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Archived Exhibitions 2014

International Group Exhibition

Peach Blossom Spring: Cacotopia
15 November to 13 December 2014

In Gallery 2 and Screen Room is Peach Blossom Spring | Cacotopia, an international group exhibition which addresses life in the digital age – fecund with imaginary potential but mired at the same time in environmental decay. Each of the eight exhibiting artists uses digital media in varying ways – largely through film, photography and printing – to negotiate meaning and generate critical enquiry within this shared global terrain. Key to their aesthetic investigations is a belief in the role of art to challenge and shape social identity, across cultural and national lines and as an active visual encounter. The eight artists operate from various cities around the globe: Darwin, Sydney, Portugal, Beijing, London, while the exhibition’s curator, Reg Newitt, has been largely based in Beijing over the past decade. An expanded version of the exhibition will run concurrently at Kui Yuan Gallery, Guangzhou, China, 22 November to 28 December 2014.

Artists: Jayne Dyer, Andy Holden, Bu Hua, Gary Lee, James Newitt, Wayne Warren, Jason Wing, Wang Zhiyuan

The dual-exhibition project has been produced with assistance from the Copyright Agency Limited Cultural Fund, Australia.

 

pdfCatalogue of the exhibition.

pdfExhibition-related paper presented at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art, Nov 2014

International Group Exhibition
Bu Hua, 'LV Forest', 2010, video still, computer animation, 5min:5sec; image courtesy the artist; showing in 'Peach Blossom Spring | Cacotopia'

Ben Leslie

Gonzo Décor - Hunting Trophies (Southern Windows series)
15 November to 13 December 2014

Artist talk: 11am, Saturday 15 November, NCCA

Adelaide-based Ben Leslie presents sculptural installation in the Boxset as part of André Lawrence’s SouthernWindows series of window gallery-based exhibitions, placing the work of exceptional emerging South Australian artists in the NT. The project’s curator, André Lawrence, is from the NT and currently based in Adelaide. Lawrence states: ‘The premise for this series of exhibitions, while inherently tied to my own identity as a part-Northern Territorian, was also founded in a desire to uncover and explore past relationships between the NT and SA in order to develop future ones’. Leslie is an emerging artist and sculptor, and Director of Operations at Fontanelle Gallery & Studios, Adelaide. His bold sculptural forms often take tropes from monumentalism, animalism and the formless, spurred by informed and often humorous responses to art theoretical ideas and writing.

The production/installation of this work has been assisted by the Helpmann Academy, Adelaide.

Ben Leslie
Ben Leslie, 'Gonzo Décor - Hunting Trophies (Southern Windows series)', 2014, mixed media, dimensions variable; image courtesy Fiona Morrison

Fiona Morrison

Yèqŭ
15 November to 13 December 2014

Artist talk: 11am, Saturday 15 November 2014

Darwin-based photographer Fiona Morrison’s solo exhibition yè​qǔ continues her interest in the nocturnal, or more precisely ‘the shift in reality that accompanies nightfall’. Often set in suburbia or suburban hinterlands, Morrison’s night-time vignettes are generally devoid of people even in a densely populated city such as Beijing, China, where the images for this current series were shot. ‘The lack of physical human presence’, writes Morrison, ‘invokes a memory and/or a trace of people who are invisible and forgotten’. Morrison’s photographs also function as a record of and aesthetic response to local architecture as well as the idea and affect of ‘locale’.

Fiona Morrison
Fiona Morrison, 'Untitled (Night 7, Part I)', 2011, photographic print; image courtesy the artist

Ash Keating

Continuum (Part I and Part II)
18 October to 8 November 2014

Showing in the Screen Room is Continuum, a new two-part video artwork by Melbourne-based artist Ash Keating whose decade-long practice deploying street, performance and public art has resulted in exhibitions and residencies throughout Australia and internationally. Part I, the shorter video (2min:26secs), was filmed at a wind farm while Part 2 is set between two specific sites in the Mildura region: at the southern hemisphere’s newest and largest solar photovoltaic installation, and at the lunette formations (a delicate, erodiing prehistoric landscape) in the ancient dry Lake Mungo National Park. Continuum presents a recurring movement/dance piece (performed by Lilian Steiner) through these sites, shot at varied times of the day. The video cultivates a meditative experience which ‘explores the notion of prolonged time through an alluring image of slow continuous human presence’.

