Alexander's Lover. ARTISTS
Image courtesy of the artist, Nicole Ellis. Double Check -1, 2015.
Acrylic paint on fabric, 68 x 62 cm 
Image courtesy of the artist, Rachel Farlow. Figure 2, 2018. Acrylic and Oil on Board, 31 x 40 cm
Images courtesy of the artist, Joanne Makas. Entangled, 2018. (video stills) Video with sound, 19:29mins
Caroline McGregor. Walking the Line, 2016. Installation view.
Steel, 90 x 90 x 156cm. Photography by Document Photography |
Nicole Ellis"This work combines a multi-coloured, woven textile, with a limited palette of transparent colour, to produce a complex, layered painting, reliant on found colour. The work looks to an expanded form of abstract painting and consists of a flat painting on textile, stretched over polyester canvas. The aim is towards a democratic outcome, where the different layers work together to extend the understanding of the abstract, painted object. Overall the work raises questions of surface and support, the role of found-colour and the (traditional), portability of painting on canvas."
Nicole Ellis studied at the Adelaide College of the Arts and Education and the University of Tasmania where she received a Master of Fine Arts. Until recently she taught at the University of NSW, School of Art and Design. She exhibits nationally and internationally and has received numerous awards and overseas residencies, including the Australia Council, Rome and London Studios and the AGNSW, Paris Studio. Her work is represented in private and public collections in Australia and overseas. Recent exhibitions and commissions include: Artist Profile: Australasian Painters 2007-2017, Orange Regional Gallery, 2017. Repurpose, Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra 2016, International Concrete, Marcela Jardon Art Gallery, Barcelona 2017, Middle Head 33° 50’ S 151° 14’ E, Mosman Art Gallery 2013, Concrete Abstractions, Conny Dietzshold Gallery, Sydney 2014, Time & Vision: New Work From Australian Artists, Australia Council for the Arts/Acme Studios, Bargehouse, South Bank, London (2012).
Rachel Farlow"Through ambiguity and diverse experiences, the work explores discourses of information formulated from environmental perimeters and the history of art itself. Abstracted minimalist gestures give way to an understanding of formulating ideas and involving studio practice as a deep and personal engagement.
The importance of drawing relieves the internal relations of the self and the world that cannot be touched. Acting as an operator of gestures between internal composition and the external relations of the self, providing allowance for a mix of formal choreographed lines and spontaneity, between the calculated and subconscious, creating a rhythm through varied thought patterns. From one painting to the next, systems of repetition and translation interconnect, passages of colour, line and form. Layered with the process of their own creation as well as the inspiration of everyday life and such experiences, an individual interaction of each work is guided for the viewer. The degree of passages explored push pass a reality of pictorial definitions and talk directly to the experience of communication as a concept of time and memory. The paintings offer an awareness into how a feeling, expression or form can be responded to through certain materials and the presence of hand. Giving direct insights into the sensibility and awareness of the ephemeral." Rachel Farlow Lives and works in Melbourne, Victoria. She holds a Bachelor of Visual Art, from Southern Cross University, Lismore. She has exhibited in numerous exhibitions in Australia.
Joanne Makas"My work explores the essential elements of process and materiality and is a response to my experience of daily life. Working across painting, installation, performance and moving image my practice as research is philosophically informed making and thinking about making. I have an underlying interest with the human body and how art practice can reveal a thinking feeling body that is always in process. In turn, how the intelligent body reveals arts role in meaning-making. It is about bringing the body as a living experiential condition to the forefront of practice."
Entangled, 2018. Video with sound, 19.29mins Hands are instruments to execute action, our tools. From weaving, to spinning, to knitting to texting, human beings have always kept their hands preoccupied. Importantly, hand activity often takes place in conjunction with something else. There is listening and doodling, knitting and talking, praying and manipulating beads. We might use gestures knowingly and unknowingly as we communicate, but to be on the receiving end of speech involves the body. Can anyone be spoken to without moving their hands? The single most common recorded practice for the listening psychoanalyst is knitting. Psychoanalyst Anna Freud, daughter of Sigmund Freud, was famous for this, and she would even suggest that her students be taught weaving as part of their psychoanalytic training, in order to ‘balance’ the work of listening. In this video work, Entangled, the hands are busy disentangling chains as a metaphor for listening. Taking the time to slow down, stop rushing about and listen to the sounds around us. To stop and listen to our body and take note of the sensations we feel. Caroline McGregor"In a world saturated with technological noise and postmodern despair, how do we find refuge?
In my art practice my interest in the human condition translates into a concern with how the viewer engages emotionally with space, line and architectural form. Intentionally utilising a formal simplicity in order to generate a sense of quiet, my work attempts to address the way we, as urban dwellers, converse with the geometry of space we find ourselves in, and acts as an invitation to the viewer to meditatively explore these visual and architectural pulls via a concentrated aesthetic experience. Using architectonic language I manipulate space using line, form, material and scale with the view to creating work that answers the universal need for sanctuary and equilibrium. I construct installations, objects and drawings that imbue the geometry reflected around us with new meaning whilst aiming to provide a moment of calm and clarity in our increasingly busy world. Whilst simplification is a key component of my work, the creation of dynamic tension through a strengthening of relationships between the assembled shapes of my compositions, demonstrates my interest in enriching the object’s viewing period and for creating opportunities for psychological engagement." Caroline McGregor was seduced by the practice of sculpture whilst studying at the National Art School in Darlinghurst where shecompleted her MFA in 2017. Influenced by the insistent materiality of the minimalist sculptors, and the formal, aesthetic considerations of the Modernists, she creates steel and/or timber sculptures that speak of both the expressiveness and the composure of geometry whilst intentionally referencing architecture and the act of construction.
McGregor was awarded the Olympic Park Residency Prize and the John Valance Prize for Sculpture in 2014 and The Olympic Park Residency Prize for Sculpture in 2015. She has participated in several residencies, both in Australia and overseas to enhance her professional development. |
