Past Exhibitions
2011

Dene Hawken: The Art of Entertaining Culture

The Art of Entertaining Culture represented a body of work that incorporated photography, the moving image and sound. As an artist Hawken has developed a preoccupation in identifying similarities within a cross-cultural context and how this could be articulated with respect to identity, place and the need to belong. The aim of his research was to reveal the human story rather than to create a divisive mechanism to detach from it. This Masters was a welcomed opportunity to explore avenues in which culture, heritage and belonging could be expressed through multi-media platforms. The research investigated the base note; of relationships both personal and environmental by way of cross-cultural commonalities, mirrored identities and belongingness.

 

Simone Madigan: Hybrid Craft

There is an ongoing symbiosis between printmaking and technology. This exhibition explored the practices of change and the processes of the hybrid craft designer. Printmaking, and in particular screenprinting, is the art of process. It is a hands on and labour intensive method of image-making. Through incorporating the use of digital technology in the image-making process, these works highlight the ongoing and ever changing hybridisation that can exist between craft, printmaking and modern digital technology.

 

Imprint

In 2010 and early 2011, a group of students explored photographically all the campuses of the University of Newcastle. With a host of digital cameras, these students engaged with other students at study and leisure and lent cameras to all. The result was a photo documentary of us by us, the students of Callaghan, Ourimbah and Port Macquarie campuses, very diverse but bonded by a commonality - our studies and importantly our social interactions with one another. Curated by Emily Hitchcock, 2010 UNISS Industry Connect Scholar

 

John Barnes: Reconnection - an exploration of Australian landscape beyond history and myth

These paintings were a visual exploration of the landscape of Barnes' experience, framed within the historical context of Australian landscape depiction in non-indigenous art since British colonisation. They resulted from a sensual, intellectual, aesthetic and emotional engagement with the land: blurring distinctions between abstraction and representation while questioning the validity of landscape in contemporary arts practice.

 

The Weeds Drawing Project

A collaborative drawing project between the Manukau School of Visual Arts in South Auckland, New Zealand, and the School of Design, Communication and Information Technology at The University of Newcastle, Australia. Weeds spread through dispersal. Their seeds are carried on the wind, on riverlets of rain or in the stomachs of birds into unexpected and sometimes distant places where they germinate, grow and eventually seed again. It’s this feral quality that we like about weeds, the fact that they are never sown but continually multiply, that they thrive without nurture and grow where they are not wanted. Drawing too has a feral quality. It pops up everywhere, often outside any discipline or category. Drawing attaches itself to other practices, to science, to literature and to architecture where it generates new and hybrid forms. Drawing flows from centres to inhabit peripheries. It is a location and a direction. Grant Thompson, Head of School, Manukau School of Visual Arts

 

Raimonda Te Maiharoa and Jane Zusters: Murray River Matters

Two artists embark on a river trip that results in a cautionary tale of irrigation, farming, and the relationships between people and the life of river systems. Ramonda Te Maiharoa and Jane Zusters journeyed from the Murray river mouth at Goolwa to the Hume Dam photographing their impressions of this ravaged wonderland as a cautionary tale facing their Canterbury rivers where the New Zealand government is considering fast tracking irrigation schemes for more intensive farming. Settler culture has created a vision in which the water of the Murray has been stored, regulated and allocated for human consumption and economic production. The relationships between people, water, clay, reeds, insects, yabbies, birds, grasses, trees and the needs of the river have been discounted. The resulting over allocation of water and destruction of freshwater ecology demands we rethink our water management, law and policy.

 

Gandhi

The University Gallery was pleased to present a selection of images taken from rare photographs of Mahatma Gandhi, courtesy of the Consulate General of India in Sydney. Gandhi was an unsurpassed political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He has long captured the popular imagination through his moral philosophy of tolerance, brotherhood of all religions, resistance to tyranny through non-violence, and simple living.

 

2011 Jennie Thomas Travelling Art Scholarship

The Jennie Thomas Travelling Art Scholarship provides an opportunity for students to gain primary research and inspiration during their Honours year of study. This award was implemented in 2003 and is given to students who have a clear vision of their practice and a passion for what they do. The 2011 scholarship recipient was Abbey Cecil; the other finalists were Leasha Craig, Michelle Gearin, Amy Hill, Rachael Ireland and Sylvia Ray.

 

Graham Marchant: Outside Interiors and Inside Gardens

Gardens, manicured spaces, the interplay of light between the interior and the exterior and the meticulous rendering of patterned detail are the primary concerns of Graham Marchant. Comprising drawing, painting and printmaking, this exhibition showed Marchant’s fascination with both his subject matter and the challenge of painting—organising the composition, modifying the drawing, attending to the orchestration of tone and line. Individual works spawn variants across different media, providing ongoing scope for redefinition and continuing development.

