“The Sixth”
Stephen Giblett, Christina Hayes, Glenn Walls, Amanda Marburg, Fiona McMonagle, Tim McMonagle, Shannon Smiley and Kirsten Turner
25 Jan → 16 Feb 2013

The Sixth brings together eight painters who have all shared a time based in the studios on the sixth floor of Melbourne’s iconic Nicholas Building. Each artist is exploring the broad concept of Parapsychology (PSI). Telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, apparitional experiences and reincarnation are all phenomena associated with the study of Parapsychology. Central to the study of PSI is the ability to interact with one’s environment through a means other than the understood sensory channels of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch- in effect by using the sixth sense. Our shared surroundings and common practice is the impetus for this show. Our time together painting there might have brought into existence a certain sixth floor sensibility, or yes a sort of sixth sense.

Christina Hayes Christina Hayes graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) from the VCA in 2004. Since then Christina has pursued a practice as a figurative painter, collaborator and theatre designer. She has held solo shows with Anna Pappas Gallery (2011 & 2010), Bus Projects (2009) and TCBart.inc (2008). Her work in group, collaborative and two person shows has been shown at galleries such as Rae & Bennett Fine Art Gallery, Gertrude Contemporary Art Space, Platform Artist Gallery, C3 Gallery, and the NGV Studio Gallery. Christina received the City of Melbourne Young Artist Grant (2009) and was the joint recipient of an Arts Project Grant from Arts Victoria in 2011 and The Janet Holmes a Court Artists’ Grant for the presentation of work in 2006.

Grant Nimmo Grant Nimmo’s practice celebrates contemporary anxiety and self reflection, cultural detachment and environmentalism. Appearing through the window of painting and extending itself through writing/publications and music. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at Monash University in 2002 and a Postgraduate Diploma of Education at the University of Melbourne in 2005. Since then he has participated in a number of group exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney, presenting his work at various artist run and commercial spaces including Gertrude Contemporary, TCB Art Inc. Rearview Gallery, Anna Pappas Gallery and The Hughes Gallery. He has also exhibited internationally at the 2011 Korean International Art Fair in Seoul, Korea. Most recently he has shown at the 2012 Melbourne Art Fair with Anna Pappas Gallery, where he also appeared as a guest speaker on post conceptual painting as part of the official lectures and forums series held at the Melbourne Museum.

Amanda Marburg Amanda Marburg (b.1976) is a Melbourne based painter who graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1999. Amanda has had a number of solo exhibitions including A Place to Hide, Kalimanrawlins, Melbourne; The Bomb, TCB art inc.; Misery and Gin, Rex Irwin Gallery, Sydney; The Other Side, Uplands Gallery, Melbourne and Giving the Devil His Due, Newcastle Regional Art Gallery. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions such as Like, Casula Powerhouse Gallery, Sydney; Model Pictures, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne; Primavera, MCA, Sydney; Tempo Reale, BSR, Rome; Glacier at RMIT gallery; Neo Noir at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces; Fascination at the Centre for Contemporary Photography; and Depth of Field at the Sheppparton Regional Art Gallery. Amanda Marburg undertook a Rome Studio Residency, funded by the Australia Council in 2008. Amanda Marburg is represented by Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney and Kalimanrawlins, Melbourne.

Fiona McMonagle Fiona McMonagle was born in Donegal, Ireland in 1977 and moved to Australia as a youth. In 2000 she obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the Victoria College of the Arts. She lives and works in Melbourne. Solo exhibitions include: Spare Room, Project Space, R.M.I.T (2001); Kaliman, Sydney (2003, 2004) and shows at Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney (2008, 2009 and 2011). Group exhibitions and curated exhibitions include; MPRG National works on paper, 2002. Clemenger acquisition, NGV, 2003. This and Other Worlds, NGV Federation Square (2005); Kilgour Prize, Finalist, Newcastle Regional Art Gallery (2006) winners are grinners, PICA. 2006. Fiona’s work is held in the collections of Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Newcastle Regional Gallery, Queensland University. Maitland Regional Art Gallery, The University of Queensland, NGV and Art bank. In 2010 Fiona was awarded the Aus Co London studio residency.

Tim McMonagle Born in New Zealand in 1971, McMonagle studied painting at the Victorian College of the Arts, graduating in 1994. Tim McMonagle has held 15 solo shows in commercial galleries in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth and has been in many group shows in state galleries as well as university and artist-run galleries. His work is held in many state, university and private collections.Tim McMonagle is a finalist in the 2012 Archibald Prize for his portrait of his friend, Michael Buxton, a Melbourne-based property developer and a passionate art collector. Portraits aside, Tim’s ideas for his paintings come from his imagination and from his walks in the city. The most important aspect to him is the painting process: the image is mostly the tool to hook in the viewer. It is important to him to make paintings of things that take the viewer elsewhere, through either the content or how the painting is made.

Shannon Smiley Shannon Smiley has been a finalist in the 2012 John Leslie Art Prize, the Metro Art Award and has been exhibiting across Australia since 2006. Smiley looks to the Australian suburban environment for places of enchantment. In the overlooked and undefined spaces without purpose or function, a wilderness grows with an urgent will to live. It is a world caught inbetween the wild/civilised dichotomy with a cross-continental hybridity. With their occasional visual indicators of human life in the form of road, cement, graffiti, our eyes are unable to latch onto a horizon instead being presented with perpetually overflowing compositions of lush plant life. Taken from photographs his paintings work with ideas of what some would find horrifying (decaying industrialisation) others find inspiring (overgrowth in the city), they appear concurrently entangling and unfamiliar. Shannon Smiley is represented by Hill Smith Gallery, Adelaide and Dianne Tanzer + projects, Melbourne

Kirsten Turner Kirsten Turner’s paintings are predominantly figurative images based on personal snapshots, depicting ambiguous scenes to explore rites of passage, notions of being ‘present’ in a moment of time and the banality of the everyday. Previous works have portrayed such fleeting moments as drinking games, sleeping bodies and bad make-up. Turner graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Art in Painting from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2004, receiving the National Gallery Women?s Association Undergraduate Encouragement Award at the Graduate Exhibition. Having previously completed a Diploma of Visual Art from RMIT in 2001, she has since shown works in various group and two-person shows at spaces including Anna Pappas Gallery, Project Space, Red Gallery and TCB art inc., for which a NAVA Visual and Craft Artists' Grant was jointly awarded. She has shown most recently at c3 Contemporary Art Spaces in 2012 with the solo show For this hour.