PAST EXHIBITIONS . 2019

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14 DECEMBER / 19 JANUARY
gallery 1, gallery 2 & project space

ANIMAL NATION
STEWART COLE, CHRISTIAN BISHOP, KATJA MOUVLIN, TRAVIS JOHN, LISS FENWICK, YOUJIA LU, DARREN TANNY TAN, MICHAEL NEEDHAM, TALITHA KENNEDY, KATE ROHDE, BEN LADEN.

CURATED BY SIMON PERICICH & CATALOGUE ESSAY BY BRIE TRENERRY

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This group show hunts the beast: What is an animal nation?

Philosophical questions surround animalia since the acknowledgement of the Anthropocenic epoch; the recognition that human activity has impacted all biological life on earth. Navigating this terrain, artists Stewart Cole (editioned print), Christian Bishop (sculpture), Katja Mouvlin (painting), Travis Ficarra John (digital painting), Liss Fenwick (photography), Youjia Lu (video), Darren Tanny Tan (photography), Michael Needham (sculpture), Talitha Kennedy (sculpture), Kate Rohde (sculpture) & Ben Laden (durational performance) have mustered around the idea of an Animal Nation employing a variety of territorial pissings. Rather than exhibiting representations of animals, the artists instinctually play with themes of anthropomorphism, hybrids, animal politics, citizenship, animal consciousness and the beast within.

08 NOVEMBER / 08 DECEMBER
gallery 1

CASEY JEFFERY
AS PART OF THE MACFARLANE FUND 2019

Casey Jeffery’s nostalgic paintings are a celebration of Australian suburbia, transcending the mundane, humble home with psychedelic charm. Many of her paintings focus on the stripe – specifically the familiar striped fabrics of Brella window awnings found on the facades of suburban homes. Jeffery’s painting practice comprises ultra-smooth, colourful depictions of ornamentation characteristic to the post-war, brick-front houses of Melbourne suburbia, offering a nuanced reading of Australian domestic life. This body of work was produced by Jeffery whilst on three month residency in Kyneton. These paintings were largely inspired by her wanderings of the Macedon Ranges, observing flowers, the mountains and studying the various colours they produce when blurred into the landscape.

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TIA ANSELL
AS PART OF THE MACFARLANE FUND 2019

Tia Ansell is a New Zealand born, Melbourne based weaver, ceramicist and painter. Utilising a Patchwork approach, Ansell systematically measures, codifies, manipulates and unites her materials to form an assemblage. The suite of works is based on measuring and collecting representations from various locations around Kyneton during her three-month residency over the autumn to winter period. Ansell transforms this information into a code-like process by measuring each location, simplifying space and transforming into a mathematical system. These findings are duplicated and repeated horizontally and vertically to become a patterned topographical map. Each assemblage is organised into a grid formation, a system that weaving and tiling rely on, but also a chosen format to organise space from an anthropological, architectural and archaeological perspective.

NAOISE HALLORAN–MACKAY
AS PART OF THE MACFARLANE FUND 2019

Naoise Halloran-Mackay’s work documents contemporary Australian attitudes surrounding space, land and identity. In this series of paintings, made predominantly during his undertaking of the Macfarlane Fund residency, Halloran-Mackay portrays scenes of everyday life exploring notions of fringe developments and facades in peri-urban settings.

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08 NOVEMBER / 08 DECEMBER
gallery 2

Layered
KIM BARTER

Kim Barter draws inspiration from the landscape, observing and immersing herself in its power, beauty and fragility.  Working from sketchbooks filled with drawings, paint splotches, rubbings and notes, Barter’s gestural style evokes sensations of wonder, layered with colour, texture and line. 

Barter’s mark-making stems from a process of intuition, her time in the studio a period of intense reflection and consideration.  She begins working in a way that attempts to remove all the words and visual ‘reality’ of the landscape, searching for an unselfconscious response to share her feelings and thoughts. Her work serves as a reminder to herself and others of the beauty of Australia’s terrain.

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11 OCTOBER / 02 NOVEMBER
gallery 1

Deceptions
JASON WATERHOUSE

Over the last twenty years, Jason Waterhouse has been applying his malleable skills to public commissions, installation and drawing, articulating his poetic relationship to the world by warping and manipulating utilitarian objects. Advocating a non-elitist form of art making, Waterhouse thrives on altering spaces and objects through a strong craft sensibility combined with the Western idea of the ready-made. 

