made from fabric salvaged from abandoned mattresses. Small Packages at Sophie Gannon Gallery was about the ingenuity and hidden beauty of contemporary industrial processes and the nature of obsolescence inherent in mass consumption. Julie teaches in the Art and Public Spaces post-graduate program at RMIT. For more about Julie Shiel’s work visit: City Traces

On show at Platform from 1 – 25 September 2009

REBECCA DELANGE & ALEISHA BODDENBERG

Rebecca Delange & Alyshia Boddenberg
Things From The Edges (installation details)
variable dimensions
soil, feathers, string, wood, paint, sequins, glitter & other materials
©2009

Things From the Edges is an experimental installation work, consisting of a series of relationships and dialogues between objects, materials and ideas. Alyshia Boddenberg and Rebecca Delange have teamed up to collaborate on their shared explorations into ideas pertaining to growth, excess and mutation. Detritus from the streets, artefacts from dreams, unconscious manifestations, things glimpsed in peripheral vision, denied fears and buried moments are articulated in their sculptural assemblages.

In the depths of Melbourne, viewers will be able to observe these elusive forms. Materials such as wood scraps, office supplies, fabric, plastic, paper, carpet, tape rope, household items, string, dirt, clay, feathers, glitter and paint are combined to create work that is simultaneously compelling, repulsive and optimistic. The artists will both utilise the Vitrine cabinet to create a dialogue between two practices to form a semi-abstract installation as they converge.

Rebecca Delange’s work explores ideas of uncomfortableness, disgust, waste and optimism. She is interested in exploring how immaterial things, such as emotions, memories, ideas and attitudes, can actually manifest into three-dimensional forms and exist tangibly in our reality. Delange has recently completed her Honours year at the VCA and has exhibited in a wide range of group and solo exhibitions, including Seventh Gallery, 45 Downstairs, The Counihan Gallery and First Site. She won the Ephemeral Award at the Wangaratta Sculpture Biennale in March 2008.

Alyshia Boddenberg’s work explores the transition of mundane, average, unassuming objects into seductive and dangerous formations that, gaining strength on mass, form a terrain entirely unto themselves. Boddenberg has recently completed her Honours year at the VCA. She was awarded The Casama Group Award, 2008, was short listed for the Dowd Travelling Scholarship, 2008, and selected to participate in The Filippo Raphael Fresh! exhibition at Craft Victoria in 2008.

On show at Vitrine from 1 – 25 September 2009

AARON COOPER & BEN TARANTO

Aaron Cooper & Ben Taranto
Subterranean Fouling
Polyurethene silicon & polyurethene foam
(installation detail)
2.4m x 1.2m x 65cm
Photo courtesy of the artists
© 2009

Subterranean Fouling is a reworking of Biologically Foul – a site-specific installation exhibited as part of the Victoria Harbour Young Artists Initiative at Docklands and presented earlier this year. ‘Biological Fouling’ is a term used to describe the accretion of naturally growing, aquatic organisms upon submerged human-made structures. It is the cause of extensive corrosion to underwater assets and an enormous fiscal threat to marine industries.

Cooper and Taranto simulate fouling of architectural space by creating artificial mussels and barnacles that ‘grow’ inside the Sample cabinet. It entertains the possibility that if current sea levels rise, as we are constantly led to believe, that the Degraves Street Subway could become prime space for the next wave of urban biological fouling.

Aaron Cooper and Ben Taranto are currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Victorian College the Arts majoring in sculpture and spatial practice. Working in collaboration they use sculpture and installation as a means to explore tensions arising between the organic and synthetic, urban and natural, aquatic and terrestrial realms.

Curated by Laura Castagnini
On show at Sample from 1 – 25 September 2009

SIMON O'CARRIGAN

Simon O'Carrigan
Terminal
Hand drawn animation still
DVD, looped, colour, sound, 4:15 Minutes
© 2009

The root origin of the word terminal is terminus, the end of a line. A terminal is also an external computer station that allows input to an internal network. A terminal is a point of connection that closes the loop of an electric circuit. A terminal disease is that which is predicted to lead to death, especially slowly. A terminal velocity denotes the constant speed an object reaches when the resistance of the medium through which it falls prevents further acceleration.

In this work, Terminal, we see the daily life of a worker in a modern day 'electronic plantation'. Falling through his viscous life, a terminal velocity is reached. Repetitive tasks and repetitive days keep him on a loop, his position being a terminal, closing the loop of his office network circuit. The worker is slowly reaching the end of the line, a terminus at which he'll not burn out, just fade away.

Simon O'Carrigan works across animation, collage and painting and has exhibited in various galleries around Melbourne since 2005. Simon’s work has been included in Hatched National Graduate exhibition at PICA, and earned him the NAVA Ignition Award. His animations have been commissioned for the City Museum in Melbourne, screened in Taiwan, Canberra Short Film Festival, Brisbane International Animation Festival, This Is Not Art's Electrofringe, and included in various DVD zine compilations by Tape Projects.

On show at Frame from 1 – 25 September 2009

MISSTER DEAN & MS TEEN

Misster Dean and Ms Teen
Photobooth Project
Photobooth photography composite (detail)
Complete set taken 1999-2009
© 2009

Photo booths are found in bars, airports, train stations, malls, games arcades and walkways around the world. They are the everyday person’s photographic studio and a portal in which one enters to become a model, actor, documentary photographer or creative artist. In 1999 we decided to make the photo booth our public art laboratory and made a pact to take one photo booth strip every week for five years. As the weeks turned into years, we continued to enter photo booths all over the world and experimented with everything from traditional portraiture to stop motion animation; we created comic strips, puppet shows, and installation art works. We were often challenged with inconsistent lighting and poor quality developing chemicals and always restricted by the three metronomic seconds between each shot and the limited depth of field. The Photobooth Project is an interactive touring exhibition and an installation that invites the public to produce their own photo booth strip.

Misster Dean met Ms Teen at a Brisbane film school in 1993 but it wasn’t until they reunited in London in 1999 that they began working together. Their first collaboration was a queer super-8 film called Bunnygirl, which travelled international festival circuits and marked the start of The Photobooth Project. Moving to New York in 2000, the artists created another super-8 film, Mama Simmy’s Roadtrip. This cult film screened with success in queer film festivals in New York, London, Berlin and Sydney. On their return to Australia, they produced Peripheral Vision, a time-based film installation for St Kilda Film Festival and produced several more super-8 films. Misster Dean made a short film Katfite, which was selected for MUFF in 2004 and The Photobooth Project was also completed in the same year. The following year, Misster Dean & Ms Teen were invited to participate in a travelling exhibition through Europe. Currently residing in Melbourne, Misster Dean and Ms Teen continue to collaborate on queer time-based installations and short films.

On show at Majorca from 1 – 25 September 2009
Majorca Building is located on the corner Centre Place & Flinders Lane, Melbourne

THE SEPTEMBER SHOWS

The September Shows are closing on Friday 25 September!

Featuring: Julie Shiels, Alyshia Boddenberg & Rebecca Delange, Simon O'Carrigan, Aaron Cooper & Ben Tarano, Misster Dean & Ms Teen.

DELL STEWART

Dell Stewart
Elementary
(upper) acrylic & resin on wood
(lower) knitted cotton
variable dimensions
© 2009

Recently working with sculpture, drawing, animation and installation, Dell Stewart's work features recurring motifs and symbols in a range of media, creating a personal symbolism, suggestive of memory and elementary connections. These sculptural works draw loose connections, isolated objects linked by an unexplained gravitational attraction.

Dell Stewart has organised and participated in numerous solo and collaborative exhibitions, working with sculpture, drawing, animation and installation. Most recently she has exhibited at Bus and Utopian Slumps in Melbourne, Project(or) in Rotterdam and Takt Gallery in Berlin.

On show at Platform throughout August.

ADAM CRUICKSHANK

Adam Cruickshank
Enhanced Awareness Campaign
Discarded trophy pieces and assorted consumer detritus
variable dimensions
© 2009

Enhanced Awareness Campaign consists of a number of hybrid, bastardized trophies. Post-ironic religious icons destined to be sacrificed to the gods of ASX and NASDAQ or awards for those who excel in the implementation of enhanced consumer enabling, customer loyalty programs and the architecture of brands? Everything is AWESOME with these AMAZING PRIZES.

Adam Cruickshank went to the Queensland College of Art in the early 1990s and – after a period of exhibiting locally – worked in magazine art direction until 2007 when he restarted his dedication to fine art practice. His work ranges through sculptural installation, collaboration, image-making and sound. He has exhibited in Europe and Australia in various public spaces and galleries including TCB, Utopian Slumps, and Bus.

On show at Platform throughout August.

CARLY FISCHER

Carly Fischer
You took the words right out of my mouth
paper, foamcore and adhesives
variable dimensions
© 2009

You took the words right out of my mouth explores the idea that in an increasingly globalised contemporary context, where our environment is continually replicated, remixed and commodified, we have nothing left to say. In her installation, Fischer explores Berlin as a model environment where even dysfunction has been commodified. Fischer explores this idea of reproduction and it’s resultant expectation by creating idealised paper models of destruction that mimic the perfection of postcards. In Fischer’s installation, the emptiness of the objects and the title reflect on the tenuous situation of the individual whose intent is insecure; caught in between critiquing this system of reproduction and commodification while at the same time playing an active part in its construction.

Carly Fischer is a Berlin-based visual artist, originally from Melbourne. Her work spans sculpture, installation, photography and social research and seeks to question normative structures and representations that are produced and readily accepted in an increasingly globalised world. Much of her work deals with replicating elements from surrounding urban environments as paper models. This replication attempts to both mimic and mock the processes of hyper-efficiency and hyper-production, which surround her, as well as comment on contemporary expectations of perfection.

On show at Platform throughout August.

ANNIKA KOOPS

Annika Koops
Mixed Mythologies
(upper) acrylic on canvas
(lower detail) sgraffito with black acrylic on board
70cm x 50cm
© 2009

Mixed Mythologies re-visions historical 16th and 17th century paintings as the polygonal mesh used to create 3D computer models. The images present subjects characteristic of the period: vanitas, still lifes and religious icons. However these images are not generated by computer, but by hand, oscilating between old and new technology. There is an inherent paradox to these images, a cyclical redundancy which explores concepts relating to homogenization. The work simultaneously implies the ephemeral and eternal. This creates temporal conflict, in which the outcome is stasis.

Annika Koops works primarily with painting and digital photography. In 2007 she was the recipient of the Keith and Elisabeth Murdoch Traveling Fellowship. Annika currently works in Melbourne where she has been involved in group and solo projects at various galleries and ARI’s. Annika’s work is held in public and private collections in Australia and she has exhibited widely nationally and internationally.

On show at Platform throughout August.

RACHAEL HOOPER

Rachael Hooper
(upper) One Landscape
(lower detail) One Ham Sandwich
Acrylic on Paper
complete set 220 cm x 90 cm
© 2009

You could take a photo (it lasts longer, so they say). Or on the other hand you could rent a cold studio, buy some paint, tape up some paper, mix the paint and brush it on. Then you could mix it again, put some water with it or some curious medium and apply it again. Wipe it off, spray some water, paint it back on, stand back, tilt your head and contemplate.
Then do it all over again
and again.
Until you get what we’ve all seen before...
A landscape and a ham sandwich.

Rachael Hooper has exhibited in artist run spaces and galleries in Melbourne and Darwin. She has been short-listed for several prizes including the Brett Whiteley Traveling Scholarship, and won the Albany Art Prize in 2008.

On show at Platform throughout August.

NATASHA FRISCH

Natasha Frisch
Between you and me
tracing paper, double sided tape
240cm x 100 cm
© 2009

Between you and me is inspired by tales of suburban myth and the seedier aspects of Australian domesticity, the constructions act as a document of the places where human behavior has altered the space for better or for worse, empty situations which via stillness and spatial displacement allow for a slippage between the real and unreal.

Natasha Frisch is a Melbourne-based artist who works with modest materials, such as paper and tape to construct installations and sculptures that emulate sites and objects from the every day. Natasha completed her Bachelor of Arts (Media Arts) - Honours at RMIT in 1997 and since this time she has exhibited extensively throughout Melbourne art spaces. She is represented by Dianne Tanzer Gallery.

On show at Platform throughout August.

DOMINIC KAVANAGH

Dominic Kavanagh
Perkins’ Leg
acrylic paint, wood, sticks, sand, mdf board, rope, plants, curtains,
(installation) 400 cm x 150 cm (detail) 50 cm x 30 cm
© 2009

The Myth
A preserved, three and a half metre wooden leg was recently found half buried in desert sands just south of the Moroccan city, Tangier. Due to a series of severe desert storms, much of the covering sand had been removed, exposing the leg for the first time in what is believed to be around 1650 years. There has been much controversy over the leg’s origin. Mobile in design and consisting of several carved, interlocking pieces, many baffled archaeologists have suggested the leg functioned as a component to a large, primitive, mechanical farming device. Professor Perkins, who discovered the leg, believes its origin to be far more significant. Perkins speculates that the remnants belonged to an apparent creature of mythical renown: Nemorosus Aroxus (Wooden Horror).

Perkins’ Leg is the fantastical discovery of a large limb belonging to an unknown creature. Constructed almost entirely from wood, the artefact is half buried in sand in order to portray the desert scene of its apparent discovery and its display is designed to provoke curiosity about its origin. This kind of installation is reminiscent of ‘nature’ displays in museums and theme parks. Fake environments like these are created in a variety of ways to depict and inspire speculation about the life of the subjects placed within them. I want to create my own myth surrounding the existence of a supposed artefact or relic. In this case, everything has been fabricated, from the relic itself, to the brief publication of its history that accompanies it.

Dominc Kavanagh graduated with first class honours from the University of Newcastle before moving to Melbourne in early 2007 to pursue an art career. Dominic held his first Melbourne solo show, The Rebellious Garden Shed, at Seventh Gallery, Fitzroy in 2008. He received the Jennie Thomas Traveling Artists Scholarship in 2004, and was short-listed for the Brett Whitley Traveling Artists Scholarship in 2003 and 2004. Dominic is currently completing a Master of Fine Art degree at Monash University.

On show at Vitrine throughout August.

