dan rule journalism various text

$AROUND THE GALLERIES Dan RulePublished: The Age, A2, September 25, 2010. WHAT Elvis Richardson & John Vella: Because I’m LuckyWHERE Conical Inc., level 1, 3 Rochester Street, Fitzroy, 9415 6958, conical.org.au This divergent new show at Conical functions as something of lateral engagement with notions of stigma. Drawing on the work of Tasmanian artist John Vella and Melbourne’s Elvis Richardson, Because I’m Lucky deals in the currency of assumption, expectation and ways of seeing. John Vella’s fascinating suite of photographic and video works is both outward and inward in its scope. His striking, louvre-like photographic installation wallflower (neighbourhood watch) offers glimpses and fragments of the surrounds of his suburban childhood home. Taken through windows and flyscreen doors, the photographs capture crops of adjoining properties, the street and various other sight lines and points of visual intersection. It is both a study of watching and being watched, of both an experienced and projected gaze. In the hilarious FIT (7_ _ _), meanwhile, Vella grooms he and his family in the popular shopping centre fashions of eight diverse suburbs, while his video work Status Free Vehicle charts an hour-long, “stigma free” drive in and around Hobart, the camera angled in such a direction that we witness only sky and the occasional fleeting glimpse of a branch or power line. Elvis Richardson’s two works shift the focus directly onto herself. Her wallpaper work redirects a gambling questionnaire to apply to she, who has chosen to be an artist. “Have you ever made art until your last dollar is gone?” it probes, “Have you ever felt that you would like to stop making art but found you were unable?” Though ripe for a laugh, the work appears to preface the stark dichotomy between the art world’s position within the privileged, middle class and the rather less glamorous socio-economic conditions under which most artists operate. Richardson’s Negative Space sculptures, meanwhile, reveal inverted cement mountains sunken into plinths. Again, they seem to invoke the great divide between aspirations and reality. Like stigmatise representations of gamblers, smokers and other “problem citizens”, Richardson goals as an artist dig her deeper into a hole. Wed to Sat noon–5pm, until October 2. WHAT Seraphine PickWHERE Uplands Gallery, 247 High Street, Prahran, 9510 2374, uplandsgallery.com New Zealand artist Seraphine Pick’s new show of oil-on-linen and gouache-on-paper works revels in a bizarre, colour-drenched, psychedelic haze. Colours bleed into one another; figuration melts into nebulousness. There are several highlights. In the show’s one untitled work, a naked woman (bar a pair of choice stilettos) writhes in ecstasy on the banks of a forest lake. In Bandit, another naked woman (this time, save a balaclava) reclines relaxedly against a tree trunk, presumably post-heist. It gets better. There’s the iconic, blurred figure of Patti Smith, hair draped over her face, sunk to her knees, guitar in hands; the bearded, longhaired man leading the ghostlike white horse and rider; the wraithlike figures gathered in the dark woods. A playful ode to 1970s acid trip aesthetics though it might be, this is convincing series from Pick. Where some of her earlier drawings and illustrations possessed something of a girlish flippancy, this body of work is grounded in its stunningly unfastened and gradual use of paint and full embrace of its totally-off-your-face vibe. It’s a trip worth taking. Tues to Fri 11am–5pm, Sat noon–4pm, until October 2. WHAT Rosslynd Piggott: Measuring NightWHERE Sutton Gallery, 254 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, 9416 0727, suttongallery.com.au Though Rosslynd Piggott’s new collection of paintings and mirror works seem spare in their detail at first glance, spending time with Measuring Night reveals a stunning richness of texture and tonality and light. Both the large-scale, oil-on-linen Night series and the 10-component Cloud Window & Black Hole installation work via clear visual counterpoints. The former sees linear spectrums of hourly light counterpoise murky, nebulous darkness; the latter pierces the soft shapes and layers of 10 different types of clouds with a flat, circular, black void, as if a startling reminder of what lies beyond their gentle embrace. In the smaller space, a trio of molten mirror glass and oil and palladium leaf diptychs assumes a very different vantage to the fall of the light. Though we’re drawn to the works’ various surfaces, with proximity they shift and buckle. Indeed, as we move about the space, the works become fluid, flashing, blinding and refracting with every step. Beyond mere light and dark, Piggott’s works remind us of beautiful transience of luminosity. Tues to Sat 11am–5pm, until October 2. WHAT Damiano Bertoli: Continuous Moment – Le Desir… 2010WHERE Neon Parc, level 1, 53 Bourke Street, city, 9663 0911, neonparc.com.au With Neon Parc painted entirely black, Damiano Bertoli continues his Continuous Moment series with this dark, dingy and playfully disorientating installation. Featuring looped video, found stills, an illusive “lottery wheel” and a giant, bitumen coated, robot-like figure with a reflective light bulb for a face, the show renders a kind of arcane nowhere place. Though difficult to find a footing among the pleasantly ghoulish rabble, there is certainly method to Bertoli’s apparent madness. His use of video and found imagery – fragmentary moments captured and bound to the endlessness of virtuality – says plenty about our current, distracted circumstance. Here, he has created a void outside the bounds of time. Images repeat and reflect; the present stretches and extends. Climbing the stairs at Neon Parc, we enter a creepy contemporary eternity. Wed to Sat noon–6pm, until October 9.$

AROUND THE GALLERIES Dan Rule
Published: The Age, A2, September 25, 2010.

