Future exhibitions
2010
Post Graduate exhibition from the School of Design and Art
16 September - 10 December 2010
In partnership with Curtin University's School of Design and Art, the John Curtin Gallery is proud to present solo exhibitions by five female artists, graduating from Creative Arts, Masters of Philosophy and Masters of Arts.
Thea Costantino, Tanya Lee, Lee Mansbridge, Anna Nazzari and Angela Stewart all work in various mediums to explore historical imagery, modes of record and distortions of truth and ritual.
Thea Costantino
Diseased Estate
Award-winning artist Thea Costantino, who is graduating with a PhD from Curtin, is well known to Perth audiences. Her art work has been shown widely in local and national exhibitions, and she is the founding member of the arts organisation Hold Your Horses with artists Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont who produced the dark comic musical Heart of Gold in 2009, written by Costantino.
Diseased Estate supports Costantino's thesis which investigates the grotesque as a mode for the representation of history. Historical imagery - anonymous photographs, portraiture, medical documentation and photojournalism - are manipulated to alter the original context and question the notion that history can provide an objective access to the past.
Thea Costantino, Untitled (from Diseased Estate), 2010, graphite on paper, 41 x 45 cm.
Tanya Lee
Alternative Instructions for Every Day Life
Tanya Lee's practice takes everyday tasks and transforms them into difficult and bizarre adventures. The humorous, often tragic, engagement between herself, the world and ordinary objects is explored through performance, drawings, photographic documentation and sculpture to construct a narrative.
Alternative Instructions for Everyday Life shows the way in which the rituals of everyday living and interaction with commonplace objects define our identity, space and the rules that exist between the two.
Lee, who grew up in the small wheat-belt town of Wubin, Western Australia, has recently completed her Master of Arts (Visual Arts).
Lee Mansbridge
Gather Round Me and I'll Draw You A Story
New Zealand-born artist Lee Mansbridge (Ngati Maniapoto) has recently completed her Master of Arts (Visual Arts). Her practice draws on theoretical concepts exploring knowledge and colonisation with strong links to her Maori/European heritage. Her exhibition, Gather Round Me and I'll Draw You A Story draws on the subjective and intimate gathering and recording of unofficial narratives to develop a personal system of storytelling. This two-part body of work, depicted through paintings and sculptural works, is the story of the Maori people of Parihaka, who resisted the invasion of their settlement by Europeans in the 1800's and the tragedy that ensued.
Anna Nazzari
Casino Sisyphus
Anna Nazzari, who is completing her PhD in Art, investigates the presence of the absurd within gender ambiguous narratives. She incorporates contemporary and traditional sculptural techniques to create familiar and comforting aesthetics. Casino Sisyphus metaphorically critiques the futility of gender ambiguous revolt through the notion of the game. In the selection of games represented in Nazzari's exhibition, the notion of winning is undermined by absurd strategies which produce foreseeable outcomes. Strategies such as lack of risk, nostalgia and repetition generate illusions of success, hope and happiness; thus fuelling the desire to play but ensuring ultimate meaninglessness.
Anna Nazzari, Toute le monde gagne, 2010, wooden roulette table maple, cherry, nyotah, jarrah, pine, wood burned drawings and gold leaf, 1.8m x 1.2m x 1.1m
Unlacing Carnal Margins: Portraits by Angela Stewart
Angela Stewart is completing her Doctorate in Art. For the last few years Stewart has been exploring the genre of portraiture. Her interest has been to unravel the pentimenti of painting practice as a way of understanding the interstitial space between the sitter and the painter. To do this Stewart has had a dialogue with a sixteenth century Italian painter Sofonisba Anguissola. By using research, imagination and conjecture she has interwoven sixteenth century painting with a contemporary La Pittura - the allegory of painting. Her aim is to unlace the confinements of the body and bring to the surface the pentimento - the mistakes and alterations made in the painting process.
Angela Stewart, Poesis, 2007 acrylic, oil on wood, 1290 x 900mm
