Rehgan De Mather,
Painting
A collage, from the French word coller meaning to stick, is a collection of disparate items combined to create something new. The term was coined by Pablo Picasso in 1912 when he first used collage in his work "Still Life with Chair Canin" in which he pasted a cane design onto a painted canvas. The Surrealists also made extensive use of the collage in the visual arts, as well as in the literary field where the "cut up" technique involved splicing up bodies of text and reassembling them in different formats.
Rehgan De Mather draws upon all these techniques in his paintings and assemblages. He creates layers of images, motifs and text drawn from disparate sources and assembles them onto a literal patchwork of reused canvases. These elements combine with marks and colour to create an urban fabric full of signs that are particular to the artist.
Essay extract Louise Tegart, Senior Curator Sydney University 2007
2007-08 Highlights:
Finalist, Brett Whiteley Traveling Art Schollarship
Finalist, Whyalla Art Prize
Finalist, Prometheus Art Award
Solo Exhibitions: Chinese Whispers & Chain Reactions Gippsland Art Gallery Sale. Rechgan De Mather Jackman Gallery -Melbourne
I'd Like to Dance With You Cowwarr Art Space
Overload Groundfloor Gallery - Sydney
Select Group:Going to Town Blindside Gallery- Melbourne
Teasers Groundfloor Gallery - Sydney
Touring Exhibitions: Hokey Plot Next Wave Festival 2008
West Space, Gippsland Art Gallery Sale, Cowwarr Art Space
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Frank Mesaric,
Painting
Frank Mesaric's Heart of Darkness series of paintings investigate both the magnificence and horror of the human condition, contrasting the physical majesty and vulnerability of the human body with our instinctive drives and psychological impulses.
Echoing themes of corruption and debasement within the Joseph Conrad novel of the same name, many of Mesaric's figures are caught in a moment of violent and literal de-facement. Their capacity for thought and facial expression (functions of the head) is in the process of being obliterated, replaced with imagery of blood and physical trauma. Bodies incapable of judgement or empathy are all that remain. These faceless figures express an intense sense of physical and psychological torment, and read as ciphers of humanity's anguish at the acts of atrocity we continue to wreak on each other. Conscripted into a globalised power battle in which governments and corporations perpetuate and reinforce systems of inequity, corruption and inhumanity, the identity of Mesaric's individuals is violently erased, reducing them to their animal essence, wounded and howling. The primal scream that is buried deep within each of us is unleashed within these paintings.
Essay Extract: Bryony Nainby, Curator, Gippsland Gallery Sale. 2007
2007-08 Highlights: Solo Exhibition Heart of Darkness, Gippsland Gallery -Sale. Works acquired for the collections of Gippsland Gallery-Sale and the Latrobe Regional Gallery-Morwell.
 Frank Mesaric CV 90KB.
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Angela Lynkushka,
Documentary Photography
Angela Lynkushka works in the genre of documentary photography, chronicling contemporary Australian life; recording people in their environment and culture.
Her work explores the juncture between photography as art form and as historical document. The photographs strive, beyond the composition, towards a final distillation of a moment, the witness of existence. In her work, identity and place become anchored in history.
Her photographs, focus on figurative work connected to the environment and have been exhibited widely both internationally and in Australia. Exhibited in New York in 2000 Youth Culture and in 2002 Texture of Memory at the Jewish Museum of Australia.
Both the State Library of Victoria and the National Library of Australia have substantial collections of her work.
2007-08 Highlights:
Solo Exhibitions: Selected images from "Dreaming in English" Cowwarr Art Space.
Now that I am a man I can go to war Monash Gallery of Art Melbourne.
Angela toured her work to Israel and exhibited at Beth Hatefutsoth, Museum of the Diaspora Tel Aviv with Dreaming in English Portraits of the Jewish Community in Melbourne 1989-2006. She has recently completed a new body of work commissioned by the State Library of Victoria Latrobe Picture Collection Portraits of East Gippsland Elders inculded as part of the Changing Faces of Victoria Exhibition at the State Library of Victoria.
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Susan Fraser,
Printmaking
As lino, along with potato prints and the like, are one of the earliest materials used to introduce school children to printing, some people disregard its qualities for the artist. Lino lacks the character of wood but it is easily carved with hand tools and can be manipulated in many ways, limited as always, by the mind working it. I love its accessibility - a print can be produced with a knife, a piece of lino, ink and paper. It can be so easy. I use an oil based ink but 99% of the time clean plates and equipment with cheap vegetable oil. The majority of the work is printed using an etching press. I very rarely use any other colour than black, utilising pattern within the work to create tonal variety and movement.
Narrative art, a visual representation of a story, is quite a challenge to me. I tend to just choose a moment in life, or a generalised thought, to expand into a picture. The print Pushing Hard, is about the endeavour to live as long and as well as I can. The flowers are a symbol of beauty, the mountains convey unknown territory (to me), the boat and naked figure freedom, the door a barrier to both the central figures. But in the end the meaning of any art work can only be read by the viewer. A picture can never just have a single meaning once it's in the public domain.
Essay extract, artists statement 2007
2007-08 Highlights: Solo Exhibition A Fact of Life, Gippsland Gallery-Sale |
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Peter Ries,
Ceramics
Lustre in ceramics originated in tenth century Persia. The technique developed there became known as 'reduced pigment' lustre.
With the industrial revolution new methods to create lustre were sought as large scale manufactures, such as Wedgewoods, proved unable to reproduce the quality achieved by the Persian potters. Thus resin based lustres were developed to suit industrial needs. Much of the character of the earlier Persian works was lost in the process and these lustres were not suited to the spontaneous brush decoration characterising much pre-nineteenth century lustre.
It has taken me twenty years research to achieve the quality seen in my current lustre pottery, which is made in a similar process to that of the earliest practitioners, except that I use a gas fired kiln. The glazes and pigments I use are unique and have been developed to compliment each other. |
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Jenny Toye,
Sculpture
The piece is called 4 Sea. In the words of Jenny Toye, her design "....uses the boat as a metaphor for departure and arrival and the taking of the educational journey; it also represents the rivers and waterways across our region. Reaching upward within the boat is the tree of knowledge with foliage, and blue clouds in the sky denoting reaching towards our future.
2007-08 Highlights: Sculpture commission for East Gippsland TAFE 25th Anniversary Celebration.
Exhibitions: Cowwarr Art Space
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