CLAIRE GALLAGHER

Claire Gallagher
Absence of the Inner
glass tank, potted plants, taxidermy birds, taxidermy fox, animal bones, wire, string, flouro tubes, dirt
(upper) 200 cm x 90 cm
(lower detail) variable dimensions
© 2009

An empty vitrine, void of material matter other than hot air, suggests suffocation. It alludes to the fate of the subject inside suffering a slow death. Paradoxically, hot sticky air can also generate life, such as within a hot house. With these ideas in mind, Claire Gallagher surrounds an empty glass vitrine with a mix of living pot plants and taxidermied animals. The environment she creates is oddly eerie and monstrous, yet at the same time illustrates a continuation of life. Absence of the Inner suggests that the human desire to control, manipulate and contain the living may originate in an underlying fear of a rampant, uncontrollable nature.

Claire Gallagher is currently completing her Honours degree in Fine Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts and works across sculpture and installation to create environments that explore the tensions and parallels between the living and the dead, the artificial and the natural.

This is the second Sample show to be curated by Laura Castagnini as part of her 2009 Curator in Residence with Platform.

On show at Sample throughout August.

CHRONOX

Chronox
toothpicks, mdf board, wire, mirrors, dvd players, screens
(150 x 100 cm)
© 2009

Chronox is an ongoing investigation of time, space and perception, incorporating installation, performance and publications in a variety of media. Further information and archival documents can be found online at Chronox.

Sadly, this will be the last installation by Tape Projects as part of their 2009 Frame Residency at Platform. Tape Projects seeks to promote the wealth of talented and underrepresented young and emerging artists in Melbourne and throughout Australia, who practice media art and hybrid forms not necessarily suited to the traditional gallery format. As young and emerging artists ourselves, we believe in supporting our highly skilled community by creating new opportunities for the screening and showcasing of accomplished experimental art.

Tape Projects is comprised of the following individuals: Alice Hui-Sheng Chang, Sunday Ganim, Tanja Milbourne, Eugenia Lim, Michael Prior, Zoe Scoglio, Jessie Scott, Lee Anantawat and Nic Whyte. For more information about Tape Projects visit their website.

On show in Frame throughout August

CAROLINE IERODIACONOU

Caroline Ierodiaconou
Role Model
Acrylic on canvas
150 x 70 cm
© 2009

This exhibition consists of a series of drawings and paintings exploring the homogenisation of culture, beauty and aesthetics, as well as the politics behind this process. The artwork will also explore the subversion of the feminine ideal, which is used to constantly attack a woman’s sense of identity and self.

Caroline is an emerging Melbourne artist, whose powerful figurative pieces are a thought provoking meditation on the times in which we live. Her work often depicts humanity as a fragmented and threatened species, at war with both itself and the rest of nature. There is also a lighter, whimsical side to this artist’s work, representing the vulnerability, foibles and quirks of being human. Since graduating from the Victorian College of Arts in 2002, Caroline has exhibited widely with both group and solo shows in commercial and artist-run galleries. After spending three months in Asia in 2009, in 2010 she is scheduled to return to China with a three-month residency at the Red Gate Gallery in Beijing.

On show throughout August at the Majorca Building entrance on the corner of Centre Place and Flinders Lane Melbourne.

THE AUGUST SHOWS

Opening Friday 7 August 2009 from 6-8pm
Degraves Street Subway – Melbourne Australia

Featuring:

DELL STEWART
RACHAEL HOOPER
NATASHA FRISCH
CARLY FISCHER
ANNIKA KOOPS
ADAM CRUICKSHANK
in Repeat Repeat at Platform

DOMINIC KAVANAGH at Vitrine
CHRONOX at Frame (the last Tape Projects Residency)
CLAIRE GALLAGHER at Sample (curated by Laura Castagnini)
CAROLINE EIRODIACONOU at Majorca

TOM O'HERN

Tom O’Hern
Bone Bed
Ink drawings on archive paper
individual works approx. 150 x 90 cm
© 2009

Bone Bed explores key aspects of Melbourne's history by reflecting on the build up of bones and garbage beneath Degraves Lane. This collection of work dually serves as a memento mori as well as a reminder of the often dark and bloody past that underlies our present "peace and prosperity".

Tom O'Hern is a Melbourne-based artist whose work spans illustration, murals, painting, installation and sculpture. Tom has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the University of Tasmania.

JESSIE SCOTT

Jessie Scott
Gravity Pleasure Switchback
DVD player and screens, lights terrarium, sand, other detritus
(95 x 145 cm) (detail)
© 2009

"Everything must be different from ordinary experience...When a stranger arrives at Coney Island...his eyes tell him he is in a different world – a dream world, perhaps a nightmare world, where all is bizarre and fantastic."
Frederick Thompson, creator of Luna Park, 1904

Shot on a blustery, bleak mid-May Saturday afternoon, the powerful magnetism of memory and place is revealed in this shaky, handy cam footage of a barely-there Coney Island. R&B and the booming of touts steamroll over the emptiness, deliberately and insistently evading the issue of absence. Seagulls circle on the fog engulfed shore, and on the boardwalk, people are dancing.

Even in its vastly reduced state, with assumptions of its closure rife, there is enough magic dust mixed in with the sand and cigarette butts to draw people, in the most unlikely circumstances, into spontaneous and public reverie here. Surprising, awkward, slightly daggy and incredibly awesome at the same time, the Coney Island Dancers revive the simultaneously naive and seamy public space of the boardwalk.

Jessie Scott is a video artist who likes to examine rituals, both public and private. She is a member of Tape Projects. This is the sixth Frame Residency project from Tape Projects.

JON OLDMEADOW

Jon Oldmeadow
Phantom
Mechanised zoetrope with drawings, lights, motor
100 x 100 cm (detail view)
© 2009

Phantom (noun): an image appearing in a dream or formed in the mind

Phantom explores the fascination that comes from things seen for the first time. This series of drawings is automated by an oversized mechanized zoetrope, an analogue animation device. It takes inspiration from cave drawings found in Arnhem Land thought to be of early explorer Ludwig Leichhardt and his horse. Just as European drawings of eucalyptus trees, which appeared more like European deciduous trees, and kangaroos, which looked more like giant rats, must have seemed strange to Aboriginal people, the Indigenous representation of white people and their animals appear very peculiar, like a phantom.

Jon Oldmeadow completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at Monash University in 2007 and has collaborated as a part of Safari Team since 2006. With Safari Team, Jon has exhibited at VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery, TCB, Next Wave Festival, and Seventh Gallery in Melbourne, Firstdraft Gallery in Sydney, Palazzo Vaj in Italy and WLTWSAETLV in Montreal, Canada.

SARAH BUNTING

Sarah Bunting
(upper) Diamond Drawing
pencil on paper
(lower) Volcano God/Warrior of The Tephra
digital composite (detail)
© 2009

Imagery drawn from consumer culture and current affairs, combined with the languages of analysis, advertising and corporate-speak, build in layers to create a strange, altar-like construction inside the Vitrine space. Imagining a future civilisation in which objects from our present have been recontextualised as icons of worship, Volcano God/Warrior of the Tephra presents a curious, psychedelic new vision of community and worship. Weapons and costumes recall pagan societies of the past, but the materials used to construct these items are all too clearly from our own present.

Sarah Bunting studied Visual Communication at Monash University and has lectured in Design History and Theory at RMIT TAFE for the past three years. During that time she has taken part in group exhibitions, including No Excuses at FAD Gallery, I Wear My Heart on My Tee at Boroondara Town Hall, and a 2007 Platform show with Dale Nason, Free Meat Economy. Sarah is also involved in performance art, working again with Dale Nason as part of Boutique Irrational and in 2008 formed the all-female performance collective LeoTards. Sarah also self-publishes in zines and on her blog, The Tephra.

BRIDGET RADOMSKI

Bridget Radomski
(pass) by strangers
c-type photograph
(59.4 x 84 cm)
© 2009

Changing daily, a flow of words combined with facial expressions decorate the Majorca cabinets; illustrating a voyeuristic, humorous and challenging disconnection. A seemingly unrelated word dissolves and re-emerges into an alternate meaning; a language of the street. (pass) by strangers is a collection of captured conversations and photographs by Melbourne based emerging photographic artist Bridget Radomski.

Bridget Radomski has curated and exhibited in Melbourne and Japan. Bridget is a graduate of the Photography Studies College and has a Bachelor of Fine Art (Photography) from RMIT University. She works as a commercial photographer while maintaining a studio practice exploring various mediums and specifically installation pieces.

2010 APPLICATIONS CLOSING SOON

Deadline for 2010 Artistic Program applications: 5pm Friday 17 July 2009.

Click here to download the application form

NEW DIRECTOR

Platform is putting the call out for a new director to join the Platform team!

This is a paid, part-time, position helping to manage the organisation and working very closely with the artistic team and board, as well as managing a large network of relationships with artists, art organisations, government and funding bodies, landlords, media and the public.

Click here to download a Position Description

Please note that applications will be closing 10 July 2009.

THE JULY SHOWS

Opening Friday 3 July 2009 from 6-8pm
Degraves Street Subway Melbourne Australia

Featuring:
TOM O'HERN at Platform
SARAH BUNTING at Vitrine
JESSIE SCOTT at Frame
JON OLDMEADOW at Sample
BRIDGET RADOMSKI at Majorca

NICOLE BREEDON, ACE WAGSTAFF, RACHEL ANG

Nicole Breedon
Apocalypticism
oil painting on canvas
(detail)
© 2009

The term ‘apocalypse’ is one that has been used extensively in the media and arts of late – the coming to an end of the human species, and the monumental grief and suffering involved. Apocalypse literally translates to ‘lifting of the veil’ and traditionally refers to a disclosure to certain people, something hidden from the majority of humankind. Today, however, the term is often used to refer to the end of the world.

Apocalypticism is a multi-disciplinary work investigating the concepts and themes of secrets, and their relation to ideas such as: truth, government secrecy, conspiracy, mysticism, illusion, magic,reality, revelation, and the metaphysical.

Shifting the normal viewing position of Platform’s glass display cases, the small-scale installations are instead hidden behind various façades, reminiscent of doors or chests. Emerging from the darkness, these installations are made visible via peepholes, manipulating the viewer into the uncomfortable position of voyeur, violating a mysterious and unexplained privacy.

On display in the main Platform cases throughout June.




Nicole Breedon
Sham Orb
plywood cover over clay sculptures
(detail installation view)
Photo courtesy of the artist © 2009

Nicole Breedon employs painting, woodwork, video and installation to explore the esoteric nature of our cosmos and the human psyche – such as the mind, the origins of the universe and creation, the future, time and space. Her work examines mankind's infinitesimal position within the orders of magnitude, in contrast to the richness and depth of the human experience. Aside from various collaborative ventures, duo shows and group exhibitions such as Lateral Investigations at George Paton Gallery, Nicole is currently completing her Bachelor of Fine Art at the VCA. Visit Nicole's website here.




Rachel Ang
Untitled Apocalypticism
medical masks, lamps, beaker, soil, plant
(detail installation view)
© 2009

Rachel Ang's work is concerned with experience, curiosity, discovery – a logic of the senses, which lends itself to the pursuit of freedom and romanticism. Her work is made by bringing seemingly incongruous elements together to explore relations and restraint – a material-based practice resulting in objects that embody the discourse which is their orbit, a kind of play which is both ebullient and scientific in scope. Her creations are constantly being broken down and reconstructed; physical inversions catalyse conceptual ones. Rachel completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) at the VCA in 2008. Rachel has shown work at Platform, Mailbox 141, and the Sydney College of the Arts and more recently showed in Blindside’s To Boldly Go Where Everyone Has Gone Before.




Ace Wagstaff
Untitled Apocalypticism
Rubik's Cube pieces, wires
(detail installation view)
© 2009

Ace Wagstaff is interested in the unknown and theoretical: space, time and love. His practice involves the creation of tributes or homages to these ideals, like three-dimensional sonnets of representation to certain scientific and philosophical theories and concepts. These loving tributes are often realised in a variety of forms including photography, installation, social or relational acts, painting and sculpture. Ace graduated from the VCA with a Bachelor of Fine Art in 2007. He has been included in group exhibitions, social interventions, collaborative projects with other artists, residencies at various schools and solo exhibitions including Aesthetic Laboratory, at George Paton Gallery in 2008.

ANDY HUTSON

Andy Hutson
Unnatural History
timber, paper, plastic & electronic sculptural installation
(upper: installation view)
(lower: installation details)
© 2009

Unnatural History utilises Vitrine as a site for a miniature diorama, as one would encounter in a museum of natural history – at least, a museum based on the empirical classification of 'historical’ or ‘natural’ artefacts. In this case, the papier-mâché and cardboard artefacts presented highlight the increasing difficulty with which we differentiate between the constructed and natural worlds. Although these objects are archaic in both their construction and content, they represent the shape of things to come – an entirely fabricated nature. Unnatural History critically questions the cultural apparatus through which our perception of ‘the natural’ is formed, and simultaneously alludes to humankind’s own willful and inevitable destruction of the environment.

On display in the Vitrine case throughout June.

Andy Hutson is a Melbourne based artist, working primarily in sculpture and installation. He has exhibited both locally and interstate, and recently completed his Master of Fine Art at VCA. In 2008 he was the recipient of the ANZ Visual Arts Award. Andy is also an active member of Seventh Gallery, an artist run space in Fitzroy, Melbourne.

CHLOE VALLANCE

Chloe Vallance
Fables of the familiar, the forgotten and the found
pencil drawings on timber, bottles, canvas, paper, paint swatches and pencil shavings
(upper: detail view)
(lower: installation view)
© 2009

The idea of sequencing imagery to suggest an underlying notion of a narration is a recurring theme in my art making. I have become increasingly interested in familiar and forgotten moments of intimate human interaction, as well as the notion of scale – very small drawings allow the imagery to become more personal. I am also fascinated by the simplicity of intimacy experienced by a solitary figure a moment at a time. My current art practice deals with intimate imagery of figures, both together and solitary. When sequenced together, these images allude to the concept of a narration in the form of a storyboard, family album or a film still. The ideas for my drawings stem from my observation of people, close friends and family, and are developed from photographs and life. Fables… will consist of a series of small-scale drawings, paintings, objects and artist books. I am working predominately in coloured pencil on paper, colour swatches, and timber, (pine and MDF board), to create my drawings and objects, while using oils to produce my paintings. The artist books consist of traditional book making materials, such as card, fabric and paper. A lot of my materials, especially the colour swatches and timber, are found objects that relate in terms of scale.