In his latest exhibition Waterhouse has crafted an installation of six intimate objects connected through the theatrics and deception of material and space. With the works taking their starting point from his dual interests in the manufactured and the natural world, Deceptions darkly narrates open-ended uncertainty through trickery and illusion. Mimicking nature and tools, the works create a sense of unease and wonderment, enabling cinematic narratives viewers are more likely to see in science-fiction films.  Carved marble branches with crystalline forms, branches spawning supernatural growths, and carefully sculpted pieces of marble tenderly carved; blurring the lines between the fabricated and the found object.  Working within this trajectory and using an assortment of personal and cultural signifiers, Deceptions psychologically engages the space between the known and the unknown.  

Jason Waterhouse’s practice plays with autobiographic notions of contemporary Australian identity and he is widely known for playfully manipulating tools, cars, sheds and other cultural signifiers.   Previous works have involved a series of interventions resulting in a hybridised object that occupies a space between the natural and the manufactured.   Jason Waterhouse completed a BFA in sculpture at Monash University and Post-Grad at the Victorian College of the Arts.  Over the last twenty years, Waterhouse has exhibited his work extensively in Australia, including at the Biennale of Australian Art, Ballarat (2018) and The Scienceworks Museum, Melbourne (2016).  His recent public art commissions include ‘Levelled Crossing’, Melton Highway, Brimbank Council and ‘Cottage’, Daylesford Lake, Hepburn Shire.

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11 OCTOBER / 02 NOVEMBER
gallery 2

Convergence
LYN RAYMER

Lyn Raymer’s latest drawings began in Sha Tin, Hong Kong as a series of works that look at the
changing shapes of shifting crowds. The carefully observed figures move through public areas, migrating across the surface, determining destinations and detours. Raymer uses a reductive technique where erasers are used to reveal the light areas through the charcoal. Her working lines both expose the history of the drawing, as well as the transitory movement of the figures through space.

Lyn Raymer studied fine arts at RMIT and Monash University in the 70s. She taught visual arts (International Baccalaureate) in Hong Kong, and later conducted drawing workshops in HK and Dubai. After 22 years of teaching, practicing art, and managing her own studio and gallery in Hong Kong, Raymer is now based in Bendigo.

11 OCTOBER / 02 NOVEMBER
project space

Come On In
NIYANTA SHARMA

Niyanta Sharma’s 'Come On In' is drawn from the tradition of taking shoes off before entering a home. In Indian culture, traditionally taking ones shoes off is a ritual that pays homage to the space and provides a moment to think about the environment one is about to step into. Here, the idea of stepping into a space has been used to manipulate the gallery so the audience re-enacts this tradition.

Niyanta Sharma deconstructs and reconsiders architectural conceptions of space, with a focus on how dwellers occupy their spaces. Through the manipulation of environment, one is organically encouraged to move away from ocular centric tendencies and experience space with bodily and sensory consciousness. Her works draw upon the notion of ‘home’ and the belief that home is a feeling as well as a physical space.

In 2018 Sharma completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Drawing) at the Victoria College of Arts and is currently doing her Masters of Architecture at the University of Melbourne.

14 SEPTEMBER / 06 OCTOBER
gallery 1

Nocturne
NATALIE RYAN & JEREMY BLINCOE

Nocturne is an exhibition with works by artists Jeremy Blincoe and Natalie Ryan that centres around ideas associated with bats. This will be the first time these artists have exhibited together. They will explore these themes through a range of installations and mediums looking at the role of these mammals in the urban environment and mythology associated with them.

