PAINTING THE ANTHROPOCENE'S AGITATED PHYSICALITY
WARWICK HEYWOOD (PhD) This PhD research project responds to the severe 2017 - 2020 Eastern Australian drought and bush fires and the idea of the Anthropocene - a theory that our human impact on the Earth system is devastatingly immense and enduring. Reflecting on the extremes of these climatic events Heywood begun a larger speculative investigation and imagination of the Anthropocene's 'agitated physicality'. This project self-consciously represents the Anthropocene through painting's materials, processes and visual traditions, including paitnerly abstraction. The formalist, deconstructionist, spiritual and sublime projects of High Modernism and postmodernism, become a potent language through which to detect and explore the present. Heywood sets out to create a conceptual, cognitive space to pose questions, from comparisons, and create rich metaphors and analogies through paint. The key representation that emerges through his work as an Anthropocene as a bizarre overactive and out of control experiment, where our physical world, at macro and micro scale, is being pushed to greater and more dynamic extremes. |
TEMPERA: THE NATURE OF PAINT
VANESSA LEWIS (PhD) In the fine art disciplinary usage, 'Tempera' generally implies Pre-Renaissance paint medium made with eggs. While true for some tempera artworks, Lewis' PhD research has found that throughout art history other methods, now known as water colour, distemper, gouache, and acrylic were once also called tempera. For her graduating exhibition, Lewis has turned her art studio into a laboratory to explore an intriguing collection of historic tempera recipes and has identified one hundred ingredients used by artists before the commercialisation of paint. She has made drawings of each of these ingredients using a paint made from the ingredient is depicts and accompanying the painted works is an apothecary of glass jars containing samples of all the materials. Embedded in her research, Lewis also found the foundations to build more ecologically sustainable art practice, with implications for a new consideration of what tempera can offer the twenty-first century Australian artist. VIEW the exhibition images |
ARI CHAND, BRETT PIVA, CHRIS CAPPER, JOHN HEANEY, LEZLIE TILLEY, MADDYSON HATTON, MOJGAN HABIBI and SUE JONES
ORDINARY INTRICACIES 14 July - 08 August Ordinary Intricacies explores the interplay between elemental materials that are worked up to images, objects or vessels that are made intricate through the patterns and dynamics found in natural relationships. The seemingly ordinary becomes exquisite when these elements are employed and manipulated through artistic practice. Often from the everyday and the domestic, functional objects and natural materials combine in the creation of functional objects, elaborate designs and deconstructed forms. Ari Chand, Brett Piva, Chris Capper, John Heaney, Lezlie Tilley, Maddyson Hatton, Mojgan Habibi and Sue Jones exhibit in tandem to examine further these material relationships and how they play out between practitioners who have similar material concerns. VIEW the exhibition images DOWNLOAD the exhibition invite DOWNLOAD the exhibition catalogue DOWNLOAD the exhibition floor sheet Image: Sue Jones, Kakadu Reflections (detail), Glazed stoneware plate. Image courtesy the artist. |
STUDENT ART PRIZE
SIGN/NATURE 09 June - 10 July 2021 SIGN/NATURE is a student exhibition celebrating creative practice and featuring design, publication, animation, and illustration projects from studio-based courses in Visual Communications Design. Exhibitors have responded individually and collectively to the SIGN/NATURE theme in unique ways. Some have de-constructed the exhibition title to find idiosyncratic meanings, personal signs, or gestures. Several have offered design proposals to fit the specific nature of a brief, or found the signature modes of visual storytelling. Others have explored organic phenomena through book objects, or used the nature of television as a shared prompt to reveal their own signature illustration styles. VIEW the exhibition images DOWNLOAD the exhibition invite Image: visual identity design by third year Visual Communication students Felicity Bronner, Ella Grierson and David Ridgewell, 2021. |
ALUMNI HOUSE
PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE 26 May - 05 June 2021 Watt Space Gallery was delighted to present the four shortlisted designs from the recent Alumni House architectural competition. Responding to a brief to design a space dedicated to fostering pride and the sense of nostalgia that our Alumni and community feels for our University, the final designs give a real glimpse of the future. Also on exhibition were designs from Master of Architecture students who also responded to Alumni House brief, exhibiting their plans for the old TPI House site and environment surrounding Civic Park. A comprehensive photo essay compiled by gallery intern and first year architecture student, Madi Lake, explores the rich history and forward thinking design of the University's built environment. The historic maps that adorn the gallery's foyer were re-worked with interpretations of our past and future with translucent images sitting above the 1940's council cartography. Claire Lavis and Kira Jovanovski's media installation showcase designs created for the exterior of the Lake Macquarie Multi-Arts Pavilion, which is due for completion in July 2021. The design utilises light and image to generate patterns using English and Awabakal words in morse code. VIEW the four shortlisted Alumni House designs VIEW Lavis and Jovanovski's media installation image: Winning Alumni House design by Durbach Block Jagger Architects. Image courtesy of architect. |
DINO CONSALVO, HELENE LEANE, MICHELLE TEEAR, MALCOLM SANDS, OLIVIA PARSONAGE, PAUL MAHER & PETER LANKAS. GUEST CURATED BY AHN WELLS
gatherED 28 April - 29 May 2021 gatherED brings together a group of mid-career artists and alumni who are celebrated members of the University community. With careers that span our region and beyond, each artist has a particular and profound relationship to our place, our University and our people. Curated by Ahn Wells, artist, gallerist and former student of the University, Wells has selected seven artists to show the breadth of contemporary creative practice to be found in Newcastle. From Olivia Parsonage’s appliqued domestic moments, to Dino Consalvo’s en plein air workings of the shoreline, Wells gathers together a thoughtful and compelling group of artists, and their work. Paul Maher expresses through his depictions of the everyday the majesty of the townscape, Peter Lankas describes with compassion the suburban moments we all share, Helene Leane and Michele Teear speak to landscape across the country and Malcolm Sands captures the remoteness of Australia’s centre. VIEW the installation images DOWNLOAD the exhibition invite DOWNLOAD the exhibition floor sheet image: Helene Leane Escarpment, 2021. Acrylic and pastel on board, 32 x 48cm. Image courtesy of artist. |
SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE & BUILT ENVIRONMENT (SABE)
BUILDING RESILIENCE 05 March - 25 April 2021 Building Resilience is an exhibition profiling engagement with local and global communities to raise awareness and support for the multiple dimensions needed for safer, better living in the 21st Century. A growing number of educational, government and private organisations focus on ‘building resilience’ as their central tenet to drive change. This trend is underpinned by the need to not only improve the human condition, but our capacity to respond to collapses in complex systems and environments. The UN Sustainable Development Goals, provide us with opportunities to address the resilience agenda in a meaningful way. The twenty-nine exhibits from the researchers in the School of Architecture and the Built Environment, strive to find ways to build resilience at multiple levels – individual, community, systemic and global through governance, advocacy, design and education. VIEW the installation images DOWNLOAD the exhibition invitation DOWNLOAD the exhibition catalogue VISIT the exhibition website READ about the exhibition in the Newcastle Herald |
JOHN HEANEY (MPhil)
THE LAST DANCE 03 - 21 February 2021 This Master of Philosophy studio based research sought to discover ways of jumping over the restraints of traditional ceramic practice; finding something new by letting go. Working with the materials and relying on chance rather than contrivance, allowed for a pushing and pulling of ideas and memories. And though often slowly and partially disclosed, a glimpse, a single moment may be all that is required. It is a process of creativity realised through the concept of ‘play’ — exploring the external universe and of memory arriving unbidden. VIEW the installation images DOWNLOAD the exhibition invitation READ the exhibition review images: top: John Heaney, Study for (the) Last Dance, 2019. Stoneware glazed on a black wood base, dimensions variable. Photo: Greg Lehman. |