 

Francesca Bell: Illustrations for Mother Moth

Created for the book Mother Moth, Francesca Bell’s illustrations use a lacquering technique, building from rough sketch to a patina of depth and brilliance. First thoughts, false starts, slips of the pen are all there. Bell’s creations reflect the book’s sense of interior depth and dissolved boundary. The pictures grew the way fairy tales grow, reinforcing some elements, sending others to the shadows.

 

Andy Devine: Conversation in Landscape

An artistic venture of personal discoveries culminated in the exhibition, Conversation in Landscape. The artwork evolved from Devine’s personal experiences and a cultural ambiguity emanating from geographical displacement, having moved from North-East England to Newcastle, Australia. Devine’s painting practice is tempered with personal histories and issues of isolation that are depicted through interpretations of industrial landscapes. The Corvus paintings and studies form a symbolic representation allowing a discourse fusing issues of displacement, identity, loss, and melancholy. The painted landscape brings forth what he terms the ‘post-industrial sublime’, which he covetsÑromanticising a troubled conscience. The Sense of Embrace, Sense of Place installation unifies an intimate narrative that examines his perceptions of familial disintegration. The conversations, narrative, and nomadic sensibility are all woven into the materiality, methodology and composition of the exhibition, Conversation in Landscape.

 

Cold Eels and Distant Thoughts

An exhibition by seven Aboriginal male photographers on Aboriginal men, featuring the work of Michael Aird, Mervyn Bishop, Gary Lee, Ricky Maynard, Peter McKenzie, Michael Riley and Jason Wing. "The concept of this exhibition came from the observation that in the 1980s there were a group of mid-career male photographers who were working independently of each other but with a similar attitude to the role of the camera and the 'truth' of the captured image... perhaps the central intent of the exhibition is to see Aboriginal men as just normal males with varying attributes, attitudes, fears, and hopes and dreams for a better future." - Djon Mundine OAM, Curator

 

ZOO AiR

Walk with the animals, talk with the animals and paint with the animals... twenty well-known Australian artists were set loose in Sydney's iconic Taronga Zoo to get in touch with their wild side and to celebrate the wonder of the animal world. The University Gallery was delighted to be able to present another exciting program for ZOO AiR 2011 in conjunction with the Taronga Foundation. Artists featured: Ann Cape, Tom Carment, Isabel Gomez, Rew Hanks, Julie Harris, Michael Herron, Hobart Hughes, Michael Kempson, Alex Kosmas, Song Ling, Steve Lopes, Rod McRae, John Olsen AO OBE, Jenny Sages, Dean Sewell, Wendy Sharpe, Adriane Strampp, Catherine Strutt, Jennifer Strutt and Dave Teer. Residency Curator: Leo Robba.

 

Tessa Morrison: Isaac Newton and the Temple of Solomon

Isaac Newton's unpublished manuscripts reveal that for over fifty years he had an interest in the Temple of Solomon. He wrote prolifically on the rituals performed in the Temple, its significance and its meaning. In one of these manuscripts known by its called name, Babson Ms 0434, which is written in Latin with some Greek and Hebrew, he reveals an excellent knowledge of architecture and an interest in aesthetics. He described the Temple in detail making it possible to reconstruct his model. This exhibition is a result of Dr Tessa Morrison's Australian Research Council Post-Doctrinal Fellowship. She translated Babson Ms 0434 into English and recreated Newton's reconstruction of the Temple in the architectural 3D modelling program Archicad. This resulted in the breathtaking model at the centre of this exhibition. Newton perceived this square model of the Temple to be the microcosm of the macrocosm - a hieroglyph of the universe. Yet the manuscript was written at the same time as he was writing his most famous work the Principia in which he revealed that the planetary orbs were oval. Travelling though this model of the Temple, its structure, its symmetry and its proportional elegance is to glimpse into the mind of Isaac Newton.

 

Michael Ostwald: Dreams of Modernity

This exhibition was made up of two projects; White Space: From Le Corbusier to Meier and Reviewing Neutra: Architecture Through a Dark-Adapted Eye. Both are research-by-design projects produced by Michael Ostwald and his team - Romi McPherson, Lachlan Seegers and Michael Dawes. White Space, five houses by Le Corbusier and five by Richard Meier are presented and analysed from both a programmatic and spatial perspective. In Reviewing Neutra, architect Richard Neutra's famous Kaufman Desert House is revisisted to visualise the impact of experimental psychology on both the development of his ideas and on the design of this particular house. Where White Space celebrates the myth of an enlightened, scientific way of living, Reviewing Neutra is about the darker side of shaping human experience.

 

Andrew Howells: Elephant - Art and Science

This exhibition supported Howell's PhD research into wild and captive elephants. The diverse body of work explored the elephant as subject for illustrations and artwork, both as purely creative interpretations of the subject and as developed veterinary science reference images. Howells' artwork directly contributes to the collaborative scientific study involving researchers at the University of Sydney, Forth Worth Zoo (Texas, USA), the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center (Texas), Washington State University, Missouri State University and the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Center for Elephant Conservation. He has a focus on the developemnt of illustrative reference images for use in the Body Condition Scoring of captive Asian Elephants, and hopes to see this reference system developed for both wild and captive populations of endangered and non-endangered species.