Chloe Vallance is currently studying Fine Art (Honours) Drawing at RMIT. Vallance has held solo shows including: Human Interaction at RMIT First Site Gallery, Narratives of the Personal the Playful and the Peaceful at Seventh Gallery, and Chapter 12 at Brunswick Street Gallery. Chloe has appeared in group exhibitions such as Made in Italy, Phillips House of Fine Art Drawing Prize, and she was one of five winners of the Siemens RMIT Fine Art Undergraduate travel scholarships for 2007.

On display in the Sample case throughout June.

TANJA MILBOURNE

Tanja Milbourne
Degraves Street Subway
photographic collage
© 2009

This project, specifically designed for the Frame Residency at Platform, takes the existing site as the subject for enquiry. Investigating the conceptual and formal properties of photographic documentation, Degraves Street Subway extends into the temporal realm. The transitory nature of the passageway is evidenced by the fragments and traces of people moving through the subway. The surrounding space is unfolded both architecturally and temporally, implicating the viewer in the act of seeing and inviting questions about the nature of perception.

On display in the Frame case throughout June.

This is the sixth installation from Tape Projects' Frame Residency at Platform.

Tanja Milbourne is a photographer and media artist. Her work incorporates an ongoing investigation into photographic documentation, informed through critical examination of the inherent qualities of representation and perception.

AARON MOODIE

Aaron Moodie
non particular
pencil drawing on paper
Aaron Moodie
© 2009

non particular consists of a series of large works in ink, pen and pencil on paper, which explore social and mental space, the modern world and the interaction between them. I spend a lot of time inside my head, and use my work as a way to document and express the thoughts and feelings that are generated as a result.

On display in the Majorca cases on Centre Place Melbourne throughout June.

Aaron Moodie is a Melbourne based graphic designer. He likes making things and trying to comprehend infinity. This is his first ever exhibition.

THE JUNE SHOWS

THE JUNE SHOWS
Opening 6-8pm Friday 5 June 2009
Degraves Street Subway Melbourne

Featuring:

Nicole Breedon, Rachel Ang & Ace Wagstaff (Platform)
Andy Hutson (Vitrine)
Tanja Milbourne (Frame)
Choe Vallance (Sample)
Aaron Moddie (Majorca)

KATE McINTYRE

Kate McIntyre
Growth
drawing, paper, chrome vinyl
(installation detail)
© 2009

Kate McIntyre is rendering an improbable growth down beneath Flinders Street, toying with a contested underground space and unravelling an argument of territory between urban and natural development.

McIntyre is a New Zealand artist recently relocated to Melbourne. She creates installations that draw forth a potential hidden history, future or present from the banalities of a space, allowing the viewer to rethink the situations in which we are surrounded. In the cabinets of Platform , McIntyre is documenting a creeping expansion that seems to be breaking through the structures of its environment, questioning the usual patterns of construction and growth. McIntyre works with man-made and artificial materials to construct her scenarios, using surfaces and motifs to emulate space and form, suggestively fabricating architectural creations, inversions and destructions. Her work is driven by a fascination with suggested potential, and the improbability of seeing both things at the same time.

Kate McIntyre is a New Zealand artist recently relocated to Melbourne. Along with graduating from the University of Canterbury’s Sculpture Studio in 2005, McIntyre has exhibited her work extensively in Christchurch, as well as in Auckland, and Kurashiki, Japan as part of a sculptural exchange. She has also acted on the Board of Trustees for Christchurch’s HSP Gallery, and adapted ideas from her practice into the production design for several short films. Recently McIntyre has shown in the Physics Room Gallery’s public art site in Christchurch, The Kiosk, and held a solo show, Lost in Space, at HSP Gallery.

SUE-CHING LASCELLES

Sue-Ching Lascelles
I'm Lichen You a Lot
felt, cotton, polysheets
(installation detail)
© 2009

Our rapidly developing society continues to blur the distinction between Science and Nature. In petri dishes all over the world, nature is being ‘re-designed’ for both beneficial and destructive ends. I’m Lichen You a Lot will be the most beautiful felt fungal disease to infect the city of Melbourne. Thousands of tiny felt lichen spanning many species, both real and invented, will create a saturating composition of ‘artificial nature’. Painstakingly categorised according to colour and form, these curious objects will be overwhelming in mass yet fascinating in detail. Intricately crafted from felt, this soft sculpture installation will appeal to the distant onlooker as a whimsical explosion of colour and composition whilst rewarding the observant viewer with a deeper understanding of the forces at play in the work. I’m Lichen You a Lot is an attempt to challenge our increasingly confused notion of natural beauty, changing the city’s landscape with an injection of beautiful and fragile synthesised nature within the subway.

Sue-Ching Lascelles is a Brisbane-based textile artist specialising in the creation of everyday objects from felt. Her collections of soft sculptures are based on the perception and memory of childhood. Inspired by a playful, childlike vision of the world around us, she rejects so-called ‘grown-up’ forms of aesthetic naturalism. There is a keen sense of novelty that resonates in her desire to transform the banal into the fantastical. Sue-Ching is presently artist-in-residence at Juggler’s Art Space in Fortitude Valley, Queensland.

GEORGIA GILLARD

Georgia Gillard
Paint Job
c-type photograph
(detail)
© 2009

"To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt."
Susan Sontag, On Photography, 1977

These photographs directly explore rural and urban landscapes and architecture, which promise much but await change. Mortality, truth and the fragment are themes which reappear in my work and which share a vital relationship with photography. There is an interesting relationship between photographer and subject; the power of the photographer and the vulnerability and mutability of the subject and furthermore, what becomes of the subject once it has become an object or commodity.

Georgia Gillard completed her Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) in 2008 and is currently completing her Honours year at Monash University. Her photography has appeared in various student exhibitions and will be featured in the upcoming publication Stab Your Brother in 2009.

NESS FLETT

Ness Flett
A Pictorial Essay of Devolution
print on paper
© 2009

A Pictorial Essay of Devolution is an exploration of interference by mankind, and the modern condition of flora and fauna. ‘Devolution’ as a term is widely argued as only appropriate for science fiction, as a species is only able to 'evolve' and does this through natural selection. What then, when humanity interferes so heavily with domestic and captive animals, along with popular garden plants and the effects of introduced species? If it isn't pollinating an orchid to create a completely dependent hybrid that has no means of reproduction, it's inbreeding a domestic pet such that it is almost guaranteed hip dysplasia and physical malfunction. Using medical illustration conventions, these anatomical studies take an investigative, scientific approach, whereas the opposing windows deal with human intervention in a more lyrical manner. The delicate lines and children's story book-style soften the blow of the road kill we interrupted on its daily journey by a bumper bar.

Having trained horses for over a decade, Ness Flett's pursuit of understanding animals and their architecture comes as no surprise. Ness studied painting at RMIT before traveling to Portugal to continue training horses while exhibiting her work on the anatomy and movement of animals. More recently, her work has begun including botanical elements in more detail, and her two separate studies began to collide. Ness has exhibited widely in Melbourne and interstate, and she has been a finalist in the Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery Drawing Award, Churchie National Emerging Art Award, Queensland Darebin Acquisitive Art Award. Ness lives in Melbourne and is a member of Artback, the roaming regional artist group.

LOUISE DIBBEN

Louise A. Dibben
The Hunt
video still
©2009

Regarding cheap special effects and the codex of body language as the most refined communication devices available, Louise Dibben makes video installations that re-position cultural and sexual power struggles through simple actions that are recontextualised.

The Hunt is the fourth Tape Projects Frame Residency work at Platform for 2009. For more information visit the Tape Projects website.

MATT SHAW

Matt Shaw
The Underground Garden III
plants (grevillia), soil, rocks, burnt logs
(installation detail)
©2009

This is the third Underground Garden installation at Platform by horticulturalist and artist Matt Shaw for 2009. This work shifts the setting of the previous installation of Boxed In from the night cityscape that was slowly being taken over by plants, and transplants us into a slice of forest recently burned in the Black Saturday bushfires. Consisting of indigenous plants and burnt logs from his friends’ properties outside of Melbourne, Matt has created a memorial to not only the victims of the bushfires this year but shows us that new life always springs back from destruction.

Matt Shaw is a Melbourne based horticulturalist and artist specialising in creative and sustainable gardens, for more information visit Matthew Shaw Designs.

THE MAY SHOWS

THE MAY SHOWS
Opening 6-8pm Friday 8 May 2009
Degraves Street Subway Melbourne

Featuring:

Kate McIntyre (Platform)
Sue-Ching Lascelles (Vitrine)
Georgia Gillard (Sample)
Louise Dibben (Frame)
Matt Shaw (Garden)
Ness Flett (Majorca)

Emerging Curator appointed

We are extremely pleased to announce the appointment of Laura Castagnini in the position of Emerging Curator for 2009. Laura is a graduate of Monash University and has curated various group shows in Melbourne for O Projects and worked with Next Wave Festival 2008. As well as being a founding committee member of O Projects, Laura is a practicing artist and has exhibited in Australia, Italy and Japan. We welcome Laura to the Platform Team and look forward to her upcoming shows at Sample and 2010 Projects!

Making Sense of Censorship

Following on from the recent spate of censorship actions against Platform and other galleries, the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) have announced they will soon be releasing a new book on censorship, law and artists' rights in Australia. Right on!

Read Liza Power's article from The Age here.

Hamstrung: Creativity Within Constraints

Curated by Anusha Kenny
Stuart Bailey, Kaori Kato, Azlan McLennan, Rosie Miller, Carl Scrase

Sometimes it is so hard to write the first word. There is too much to say and too many ways to say it. If you are a contemporary artist, there are even more problems. You have to decide on a medium, an aesthetic, and before that you have to decide whether to decide on any of these things at all. This can be paralysing, and you might decide that it is easier to become a scientist.

If you are lucky, you will have limits imposed on you. You may only have watercolours available, for example. This constraint will open up a world of opportunities because you now know you will be a contemporary watercolorist. But what if you want to paint photorealist portraits in the style of Chuck Close? Well, then you will have to beat the limits of your medium.

Anusha Kenny is currently completing the Art & Australia and Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces Emerging Writer’s Program. In 2008 she was the inaugural curator-in-residence for Platform’s Sample exhibition space. She has curated exhibitions for TCB and the Melbourne University Arts Festival. Her writing has been published in Australian Art Collector, Art & Australia and UN magazine. Anusha is the gallery manager for Platform Artists Group and this is her second curated group show in the main exhibition space.

STUART BAILEY

Stuart Bailey
Grass then Beer: You're in the Clear/Beer then Grass: You're on your Arse
Papier-mâché, bottles, string, cloth, paint
(installation detail)
© 2009

Stuart Bailey graduated with First Class Honours in Bachelor of Art (Visual Art) at Canberra School of Art, ANU, and has exhibited widely across Australia, New Zealand, and America. Solo exhibitions include Desert Mouth at Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Building Self Esteem at Fremantle Arts Centre and Party H.Q at Enjoy Gallery in Wellington. His work was included in the Bon Scott Project at Fremantle Arts Centre, Old Skool (never lose that feeling) at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. In 2005, he was the recipient of the Australia Council’s Los Angeles Studio Residency.

KAORI KATO

Kaori Kato
Hamstrung: Creativity Within Constraints
folded paper prints
(installation details)
© 2009

Kaori Kato completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Drawing) at VCA in 2008. Her Drawing Machine was included in the 2008 Melbourne Art Fair, and her work has been exhibited at Victoria Park Gallery, Brunswick Street Gallery and Margaret Lawrence Gallery. Kaori was the 2008 Recipient of the Wallara Travelling Scholarship.

AZLAN McLENNAN

Azlan McLennan
It's Coming
composite digital prints
(installation detail)
© 2009

Azlan McLennan is currently completing his Master of Fine Art at the VCA. He has recently returned from a residency in Scotland. Selected solo projects include Proudly unAustralian at Trocadero Art Space and Pay Your Way, funded by Urbanart. His work was included in Flux Capacitor, curated by Pilot at Utopian Slumps in 2008 and Rules of Engagement, curated by Mark Feary at West Space in 2007.

ROSIE MILLER

Rosie Miller
Hamstrung: Creativity Within Constraints
reconstructed books
(installation detail)
© 2009

Rosie Miller graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Printmaking) from the VCA in 2007, receiving the National Gallery Women’s Association Encouragement Award. In 2008 her work was included in the curated group shows TYPECAST at Sophie Gannon and Exploration at Flinders Lane Gallery, and was shown in DEBUT IV at Blindside. Miller is represented by Lindberg Contemporary Art.

CARL SCRASE

Carl Scrase
Hamstrung: Creativity Within Contraints
stationary
(installation detail)
© 2009

Carl Scrase is a graduate from Fine Art (Painting) at the VCA. In 2008 his work was included in House Proud, a curated project during the Next Wave Festival that was included in the Melbourne Art Fair. He has exhibited at TCB, Shifted, Seventh Gallery and Bus Gallery, and was also a founding member of Oprojects Gallery. He is represented by John Buckley Gallery and is having his first solo show there in June 2009.

CHRIS ANDREWS

Chris Andrews completed his PhD in French Poetry at the University of Melbourne in 1994, and has since worked as a Lecturer in the Department of French, Italian and Spanish Studies. He has translated several books from Spanish to English, and is the leading translator of the work of Roberto Bolano. He is the author of two books of poetry, Cut Lunch and Septuor. His translations, critical articles and poems have been widely published including The Age, Antipodes and the Australian Literary Review.

Chris Andrew's poetry is on show at Majorca, Centre Place Melbourne throughout April.

