This group exhibition is curated by South Australian visual arts dynamo Annabelle Collect and features artworks by more than thirty artists who are based in the City of Tea Tree Gully, metropolitan Adelaide, regional South Australia and interstate.
This exhibition explores the doll as a representation of the human figure, a cultural symbol or a curious object with an interesting story or tradition behind it. Over the years artists have turned to the doll as a medium of creative expression and they have often pushed the limits of doll design.
For The Doll Redefined some artists have produced new creepy or cuddly dolls. While others have transformed old dolls or assembled discarded doll components to create unconventional artworks that will inspire, delight or even perplex gallery audiences.
Artists in The Doll Redefined are Angela Bannon, Caitlin Bowe, Catherine Buddle,
Gary Campbell, Olga Cironis, Deb Drake, Melissa Gillespie, Tom Harris, Lynn Elzinga Henry, Karina Eames, Tash Evele, Melissa Gillespie, Leah Grace, Annabel Hume, Russell Leonard, Susie McMahon, Alison Main, Hanna Mancini, Maggie Moy, Samuel Mulcahy, Eija Murch-Lempinen, Helen Petersen, Vesna Petiq, Jenny Ramos, Koruna Schmidt Mumm, Jane Siddall, Jane Skeer, Ewa Skoczynska, Deb Sleeman, Trevor Smith, Niki Sperou, Wendy Springhall, Sarah Tickle, Kerry Youde and Annabelle Collett.
The Doll Redefined will be launched at Gallery 1855 on Sunday 15 April from 2-5pm and will be open to the public from Wednesday 18 April until Saturday 26 May 2018.
Images (top left & clockwise): John Foubister Flowers, clouds and other lives (detail), 2016, oil on board, 61 x 81cm; Roseanne May, Under the Sakura (detail), 2016, pigment print on archival paper, 31 x 45cm; Mirjana Dobson, Synthetic Growth (detail), 2017, ceramic, glass, mixed media, 8 x 60 x 60cm
A presentation of ceramics, video creations, photography, jewellery, painting, pastels, textiles and glassware.
Works by Alana Preece, Alison Main, Ann Whitby, Annabelle Collett
Annette Dawson, Barbara Davis, Belinda Keyte, Brianna Burton, Bridgette
Minnuzzo, Cassidy Burton, Catherine Buddle, Cathy Brooks, Charlotte Guidolin
Christine Pyman, Dan Monceaux, Diana Mitchell, Eija Murch-Lempinen
Ellen Schlobohm, Emily Lauro, Emma Monceaux, Ervin Janek, Ewa
Skoczynska, Frances Griffin, Gary Campbell, Jack Ladd, Jessamy Pollock
Joanne Crawford, John Foubister, Judith Carletti, Judith Rolevink, Keith Giles Lee Cornelius, Margie Kenny, Melanie Fulton, Melissa Gillespie, Miriam Hochwald, Mirjana Dobson, Neal Powell, Nerida Bell, Niki Sperou, Roseanne May, Sally Goldsmith, Sally Heinrich, Sonya Moyle, Sophie Dunlop, Stefanie Giese, Sue Garrard, Susan Bruce, Susan Long, Talia Dawson, Victoria Paterson
Exhibition Launch: 2pm, Sunday 5 November 2017
Opening speaker: Kevin Knight
Mayor, City of Tea Tree Gully
On the same day
Gallery 1855 Open Day, 11am – 5pm
workshops | children’s activities | food | DJ and more
Looking but seeing features 25 South Australian artists using various media to respond to the experience of seeing something familiar for the first time.
There is no other festival like the South Australian Living Artists Festival (SALA) in Australia or the rest of the world. SALA embraces professional and aspiring artists at all levels and interests, while helping to grow the broader public’s awareness and curiosity in visual art.
During the month of August this state-wide festival encourages South Australians to go and visit (in addition to galleries) a whole lot of different venues (hospitals, restaurants cafes) to see visual art.
At Gallery 1855 we provide a platform from which our community can engage with the visual arts and we think this approach connects well with SALA’s ethos of inclusivity.
We’ve all experienced a difference or momentary strangeness in a familiar environment, object or person. These experiences can be unsettling but they can arouse one’s curiosity and call for deeper interpretations.
Looking but seeing proposes the importance of looking deeply, visually excavating and actually seeing or attempting to understand through the process of making art.
Artists:
Bente Andermahr, Gary Campbell, Annette Dawson, Talia Dawson, Ed Douglas, Greg Geraghty, Robert Habel, Amy Herrman, Margie Kenny, Cat Lennard, Susan Long, Sally March, Bridgette Minuzzo, Megan O’Hara, Ken Orchard, Christine Pyman, Amalia Ranisau, Judith Rolevink, Betty Smart, Chris Thiel, Di Vanstone
Image: Amy Herrmann, untitled, 2015, Giclee print on photo rag, 100 x 75cmImage: Greg Geraghty, Hide & Seek 2014, Hiding. Oil on plywood 84 x 100.Ed Douglas, Gateway of the manifold secrets: for David Nash, Archival pigment print, 76 x 100
Read more about the history of the SALA Festival in this article from The Conversation, where Gallery 1855 and Tea Tree Gully have been featured.