 

Martin Pieris: Serendip to Sri Lanka - a photographic journey

In his exegesis and accompanying exhibition for his Master of Philosophy, Martin Pieris explored the influences that have informed his approach to photography, reflecting on the Sri Lankan contemporary environment, as well as his awareness of this culture that has emerged from a 2,500 year recorded history. His work is not an analysis of this history, but rather an analysis of his response as a Sri Lankan born artist to the history evident in the contemporary Sri Lankan environment, society and culture. His research may at one level be described as an archeological dig into these layers of influence - layers that include notions of an indigenous view of the untouched landscape, cultural influences originating from the Indian mainland, the effect of invasion and habitation by the Portuguese, Dutch and British and finally contemporary life on the island that sees the synthesis of these diverse elements. On another level, the exhibition became a self-portrait made up of a mosaic of experiences and relationship to place.

 

Annemarie Murland: Structure Becomes Image

Materials matter to artist Annemarie Murland. It is seen to be at the juncture of the co-dependence and the potential of the materials quality and characteristics which merge to find and give form as works of art. Through a series of methodologies that were the result of the artist's practice-led research, this body of work questioned how structure becomes image through an observation of praxis. Infused by a merger of substance and material, the works of art presented as independent objects that re-articulate the art as language binary. The artist's visual language continued to develop sensory aesthetics through elaborate schemas that infer meaning through the physicality and placement of artworks. Arranged according to site, the body of work articulated a renewed sense of identity through it's relationship with the gallery space, where a variety of pictorial arrangements challenges traditional, spatial relationships.

 

Honours 2011

It is during the Honours year of study, following three years or equivalent of undergraduate exploration in Fine Art, that students are given the time and space to focus more particularly in Fine Art. During this course, which is effectively the fourth year of an undergraduate degree, each student sets their own path of study in consultation with their supervisor and within a collegiate atmosphere of supportive discussion with their peers. This intensive research and practice culminates in a thesis, or exhibition and exegesis, which are examined by external assessors. The 2011 cohort of Bachelor of Fine Art Honours candidates now present their final submissions. These bodies of work are not only for examination but for display, reflection and celebration of the past year and in effect the other years proceeding to a wide audience in exhibitions on campus at the University Gallery and at Watt Space in the Newcastle city university precinct. This group of students were mentored through this process by Honours Convenor Brett Alexander whose understanding and knowledge as an artist and educator of considerable experience is complemented by his empathy and understanding for each student's individual pathway. These presentations of research to peers, lecturers, families and friends, the public, industry professionals and assessors, represents an exciting achievement in the professional lives of these 2011 Honours graduates. Featured at the University Gallery are Liam Power, Michael Randall and Sylvia Ray.

 

100 Women

Bringing together stories from Australia and around the world, the 100 Women exhibition and book launch celebrated the achievements and challenges of one hundred remarkable women. Women profiled include the artist Margaret Olley, actress Susie Porter and country singer Catherine Britt, as well as women who inspire through their daily achievements. In their stories, women reflect on the challenges they have seen in their own lifetimes, and tell of their hopes for the future. From eminent scientists and award-winning poets to single mothers and refugees from war-torn regions, the women in this collection inspire by sharing their personal stories. The stunning black-and-white photography which accompanies each story in the book is now on exhibition, providing a compelling insight into the lives of contemporary women.

 

Emily Windon: Machinic Desire, Hysterical Machines

Emily Windon's research for the award of Doctor of Philosophy (Fine Art) has examined the changing vision of modernism and the place of the female body within the new modernist discourse. Central to this has been the role of the camera in medically documenting the female body, in particular the hysterical female body. Drawing links between modernist thinking and the changing face of technology, she sees hysteria as a condition that contextualizes the female body and mind. This exhibition is a presentation of a journey through history, through hysteria, towards liberation into a final state of freedom. The images in Machinic Desire, Hysterical Machines present a world mirrored by the camera lens, a world that inverts life into death and reaches for hope through an embracing of hysteria and the paring back of reality into a space of desire, ritual and jouissance.

 

WAAP 2011

Featuring traditional and contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists from around the region and interstate, the Wollotuka Acquisitive Art Prize of $5,000 is awarded to the entry that best reflects the stories and experiences of the artist. The Interrelate Acquisitive Prize of $1,000 is awarded to the entry that best depicts Indigenous family and community connections. A People's Choice Award is also given. WINNER 2011 $5,000 Wollotuka Acquisitive Prize: Nicole Chaffey. WINNER $1,000 Interrelate Acquisitive Prize: Damian and Yilpi Marks. WINNER People's Choice: Thomas Croft. Highly Commended: Gloria Pannka.