MATCH BOX PROJECTS

Leanne and Naomi Shedlezki
Match Box Projects Portable Gallery
© 2009

Leanne and Naomi Shedlezki (aka Match Box Projects) will work in collaboration with the people of Melbourne to create a portrait of the city during April at Platform. For the last three years, Leanne and Naomi have travelled extensively in Australia and Japan with Match Box Galleries, their portable, handheld cases - filled with small works made by a diverse range of contemporary artists. Leanne and Naomi take photographic portraits of their guests and are inviting them, together with local people they will meet, to create small-scale works for empty matchboxes by responding to the theme "Melbourne – My City". All works will be installed in Vitrine to create an evolving portrait of Melbourne.

As well as the Melbourne launch of Match Box Galleries, the artists will conduct a series of talks and performances to create a multimedia diary of their travels through Australia and Japan that will be presented in Sydney and Osaka. Look out for event dates on their website www.matchboxprojects.com

Artists involved in People Make Places include: Monika Behrens, Mark Brown, Simon Cooper, Benedict Ernst, Adam Hill, Mary-Anne Kyriakou, Helena Leslie, Zoe MacDonell, Luis Martinez, Louis Pratt, and more.

Match Box Projects are a Sydney based artist duo working across performance, installation, multimedia and collaborative exchange. They draw on the dynamics of everyday life and human interactions to explore issues of identity and perception. Leanne and Naomi have been awarded various grants for their projects, including an Arts NSW Project Grant, the Japan Foundation Emerging New Visual Artists Grant, a Federation of Australia Japan Societies Grant, and the National Association of Visual Artists (NAVA) Marketing Grant. Their work will also appear in the upcoming Sydney ARI Guide, spotlighting Sydney's numerous artist run initiatives.

Visit the Match Box Projects website.

EUGENIA LIM & NIC WHYTE

Eugenia Lim & Nic Whyte
Loose Lips Sink Ships
paper, cardboard, cellophane, wood, net, lights, AV loops, screens
Frame view and installation detail
© 2009

A journey to the ends of the earth collaboration between Nic Whyte and Eugenia Lim. Loose Lips Sink Ships combines weird optics, tricks of light and shade and Whyte and Lim's current obsession with re-imagining geography, science and common sense.

Eugenia Lim is a Melbourne-based artist working across video, photo-media and installation. She works predominantly in video and photo-media to explore notions of identity, race and popular culture. Currently, her work is included in Figuring Landscapes, a touring programme of artist video from Australia and the UK, shown at the Tate Modern in February and travelling to Australia in late 2009. In September she will exhibit a new solo work entitled NOWHERELAND at Blindside ARI. In December 2009 she will travel to New York on an Australia Council for the Arts RUN_WAY grant for a dual residency with the Experimental Television Centre and Share NY. She VJs regularly and is an active member of audio-visual collective Outpost as well as a founding and ongoing member of Tape Projects.

Nic Whyte is good with ones and zeros and is an accomplished designer and artist. Currently, he is collaborating on design and catalogue visualisation for the eagerly-anticipated MONA: Museum of Old and New Art and has exhibited widely throughout Australia with Tape Projects and in various guises. Nic is also a founding and ongoing member of Tape Projects.

2009 Program out now!

Platform's 2009 Program is now back from the printers! 64 glorious pages in full colour designed by Pandarosa and featuring the upcoming work of more than 100 artists is now available for just 10 bucks! We'll be selling copies of the program at all our events (next opening night is Friday 3 April). The Program includes images, biographies and artist statements from some of the hot new work hitting the underground this year!

The Platform 2009 Program is also available at our favourite Sticky Institute located at Shop 10 in Campbell Arcade (Degraves Street Subway) Melbourne.

Recent controversy....

Read The Age article about the recent controversy around a new work by Van Thanh Rudd, part of Resisting Subversion of Subversive Resistance, a show exploring contemporary arts activists in Australia.

The Platform response to this issue was as follows:

6 March 2009

STATEMENT REGARDING THE CURRENT EXHIBITION

Throughout this year, and for the last 20 years, Platform Artists Group Inc. has actively sought to engage the Melbourne public with a diverse range of artists, practices, techniques and critical thinking. This particular exhibition explores the various ways that arts activists engage the public in debate and discussion around social, political and environmental issues that directly impact our communities.

This week we have received some correspondence and communications about one of the works installed on Monday 2nd March: Economy of Movement - A Piece of Palestine, by Van Thanh Rudd. In response to this, the City of Melbourne invoked the Protocol on Artworks, forming a Review Panel of professional arts and community advisers to assess the work and determine its suitability for public exhibition.

The Protocol on Artworks Review Panel findings have now been made public:

· In context of the Protocol, the Review Panel does not see a valid argument to prohibit the work in the public domain.

· The Review Panel noted Council’s ‘arms length’ funding arrangement with Platform – and that Platform is jointly funded by other government bodies.

· The Review Panel acknowledges potential concerns that might be raised by the artwork but considered them insufficient to override the freedom of expression principle articulated in the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibility.

Following this decision and all relevant advice to Platform Artists Group Inc., we are presenting the work at the opening event to be held tonight, 6-8pm 6th March. The work will remain on show for the remainder of March.

The opinions expressed by artists as part of Platform’s programming do not necessarily reflect those of the Platform Artists Group Inc. board and staff, our sponsors, festival partners or funding bodies. Under the Victorian Charter of Human Rights in regard to freedom of expression, we encourage a diverse range of opinions and ideas from artists and the broader community.


Van's artist statement was also republished for the exhibition:

Van Thanh Rudd
Economy of Movement - A Piece of Palestine

This artwork is intentionally displayed like a museum piece – inspired by artist Hans Haake. The work contains a stone on a glass pedestal with two frames hanging on the rear wall (coloured blue and white with silver framing). Aesthetics has also played an important role in developing the work. The blue and white colours were chosen to represent blue sky and freedom - the sky that covers all countries of the world. It also references the colours of the flag of the state of Israel - a symbol of oppression to many Palestinians. As mentioned above, the artwork as a whole is presented to appear as though it is a museum piece where aesthetics is as important as the text content.

Resisting Subversion of Subversive Resistance

Resisting Subversion of Subversive Resistance
Propositions towards urban (r)evolution

Curated by Paul J. Kalemba
Tom Civil, Marc De Jong, Paul J. Kalemba and Van Thanh Rudd

No, painting is not done to decorate apartments, it is an instrument of war.
Pablo Picasso, 1945

Resisting Subversion of Subversive Resistance features the works and collaborations of four contemporary arts-activists. Romantic illusions of freedom fighters aside, serious business meets tongue-in-cheek as a homegrown r/evolution through urban edibles and the bicycle-peddling critical masses meet conscious consumption and political awareness.

The twentieth century saw exponential advancement in many areas of human activity. The image was by no means excluded from this refinement. The total war of World War II saw not only mechanised militarism devastate European civilization but the Third Reich, and the allies alike, bred the image for a new purpose. The manipulation of desire and fear was refined and exploited through the image, with propaganda aiming for nothing short of changing the opinions, and thus the actions, of entire nations.

Enter the twenty-first century. Commercial advertising carries on this imaging tradition into this decade, promising a veritable Shangri-La of sensual pleasure, luxury and convenience, tied firmly to a treadmill of competitive individualism. Meanwhile, headlines scream climate change, peak oil, environmental collapse, over consumption, finite resources… the new ideas now firmly in the zeitgeist. At face value, it seems society is economy versus a sustainable future.

Resisting Subversion of Subversive Resistance seeks to defy this manipulation of fear and desire, employing a combination of loose, scale model propositions with the graphic image – where WWII-style propaganda meets re-advertising, promoting consumer awareness and sustainable models via DIY culture. The artists create dialogues with the notations of propaganda and resistance though subverting emblematic symbology and imagery of contemporary art, advertising, politics and their concurrent histories.

TOM CIVIL

(upper)
Tom Civil & Marc de Jong
Subversive Resistance
paint, rusted spray cans, metal sheets, stickers, markers
(installation detail)
© 2009

(lower)
Tom Civil
Untitled
paper, paint, marker
(installation detail)
© 2009

Tom Sevil (AKA Civil) is a community graphic designer and artist. Since completing a Bachelor of Environmental Science in 1999, he has gone on to become involved in the independent media and publishing community. Tom has worked as a graphic designer for many political and community organisations including: 3CR, Seeds of Dissent Calendars, The Big Issue, Voiceworks Magazine, The Paper, Melbourne Indymedia, and Stolenwealth Games. His stencil work has been featured in Stencil Graffiti Capital: Melbourne, the film Rash, as a feature artist in Melbourne Stencil Festival, and most recently as part of the London Cans Festival. Tom is one half of Breakdown Press.

MARC DE JONG

(upper)
Marc De Jong
Human Brain
print on cardboard
(installation detail)
© 2009

(lower)
Marc De Jong
She'll be Rite
reflective signage print, metal frame
(installation detail)
© 2009

Marc de Jong (AKA marcsta) is one of Melbourne’s most notable illegal street artists. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at VCA. Prior to that, he studied under Howard Arkley at the Prahran College of TAFE. He has held over 15 solo exhibitions and was a finalist in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and in the 2008 Fleurieu Biennale. He also featured in the April-June issue of Australian Art Collector magazine. His work is held in various collections throughout Australia, including National Gallery of Australia, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Monash University and Artbank. His work has also featured on the cover of Adbusters.

PAUL J. KALEMBA

(upper)
Paul J. Kalemba
Economic Growth
wooden crates, cardboard, water reticulation system, soil, vegetables
(installation detail)
© 2009

(lower)
Paul J. Kalemba
Beyond Petroleum
cardboard, jars, preverved fruit
(installation detail)
© 2009

Paul J. Kalemba (AKA thinblackline) is an urban edible (r)evolutionary and sustainability activist who takes a renaissance approach to art. Prior to recently completing a Master in Visual Art at the VCA, Kalemba’s career highlights include: The National Print Symposium at the National Gallery of Australia, 2004,; co-directing Alleys Not Telleys pubic space reclamation/multi-arts festivals, 2001-2004; Eyes For Other Skies Travelling Animation Festival, ACMI/South Korea; and creating propaganda and projections for the tree planting/re-veg Tranceplant Festivals 2001-2005. Kalemba’s work also features in many independent publications amongst a prolific CV of community, public and white cube rah rah.

VAN THANH RUDD

Van Thanh Rudd
Economy of Movement - A Piece of Palestine
rock, glass, ink jet prints, frames
(installation view & detail)
© 2009

Van Thanh Rudd has been exhibiting since growing up on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Moving to Melbourne in 1995, his work has increasingly attempted to address issues surrounding social justice. He researched socio-economic systems and the role of art and politics by travelling to countries such as Vietnam, Cuba, Chile and France in 2005. One of his major projects, The Carriers Project (2004-2008), involved carrying his paintings on foot through public and private spaces in Australia’s major cities. He has taken part in major social actions such as the Anti-G20 Rally (2006), The Stolenwealth Games (2006), Industrial Relations Rallies (2005) and Free The Refugees Protests (2004). Current and ongoing works include the Residencies of Thought Project, taking place in The White House, Washington and the Guggenheim Museum, New York.

BRAD HAYLOCK

Brad Haylock
Everything you never wanted to know about fashion
(but were too afraid to ask)
lightboxes, acetate lettering
(installation view)
© 2009

Continuing the artist’s fascination with public communication, Everything you never wanted to know… responds to the spatial qualities and the location of Vitrine, and particularly to its visibility and the passing foot traffic. The work offers to passers-by a commentary on the world of fashion and its underlying logic, whilst adding to the cacophony of signage with which commuters are barraged. The textual content of the work takes inspiration from critical theory and from the most hyperbolic and vacuous of fashion advertising, and from combinations of the two. The resulting commentary spans the incisive and the absurd, the pithy and the banal. The form of the work also takes cues from the world of fashion; this form is a reflection upon the fetishism of the object that is characteristic of the worlds of fashion and art alike.

Brad Haylock is a lecturer in Visual Communication in the Faculty of Art & Design at Monash University. He variously practices as an artist, designer, writer, and curator. Recent projects include the solo exhibitions Crazed and Defused and A Beginner’s Guide to Politics, design for Making Space and Objects in Space, the curation of The Art of the Bicycle and the co-curation with Mark Richardson of Advance/Retreat.

KATE MOSS

Kate Moss
Hey give me a break
digital photograph
© 2009

Hey give me a break is a site-specific installation in the display cases on the Majorca Building. The cases will comprise of a 2D work replicating existing and imagined sites of socially motivated, anti-aesthetic graffiti found within the public domain. The work will adopt the aesthetic of these sites. For example, on a brick wall on a street in Fitzroy someone has spray painted 'hey give me a break'. I will replicate this site using brick veneer and text enclosed within the cases on Centre Place.

I am intrigued by the ambiguity of this statement and wonder at what point an individual is motivated to commit such a statement publicly. I am interested in public space as a vessel for free expression whether social, political or personal. The gallery space is a platform for artists to freely express ideas, beliefs and concepts within a controlled environment. I am interested in replicating these graffiti statements and to see how they can be recontextualised in a gallery space within the public domain.

Kate Moss lives and works in Melbourne. She is currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Art at the VCA. In 2006 she was the recipient of an Excellence Award at The Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne. Her practice utilises a variety of media and stem from her interest in 1960s and 1970s counter culture and the failure or abandonment of structures within society, whether physical or ideological. Her installations involve re-working these abandoned ideals in the context of the now.

CHRISTA JONATHAN

Christa Jonathan
You’re alright, love
photographic collage, ink jet print
(installation detail)
© 2009

You’re alright, love is a social commentary on and about two sides of Melbourne. The lovely side, the one we all take pride in and acknowledge: that laid-back, friendly, multi-cultural and multi-racial city that welcomes everyone regardless their appearances. And the other, often dismissed and ignored side – that drenched in offensive mockeries and insults from racists, which in few occasions are so dumb that they’re borderline hilarious. Inspired by the situations I experienced first hand, I will create a series of illustrations made out of wood, found images, photographs, patterned papers, fabric off-cuts found in op shops, markets and paper recycling bins of the city. These small collages are layered up to create one huge image – transforming the Sample window into a visual manifestation of my observation, exploration, experience and memories of Melbourne for five years and counting.

Christa Jonathan is an Indonesian-born, Melbourne-based emerging graphic designer and artist. She completed her Bachelor of Visual Communication with First Class Honours at Monash University in 2008. When she’s not designing and illustrating she can be found exploring op shops, scouring markets and taking photographs of letterings in Melbourne. This is her first art show in the real world outside of university.