Natalie Ryan’s recent exhibitions include Imaging the Dead at Linden New Arts, Curious and Curiouser at Bathurst Regional Gallery, Second Nature presented with Blackartprojects at Second Space Projects, Shifting Skin at China Heights Sydney, Mortem in Imagine curated by Michael Brennan at LUMA and the VAC Bendigo, MAF Platform Pop Up: Cutler and Co curated by Barry Keldoulis at Melbourne Art Fair, Imaging the Dead at MADA Gallery, Lorne Sculpture Biennale, Unnatural Selection, curated by Simon Gregg at Gippsland Art Gallery and Pretty in Pink at Linden New Art. Recent residencies, commissions and grants include, Eden Gardens Outdoor Sculpture commission, ArtStart Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Victoria VICARTS GRANTS, Artist in Residence at The University of Melbourne Veterinary Department, Bundanon Studio Residency, Linden Studio Residency Program, Medical and Art Residency at Monash University Gippsland, APA - PhD at Monash University Caulfield and The Pratt Family Scholarship Award.

In the last twelve years New Zealand born Melbourne based artist Jeremy Blincoe has held fifteen solo exhibitions including in Korea, Switzerland and New Zealand. He has won a number of prestigious prizes including the Brisbane Art Prize (2017), Fisher Ghost Arts Prize (2017) and the Kaipara Wallace Arts Trust Award (2016). Blincoe completed a degree in photography in Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand in 2006. He is included in the collection of the Gippsland Art Gallery.

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14 SEPTEMBER / 06 OCTOBER
gallery 2

Heterotopia
ARA DOLATIAN

Ara Dolatian’s interdisciplinary practice explores the relationship between cultural landscapes and the natural ecosystem.   Through his work Dolatian conflates a number of ideas around the themes of the studio and laboratory and in turn social and environmental politics. A hybrid ecosystem simultaneously resembles a semi-functional apparatus, the model of a utopian city and a biological experiment.

The work in Heterotopia functions as visual interpretations of socio-cultural and technological developments, and aims to anticipate future topics while using the dichotomy of humanities and science. Art and science have been engaged in an exchange of ideas and narrative structures. The works in the exhibition are an abstract visualisation linking the human and the nonhuman and addressing the incipient intersection of nature, biology and technology.

Ara Dolatian received a Bachelor of Fine Art (sculpture) from RMIT University (2012) and a Master in Social Science Environment and Planning (2014). He has exhibited nationally and internationally and has been involved with a number of collaborations, public art projects, grants and residencies including with the Centro Negro AADK, Spain (2016); the Espacio de Arte Contemporáneo in Montevideo, Uruguay (2017); in addition to receiving funding to complete a project and a residency with Soil Science Australia in Brisbane (2017).  Next year, Dolatian will participate in a residency at the ZK/U Centre for Art and Urbanistics in Berlin, Germany.

In 2019, Dolatian received a Career Development Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts.  He has been a finalist in a number of awards, including the Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Awards (2019), Darebin Art Prize (2015); and the Substation Contemporary Art Prize Finalist (2013). 

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10 AUGUST / 08 SEPTEMBER
gallery 1

Our Desires Our Not Our Own
JESSICA LEDWICH

Our Desires Are Not Our Own explores the ambiguity and complexity of the emotions of female desire and pleasure once woman is no longer positioned as the ‘object’ of heterosexual male desire.

The ‘male gaze’ as coined by Laura Mulvey in 1975 speaks to the way in which women historically have been presented in visual arts and literature as objects of male pleasure and desire. In response to this, Jill Soloway in her TIFF Master Class identifies the male gaze for the way it “shames (women’s) desire (and) names only the desire that is okay with them.” She investigates the notion of the ‘female gaze’ and the idea of the ‘subjective camera’. It is this concept of subjectivity through the lens in relation to female desire Ledwich wishes to explore. 

Through the mediums of photography and sculpture Ledwich seeks to open a dialogue between the viewer and the work around the complexities of this subject/object relationship. Can one, as Soloway suggests “reclaim the body...to evoke a feeling of being in feeling, rather than seeing” when for so long these images have been a channel for male desire and a tool of power? Ledwich creates images of the female body that successfully speak to how it feels to be the object of the gaze? And can these images really be separated from the power dynamic within which they were created? 

Drawing influence from advertising and film these works look to straddle the line between the sensual and grotesque to create an expression that fuses mind and body into erotic scenes and objects. 