Ash Keating
Ash Keating, 'Continuum (Part 2)', 2013, 16min looped seamlessly, RED Camera Photography, surround sound; image courtesy the artist

James Tylor

Words will never hurt me
18 October to 8 November 2014

Words will never hurt me (2014) is an installation-based work by Adelaide-based artist James Tylor. The work comprises video footage and three plum tree sticks inscribed with the word ‘Aboriginal’. The work draws on the primary school recollections of Tylor’s great grandmother, Grace (Campbell) Summers, who would get beaten around her legs with sticks by the white children and called ‘Aboriginal’. ‘It is such a strong oral story in our family’, writes Tylor, ‘because we can’t trace our Aboriginal ancestry back to a language group’.

Tylor is a Masters (Visual Art) graduate from the South Australian School of Art, University of South Australia. His work explores Australia’s cultural representation through alternative photography mediums, sculpture, installation and video inspired by his multi-racial heritage involving Aboriginal, English and Maori-Australian ancestry. The showing of Words will never hurt me;in Darwin coincides with Tylor's finalist representation in 2014 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. Tylor’s work features in Australian public and private collections; he is represented by Marshall Arts Gallery, SA; Vivien Anderson Gallery, VIC; and Paul McNamara Gallery, NZ.

James Tylor
James Tylor, 'Words will never hurt me' (detail), 2014; plum tree stick and text

Fernando do Campo

Come Closer Away
18 October to 8 November 2014

Tasmania-based artist Fernando do Campo’s practice is ‘committed to a series of questions and positions towards painting’. Through panel-based paintings, arranged as individual works, wall-based installations and more sculptural/modular paintings, do Campo seeks to establish various rules and patterns in the process and act of painting. He is ‘interested in the ways we can define and challenge the construction of pictorial space, both as viewers and producers’.  The work in this exhibition stems from his ongoing Existing shape series, begun during a residency in Paris in 2013, and from ‘the accidental conversations that artworks have with one another, often in a domestic setting (at home), and especially in the studio’. Do Campo is the inaugural 2014 John Monash Foundation visual arts scholar for which he is currently undertaking a Masters in Fine Arts at the Parsons New School, New York.

Fernando do Campo
Fernando do Campo, 'Post-mortem study of one times two times four times two (then eight times eight within each) with a third' (installation detail), 2014, acrylic on plywood, 2014, overall size approx. 3.5 x 6m; image courtesy the artist

Archie Moore

False Friends
18 October to 8 November 2014

In Gallery 1, Archie Moore, curated by Dr Wes Hill.

Considered one of Australia’s most inventive contemporary Indigenous artists, Archie Moore’s practice revolves around slippages in language and identity, often evoking the ways in which cultural context affects meaning. Born in Tara, Queensland, but based in Brisbane for most of his life, Moore has achieved widespread acclaim throughout Australia since graduating from Queensland University of Technology in 1998. His first solo exhibition in Darwin, False Friends will foreground Moore’s new media practice, and will involve the re-staging of earlier works alongside new works that have been specially made for the NCCA. Curated by Wes Hill, the exhibition will bring to light Moore’s interest in vacillating identities, with the artist directing his practice towards specific sociopolitical issues while shirking clear-cut resolutions.

pdfFalse Friends essay by Wes Hill

 

Archie Moore
Archie Moore, 'False Friends', 2014, still from digital video; image courtesy the artist

Richard Stride

Futuro II (should we try again Tracy?)
20 September to 11 October 2014

Exhibition opening Thursday 18 September, 6-8pm

Brisbane-based artist Richard Stride presents work in the Boxset as part of Dispatch, a national exchange project between nine window galleries.

www.richardstride.com      www.dispatch.net.au

Designed in Finland, the Futuro House was a utopian, mass-produced house dispatched around the world in parts to be assembled on site. One Futuro House was erected in Darwin, but in 1974 cyclone Tracy put an end to its very brief existence. Its base structure was the only part left standing with the main ovoid section destroyed, scattered and ultimately lost. Futuro II (should we try again Tracy?) questions the resurrection of the Futuro House in Darwin and its potential through the lens of architectural representations. As the only part that survived, the base will be recreated and dispatched to NCCA, along with open proposals left for local determination.