WHAT Elvis Richardson & John Vella: Because I’m Lucky
WHERE Conical Inc., level 1, 3 Rochester Street, Fitzroy, 9415 6958, conical.org.au

This divergent new show at Conical functions as something of lateral engagement with notions of stigma. Drawing on the work of Tasmanian artist John Vella and Melbourne’s Elvis Richardson, Because I’m Lucky deals in the currency of assumption, expectation and ways of seeing. John Vella’s fascinating suite of photographic and video works is both outward and inward in its scope. His striking, louvre-like photographic installation wallflower (neighbourhood watch) offers glimpses and fragments of the surrounds of his suburban childhood home. Taken through windows and flyscreen doors, the photographs capture crops of adjoining properties, the street and various other sight lines and points of visual intersection. It is both a study of watching and being watched, of both an experienced and projected gaze. In the hilarious FIT (7_ _ _), meanwhile, Vella grooms he and his family in the popular shopping centre fashions of eight diverse suburbs, while his video work Status Free Vehicle charts an hour-long, “stigma free” drive in and around Hobart, the camera angled in such a direction that we witness only sky and the occasional fleeting glimpse of a branch or power line. Elvis Richardson’s two works shift the focus directly onto herself. Her wallpaper work redirects a gambling questionnaire to apply to she, who has chosen to be an artist. “Have you ever made art until your last dollar is gone?” it probes, “Have you ever felt that you would like to stop making art but found you were unable?” Though ripe for a laugh, the work appears to preface the stark dichotomy between the art world’s position within the privileged, middle class and the rather less glamorous socio-economic conditions under which most artists operate. Richardson’s Negative Space sculptures, meanwhile, reveal inverted cement mountains sunken into plinths. Again, they seem to invoke the great divide between aspirations and reality. Like stigmatise representations of gamblers, smokers and other “problem citizens”, Richardson goals as an artist dig her deeper into a hole. Wed to Sat noon–5pm, until October 2.

WHAT Seraphine Pick
WHERE Uplands Gallery, 247 High Street, Prahran, 9510 2374, uplandsgallery.com

New Zealand artist Seraphine Pick’s new show of oil-on-linen and gouache-on-paper works revels in a bizarre, colour-drenched, psychedelic haze. Colours bleed into one another; figuration melts into nebulousness. There are several highlights. In the show’s one untitled work, a naked woman (bar a pair of choice stilettos) writhes in ecstasy on the banks of a forest lake. In Bandit, another naked woman (this time, save a balaclava) reclines relaxedly against a tree trunk, presumably post-heist. It gets better. There’s the iconic, blurred figure of Patti Smith, hair draped over her face, sunk to her knees, guitar in hands; the bearded, longhaired man leading the ghostlike white horse and rider; the wraithlike figures gathered in the dark woods. A playful ode to 1970s acid trip aesthetics though it might be, this is convincing series from Pick. Where some of her earlier drawings and illustrations possessed something of a girlish flippancy, this body of work is grounded in its stunningly unfastened and gradual use of paint and full embrace of its totally-off-your-face vibe. It’s a trip worth taking. Tues to Fri 11am–5pm, Sat noon–4pm, until October 2.

WHAT Rosslynd Piggott: Measuring Night
WHERE Sutton Gallery, 254 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, 9416 0727, suttongallery.com.au

Though Rosslynd Piggott’s new collection of paintings and mirror works seem spare in their detail at first glance, spending time with Measuring Night reveals a stunning richness of texture and tonality and light. Both the large-scale, oil-on-linen Night series and the 10-component Cloud Window & Black Hole installation work via clear visual counterpoints. The former sees linear spectrums of hourly light counterpoise murky, nebulous darkness; the latter pierces the soft shapes and layers of 10 different types of clouds with a flat, circular, black void, as if a startling reminder of what lies beyond their gentle embrace. In the smaller space, a trio of molten mirror glass and oil and palladium leaf diptychs assumes a very different vantage to the fall of the light. Though we’re drawn to the works’ various surfaces, with proximity they shift and buckle. Indeed, as we move about the space, the works become fluid, flashing, blinding and refracting with every step. Beyond mere light and dark, Piggott’s works remind us of beautiful transience of luminosity. Tues to Sat 11am–5pm, until October 2.

WHAT Damiano Bertoli: Continuous Moment – Le Desir… 2010
WHERE Neon Parc, level 1, 53 Bourke Street, city, 9663 0911, neonparc.com.au

With Neon Parc painted entirely black, Damiano Bertoli continues his Continuous Moment series with this dark, dingy and playfully disorientating installation. Featuring looped video, found stills, an illusive “lottery wheel” and a giant, bitumen coated, robot-like figure with a reflective light bulb for a face, the show renders a kind of arcane nowhere place. Though difficult to find a footing among the pleasantly ghoulish rabble, there is certainly method to Bertoli’s apparent madness. His use of video and found imagery – fragmentary moments captured and bound to the endlessness of virtuality – says plenty about our current, distracted circumstance. Here, he has created a void outside the bounds of time. Images repeat and reflect; the present stretches and extends. Climbing the stairs at Neon Parc, we enter a creepy contemporary eternity. Wed to Sat noon–6pm, until October 9.

•