10 AUGUST/ 08 SEPTEMBER
gallery 2

Feast
ZOË BARRY . WELFE BOWYER . ANDREI DAVIDOFF . LINSEY GOSPER . IRENE WELLM . MICHAEL NEEDHAM EMME ORBACH . MICHAEL VALE . FELIX WILSON . THE RYAN SISTERS

Feast is a winter culinary event that celebrates dystopian beauty and contemporary horror through food and art. With a four-course banquet inspired by earth, life and death by award-winning chef Emma James, eleven artists have been commissioned to create an element for this highly ornate and dark sensory experience.

Sculptures, paintings, video and sound works centred around the disturbingly absurd and darkly opulent will provide an immersive and extravagant event.

Chef: Emma James

13 JULY / 04 AUGUST
gallery 1

Untitled
BEN AITKEN

Based in Melbourne, Ben Aitken is an artist whose work is influenced by text, the Internet, appropriation and humour.  Aitken’s latest exhibition untitled is a show of four works, each a diptych of painting and hand-stitched tapestries.  Drawing on diverse strategies, Aitken’s approach to making work straddles the border between naivety and a punk aesthetic, producing work that plays with geometric abstraction, techniques of image-making through collage and the layering of different forms.

Recent solo exhibitions include An artist of some description, ALASKA Projects, Sydney, 2018; Collaboratory (with Jon Cattapan), La Trobe Art Institute, Benidgo, 2018; and Alternative Literature is also like Alternative Literature, Bayside Arts and Cultural Centre, Melbourne, 2016. In 2018 Aitken was a finalist in the Archibald Prize and won the Tony Fini Foundation Prize for Portraiture, Art Gallery of Western Australia. His work is held in public and private collections Australia wide, including the Michael and Janet Buxton Family Collection, PriceWaterhouseCooper and Lismore Regional Gallery.

13 JULY / 04 AUGUST
gallery 2

Hyperobject (Kyneton)
TOM BORGAS

Tom Borgas is an Adelaide based artist working from a sculptural foundation across multiple platforms including gallery and project work, public sculpture, festival interventions and performance. Developed through an oscillation between digital and analogue processes his work is an investigation of the space between image and object, virtual and physical, maker and viewer.

First coined in 2008 by speculative philosopher Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects are ecological objects with spatial and temporal dimensions the totality of which extends far beyond the limits of human perception. Examples include global warming, the solar system, all the styrofoam ever created and the stock market. Given our perception of these things is only ever partial, it is a concept that challenges traditional ideas of thingness.

Manifesting as a white, vertical, triangulated surface attached to a complex painted wooden armature, Hyperobject (Kyneton) is part of an ongoing sculptural speculation on cloud computing as hyperobject. In contrast to the mythology that frames the storage and access to data as immaterial, the chroma-key blue back-end structure erupts as a series of conspicuous fragments across the objects and architecture of the space.  

Borgas has exhibited at shows and galleries around Australia including PICA (Perth), The Jam Factory (Adelaide), Artisan (Brisbane), Salamanca Arts Centre (Hobart) and as part of the 2018 Kyneton Contemporary Art Triennial. Commissioning bodies include Urban Art Projects, Golden Age Group, The City of Brisbane, Rockhampton City Council, The Hilton Adelaide, Splendour in the Grass, the City of Adelaide and Renewal SA. Borgas' practice has also received support through contributions from the Australia Council for the Arts, Arts South Australia, Copyright Agency, NAVA and The Helpmann Academy.

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Stockroom Kyneton, gallery 1
13 June / 07 July 2019

RHETT D’COSTA
Ideas Of Home

Born in Bombay, Rhett D’Costa migrated to Australia at an early age. His practice led research draws on his hybrid background of British, European, Australian and Indian cultures and its ongoing relationship to colonial and post-colonial theory, extending across drawing, painting and installation processes. 

D'Costa's most recent pan-disciplinary projects have centred on the ‘right to belong’, exploring the role of resilience and optimism in the intersecting areas of migration, multiculturalism, identity, nationalism and belonging. His research has focused on ideas connected to culturally composite ethnicities, mixed race communities and the porosity of place, belonging and identity formation.  These interests take into account shifting social and political circumstances and the tensions and consequences of mobility and migration in complex transnational environments.