LEE ANANTAWAT & ZOE SCOGLIO

Lee Anantawat & Zoe Scoglio
Ooomong: Building Tunnels and Pondering Infinity
cardboard, paper, kaleidoscopes, AV loops, screens
(installation view & detail)
Photos courtesy of Tanja Milbourne
© 2009

Lee and Zoe's third collaboration is a site-specific installation, which sees the dark, subterranean Frame window below Flinders Street transformed into an intergalactic porthole. Utilizing sounds, structures and video, Ooomong playfully explores the fine lines between the infinite and infinitesimal, the wise and the whimsical, and the eternal and ephemeral. Adapted from the Thai word for 'tunnel', Ooomong creates stepping stones between the physical world and that which is unfathomable.

Lee Anantawat was born in Thailand, and currently lives in Melbourne. She draws pictures of love-lorn robots, science experiments in nature, mermen/women and is trying to live her life as an animator. Lee has completed a Master Degree in Animation and Interactive Media (AIM) from RMIT and has exhibited in group shows with Tape Projects of which she is now a member.

Zoe is a media artist who creates video and sound often for public, live and site-specific contexts. Her current work involves spontaneous collaborations and explorations into transformation and ritual. Some projects in the last year include video work for Gertrude Projection Festival, Electrofringe, Next Wave at Urban Screens, Michael Koro Gallery, PACT Quarterbred residency, Platform Artists Group Inc and The Women's Circus. She is a founding member of Melbourne artist run initiative, Tape Projects.

Visit the Tape Projects website.

THE MARCH SHOWS opening Fri 6 March

2010 Next Wave Festival Proposals

Call for Next Wave project proposals closes next Friday 13 March.

You have until the end of next week, Friday 13 March, to propose a project for the 2010 Next Wave Festival, on in May next year.

Proposals must respond in interesting and complex ways to the 2010 Next Wave Festival theme NO RISK TOO GREAT.

Visit Next Wave to download an information pack. Previous artists to show at Platform as part of Next Wave include Hiromi Tango, Cecilia Fogelberg, Trevor Flinn, Objects in Space, Tai Snaith and many others...

DAVE McDONALD

David McDonald
What We Now Know Resides
wood, paint, latex, rope, vaseline
installation detail
© 2009

The installation What We Now Know Resides sees Platform extend its architecture as a sort of rift through the unconscious, between daily life and things shut out. A sculptural and performance-based work that probes the grease-traps of the mind, a suggestion that a malignant presence now resides in the twenty-first century human psyche. Psychological thriller with carnal, primitive and sexual undercurrents – four and a half stars. (DM)

By ‘removing’ or ‘boarding up’ the Platform space, the artist is manifesting his concerns that Melbourne is becoming a ‘Lifestyle City’, whereby consumption lifestyle grows and cultural and community engagement wanes. Art (amongst other creative areas) becomes a prop for shopping and lifestyle. Platform, with its display cases that contain and constrain most exhibitions, is the perfect gallery and site to present these notions. When the known gallery is blocked out, it is envisaged that questions will be raised on public space, art, lifestyle and the presentation of creative work to the Melbourne community.

Dave McDonald works primarily with sculpture/installation that invites viewer interaction. Over the last five years he has exhibited primarily in public spaces with installations produced for various Melbourne festivals including: L’Oreal Melbourne International Fashion Festival, Melbourne Design Festival, Next Wave Festival and State of Design Festival. In 2007 McDonald opened an experimental art gallery in the CBD, Rise and Fall – a parasite art space on the elevator, stairwell and cinema screen of Curtin House. The project explores human interaction in zones and thoroughfares between public and private space in Melbourne. In addition to his practice, McDonald lectures in Architecture and Design at Swinburne University in Prahran.

ADAM CRUICKSHANK

Adam Cruickshank
Philosopher Kings
digital prints
installation view
© 2009

A comment on the over reliance of critical theory in the justification of much contemporary art was the initial impetus for these prints. Bringing the actual image of the philosopher or theorist to the foreground in preference over their theories and combining that with hip hop lyrics seemed both comical and relevant. Hip Hop is usually a very visual medium; image is often (almost) everything. This is in direct contrast to theorists, whose ideas are paramount, the concepts of which are often hard to describe without the use of convoluted language. Or are they? Can they be summed up and/or directly opposed by a few choice lyrics? Will the image of the thinker combined with the words of the MC still make sense? Does this conjunction somehow debase critical theory or does it conversely point out how universal some philosophies can be? Personally, I just want to see Rene Descartes wear a fat gold rope and Friedrich Nietzsche bust a move.

Adam Cruickshank went to the Queensland College of Art in the early 1990s and, after a period of exhibiting, was lured by a liveable wage into advertising and magazine art direction. Two years ago he began a rededication to full time art practice. He has exhibited extensively in Europe and Australia, has had work published in numerous anthologies and magazines, recently held a solo show at TCB in Melbourne and co-curated the Grow Wild show at Utopian Slumps.

LEON VAN DE GRAAFF

Leon Van de Graaff
OK, Commuter
computers, lights, plastics, industrial components, other various materials
installation detail
© 2009

Decades ago, we were sold the idea of the paperless, portable, work-from-home office. We were seduced by advertising images of happy people using portable computers by the beach, in bed or at cafes; a holiday atmosphere for every working day and no need to waste time going into the city. What we got was more people travelling further and more often for work and the capacity to waste vast amounts of paper and other resources at the click of a button. For most people, portable information technology has become about making tedious travel time more productive or just merely distracting.

In OK Commuter three human-sized robots (with their phones, PDAs, handheld game platforms in hand) occupy Vitrine, now morphed into a train/tram carriage. Each robot is made from found objects and technologies from a specific era indicative of each robot’s fictional age. The public can direct the robot passengers to perform clichéd actions and monologues from commuter life via text messages chosen from a predetermined list on the Vitrine window.

Leon van de Graaff studied science at ACT TAFE and sculpture Canberra School of Art, ANU before fleeing to Brisbane where he exhibited extensively in artist run spaces and festivals. In 2005 and 2006 he was invited to exhibit mixed media sculpture with multimedia/interactive components in the QUT staff and student showcase exhibitions Journey and RE-active. He now lives in Richmond and works at the National Gallery of Victoria as a multimedia technician.

STEPHANIE CHEEK

Stephanie Cheek
Croydon, Victoria
newspaper clippings, photocopies, drawings, photographs,
installation view
© 2009

Croydon, Victoria is a photo-based installation, incorporating quotations, objects, articles and statistics found in, or referring to, the eastern Melbourne suburb of Croydon. These elements are arranged strategically to reveal moments of tension, dysfunction and violence in our suburbs. Visually the work resembles a geographical profile, much like a crime map police use for tracking criminal activity. The work focuses attention on events that are deeply disturbing and close to home.

Stephanie Cheek is an emerging artist, with a Diploma of Visual Arts from RMIT and a Bachelor of Fine Art from the VCA. She lives and works in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

Call for Proposals: un Magazine

Call for Proposals
un Magazine volume 3 issue 1

un Magazine – Melbourne’s leading independent magazine for writing on contemporary visual art. un Magazine fosters and offers opportunities to promote independent and critical thinking regarding contemporary art in all media. Focused on artists, writers, artist run and independent projects and contemporary art communities, un Magazine is an important platform for the dialogue of ideas extending from the local into national and international contexts.

We welcome proposals for contributions including but not limited to: criticism or review of recent contemporary art projects, exhibitions and publications (taking place in the previous five months); interviews; essays and features on topics of current debate; and experimental contemporary art practice engaged with text, writing or publication modes of display.

For this issue we are particularly interested in: writing that engages with multidisciplinary practice and art outside the gallery (i.e. site-specific work, performative practices, etc.); styles of writing ranging from the critical and analytic to creative and fictional or speculative; interviews; artist pages; art as text and collaborations.

All proposals must be submitted using the attached guidelines and application form (attached) or available at: http://unmagazine.org

Deadline for proposals: 13 March 2009

All submissions and editorial enquiries should be emailed to the Editor, Zara Stanhope: zara@unmagazine.org please do not send extended or finished texts without prior consultation

un Magazine MENTORSHIP PROGRAM
We are able to offer a one-to-one mentorship for a select number of contributors. The mentorship program offers the benefit of working with an experienced art writer in the drafting and development of your writing for publication.

For general magazine enquiries email the Project Manager, Angela Brophy:
projects@unmagazine.org
--

THE FEBRUARY SHOWS Opens Fri 6th Feb 2009

JOMBI SUPASTAR

Jombi Supastar
Earthly Delights
pencil, paint, glitter on paper
(detail) © 2009

I’ve been enraptured by painting ever since my father took me to see work by Henri Matisse when I was a boy. Seeing works by Bosch, Blake and Basquiat in museums or galleries is vastly more wonderful for me than seeing them in reproduction. Even work you would think would reproduce well, like Walker’s or Haring’s; I find far more compelling in the original.

My own work is often narrative in nature, exploring the realms of the subconscious, the nether worlds and the sphere of the nature spirits. I think of my art as an expression of the multi-dimensionality of perception, and of the many-layered nature of my spirituality and sexuality. I seek to make my images dense and complicated, like life. I see no reason to limit myself to paint alone. I take a child’s delight in glittery, shiny objects. They excite me. I want my work to communicate that sense of excitement, and to create excitement of its own.

Jombi Supastar has shown his work at galleries in Philadelphia, New York and San Francisco. A radical faery, he was the first African American to serve as a steward of the Short Mountain Sanctuary in middle Tennessee. He now lives in Berkeley, California where he was recently awarded a grant, with Alwyn de Wally, to produce an installation piece for the National Queer Arts Festival in The United States this June.

JASON LINGARD

Jason Lingard
Skin Idols
giclée print on paper
Installation view © 2009

Skin Idols is a series of work that explores the blurred line between pornography and art, absurdity and decency, abhorrence and worship. Jason Lingard’s prints take pornographic imagery out of the privacy of his bedroom, reconfiguring them into fantastical characters and idols, redisplaying them in the public domain, a space usually reserved for the presentation of brash large-scale advertising.

Jason Lingard is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work mainly consists of pop-influenced collage, digital manipulation, video and installation. Graphical, highly stylised, confrontational, and sometimes sexual, Lingard’s work has explored themes of body image, self-perception, sexual identity, celebrity culture and cosmetic surgery. Lingard has studied both graphic art and fashion design. Originally from New Zealand, he has exhibited in Australia, New Zealand and Germany. His worked has also been featured in magazines such as Dazed & Confused, Empty and Carousel.

FREDDIE JACKSON

Freddie Jackson
Disco/nstruction
digital print ©2009

Darkness pervades every part of our lives and minds. Each and every one of us battle with dark forces, inner demons, secret feelings we would never care to admit to anyone, maybe not even ourselves. That darkness is just as much a part of humanity as our other more appealing facades. With a little humour, a little sparkle, we can make that darkness seem less powerful and destructive than it appears to be.

These recent works mess up some of the darker icons of popular culture. Disco Death Star takes the planet destroying weapon from the Star Wars franchise and emasculates it into a sad and broken mirror ball. Like a party queen after too many hard nights, the power and puff has gone but a little pazazz remains, ready to be reconstructed if loved enough, even if for the wrong reasons. Foxy conceals the world's most powerful media baron behind a sequined guise, part wrestling fatigue, part drag fetish, the work masks that which is already masked. This thing is hidden from us all is so devastating that even if we knew the whole truth we could never even say it aloud it. Masks and reconstructions in this way work to prefigure an innate and far greater power that can not be understood, only inferred.

Freddie Jackson is an experimental queer artist who works under various psuedonyms in an attempt to debunk the myth of individualism while planting a tongue firmly in cheek. His work has a high camp queer aesthetic that interupts in the patriarchal monologue with a secondary male, yet queer, voice that combines some fine feminine qualities with a solid dose of darkness to pack a glittery punch to the rather dull status quo. Feddie once studied art at RMIT University and has exhibited under various names in line with his deliberately fluctuating identity.

LINSEY GOSPER

Linsey Gosper
Black Widow
cardboard, velvet, lights, video tape, photographic prints
Vitrine: installation view © 2009

Black Widow is an exhibition of photographic self-portraits of female cinematic personas portraying multiple identities. The conceptual link between my research and studio work is based on one of the most important contributions feminist film theory has made to the larger field of feminist inquiry, that the image of woman is a ‘construction’.

The focus is the femme fatale, as an alternative feminine persona that is contradictory, fluid and liberating. She is the object of desire and a vehicle for feminist empowerment. Her role, particularly in the context of film noir, establishes her as the antithesis to other feminine stereotypes, yet she is an image of ultra femininity. This portrayal of femininity may be a masquerade, veiling her more masculine qualities of explicit sexuality, violence and assertiveness. Her independence and lack of interest in men often present her as a self-absorbed narcissist. Narcissism is linked in the popular imagination with femineity and lesbianism. I propose imagining a female Narcissus: ‘a woman whose belief in her own self-cultivation might result in significant cultural production.’*

The artworks will be super flat, life size, and freestanding cut outs – similar to cinema or video display posters, and reinforced by the shopfront aesthetic of the Vitrine. The audience can visibly see their construction and limited depth.

* Don’t Kiss Me: The Art of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Tate Publishing, London, Jersey heritage Trust, 2006, p. 37.

Linsey Gosper completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) from The University of Newcastle while working as a photographic demonstrator for the School of Fine Art. She exhibited extensively during this time in Newcastle, Sydney, the Gold Coast and Perth. Gosper was the recipient of the Jennie Thomas Travelling Scholarship from The University of Newcastle and winner of the Newcastle Art Space Emerging Artist of the Year. Images from her Honours exhibition Bad Taste were published on the covers of Real Time and Jet, and she was commissioned to produce a body of work for the exhibition Autofetish: Mechanics of Desire, at the Newcastle Region Art Gallery in 2004. Gosper was a recipient of the Australian Postgraduate Award from The University of Melbourne and completed her Master of Fine Art at VCA in 2008. She has recently held shows Trocadero Art Space and Kings ARI.

