Counihan Gallery 2012 Exhibition Program

2012 Exhibition Program

Download the the 2012 Exhibition Program (PDF 796Kb).

19 January - 19 February 

Brunswick Revisited: Projections from the Past

Curated by Sarah Rood and Lucy Bracey

This exhibition explores Brunswick’s early history as depicted in Council’s photographic glass slide collection, dating from 1839 — 1939. It explores aspects of civic and social life including the architecture, industry, lesiure, residents, streets and landscapes of the burgeoning neighbourhood.

Image right: UNKNOWN | 'Methodist Church Cycling Club' c. 1897 | Glass plate negative |Collection: Brunswick Library

1 March- 25 March

Material Culture  

Lotta Apted | John Brooks | Michelle Browne | Penelope Gale | Gina Gascoigne | Kim McKechnie | PLUSH: Virginia Harrison, Pat Jones and Christina Turner | Camilla Stirling | Ilka White |

Material Culture features new work by alumni from the RMIT Textile Design and Development Program. Each of the artists explores the relationship between textile practice and fashion design through a vibrant and vivid array of material form. Visitors can expect a profusion of pattern, colour, sparkle and light with a range of immersive works that consider the spectrum of contemporary textile practice and the connections between fibre and structure and meaning and process.

Artist workshops and talks will occur throughout the exhibition period.
For updates visit Material Culture Tumblr.

Image right: John Brooks | 'The object in flux' (installation detail) 2010 | cotton, fur, foil, plastic | dimensions
variable. Courtesy the artist

5 April - 13 May

Cut with the kitchen knife

A NETS Victoria touring exhibition curated by Emily Jones

Christian Capurro |Simon Evans | Elizabeth Gower | Mandy Gunn | Deborah Kelly | Nick Mangan |Stuart Ringholt |
Joan Ross| Heather Shimmen.

Cut with the kitchen knife surveys the current manifestations of collage in contemporary art; a movement which takes as its starting point the absurdist collages arising from the highly influential Dadaist movement of the early 20th century. Less concerned with addressing the problems of the picture plane and more those of an existential nature, contemporary Australian and international artists traverse the surface, relay absurdisms and reorganise obsessive collections.

Cut with the kitchen knife explores the use of collected material; arranging and reordering as a means of interacting with and thus shaping the physical world.

A NETS Victoria touring exhibition curated by Emily Jones.

Image right: Stuart Ringholt |Circles passing (detail) 2007 | Collage | 33 x 41 cm (frame size) |Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane

24 May - 24 June

A room for ordering memory: Melanie Jayne Taylor

Melanie Jayne Taylor uses the photographic process as a metaphor for memory. A room for ordering memory is a new body of work that alludes to the constituent parts of urban life—private residences, civic buildings, utilities and fragments of public space—with careful attention to the framing and fixing properties of the camera lens and the human eye. This new series is inspired by a recent residency in Finland.

Image right: Melanie Jayne Taylor | A cool change 2011 | [Through the thick ] A partial view 2011 | Giclee on archival paper, ed. of 3 |110 x 75cm | 
 

First and Last

Jenna Corcoran | Alister Karl | Max Dominic Piantoni | Carmen Reid | Adele Smith | Ive Sorocuk | John Stevens

The First and Last Hotel flanks Sydney and Boundary Roads. Historically, its location marked the boundary between the urban neighbourhood and beyond, the meeting point of hello and goodbye. Presented by Brunswick Arts Space, First and Last addresses notions of the unfamiliar and the uncharted. The histories of places and things and their subsequent traces in the world are brought together through sound and video to suggest a darkly humorous and critical vision of contemporary social phenomena.

Image right: Adele Smith | Boundary Road (detail) 2012 | Digital print | Courtesy the artists.

5 July - 5 August

Picture This

Vera Cooper | Archie Moore | Ben McKeown | Christopher Pease | Ryan Presley | Yhonnie Scarce | Christian Thompson | Naretha Williams  | Raymond Zada

This exhibition considers our enduring interest in both portraiture and the human form. While thematically diverse, each of the artists engage with the human body as a core subject, focusing on how physical gestures and actions can reflect social, political and aesthetic concerns. The selected works feature painting, video, sculpture and photography, and together reflect on indigeneity, the past and the experience of the everyday.

Presented in association with NAIDOC week, 1-8 July.

Image right: Ryan Presley | Blood Money: Prosperity - Gladys Tybingoompa - Commemorative 2011 | Watercolour on paper | 75 x 100cm | Courtesy the artist | Private Collection.

16 August -16 September

Le Coq: Benjamin Sheppard

Le Coq is inspired by a recent residency in France where the rooster is iconic of nationhood and masculinity, and also a popular motif in modernist art. Benjamin Sheppard’s drawings reflect upon the imagery of national icons, ideologies and the male ego.

Anthropomorphic creatures, laden with innuendo, are characterised by a precise and fluent form of mark-making that creates uncanny affinities and assorted alliances that cue questions, messages and potential contradictions and possibilities.

Image right: Benjamin Sheppard | Le Coq study 8 (detail) 2011 | Pen and felt on paper | 29 x 21cm |

The Elaboratorium: Scale Free Network

Briony Barr | Dr Gregory Crocetti | Jacqueline Smith |

Scale Free Network is an art–science collective who create interactive installations that borrow from both the science laboratory and the artist studio. They use drawing, microscopes and other observation devices to make details of the unseen visible. The Elaboratorium–a 17th century term to describe where chemical substances were made and explored–draws from the Brunswick Town Hall precinct and surrounds. Samples collected from the area will be projected, drawn and examined through a range of historical and contemporary viewing technologies, evoking the past and drawing attention to the present.

The Elaboratorium is presented in association with National Science Week, 11 - 19 August.

27 September - 28 October

Riffle: Naomi Troski

Through the use of scale, repetition and translucent materials, Naomi Troski creates labyrinthine environments inspired by the beauty of natural forms. In Riffle, plastic lattice, rope and architectural systems combine to make a walk-through canopy, extending a sense of weightlessness while also conveying a notion of infinity. Riffle responds to the architecture of the Gallery and considers our relationship to the environment, be it physical, historical or cultural.

Image right: Naomi Troski | Slow Haze 2011 | Plastic trellis, rope, light | Installation view | Photograph: Dean Mcartney|

Joining the dots: Caitlin Street

Joining the dots utilises the natural elements of light and water as both the medium and the theme. Visitors will be immersed in a darkened and ambient space, with light reflections that generate random responses to physical phenomena and symbolic codes. With an ongoing interest in the nature of time, space and perception, Caitlin Street’s new work plays with light behaviours through kinetic sculpture and moving image. Joining the dots refers to the ways in which we process, filter and respond to information.

Image right: Caitlin Street | Synapse (detail) 2011 | Optician’s lenses and digital video | stereo, colour |
2 minutes 15 seconds |

8 November to 8 December

Moreland Summer Show

The Gallery’s annual group exhibition invites applications from practicing artists who live or work in the City of Moreland.

Artists are invited to consider the many and varied interpretations of the circle, its numerical, symbolic, and literal qualities or its formal, abstract and imaginative attributes. Artists are encouraged to propose new work that responds to this motif in a creative and imaginative way.

Applications are subject to a selection process and close on 15 June 2012.

Appplications can be downloaded online (PDF 187Kb).

Further information

For more information contact the Gallery on 03 9389 8622 or email Counihan Gallery.