The premise for this exhibition, Ideas of Home grew from an early encounter D'Costa experienced with Indian miniature painting the first time he went back to India, almost 33 years ago and 15 years after his family immigrated to Australia. During this trip, D'Costa became enamoured by the colour combinations and the pictorial spaces of Indian court paintings. These memories have informed Ideas of Home and D'Costa's relationship to place, home and belonging. Oscillating between India – his ancestral place of birth, and Australia, his adopted homeland, this exhibition explores D'Costa's circumstances of living in the world, as past experience, present engagement and future evolving deliberations.

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8 JUNE / 07 JULY
gallery 2

I've been everywhere man
MADDISON KITCHING

Maddison Kitching’s I’ve been everywhere man is a series of work which looks at the relationship between tourism, tourism merchandise and real places. The exhibition follows on from Kitching’s previous investigations into commercial representations of Australian landscapes and observations of Australian identity.

In this body of work, Kitching focuses on Kyneton as a tourist destination and the relationship between the tourist and the town. The paintings use visual elements from tourism media and combine them with aspects of colonial architecture and glimpses of imagined local landscapes. The exhibition interrogates popular representations of place and how we connect to and consume landscape.

8 JUNE / 07 JULY
project space

Indefinite Terrains
POLLY STANTON

Indefinite Terrains is an audio-visual essay that interprets the site of the forest plantation as a dynamic assemblage of colonialism, capitalism and country. Through the location of the plantation, the actions and effects of industry and the more-than-human world are considered through narration and the audio-visual tracing of the forest’s controlled and operationalised terrains.

Based in the semi-arid goldfields region of central Victoria, and born from six months of field research, the work reimagines the planation as a convergence of events and complexities that engage beings and bodies in lively ecologies of remembrance and relation.

Punctuated with diaristic entries by the fictitious character of the Planation Officer, acts of listening and looking become speculative forms of knowledge making as the shifting geographies and histories of the forest are explored. Drawing on both the subjective and the real, Indefinite Terrains presents a cinematic cartography that turns the seemingly factual site of the plantation into questions, uncertainties and imaginings: situating human endeavor as a momentary appearance in a complex and ever changing world.

11 MAY / 02 JUNE
gallery 1 / gallery 2 / project space

Chopsticks
CURATED BY YIFENG TAN

JIAN QIN . GUO JIAN . HEI TONG . YIFENG TAN . SHAOHUA NONG . MICHAEL DOWNS . DAVID JIANHAI NIU

Chopsticks, curated by Yifeng Tan, is a group exhibition that explores the symbolism and experience of chopsticks in everyday Chinese life. For the artists in the exhibition, chopsticks are a medium to explore Chinese identity and cultural distinctions.

13 APRIL / 05 MAY
gallery 1

SOFT FASCINATION
ANDY HUTSON

Andy Hutson’s practice has always focused on the uneasy relationship between humans, technology and the natural world. Since completing his Master of Fine Arts in 2008 he has worked primarily in sculpture, often tending towards self-destructive pieces and impermanent installations. His use of paper-mâché evolved from simple maquettes produced when planning large-scale artworks; now a common material in his work. Recently, he has begun producing one-off jewellery pieces from brass and silver, now also making their way into his sculptural practice.

Soft Fascination is a term used in psychology that describes the restorative powers of passive enjoyment of nature; whereby the emotional depletion from stress, mental fatigue or overstimulation is reversed through quiet observation of ‘clouds moving across the sky, leaves rustling in a breeze or water…bubbling in a stream.' For most people, their experience of nature is often mediated in some way by technology. This has caused a historical shift in the way we look at landscape – not only has nature been commodified, but social media platforms such as Instagram are used as a substitute for real, physical experiences. But our thirst for nature can also be damaging: once remote or little-known sites of natural wonder are now becoming popular photography spots, and unique ecosystems are being trodden and destroyed as increasing numbers of visitors seek out the perfect shot, with accompanying geotag and hashtags - #nature, #waterfall, #sunset, etc.

Inspired in part by the 19C Tasmanian Arts and Crafts movement, and drawing upon a myriad of additional sources – from bushcraft and survival manuals, preppers and paleo-lifestylers to outdoor-gear brands, extreme sports and DIY instructional videos, the works in Soft Fascination reflect on the problems that lie within our innate need for nature - and our inevitable, simultaneous destruction of it.