Richard Stride
Richard Stride, 'Futuro II (should we try again Tracy?)', 2014; image courtesy the artist

Nina Ross

The language between us
20 September to 11 October 2014

Exhibition opening Thursday 18 September, 6-8pm

Melbourne-based artist Nina Ross delves into linguistic domain with her digital video work The language between us (2011), a pithy play on the process of language acquisition/exchange, and showing in NCCA’s Screen Room. Her interest in the subject stems from having spent several years living in Norway, ‘learning Norwegian’, as she writes, ‘for my partner’, and grappling anew with the task of making a language one’s own. In 2013 Ross received a Master of fine art (research) degree from Monash University, Melbourne. And was awarded the Vice-Chancellor's commendation for masters excellence for her thesis Finding a voice: An exploration of the impact of language acquisition on identity using self-protraiture performance video.

 

Nina Ross
Nina Ross, 'The language between us', 2011, still from digital video: 1min: 6sec; image courtesy the artist

Catherine McAvoy

Parcopresis
20 September to 11 October 2014

Exhibition opening Thursday 18 September, 6-8pm

‘I wish that there was a way that I could completely prevent my body’s need to defecate’, writes Darwin-based artist Catherine McAvoy whose latest documentary project takes not only self-portraiture as its subject but self-portraiture through the lens of a public toilet, or more directly, the toilet bowl. ‘For a long time I was never able to crap in public toilets or other peoples’ toilets’, McAvoy writes, introducing her Parcopresis project ('parcopresis' being the term used when a person is unable to defecate unless they have a certain level of privacy) through which she has confronted her public toilet phobia through a series of photographs documenting her presence in, and use of public toilets in a wide range of locations – around Darwin, on planes, and elsewhere. Though she regards this documentation as ‘a futile attempt to be more comfortable with this bodily function’, it constitutes a confronting portrait nonetheless, with her series presented in the context of NCCA’s own public toilet and thus blurring the lines (or muddying the waters) between public toilet and contemporary art space.

Catherine McAvoy
Catherine McAvoy, 'Parcopresis', 2014, photographic print, 4 x 6 inches; image courtesy the artist

Skye Raabe

home
20 September to 11 October 2014

Exhibition opening Thursday 18 September, 6-8pm

Mid-career artist Skye Raabe returns to Darwin for her solo exhibition home, in Gallery 2. An installation consisting of works on paper, text, photography and in-situ wall panel, home further extends Raabe’s investigation into interpretations of ‘site’, (loaded) space, absence contained within space, and forms of abstraction and temporality. home references the architectural and the performative within the architectural, continuing Raabe’s practice of combining media and her process as a conceptual artist, whilst paying homage to the materiality of her early-career works. 

home is an allusion to the constructed, the deconstructed, and the yet to be constructed; both a playful take on home as we know it, and a psychological entrée into the subtle and intangible.

Skye Raabe
Skye Raabe, 'Untitled' (for home), 2014, digital print; image courtesy the artist

Talitha Kennedy

Pervasive Flesh
20 September to 11 October 2014

Exhibition opening Thursday 18 September, 6-8pm

Early-career artist Talitha Kennedy returns to Darwin for her solo exhibition, Pervasive Flesh, in Gallery 1, a site-specific sculptural installation which examines her own connection to the Territory and broader notions about place and belonging along with, in the artist’s words, ‘the fascination with the Other and failed altruism’. Kennedy works with materials and techniques of the built environment (including found demolition rubble and black leather) to challenge the nature of constructed realities. ‘This object based work illustrates’, she writes, ‘a psychological landscape of control and surrender, where the necessary death of things creates the new’. Kennedy is a Masters graduate (visual arts) from Charles Darwin University, Darwin.