A provocative exhibition opens Sunday 5 July at Gallery 1855. Inked focuses on a series of prints and plates about inking paper and skin. We caught up for a chat about the exhibition with Curator Simone Tippett, who provides some fascinating insights below.
Inked, Lorelei Medcalf, etching
Tell us about the Inked exhibition coming up at Gallery 1855. What kind of artworks will be on display? Who has created these artworks and why?
Inked is an exhibition of prints and plates about inking paper and skin. The works are by contemporary Adelaide artists responding to the nexus between printmaking and tattooing in popular culture. Many of the works are on paper and are exhibited alongside the plates and matrices used to make the prints.
Printmakers circle through interesting sub-cultures that include street art, graffiti, zines, comics and roller derby. Many printmakers have an appreciation and interest in different forms of tattooing, piercing and scarification (and not just of skin) as these processes are akin to those of printmaking. We are all fascinated with ink and surfaces, regardless of whether we own tattoos or not.
Inked has been curated by Simone Tippett from Union St Printmakers and Vicki Reynolds, head of Printmaking at the Adelaide College for the Arts.
Do you consider tattoos to be a serious form of art?
Yes.
Generally speaking, I believe all forms of art are serious if that is what the artist intends. The subject matter or the manner of making artworks may be irreverent or un-serious, however, the search for meaning and the practice of making always is.
Also, there is no doubt that tattoos, like all forms of art, involve varying degrees of artistry and skill. I suspect that discussions about tattoos and art are similar to the wrangles that have been had for decades over ideas of ‘craft’ and ‘art’.
Having said that, I think most people would admit that the aesthetics and reasons for tattoos – the choices people make regarding their own skins – are incredibly personal. What is beautiful or meaningful to one person may be incomprehensible to another. In that sense, the ideas and expressions of tattoos have a real synchronicity with ideas of ‘fine art’ or ‘high art’. Ask 10 people visiting Gallery 1855 for their definition of art and you’ll get 10 different answers, a lot of criticism and possibly a heated discussion. Ask 10 people what makes a good tattoo or whether tattoos are serious art, and you’ll also get 10 different answers… But I wouldn’t criticise their choice of tattoo though!
Inked, Michael James Rowlands, Derby, relief print
A tattoo is normally a personal and intimate thing an individual has chosen for themselves. How can they be presented in a way for a broader audience, to evoke different reactions and insights?
Of all the questions I put to our group of artists, this one led to the most diverse range of answers. Some believe that tattoos are fundamentally intimate, verging on secretive. Others believe that an image displayed on their skin, within public view, is for public consumption within our contemporary image-saturated world. I hope that, in presenting this exhibition, we engender discussion about this.
Have you ever thought about staging a living and breathing tattoo exhibition, featuring real humans?
No.
There are plenty of expos and reality television shows that attempt this. There are also some interesting ethical, cultural and anthropological issues that would need to be negotiated in fully exploring this, beyond the usual conversations that are had on reality television. The Wellcome Collection in the UK is an interesting introduction to this: www.wellcomecollection.org/search/tattoo.
For example, in addition to some very accessible and interesting contemporary collections of skin, designs and tattoos, the Welcome Collection has a number of tattooed human skins that they are reluctant to exhibit for cultural reasons. A really interesting article about whether tattoos and skin belong in galleries can be found here: www.newstatesman.com/art-and-design/2013/04/will-tattoo-ever-hang-louvre.
An alternative view, of course, is that life is a living breathing tattoo exhibition. If you went to the Garden of Unearthly Delights during the latest Fringe Festival, you may have seen the Lizard Man. Go to roller derby or the AFL and you’ll see some great ink. Not to mention the experience of people watching at your local supermarket…
As one of the tattooed artists in this exhibition said, “We are all artworks in a way, aren’t we?? Living, breathing, travelling exhibitions…
Can you provide a short background on your printmaking and art career, and what you love about this art form?
I’m fascinated with printmaking, different processes, inks and surfaces. I love the idea of people who have never been interested in art, or who have had limited exposure to art, getting interested in exhibitions and learning to do something completely new. My aim is to plant seeds that get people away from their computers and into environments where they can play, have serious fun and make things with their hands. Printmaking is such a good way to do that.
I teach art at a community level with Union St Printmakers in Stepney. My co-curator, Vicki Reynolds, is the head of Printmaking at AC Arts. We are both on the Print Council of Australia and both regularly organise exhibitions that include printmaking. I am relatively new to the Adelaide printmaking scene, whilst Vicki has been a practicing artist and teacher for all of her career.
The artists in this exhibition hail from a diverse range of backgrounds. Come to the exhibition, see their works and find out more…
Inked, Simone Tippett, resingrave engraving – Heart III
What do you hope people get out of seeing the ‘Inked’ exhibition at Gallery 1855?
I hope that Inked pulls people unused to fine art galleries into Gallery 1855. I hope it starts a conversation about what art is, what a gallery is and what belongs in a gallery – both in terms of public spaces, as in Gallery 1855 and also with respect to alternative spaces, as on people’s skins and in the private spaces in which they live. Looking at art and collecting it is an intensely intimate experience – whether in a fine art gallery, on your body, or via the images that you hang at home and live with. I feel that art is a conversation and a way of life, as much as the sports team you support or the clothes you wear. It is a way of interacting with and communicating with the world.