MATT SHAW

Matt Shaw
The Underground Garden II: Boxed In
metal, welding, plants, stones, paint, diamantés
installation view ©2009

The Underground Garden installation at Platform is a living project that was devised to creatively deal with the leaky cabinet in the rundown subway. Following road works in Degraves Street above the subway, pipe damage led to a water leak problem that destroyed artwork and led to the closure of the end cabinet of Platform’s exhibition space. When artist Bernadette Trench-Thiedeman began experiments for her exhibition with botanical specimens in the leaky cabinet, she discovered that certain plants could survive underground for many months under fluorescent light.

After local designer Matt Shaw worked with Trench-Thiedeman on the living garden wall in Melbourne Central for French horticulturalist Patrick Blanc, the pair devised a plan to create a completely underground garden. Matt created the first experimental garden in mid-2008, which survived through much of year. This year Matt will create Boxed In, a new garden commission for The Underground Garden designed to remind us of nature’s enduring strength, and our opportunity for future sustainability.

Matt Shaw is a garden designer with more than ten years experience working in horticulture and landscaping. He also has an established practice in sculpture, in which he combines reclaimed industrial waste with hardy, drought-resistant plants to create unique and sustainable garden creations for Australia’s harsh climate.

Visit Matt Shaw's website here.

TAPE PROJECTS

Tape Projects
Frame Residency No. 1
flip books, string, tape, video, mini-dvd players, vinyl LPs
Frame: installation view © 2009

A new interdisciplinary case at the dark end of the subway...

Tape Projects seeks to promote the wealth of talented and underrepresented young and emerging artists in Melbourne and throughout Australia, who practice media art and hybrid forms not necessarily suited to the traditional gallery format. As young and emerging artists ourselves, we believe in supporting our highly skilled community by creating new opportunities for the screening and showcasing of accomplished experimental art.

For our Frame Residency at Platform we have several delights up our sleeve: each month we will alternate between shining a light our previous output, as well as creating brand new site specific works to best take advantage of the strange and unique Frame space. Hidden away in the appendix of Campbell Arcade, furtive noises and flickering lights will draw passing pedestrians into an unexpected revolving side show, where they can come across some of Australia’s least recognised, most talented temporal practitioners. Expect to see Flip Books and Locked Grooves, 123TV Preview, Best of Tape Projects, plus lots of new work.




Tape Projects is comprised of the following individuals:

Sunday Ganim has been weaving much, making pop up books and hasn't managed to switch her computer on for about a year.

Tanja Milbourne (Kimme) is a photographer and media artist often working collaboratively. Her work incorporates an ongoing investigation into the conceptual and formal properties of photographic documentation, often employing the existing site as the subject for enquiry.

Eugenia Lim works predominantly in video and photography to explore issues of identity, race, and culture. She is a founding member of Tape Projects, an artist run initiative championing experimental cross-disciplinary art in Melbourne and beyond.

Michael Prior is a media artist interested in creating interactive installation works that attempt to distort time perception via sound and architecture. He also produces publications and performance work with Tape Projects as well as soundtrack work for film and TV

Zoe Scoglio experiments with moving image, sound, torches, triangles & the human body to create works that have been performed both locally & abroad.

Lee Anantawat was born in Thailand, and currently lives in Melbourne, She draws pictures of love-lorn robots, science experiments in nature, mermen/women and is trying to live her life as an animator.

Nic Whyte works in the realm of moving image, video installation & interactive art. Recent years have been spent scaling ladders to install projectors whilst facilitating temporal media through Tape Projects.

Jessie Scott is an artist who works primarily in video. At the moment she is preoccupied with the human tendency to embroider mundane tasks, making them unnecessarily complex and beautiful.

Visit Tape Projects website here.

SAM WALLMAN

Sam Wallman
Tasmanian Fags
drawing on paper
©2009

Sam Wallman is not actually homophobic, racist, or sexist. He just likes making fun of those who are by stealing their humour and pretending to laugh along with them. We know this because Wallman's catalogue of grotesque, wrinkled, characters include people just like him, and he would never really laugh at himself.

New work on show at the Majorca Building, Centre Place Melbourne, during the Midsumma Festival.

Sam Wallman is 23 and currently works as an advocate for young people with disabilities, while living with his partner in Collingwood. At the moment he is producing a collaborative book called Stab Your Brother, a follow up to 2006's Go Home Abos. He draws pictures of the grotesque people in his head, in attempted exorcism.

HANNAH RAISIN

Hannah Raisin
Suggar Mummas Part 2
video, dvd player/screen, photographic prints, rotating frames, breakfast cereal, photocopies, string, glitter, plastic, glue
Sample: installation view ©2009

Milking the symbols of a synthetic femininity.

Is an embarrassment a rejection of oneself? A rejection can be a starting point, a reaction to a negative force. Why is it that if we believe we become somebody else we will be happy? Through the dismissal of our natural bodies, a synthetic and sterile beauty can often become the epitome of what is considered sexy. But who can measure the unnatural?

Every thought has a perfect image encapsulating its essence, binding it to the world. The ideas and key icons we attempt to mimic (the heightened colours and flavours) are as unstable and artificially enhanced as packeted cereal. Unfortunately the highly addictive sugar coated death pill is ultimately unsatisfactory.

Hannah Raisin completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Drawing) at the VCA in 2007. Raisin has exhibited throughout Melbourne in both solo and group shows including: Eat My Spider, TCB (2008); Wallara Travelling Scholarship, Margaret Lawrence Gallery; Somewhere to Run, Loop Bar; Provisional Investigations; George Paton Gallery, Melbourne University; Do It, Margaret Lawrence (2007) and Do you like me? at Kings ARI (2007). Raisin was a finalist for the Wallara Travelling Scholarship and received the Proud second year art award.

UQ/Midsumma Opens Mon 19th Jan at 6pm

Platform on 774 ABC Melbourne Radio

Hilary Harper from 774 ABC Radio talks to Linsey Gosper about exhibiting at Platform as part of Midsumma. Hear the story online at ABC Melbourne.

EMERGING CURATOR APPLICATIONS OPEN

Platform is now accepting applications for the Emerging Curator’s residency in the Sample site from June to December 2009.

The Sample site is reserved for artists and curators under 25 years of age, giving them an opportunity to develop their work before a wide audience.

The successful curator will be offered six one-month exhibitions inclusive of rent and public liability insurance. Platform offers full support, advice and assistance with installation and de-installation, publicity, documentation and opening nights. The successful applicant will also be paid a stipend.

We respond favourably to applications from curators who can demonstrate previous exhibition involvement, initiative and an interest in Platform Artists Group and emerging artists.

What you need to provide:

• Completed Application Cover Sheet

• 1 x A4 page Curatorial Statement

• 1 x A4 page CV

• 1 x CD/DVD of support images of previous curated exhibitions (up to 20)

• Printed list of support images (artist, medium, size, date)

 

Applications are to be sent by post only to:

Platform Artists Group

Selection Committee

PO Box 117 Flinders Lane

Melbourne VIC 8009

 

Applications close 5pm Friday 27nd February 2009.

 Email info@platform.org.au for an Application Cover Sheet.

UNREALISED ARCHITECTURE

Unrealised Architecture
Digital photograph
© 2008

Featured Artists: HUGH ADAMSON (Architect), JESSE BATES (Photographer), SIMONE BLISS (Landscape Architect), SARAH BOWE (Artist), LISA BRENNAN (Architect), TIM CLAYTON (Architect), GREG DICKSON (Architect), MEGG EVANS (Interior Architect), KYLIE FORBES (Sculptural Installation Artist)

Unrealised Architectural works exist in many guises, modest & grand, sculptural & pragmatic. Many realised architectural works are actually the remnants of an ideal unrealised design. Others are the conceptual seeds that germinate into works found in all areas of the arts.

The value of great architecture, be it in its initial imaginative stages or in the final scheme, lies in the force and power of its possibilities and ability to inspire. The focus in this exhibition is to present a variety of unrealised works which range in both perspective and application. Works from landscape, interior and architectural designers stand amongst that of painters, photographers and sculptors, each of which respond to the architectural possibilities of their own practice.

The projects presented here share the theme “Unrealised Architecture”. The displays include architectural projects that have fallen short of the expectations of the architect and/or client; works that scour the landscape for new forms and practices; models that research lost construction arts; considerations of structures that play with time; concepts for inner-urban space that revitalise community interaction and excursions into the future possibilities of architectural composition and realisation in the contemporary metropolis.

JOHN PARKINSON

John Parkinson
Buildings
Digital photograph
© 2008


John Parkinson lives in Melbourne and recently graduated from Painting at the Victorian College of the Arts. He sings and plays in the art-pop band World’s End Press. Using the camera and the computer, he constructs monumental buildings and spaces. Each building is a pictorial meditation on a state of doing and being.

John Parkinson's MySpace

SAM GEORGE

Sam George
Cheers Silly And You
Mixed media
© 2008

"It's not what I can do for you, it's what you have already done for me.

Thanks for existing, feeling feelings, going to work, walking around, eating, patting dogs, smiling smiles, tripping over, drinking, getting up….Everything that you do, what ever you choose to do, I trust it's for the betterment of you and the world. I like… no, I love that you are simply alive. This is how I want you. I want to say thank you for this. It really does brighten my day." (Sam George)

Sam George recently completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) at the VCA, and has had exhibitions at TCB and various group shows. She often puts things with things with other things, makes things; makes things move on screens (all of which may include words) –and also does things like painting on computers and on occasion dabbles with coloured pencils, textas and paints.

Sam George's NAVA Gallery

3-28 November, Opening Friday 7 November 6-8pm

THE CONTEXTUAL VILLAINS

The Contextual Villains
Our Own Particular Truth (detail)
Mixed media
© 2008

Our Own Particular Truth
They came here on boats, with exquisite taste and bad manners they went forth feral and populated. / Their children's children spoke intimate nonsense shyly in shapeshifting playgrounds. / They altered their egos, telling tall tales amid imaginary worlds of others discards. / They peddled their wares, lines and letters to keep themselves fed full and snug in rugs. / Lazy afternoons sending out stories through tangled cords of collective conscious. / And as the days pass her water-table rises, leaking sympathetic wells of water at the world's wonders. / Casting shapes in the expectation of an approaching villain. / They labour in rapture to extract from the under-land a wide eyed monster, fiercely silent and already hunting for truffles. / The path to his lair littered with severed heads and indecipherable marks, left to guide his companions in the lessons of chaos. / In the search for the way of things this fledgling clan seek simplicity regardless of the fears that face them. / Together they prepare for exploration of uncharted territories - in the knowledge that their time together is fleeting and the end is theirs alone.

Following their recent move to Melbourne, The Contextual Villains will return to show at Platform in November for their first solo show with us.

Visit The Contextual Villains.

LUKE WARM

Luke Warm
Nutrimetica II: the sequel (513 VHS)
Video still
© 2008

The information explosion is not a window on the future so much as a mirror of the past catching up with the present. – Gene Youngblood 1970

"Nutrimetica II: spatially reconstructs a memory of Nutrimetica I* and addresses the distortions of memory itself by adding physical ideas and elements of previous works of the artist into the one space. Nutrimetica: the sequel (513 VHS) is a generated physical mapping of a stored memory in celluloid. The invention of video was accessed by an opportuned public to immortalise, playback and passively enjoy their own memories. (513 VHS) considers the necessity of the real to non-recorded memories distorted by factors of time, perception of experience and the timeline of one’s life. The work is a recognition of the way in which media culture performs as a manipulative device to distort our realities."
– Luke Warm, 2008

*Nutrimetica I: Nightclub Project 1: The Men’s Gallery, Next Wave 2008

Luke Warm is a Melbourne based artist who uses the installation interface to orchestrate his atmospheric works that often employ several simultaneous components of practice. Warm mostly utilises video, photography, sculpture, set and costume design to communicate and resolve his ideas. Warm’s work reveals the presence of reality and the way in which fiction is conveyed within media culture. The videoscape of the melodrama and the tabloid are all constructed fantasies which are pre-empted and generated by its audience. Warm surveys how we perceive the ideal and succumb to the seduction of suspended-disbelief. Nutrimetica II on show at Vitrine throughout November.

BONNIE LANE

Bonnie Lane
More
Video still
© 2008

Life as a Projectile Vomit

“When a recent bout of tonsillitis confined me to a house for a week (after being told I couldn't go to work), I became convinced of the things that I need in order to feel satisfied/content. A week of eating, sleeping, talking, f#%king, drinking, painting etc… Referencing the style of advertising, these screens flash at you what we cannot gain with money or achieve through material possession. When we live in a 'Tell me what to do because I can't think for myself' society, this may be the only way into the soul of the viewer.”
– Bonnie Lane, 2008

Bonnie Lane is a 22 year-old emerging artist based in Melbourne. Since completing her Bachelor of Fine Art at Victorian College of the Arts in 2007, Lane has had solo exhibitions in Melbourne at Plateau 589, Seventh Gallery and Bus 117. She was one of the 19 artists chosen to exhibit in the 2008 Moreland Sculpture Show, and was one of the Wallara Traveling Scholarship finalists in 2007.

On show at Sample space throughout November. Visit Bonnie's website.

DYLAN STATHAM

Dylan Statham
Fools Gold (Detail)
148.5mm x 105mm
Digital Print
© 2008

Mistake Machine

“You had best buy gold and silver quickly to protect yourself from the coming catastrophe. While the ancient Israeli's had lamb's blood to put on their door posts to protect them from the Destroyer, you will have to settle for gold and silver. We also note that God is still available as well, and we suggest you call on His services for the ultimate in bailout protection."

Bob Chapman, Gold, Silver, Economy + More, in the International Forecaster Sept 2008 (#8) http://news.goldseek.com/InternationalForecaster/1222668900.php

Mistake Machine will be on show at the Majorca Building cases on the corner of Centre Place and Flinders Lane Melbourne throughout November.

1-31 October, Opening Friday 10 October 6-8pm

TAPE PROJECTS

Featured artists: Maggie Scott, Jessie Scott, Eugenia Lim, Michael Prior, Salote Tawale, Saskia Pandji-Sakti, Tanja Milbourne, Lizzy Sampson, Nic Whyte, Zoe Scoglio, Paul Dornau, Sarah Lake, Eliza Hearsum, Tony Holzner and Unchalee Unantawat.