pdfExhibition-related essay by Simon Pericich

pdfImprovised Flesh, a 4-hour improvised dance performance by Jessica Devereux and Kelly Beneforti in response to Talitha Kennedy’s Pervasive Flesh, Saturday 11 October 2014, with poetry by Jeremy Garnett


 

Talitha Kennedy
Talitha Kennedy, 'Pervasive Flesh', 2014, leather thread, stuffing wire and gravel; image courtesy Fiona Morrison for NCCA

Siying Zhou

The comforting promise
9 August to 6 September 2014

The comforting promise comprises a bunch of soft banana sculptures made of the plastic sheets that are used to make cheap travel packing bags, and cotton fillings. This work underlines the tradition of consuming imported food in Australian society, inspired by some histories which record that bananas were first brought to Australia by Chinese migrants in the mid-1800s. Zhou fashions her 'bananas' from the travel bag material that has cultural associations with Asian migrants, prompting us to consider the Asian influence in Australia's food industry.

Zhou is a Chinese-born artist who migrated to Australian in the mid-2000s. A previous resident of Darwin, she now resides in Melbourne where she is undertaking a Masters in Visual Arts at Victorian College of the Arts. Zhou’s Box Set installation is presented with support from The Australian Artists’ Grant, a NAVA (National Association for the Visual Arts) initiative, made possible through the generous sponsorship of Mrs Janet Homes à Court, and the support of the Visual Arts Board, Australia Council for the Arts.

Siying Zhou
Siying Zhou, 'The comforting promise', 2014, sculptural installation: plastic sheets, tree branch, cotton; image courtesy Fiona Morrison

Rupert Betheras

Arnhem H-way
9 August to 6 September 2014

Arnhem H-way is the outcome of a recent residency at Gunbalanya (Oenpelli) where Betheras chanced upon a roadworks crew. Working with the roadcrew's offcuts - sheets of oil-based paper laden with tar and bitumen - Betheras began to assemble the offcuts in various combinations. Part readymade, these works represent a signifcant experimental departure for the artist better known for his high-key figurative and semi-abstract paintings. Some works bear more of the artist's painted mark than others while the raw expression inherent in the overall project conjures names like Anselm Kiefer, a conscious influence for the artist who was surprised to discover that Kiefer too had visited Gunbalanya (in the 1990s). 

Melbourne-based Betheras began his artistic career as a street/graffiti artist before moving into a career as an AFL footballer for Collingwood. He maintains his connection to football and has run various football academies in Aboriginal communities within the NT. 'The football connection allows me to enter places', writes Betheras, 'and from that I am able to produce artwork specific to those places and to the experience of being there'. The 'higher states of consciousness and physicial application needed to perform at the highest levels of sport', according to the artist, are also manifest in his artistic process as a painter.

Rupert Betheras
Rupert Betheras, Untitled, 2014, from 'Arnhem H-Way' series,
enamel paint, tar, bitumen, leaf litter, oil paper; image courtesy
the artist and Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne

Fiona Foley

Vexed
9 August to 6 September 2014

NCCA presents Vexed, a solo exhibition by Fiona Foley in the main gallery and screen room. Taking its name from Foley’s 2013 video work which was filmed in Alice Springs, Vexed concerns the disruption to traditional courting and betrothal/marriage customs wrought by colonisation. Implicit in this scenario is the vexed and changing role of Aboriginal women on the colonial frontier. The exhibition will feature retrospective works by Foley that address the same theme, as well as a new letter-based sculpture spelling the words ‘Black Velvet’, produced in association with Brisbane-based Urban Art Projects.

Fiona Foley is a Badtjala artist from Fraser Island (Thoorgine), Queensland, who resides in Brisbane. She is one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists; in 2014 she was awarded the Australia Council’s Visual Arts Award, recognised as a ‘fearless advocate for Indigenous political and social equality’.

Fiona Foley
Fiona Foley, 'Vexed', 2013, still from digital video; image courtesy the artist and Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane
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NCCA is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts and the Northern Territory Government through Arts NT. NCCA is supported by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments

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