The thing that has amazed me, so far, in organising this exhibition is the diversity of responses from the artists. Not everyone has tattoos, others are covered with them. Most like and appreciate tattoos, but not all. Some are more interested in the cultural history and significance of tattoos, and what this says about us. Most of the artists are printmakers, in that they make prints, but many name themselves otherwise, for example as painters, drawers and graphic artists. However, all call themselves artists first and foremost, and all are serious about their art, even if their subject matter is irreverent, satirical or comical.
This is not an exhibition about tattoos per say – there are plenty of documentaries and expos that deal with the various contemporary sub-cultures of tattooing. Rather, this exhibition is about the idea of ink to a group of artists who are united in their fascination for ink on different surfaces.
Inkedis on display at Gallery 1855 until Saturday 1 August. Gallery 1855 is open from Wednesday to Saturday, noon-5pm.
Opens 2pm Sunday 24 May at Gallery 1855, 2 Haines Road Tea Tree Gully SA
Exhibition dates: 27 May – 27 June 2015
Ian Willding has had many careers – chef, house painter and special needs teacher. However it is painting that truly excites him and is his lifelong passion. Ever since his childhood, Ian has turned to art to express thoughts and feelings on his Wiradjuri heritage and family, and recurring dreams he has experienced throughout his life.
Ian Willding with some of the works from ‘Eclectic Avenue’
Growing up in Forbes NSW, Ian was allowed to roam the countryside with friends, with his eyes taking in the vastness of the land and its ever-changing colours, which would later dramatically emerge in his art works. A weekly afternoon art class during high school years was where Ian’s great interest in art began, with the support of a dedicated teacher and the vibrant energy of a class made up of students from many cultural backgrounds.
After Ian finished school, art was put to the side when he moved to Sydney, gained his chef apprenticeship and stayed there working for over 20 years. He remained open to the art world in the 1970s and 1980s, constantly visiting galleries but he had a major realisation when he first came to Adelaide during the high summer in 1985.
‘I fell in love with Adelaide straight away. I sensed it was a city filled with art and I saw a lot of art during that time. I moved there in 1989 and slowly moved back into art.’
After joining the Redhouse Group in Marion, Ian started to intensely create art and held several exhibitions. A highlight for him was the Petroglyfs exhibition held at Tandanya, Australia’s oldest Aboriginal-owned and managed multi-arts centre.
‘The whole gallery was in darkness, waiting for the opening when these three women came down on silks and started mingling with the works and the crowd. It was spooky…I still get hairs on the back of my neck thinking about it.’
The clash of European and aboriginal culture is a key theme in Ian’s paintings, particularly the desecration of sacred sites and the introduction of foreign pathogens into indigenous tribes. Ian’s works also focus on the evolution and the future of the aboriginal race and how its people are starting to ‘revolt and push back’ against the destruction of their native culture across Australia.
Ian Willding, Seconds In, acrylic on canvas, 76 x 153cm, 2014 – 2015
Eclectic Avenue is a survey collection of Ian’s art produced since 2009, during his time at Adelaide’s Central Studios. Many of the works in this exhibition are also based on the colours and vivid imagery from poetry. Indian writer and painter Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, is described by Ian as ‘a major and significant influence’.
Since 1996, Ian has exhibited works every year and has curated many exhibitions across Australia. He hopes visitors to Eclectic Avenue will gain an appreciation of the spirit of his aboriginal heritage over the course of his artistic journey and how crucial it is that this culture is not lost.
South Australian artist and Gallery 1855 favourite Annabelle Collett is heading to Vietnam to take up a three-month art residency at the New Space Arts Foundation in Hue City.
Artist Annabelle Collett
Annabelle was awarded the residency by the pro-Asia engagement firm Asialink, and it will be funded by state government arts funding body ArtsSA. During her time in Vietnam Annabelle will explore site-specific items in developing sculptural works that look deeper into attitudes, sexuality and identities.
Annabelle Collett has worked as a professional artist, designer and craftsperson for over 30 years. Her constant explorations have engaged her in a variety of disciplines, applications and collaborations.
She is known for her sculptural elements, which primarily use fabric, as well as plastics, mosaic, metal, fibres and found objects. She explores the abstract coverings of both the body and the environment we live in, conveying them as resonators of social history, gender attitude and personal commentary.
Artist Annabelle Collett installing her ‘Material World’ exhibition in Pine Park Reserve (behind Gallery 1855) in November 2014.
In 2013 she facilitated the Fantastication creative development workshop series for the local community at Gallery 1855, helping participants create a large-scale wall installation made from plastic waste at the Golden Grove Arts Centre.
Recently she facilitated Material World, another workshop series where the creative outcomes were exhibited in the form of a large-scale installation in Tea Tree Gully’s Pine Park Reserve. For this community arts project, participants used fabric waste to create new objects and were encouraged by Annabelle to rethink about the things we throw away.
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