Arab Telephone is French for Chinese Whispers. A children’s game that succinctly condenses ideas of truth, fiction and history into a simple chain reaction. For Tape Projects, it is an artists’ game, an experiment in process and time-delay collaboration. It begins with a story about Campbell Arcade, written by a history student, who is also a writer of fiction. Without knowing on which side of this boundary it lays, the story is passed from artist to artist by word of mouth, accreting or excreting details in the re-telling. The 12 resulting audio visual and sculptural installations will reveal the mechanics of this myth, uncover the themes that resonate between the artists and those that divide them.

Visit Tape Projects here.

DANIEL GREEN

After a long and illustrious career, Spongebob Squarepants lies forgotten and ailing in palliative care. The only person willing to hear the tales of his adventures long gone is a fan who keeps a vigil by his bedside. Through a television, the pair revisit various heroics and escapades from Spongebob’s days on Bikini Bottom. His life-support system depends precariously on battery power and as the batteries fade the video begins to glitch. Despite all efforts to sustain him by his offsider, once the batteries lose power, Spongebob is lost.

Spongebob is dying is a performance-based installation in Vitrine exploring the dialogue between ourselves, the things we use to entertain us, and the unintended plot developments that can result.

Daniel Green is a Sydney based artist, performer, curator and terrible musician. He has Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the University of Western Sydney and has shown at Bus in Melbourne and This Is Not Art Festival in Newcastle. Spongebob is dying will be performed on the 10th of October from 3pm, as well as on the 1st, 28th, 29th and 30th of October from 7am.

HAYDEN DANIEL

Hayden Daniel
Splatterdash Cover
Acyrlic on paper
© 2008

Splatterdash is a collection of artworks made by Hayden Daniel in an attempt to portray to the public of Melbourne the random, weird and wonderful ideas, thoughts and dreams that flow through his head. Hayden works across an array of mediums including paint, pens and pencils on all kinds of objects from found wood to used metcards. Hayden Daniel is an aspiring artist and still a high school student. This is his first exhibition and continues Sample’s offering of opportunities to young artists.

ADRIAN CAON

Adrian Caon
Libya 1986
Pastel & watercolour on paper
© 2008

101 Things to do with an American Flag is a multi-series art project Caon initiated in 2004. The project invites the audience to question the rhetoric of peace, freedom and democracy, as espoused by Australia’s ‘moral leader’, the USA, and look beyond it. Caon disrupts this rhetoric by presenting works that reveal the USA’s substantial history of using violence, or the threat of violence, to settle disputes with other states for its own interests.

This series subtitled No.11: assign each star to one of its wars consists of drawings, and several installations, depicting each of the 50 stars of the American flag positioned within a war or a military intervention during the 230-year history of the USA. The work invites the viewer to focus on one or two salient aspects of a specific U.S. military intervention by evoking the issues around war and human rights, and is a provocation rather than a didactic offensive.

On display at Majorca Building on Centre Place Melbourne throughout October.

1-27 September, Opening Friday 5 September 6-8PM

CATHERINE SEWELL

Catherine Sewell
Landscape
Digital Photograph
© 2008

The next installment of The Playground Project, this exhibition takes a look at moments of adult play through design: textiles; space; object; image. How do you play? Is it sensation or scenario? Solitary or surrounded? The silver lining or the lining of a jacket? Play up. Play on. Play ball.

"Over the past few years I’ve been keeping a record of moments of play in my life, in everyday situations I see and from stories I hear from others. The more I’ve thought about the ways that adults play, the more infinite these ways seem. Childhood, games, sport, sex, laughter, fantasy, ingenuity, creativity, risk, syncopation, repetition, rehearsal…the list goes on. My aim then, has become more about igniting the imagination of individual play. For this exhibition I chose a number of images that symbolise the different ways I have observed adults play. An experiment in how clothing, textiles, image and object can sit playfully. It is not just a public display of playfulness, it is a reminder to notice and hold on to playful moments in life." – Catherine Sewell

KATY BOWMAN

Katy Bowman
Mending
Print
© 2008

Mending is a makeshift shrine to healing, reconciliation and sustainability. The word and act of mending conjure up a bygone age when things were repaired, darned, fixed, reused, worked on, put right. On the mend… mending fences… mending one’s ways… mending worn out clothes… mending a broken heart. The images are derived from old first aid books combine with found and fabricated surgical items to the effect that the piece evokes a window display from a different era. Katy is currently Master of Fine Art candidate at RMIT.

MARITA DYSON + KUBOTA FUMIKAZU

Macro-Mirco
Graphite on paper
© 2008

Marita Dyson and Kubota Fumikazu will investigate notions of macro and micro through a display of juxtaposing works on paper in the Majorca cases throughout September. Kubota’s intensely detailed, giant, self-portrait and Marita’s manic-biotic, metropolis installation are filled with unexpected insinuations and uncanny connections. Marita Dyson is a Melbourne artist and musician interested in museum collections, the periodic table of the elements and gardening. Kubota Fumikazu is Melbourne based artist originally from Japan. His work is mostly intricate, hand-drawn forms depicting aspects of the human psyche.

ILIA ROSLI

Ilia Rosli

'I Have a Circular Driveway'

(c) 2008

I Have a Circular Driveway is written, directed and presented by Ilia Rosli as Ilia Rosli. She is a reader, a writer, an observer, a maker, a learner and lots of other things, as well as slightly confused, and this month the Sample space is her playground. After filling Platform windows with sugar and cupcakes last year, Ilia returns to show a video installation filled with colour, kitsch, whimsy, tricks and very little treats. You can also find Ilia at the George Paton Gallery at Melbourne University this September where she has tiptoed into the audio realm.

1-30 August, Opening Night 6-8pm Friday 1 August

SIMON PERICICH

Simon Pericich
"...when they come we will be ready"
Image courtesy of the artist
Mixed media and found objects
(c) 2008

We live in an age where we can't take sunscreen on a plane because of fear that it may be weapon. Artist Simon Pericich comments on these and other recent global paranoias with a display of over 60 hysterical renditions of dangerous looking artworks crudely yet obsessively fashioned out of common house-hold objects. The overwhelming arsenal for an imagined futuristic army keeps us hilariously safe from unknown benevolent forces, reminding viewers 'everything really isn't that bad'.

BRAD HAYLOCK

Brad Haylock
A Beginner’s Guide to Politics
(c) 2008

Playing upon the language of politics and the media of commerce, A Beginner’s Guide to Politics acts as a public service announcement, capitalising upon Vitrine’s prominent location. This work is at once a response and, admittedly, an addition to the cacophony of a public discourse in which the line between political and commercial communication is increasingly indistinguishable.

JESSIE BORRELLE & CAROLINE CLEMENTS

Jessie Borrelle & Caroline Clements
(Spit & Polish)
Tell It To Yourself
(c) 2008


Spit & Polish deliver etiquette lessons to the Majorca House exhibition windows in Centreplace.

Two large-scale profile cameos (those of Spit & Polish), both furnished with speech bubbles, will be the vehicle for the text of the etiquette 'advice'. The lessons provided are extracted from an early 20th century guide, Don't! Directions for Avoiding Improprieties of Conduct & Common Errors in Speech. Don't! was published by E.W. Cole - a respected philanthropist and publisher of the times - on Little Collins Street, a mere block away from Majorca House.

It's likely that many people may have actually followed these suggestions, making both the literary and historical reference of this project pertinent to the location. The purpose of ‘Tell It To Yourself’ is to amuse (and instruct) passers-by, but primarily to illustrate the changes in social behaviours that have occurred over the twentieth century, almost the span of time since the erection of the Majorca Building and Flinders Lane. The quotes reference the hospitality laden precinct, the highly social nature of Centreplace, and its function as a meeting place embedded with behavioural cues, idiocies and expectations.

LUCY BERGLUND

Lucy Berglund
Mother/Lover/Other
Blanket
(c) 2008

In Mother/Lover/Other, Lucy Berglund uses familiar checked blankets to reference safety and warmth, while simultaneously hinting at their flipside, claustrophobia and suffocation. This ambivalence demonstrates an interrogation of the state of desire and yearning.

Lucy Berglund is currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Art at Monash.

Applications for 2009 are now open

We are now accepting applications for our 2009 exhibition program.

Download Application Form here.

JULY OPENING NIGHT

Check out the recent video by Oscar Raby of our Opening Night in July!

1-30 July, Opening Night 6-8pm Friday 4 July

SHARON WEST

Sharon West
Gubbaworld
Mixed media
© 2008

Gubbaworld is derived from the Koori name for white people. The exhibition parodies the notion of the museum diorama cabinet and is inspired by past museum (mis)practices. The work is constructed in both a 2D and 3D format, and offers a pseudo-historical narrative of Victorian settler history. Drawing on references from the Aboriginal dioramas of Melbourne Museum and the Great Colonial Exhibitions of the late 1800s, the work’s themes focus on settler and Indigenous contact, offering parables and inversions that satirise the ideas of the great Southern land, the Noble Savage and white colonisation.

GUBBAWORLD: Colonial Pseudo-Histories and other Follies feature the themes:

Terra Incognita (The Unknown Land) – Scenes of an isle of designer dogs, yowies, big budgies, giant eels and octopuses.
An Indigenous Picturesque – Considering Ruskian notions of paradise, where the noble savage lives in harmony with his landscape – albeit in a long-lost ruined monastic site. "This is what England must either do or perish, she must found colonies as fast and as far as she is able." J. Ruskin 1870.
A New Jerusalem – Parodying notions of the transplantation of British culture onto the Indigenous landscape and the discovery of the holy grail on Flagstaff hill.
Batmania – A surreal re-imagining of early colonial Melbourne with tourists camped out to witness the popular Koori sport of sheep spearing.
Black Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – Mother Nature’s revenge and the land ravaged by bushfires, pestilence and really big sheep.

Sharon will be presenting her work alongside Koori Allsorts.

KOORI ALLSORTS

Charlie O
BTW
Digital Print
© 2008

To accompany Sharon West's Gubbaworld, we are presenting a group show, Koori Allsorts, to help celebrate NAIDOC Week in July. The exhibition will feature recent work from Indigenous (Gunditjamara, Wemba Wemba & Yorta Yorta) artists including Jarrod Atkinson, Mandi Barton-Travis, Andrew Travis, Charlie O and Carol Wright. Held from 6–13 July 2008, NAIDOC presents events across the country to celebrate the historical and cultural achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people. Each year NAIDOC gets bigger and we are very pleased to be part of the celebrations!

Gubbaworld & Koori Allsorts will be opened by guest speaker Aunty Bunta Patten, 6–8pm Friday 4 July.

KUBOTA FUMIKAZU + TANIA SMITH

Continually Genuine is a performance project based on the artists’ process of applying for Australian residency. Kubota Fumikazu and Tania Smith were obligated to prove that their union was “genuine and continuing”. Recollections of tender moments were retold to a stranger in the sterile surrounds of a government office. The absurdity of this situation, and the broader issues in contemporary politics regarding immigration constitute the basis for the project.

Performance will take place once on the opening night – 6-8pm Friday 4 July.

DANIEL DORALL

Daniel Dorall
Life
Type C print 120 x 80 cm (Edition of 5)
© 2007

Daniel Dorall has worked in Melbourne since arriving from Malaysia in 2003 and has quickly made a name on the local scene with his intricate and maze-like spatial sculptures. This set of 'Life + Death' are based on a diptych of mazes of the same name. It represents a major shift in his work, from the earlier, more rigid grid formations, to a more organic construction. The works explore notions of space and claustrophobia via narrative tableaux of good and evil. On view at Majorca Building (corner Flinders Lane and Centre Place Melbourne). Daniel is represented by Dianne Tanzer Gallery and will be holding a solo show there in September.

VICTORIA STAMOS

Victoria Stamos
10 March 1960
Digital Print
© 2008

"The photograph presented is an extract taken from Greek-English Dialogues, a handbook given to my grandma before coming to Australia from Greece in 1960. It shows the inside back cover of the book where my grandma practiced writing the English alphabet. This is one of the few pieces my grandma has kept that mark the length of her living in Australia. I don’t know what she was feeling or thinking as she practiced the letters, but it’s these small details left behind that build the larger picture. I’m not seeking the truth about my grandma’s life, her origins or her history, but instead want to form a relationship with these things through the material object left behind. The object acts as a trace of a life past as I never knew it, therefore reminding me of the passing of time and the trajectory my grandma’s life has taken since migrating to Australia."

June 3 - June 27, Opening Night 6-8pm Friday June 6

BERNADETTE TRENCH-THIEDEMAN

Bernadette Trench-Thiedeman
Eat the City
Architectural models and various plant species
© 2008

Eat the City is an installation of architectural models planted out with edible and non-edible plants, seeds and seedlings. Eat the City invites the viewer to re-imagine the urban environment transformed by plants in ridiculous, beautiful and sometimes violent ways. Coupled with portraits of revolutionary gardeners, Eat the City suggests possible incursions of the domestic suburban garden on the CBD and its inhabitants.

Watch it grow over a 26 day period in the Platform cases.

PAUL SPENCE

Paul Spence
Vagyro
Prototype for a Nightlight Toy featuring Vertical Axis Gyroscope
(c) 2008

Paul Spence is a 44 year old Melbourne design artist with a passion for furniture, lighting and the decorative arts. A keen enthusiast of early to mid 20th century design/iconography, his current work; showing for the month of June at "Vitrine" entitled; "Streamlined Adventures by Nightlight" is a celebration of light and the streamlined form. It explores the notion that the aesthetic of the streamlined object has the ability to impart on the viewer; a sense of elevated emotional calm.

JODY CLEAVER

Jody Cleaver
Flowered
Animation Still
(c) 2008

In our first animation exhibition for the year, Jody has timed the arrival of the Pope Benedict XVI with Flowered, her "consideration of creed, it’s extravagance; and how faith and systematic beliefs relate to nature and sexuality in Australia."

Surrounding the ornately framed animation is a painted wedding ceremony (see Platform Pages for pic), sculptured puppets and painted animation stills.