13 APRIL / 05 MAY
gallery 2

PICK IT TIL IT BLEEDS
PIP RYAN

Growing up, Pip Ryan invented fictitious animals and hypothetical situations, using hybrid creatures she had imagined. Her scenarios were usually darkly comical, inserting imaginary beasts into unusual and bizarre circumstances. These days, implanting colourful beings in absurd scenarios are still very much part of her focus. Her work presents a multitude of fictional characters including animals, disembodied figures and mythical beasts that cascade down a labyrinth of disturbing and gagging imagery.

Pick it till it Bleeds is a new series of works on paper and sculptures by Ryan. Using fleshy forms and imagined creatures, the show engages ideas of humour, irony and the absurd to examine states of anxiety, itches that can’t be scratched, and wounds that are persistently interrupted by picking. Playful fluid forms and upturned heads offer titillating insights into Ryan’s psyche and her compulsion to be excited by the abject.

13 APRIL / 05 MAY
project space

Slippage
RIKKI-PAUL BUNDER

Rikki-Paul Bunder’s art practice explores the curiosity and wonder he experiences with the physical world. By subjecting simple kinetic sculptures to the external phenomena of light and gravity, Bunder seeks to create optical refractions that elicit thoughts of space, time and the universe. Using utilitarian materials and analogue techniques to create these experiences, Bunder encourages the viewer to consider the materials, the phenomena and their interaction, in relation to their own perception of the physical world.

The installation, 'Slippage' aims to create an encounter with object and light that engenders curiosity. Simple apparatuses are constructed and then activated with light, resulting in refracted projections revealing light, time, and micro and macro perspectives. The mimetic relationship, the disjunction between the banal materials and the visual properties of the immersive installation, aims to cause an uncertainty, and a slippage in the viewer’s perception: a moment that is beyond understanding.

09 MARCH / 07 APRIL
gallery 1

Cusp
PIA JOHNSON

Pia Johnson presents a series of evocative photographs that expl­­ore the natural landscape around her home and regional Victoria. The exhibition is made up of photographs taken on the road in regional Victoria,  many between Melbourne and Woodend.  These images reflect the dynamics of movement, elements of the weather, the road and ever-shifting countryside.  Intersected through the landscapes are images of young teenager Maela, whose strong gaze and place within the landscape raise questions about growing up within the regional environment.

9 MARCH / 7 APRIL
gallery 2

Pattern
Akiko Nagino

Akiko Nagino meticulously draws and hand cuts intricate shapes on paper, revealing patterns from the sky, walls, roads, leaves, vegetables and insects exposed around her.  In Nagino's art practice she repetitively questions the definitions and notions of which patterns are beautiful, intimidating, absolute and distorted.  The power of a pattern can draw the observer in, captivate and fascinate them.

9 FEBRUARY / 3 MARCH

How is a Window
ANGELA CHAUVIN

Angela Chauvin's work sits within the traditions of observational oil painting, documenting her
experience of the physical world around her.

In this exhibition Chauvin has created a series of paintings made in artists’ studios, with a special focus on how windows exist in these spaces symbolically and experientially. Translated through a hybrid of drawn and painterly marks, her work explores the translation of perception of reality into visual and material artworks.

Based in Melbourne, Angela Chauvin recently completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at RMIT and her Honours at VCA. In 2018 she was one of three recipients of The Macfarlane Fund for her outstanding final year body of work.

United Series
TAKAHIKO SUGAWARA

Japanese sculptor Takahiko Sugawara has hand-built a major sculptural installation consisting of approximately 175,000 suspended matchsticks. Through the repetition and layering of this single ubiquitous material, Sugawara has created intricate geometric forms, producing a visual harmony of strong presence. Sugawara’s attention to space, form and line is deeply rooted in his teenage years where he played in Japan’s number one high school marching band. Required to make rigid lines and shapes whilst playing his instrument, these formative experiences have shaped a practice that explores ideas of layering and overlap.

Born in Milan, Takahiko Sugawara completed a MA at Touhoku University of Art and Design, Japan, and was a guest student at the Universitat der Kunste, Berlin. Sugawara was recently

included in the Biennale of Australia Art, Ballarat (2018).