“The drawing is just not there”
Samara Adamson-Pinczewski, Colleen Ahern, Mitch Cairns, Trevelyan Clay, Miles Garland, Wendy Dawson, Robyn Doherty, Martin George, George Gittoes, Casey Jefferey, Spencer Lai, Marlee McMahon, Gervaise Netherway, Conor O'Shea, Tinieka Page, Bertha Putri, Anabel Robinson, Nick Ryrie, Rebecca Scibilia, Kate Smith, Esther Stewart, Victoria Stolz, Philip Truett, VERNER with Gian Manik, Lorri Whiting and Christopher LG Hill
4 May → 16 June 2018
The drawing is just not there is a group show featuring a multi-generational of local practitioners who engage with image-making - as material, abstraction and non-narratives, gesture, sculpture, graphic, collage and lacking authorship / the artist’s hand. Curated by West Space Director Patrice Sharkey in collaboration with creative facilitative assistance from Christopher L G Hill, the project is conceived as a conversational exploration of the possibilities within and beyond the boundaries of painting as an approach to practice. Presented are works that no longer look like a painting, are more materially focused, and other works that borrow painting’s form.
The exhibition was supported by a number of public programs that consider current attitudes towards painting as a contemporary practice, medium specificity and related politics of exhibition making.
The drawing is just not there is presented in partnership with Arts Projects Australia and Charles Nodrum Gallery.
Samara Adamson-Pinczewski is an artist who lives and works in Melbourne. Samara's practice focuses on the relationship between geometric abstract painting, architecture and urban space. Her paintings, drawings and studio-based installations explore ambiguous spatial readings, created through the use of reflective materials, fragmented abstract forms and oblique linear structures.
Colleen Ahern was born in Leeton, NSW, and lives and works in Melbourne. She completed a Bachelor of Arts (Painting) from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1999. She is represented by Neon Parc, Melbourne.
Mitch Cairns is an artist based in Sydney. He is a figurative painter and cartoonist with an eye for abstraction and notational use of line. He whittles away extraneous detail and gets down to the basic libidinal pleasures of the vernacular in a reduced palette. His painting is neither tough nor trivial. He makes figure-ground relationships and language dance in the realm of poetry.
Trevelyan Clay was born in Cornwall, United Kingdom in 1982, and relocated to Australia soon after. He grew up on the Mid-North Coast, New South Wales. Trevelyan completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Painting) with First Class Honours at the Australian National University, 2001-2004.
Miles Garland Davis is a Melbourne-based artist, working in the field of digital image-making to address issues of representation and authorship. Davis’ work explores the increasing fluidity and instability in meaning created by the Internet and its counterparts. Often combining images derived from popular culture, stripped of their context and devised intuitively, they act as a framework through which he explores a new banality in the digital age.
Wendy Dawson is a painter whose art practice is one of regimentation and structure. She produces her work by applying thousands of linear marks to the paper using paint pens and permanent markers. Employing only two or three colours, Dawson gradually builds layers with these repeated parallel lines, which creates an almost knit-like quality on the paper and forms an illusion of the picture being somehow electrically charged.
Robyn Doherty is a painter whose early works are softly ethereal gouaches, mostly on black rag paper. Her gentle observations of animals are complimented by a quiet palette and a deliberate, considered application of the medium. Since 2011, Doherty has been a regular studio artist at Arts Project Australia.
Martin George graduated from RMIT University in 2016 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours). In 2017 he completed a residency at Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles. He was a finalist in the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize at Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria; and participated in Spring 1883 with Blockprojects (formerly NKN Gallery) at the Establishment Hotel, Sydney.
George Gittoes lives and works in Werri Beach, New South Wales.
Casey Jeffery is a Melbourne-based artist whose paintings offer an insight into the nature of ornamentation within Australian suburbia. Her paintings are bound to the vocabulary of modernist discourse, social dynamics and the service of architectural space.
Spencer Lai is a Naarm/Melbourne based artist, curator and writer. Spencer’s practice navigates the visual lexicon of design, fashion, and window display, with specific interest in subcultural identities and aesthetic cultures. Their process involves the collation and editing of found/personal materials, objects and clothing to reflect and disseminate narratives surrounding consumer cultural consciousness.