EBON BOWTELL

Ebon Bowtell
Horse Stories
Type C photograph
(c) 2007

Majorca's latest installation is a photographic series of self-portraits by Melbourne photographer Ebon Bowtell. Richly moody and intensely personal, these photographs explore the violent implications of stereotypes, and are a fight toward re-gaining power. Ebon uses unconventional techniques such as long exposure and movement to achieve this powerful series.

In her own words:

"FucKEdUp, SHotUp, WACKedUp, bAnGedUp, SpatlTup, CouGhEdup, KNoCKedUp, LoCkeDup, BEAtUp, BasHedUp, ShutUp, GOttaLoveThat, FedUp, WokeUp, HadEnOUGh, cLEAnEDup..............STOP"

TREVOR FLINN

Trevor Flinn
The Puma, The Stranger and The Mountain
Variable dimensions (plaster, fabric, wire, leaves, branches, road kill.)
(c) 2008

'The Puma, The Stranger & The Mountain' brings to life the myth that has been whispered around the Grampians near Trevor's hometown of Dunkeld in western Victoria.

Media collide as Trevor probes the latent underpinnings of regional life and landscape: identity, isolation, belief, freedom and captivity, desire and sexuality, raised by tales of this wild cat, which is believed to have prowled the local landscape for decades.

In order to trace the myth, Trevor becomes the puma through performance and, with a mash up of medium, the cabinets are transformed into relics of the places it has been. The rise and demise of Trevor's fake rock band, The Meat Eaters, mirrors the intangible fame of this regional bush legend.

CENSORED!

Following a complaint from a member of the public, sections of Cecilia Fogelberg's exhibition featuring photographs of a male nude came under scrutiny. After some heated debate and a request by the City of Melbourne to cover the offending appendages, Next Wave agreed to cover the works. Neither Platform Artists Group nor the artist agree with this action but it has raised some serious discussion topics, especially in relation to artworks being considered in their broader contexts. Read The Age story that week here.

A public discussion and "unveiling" of the censored works will take place with the artist, Cecilia Fogelberg, the City of Melbourne and Next Wave at 5pm on Friday 30 June 2008 at Platform in Degraves Street Subway.

CECILIA FOGELBERG

Cecilia Fogelberg
Supermarket
150 x 150mm (acrylic on canvas)
© 2008

Swedish-Australian artist Cecilia Fogelberg has collaborated with Dunkeld artist Trevor Flinn as part of this year's Next Wave Festival Kick Start Program, presenting a dual exhibition for May. Cecilia has created a diverse body of sculptural, painted and photographic work that explores cultural identity and the migrant experience from an artist's perspective. Cecilia's empathy with Hollywood aliens and art icons form the subjects of her paintings, while a handmade collection of balaclavas extract contradictions in identity and anonymity. Cecilia says about The Puma, The Stranger and The Mountain:

"The core of my work is the construction of reality, the construction of the individual identity, the order of nature and the disorder of nature (within and outside the supermarket), the dreams of fame, the dreams of popular culture in the form of a stoned Mickey Mouse who is dreaming about becoming as famous as Damien Hirst (Hirst representing the Art Supermarket), the alienation from culture and surroundings, the familiarity of a stranger meeting a stranger, the culture struggle within one's own culture, the exile, the myth of the stranger, and country town’s ‘Chinese whispers’ history writing. My work isn’t set in the past in a Swedish setting, nor is it talking about Australia today, but it has resemblances of it both."

HIROMI TANGO

Himomi Tango
Absence (detail installation view)
(various materials including wool, cardboard, paper, paint and plastic)
© 2008

As part of 2008 Next Wave Festival, we are fortunate to have Japanese-Australian artist Hiromi Tango in a one-month residency at Vitrine and Sample throughout May. Hiromi creates elaborate artist books from the collected memories, stories, letters and diaries that she is given during her interactive public performances.

During her time in Vitrine, Hiromi's objective is to hand-stitch collected ‘feelings and voices’ and develop a collaborative sculpture with the show title and theme of Absence. Her personal engagement with the site, situation and the community that passes will determine the final outcome of the artwork. Even after the first week, complete strangers have come to visit Hiromi, presenting her with drawings and letters, adding to the work and becoming part of an impressive and complex inhabitation. Hiromi says of her current work:

"Absence will contribute to a more critical understanding of how artist and public engagement is defined, and how the artist can intervene into a particular space, potentially generating unexpected moments of intimacy and tension. How much of the exchange is me and how much of it is you? Is it possible to understand each other? The closer I get to you, the more I feel anxious, uneasy and… absent."

SURVIVAL AND ADAPTATION

Bernadette Trench-Thiedeman
Stage 1: Survival and Adaptation (detail installation view)
(plants, water, beakers, labels)
© 2008

In preparation for her upcoming solo show at Platform in June, Melbourne artist and amateur botanist Bernadette Trench-Thiedeman created an experiment in the infamous leaky cabinet. The second last cabinet in the subway leaks after every big rain pretty much making in unusable for artists but a few brave artists have ventured to use the space. So after applying for a show to create an underground garden, we offered Bernadette the chance to experiment with plant survival in a space without sunlight. Installing a series of plant clippings partly immersed in science beakers and test tubes of water, Bernadette made Stage 1 of her project to test how the plants would survive. Having been set in the cases at the end of February, not only have they survived for two months without sunlight but the plants have even grown under the flouroscent tubes.

'The Age' cover story

Check out the cover story on The Age EG cover-story on artist-run spaces and independent galleries written by threethousand editor extraordinaire Penny Modra. Print version featured KMOSSED HQ artwork with Platform co-director Anita King! Read the online version here.

ART MELBOURNE

We showed (and even sold) some work at Art Melbourne from April 18-20 held at the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings. We were invited by our patrons – the City of Melbourne Arts & Culture (with thanks to Candy Mitchell) – to share a stall with Kings ARI and the newly independent Sticky Institute. We invited some of our favourite Platform artists to show at Art Melbourne including Sylvia Jeffries, Rus Kitchin, Contextual Villains, Anna Nilsson and Daniel Dorall.

RUS KITCHIN

Rus Kitchin
End of The Beginning (installation view)
(photographic prints, spray paint, texta, gaffa, paper, televisions, laptops, dvds)
© 2008

Rus Kitchin, our special guest artist for April, pulled together a vast body of reconstituted photographic and digital work which he used to wallpaper the large Vitrine space. Rus painted over the surface of the photo-wall in a graf style for which he first earned his rep on the local art scene. Installing two large televisions and four laptop computers, the imagery framing the back wall was then re-presented in digital looping formats while the remnants of the work were left aesthetically randomised across the floorboards. A wildly expressive show from one of Melbourne's hottest young artists, End of the Beginning is one of our favourite Vitrine shows.

ERICA TARQUINIO + MADELAINE FURRUGIA

Erica Tarquinio & Madelaine Farrugia
The Book of Proverbs (detail)
(pencil on paper)
© 2008

Two young emerging artists, Erica Tarquinio and Madelaine Farrugia, installed a series of drawings in the Sample window during April. The works on paper took their inspiration from sometimes popular (sometimes clichéd) proverbs taken from around the world. Erica and Madelaine then interpreted the proverbs in a literal and playful illustration style, installing the pieces like pages fallen from a children's book.

DOMINIQUE MITCHELSON

Dominique Mitchelson
Fresh Fields (photographic detail)
(dry-point print on paper)
© 2008

Melbourne printmaker Dominique Mitchelson took time out of her busy teaching schedule to install a series of beautifully detailed prints of magical 'anthropomorphs' in the Majorca Building cases for April. Dominique says of her latest installation:

"This current artwork is inspired by old fashioned illustration and a love for fine detail. I have re-created textures and designs of fabric within the imagery. The prints are based on my interest in animals and birds. The fox would have to be one of the most exquisite and common of animals – they are incredibly smart and very dedicated to looking after their families. The swallow is also a common bird, but it is so quick and fleeting in flight which makes it hard to see how truly beautiful these birds really are. With this work, I hope that the viewer can be transported from the city to another environment, where a fox goes exploring with a lantern light or swallows play on a maypole."

Dominique will be showing soon with Outré Gallery on Elizabeth Street Melbourne.

THE DOOR SNAKE PROJECT

Various Artists
The Door Snake Project (installation detail view)
(mixed media incl. fabric, foam, cardboard, paint)
© 2008

The Door Snake Project stemmed from an initiative by Lori Kirk, a Melbourne based artist who developed the April collaborative art installation at Platform with 14 local and international contemporary artists. The artists each created their own unique version of the pop-crafty door snake, traditionally used underneath doorways to block unwanted drafts. The completed door snakes were posted from each artist’s country of residence, arriving in Melbourne to be installed at Platform. Lori then created the accompanying fabric environments within the 15 glass cabinets, creating a surreal underground reptile enclosure.

The Door Snake Project Artists
Altynai Osoeva, Lauren DiCioccio, Julia Adzuki, Ben Griffiths, Lori Kirk, Ruth Fleishman, Massimo Palombo, Cynthia Johnston, Elizabeth Temple, Kellie Lyler, Isabell Walsh, Judy Oakenfull, Rachel Carlisle, Helen Brooker and Becky James.

NEW LINX

Just for fun, we have started the Platform Social Pages here and a Platform Artists Group on Facebook here. Join up and see mug shots of peeps at our shows!

ROSIE KAVANAVOCH + STEPHANIE NEOH

Rosie Kavanavoch & Stephanie Neoh
KMOSSED HQ (detail)
(photographic print)
© 2008

Rosie Kavanavoch and Stephanie Neoh collaborated in their recent double show at Platform and Vitrine as part of the 2008 L'Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival. KMOSSED HQ was made up of a collection of large format photographs of infamous locals in platform shoes and varying states of style. Not content with the one exhibition, Russia and Steph took over Vitrine on the opening night filling the space with fashion detritus and covering the glass in statements about the blurry but glamorous line between fashion and art.

The artist statement for the double show says the rest: I stumbled in there while running for my life. Melbourne’s underground will be filled with make-believe advertisements of models in platform shoes. These staged scenes explore parodies of high-end fashion, highlighting how accessories, images and shoes are only temporary in their blah blah there goes your rib. The presence of the shoe further unleashes the never-ending criss cross garbo style hello sailor between fashion, art and, well, heels. WaTCH YOuR STep."

LIA TABRAH

Lia Tabrah
R.S.I. (detail)
(paper on canvas)
© 2008

Lia Tabrah installed her latest collection of paper paintings in the Majorca Building cabinets through March. Lia's work takes on various 3-dimensional qualities with their rolled and scrunched paper balls that are reassembled into large-scale paper paintings. Lia says about this latest series: "R.S.I. (repetitive strain injury) is an obvious description of the laborious evidence splayed across my canvases. The colour, texture and pattern integrated into my work are placed together in a tight mosaic order, which compels my scrunched tissue paper balls to mimic the clean lines of Op Art, the texture and imagery of fashion and the colours and technique as a lingering childhood memory."

JENNIFER ADDISON

Jennifer Addison
Cu.r.io (detail)
(felt, wood, paint)
© 2008

Jen Addison's new work in Sample used historical, drawn sight lines that stretched into her three-dimensional installation surrounded by tiny labeled curiosities. Jen says about her recent spatial play: "A collector at heart, my response to the Sample space at Platform is a collection of curios; found, gathered, re-inserted, re-represented, stripped bare of their original context; they find a new significance within the cabinet. My desire was to take this existing space from the everyday to the fantastical, and create a space of curious nature in a playful manner."

COLLECTIONS IN THE UNDERGROUND 2

Design by Bird Girl
Collections in the Underground 2
L'Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival 2008
(Photographer Jeana Bajic)

Collections in the Underground returned to Platform on March 1st as part of the cultural events in this year’s L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival. Once again curated by Platform’s (newly mowaked) co-director Anita King, the evening presented six new collections from Melbourne independent fashion designers: a name is a label, Bird Girl and Queen. Hundreds of eager fashionistas squeezed into the subway for the Saturday night event that included fan-dancing introductions and choreographed moves from these classy underground rag-traders.

To see more about these labels and stockists:
a name is a label
Bird Girl
Queen

SECRETS OF THE PHOTOCOPIER

Paper/Cuts
Secrets of the Photocopier
(drawing, collage, reassembled photocopies)
© 2008

In one of our best group shows in recent times, Secrets of the Photocopier saw some of Australia most prolific zinemakers descend on the subway to take over the cases during February. Organised by Platform lovechild Sticky and the Shop 10 crew (Luke Sinclair and Elle Peace with a host of dedicated volunteers), the Secrets exhibition was part of the first zine festival held in and around the subway throughout the month. Secrets featured some top Aussie talents in cut-and-paste independent publishing including: 7U, Breakdown Press, Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, All Thumbs Press, WEB, Ianto Ware, DNA, YOU, PAPER/CUTS (see image), Erinsborough Exploits, Mavis McKenzie, and Contextual Villains. Altogther a superbly executed group show about zines…still not sure what a zine is? Here’s the closest definition from the Sticky crew:

“Zines are a low-budget, accessible, ‘democracy of the multiple’ form of artistic and written expression, usually centred around photocopier technology as an easy and immediate form of reproduction, the zine then being freely distributed at little or no cost. Zines are often difficult to define and it is this difficulty of defining zines that contributes to its ever-changing dynamics and freedom that encourage experimental and innovative art forms.”

For more information about zines and how to buy, sell and exchange your own work, visit Melbourne’s leading zine shop: Sticky, Shop 10, Degraves Street Subway, Melbourne or check the website.

DAVID MAHLER

David Mahler
My Head Hurts (installation view)
(charcoal, pencil, acrylics, spray paint, collage, lego)
© 2008

One of our youngest Platform artists to date, 15-year old David Mahler held his first solo show, My Head Hurts, in the Sample space during February. David experiences synesthesia and much of his work is produced to music, exploring a range of techniques that demonstrate an unexpected diversity.
David says about this show: "I decided to call the exhibit "my head hurts" for various reasons. I get stressed pretty easily, and art helps me relax. I enjoy using bright colours and collaging images that have surrealistic and confusing implications. I guess the effect of the brightness can sometimes just dazzle people, which can be exaggerated as to being a headache." We're looking forward to seeing this young hotshot evolve his practice in the coming years!

PIP STAFFORD

Pip Stafford
Nobody Knows You Better Than I Do (detail)
(video still/screen print)
© 2008