Marlee McMahon is a Melbourne-based artist who received her BFA with Honours from the VCA in 2017. Recent exhibitions include: 61x70xM, Alaska Projects (Sydney); Marlee McMahon and Michael Georgetti, LON Gallery (Melbourne); and Optic White, Gippsland Art Gallery (Sale).
Gervaise Netherway is a Melbourne-based artist who completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2015. Recent exhibitions include ‘Infinite Gesture’ at Fort Delta Gallery; ‘Blue Highway, Soft Kingdom’ at GlogauAIR residency, Berlin (studio presentation); ‘Saturn Returns’,Fort Delta; and ‘Soft Gestures', LON gallery.
Conor O'Shea investigates the repetitive process of producing - concurrently curating a program of select exhibitions, publications and off-site public installation projects to extend and trigger ongoing conversations between artists, independent spaces and the cities in which they exist.
Tinieka Page is a Melbourne-based artist who works in painting, sculpture and installation. Often concerned with critiquing taste, aesthetics and their social context, her work becomes a tightly sewn portrait of collision, a labyrinth of commemorative imagery; investigating narratives concerning taste and history.
Bertha Putri is an artist working in Australia with a background from Indonesia. Her artworks are often strongly influenced by her cultural backgrounds. This series of intricate drawings that are influenced by Batik patterns. These patterns have been abstracted and transformed into personal symbols of the artist’s life. It is an exhibition that showcases visual aesthetic, cultural representation and labor intensity.
Anabel Robinson is a Melbourne-based artist who works predominantly in painting, textile and assemblage. Recent exhibitions include ‘What are Chives Good For’ at the Living Museum of the West; ‘Painting as an Object’ and ‘Material Matters’, both at the VCA Art Space; and ‘Unsafe Colours’ at Studio 106, Los Angeles. Anabel’s work is included in numerous private collections in Australia.
Nick Ryrie completed a Bachelor of Fine Art with Honours at VCA in 2015. He uses painting as a medium to explore and gain insight into the psychology and structures of culture and society.
Rebecca Scibilia utilises a variety of media for her works on paper, sourcing imagery in popular culture including DVD covers, various book covers and, celebrity magazines. Primarily using bold texta or paints, Scibilia’s images conjure an almost lurid colour palette. Often humorous, her work seemingly integrates her own phrases such as “bugger the gym” or draws upon text from popular culture.
Kate Smith was born in Cootamundra and lives and works in Bethungra. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Visual) from the Australian National University, School of Art, Canberra in 2005. Recent exhibitions include: If you’re into anything, you’ll always find your own morality play, Sutton Gallery, 2014; A Country Practice, Monash University Museum of Art, Switchback Gallery, Gippsland, 2013 and Deep Privacy/Convex, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2012.
Esther Stewart is a Melbourne-based artist who creates paintings and sculptures using geometric designs derived from the architecture and domestic interiors of vernacular suburban houses. Stewart uses these and other references from display homes, pop-up books, theatre sets and dolls houses to create a personalised, abstract language.
Victoria Stolz is a young Melbourne based artist working primarily within the medium of oil painting. Drawing imagery from hypnagogia and dreams, Victoria’s work investigates the line between the subconsciousness and consciousness, and where those images fit into our understanding of these internal spaces. She is currently in her final year of completing the Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) at Victorian College of the Arts.
Philip Truett is a painter who harnesses the delicacy of ink wash and nib in his floral compositions by building layers of colour to create images that are simultaneously rich and ephemeral.
Ingrid Verner and Gian Manik collaborate to explore their individual work and friendship through a collection that challenges the intentions and messaging of fashion. The resulting pieces are an experiment in fusing creative practices to find a new and shared visual language.
Lorri Whiting has spent most of her life in Rome. Remarkably, she became part of the Italian art world where she was recognised by serious contemporary artists and galleries. She is Roman by adoption; she thinks like an Italian but retains her independent Australianess with a feisty and adventurous spirit, as well as a fierce love of the sea.
Christopher LG Hill is an artist, poet, anarchist, ignorant teacher, collaborator, facilitator, curator, lover, friend, publisher of Endless Lonely Planet, noise wall proprietor, gardener, label boss, traveller, homebody, dancer, considerate participator, dishwasher, graffiti bencher, fine food eater, DJ, retired gallerist Y3K, conversationalist who represents them self and others, born Melbourne 1980c.e, lives World.