LINA MOWAFI
The Passion Project 2 December 2022 - 4 March 2023 The Passion Project explores the phenomena of visual communication practitioners who undertake personal, creative side projects outside of their paid creative work and forms a part of Lina Mowafi’s PhD thesis in Visual Communication. Drawing on Mowafi’s research, the exhibition suggests that the intrinsic motivation associated with more playful forms of creative practice helps improve performance in settings where an extrinsic motivation dominates. Side projects are a way for creative practitioners to maintain their passion and motivation for professional creative work, learning new cognitive and technical skills and developing their creative expertise through their own ‘Passion Projects’. IZABELA PLUTA
NIHILARTIKEL 14 September - 5 November 2022 Izabela Pluta is a Polish-born Australian artist who interrogates the function of photographic images by fragmenting and reconfiguring materials that are both photographed and found. Recent works have used outdated atlases and pictorial dictionaries to explore concepts of territory and deep time. Pluta has also drawn on experiences of deep-sea diving, incorporating imagery from underwater rock formations, and used camera-less printing processes to echo the shape of land and ocean. The German term nihilartikel describes intentional errors or fictitious entries in reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, and directories, made to identify copies. Nihilartikel presents recent works that rupture and unsettle photographic materials, printing processes and strategies for viewing. At the centre of this exhibition is the installation Variable depth, shallow water 2020 that visits the debris of the underwater limestone rock formation known as The Azure Window. Curated by José Da Silva - Director, UNSW Galleries, Sydney VIEW the exhibition images VIEW NEW ANNUAL festival website for more information VIEW the launch image: Izabela Pluta Variable depth, shallow water 2020. (detail) Silver gelatin photographs, pigment prints on aluminium, dye-sublimation prints, polyester waddling straps, two-way acrylic, aluminium, polyester resin. Image courtesy the artist and Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, Sydney |
TRUTH: Then Now Everywhen
until 3 September 2022 These visual histories stand as documents that “re-write” and challenge the telling of history in ways that are poetic and generous. The work transcends stories of then and now, instead inhabiting the Everywhen: the ever-present that is constantly regenerating. The exhibition is concurrently exhibited across both venues of the University Galleries, the University Gallery at Callaghan campus and Watt Space Gallery in Newcastle city. TRUTH: Then Now Everywhen is curated by Deborah Sims and Matt Dickson from their collection. DOWNLOAD the room sheet VIEW the exhibition images VIEW the video of the exhibition image: Sally Mulda, Abbott’s Camp 2016 Acrylic on linen 125 x 200 cm Courtesy Tangentyere Artists and the Sims Dickson Collection |
VERA ZULUMOVSKI
EMBELLISHED VIGNETTE 6 MAY - 11 June 2022 EMBELLISHED VIGNETTE is a survey exhibition 22 years on from Zulumovski’s solo exhibition at the University Gallery. THE EMBELLISHED IMAGE was curated by Nick Mitzevich, Director of the National Gallery of Australia when both were Master of Fine Art candidates at the University in 1999. Detailed iconography, exquisite technique, familial stories and incidental moments of the everyday were set against the landscape of Newcastle. As Nick Mitzevich wrote in the catalogue, ‘the world of Vera Zulumovski is elaborate, complicated and metaphorically rich’. This remains as true today and in this survey show we revisit some of the favourites from the early years of practice, with new work that describes in her rich, illustrative storytelling, vignettes of her bountiful experiences, life and career. VIEW the exhibition images DOWNLOAD the catalogue READ the Newcastle Herald review VIEW the Making of The Recluse (2021) image: Woman with Novocastrian Vignette, 2022. Image courtesy the artist |
JAMES DRINKWATER
THE BOXER / ROUND 2 - old photos make me cry 18 March - 30 April 2022 THE BOXER / ROUND 2 continues themes that emerged from the previous series of The Boxer / Round 1 shown at Nanda\Hobbs, Sydney in 2021, and explores the threads of familial lore and the legends surrounding James Drinkwater’s enigmatic Uncle, Greg. The Boxer had a tough exterior but grappled with a sensitive interior world, where his short life was played out through the poetry of the everyday. THE BOXER / ROUND 2 is supported by Nanda\Hobbs, Sydney and Watt Space Gallery, Newcastle. James Drinkwater is represented by Nanda\Hobbs Sydney and Nicholas Thompson Gallery Melbourne VIEW the exhibition images image: It was 25 years before they knew (Johnny Carr in the role of Willie Drinkwater), 2021. Image courtesy Dean Beletich and the artist |
PETER FISHER (PhD)
WHEN WE WERE THERE Mnemonic Representations in the Postcard 18 February - 12 March 2022 WHEN WE WERE THERE is a visual atlas of memory and representation. The exhibition of collages and postcard images form the final research outcomes of Fisher’s PhD in Architecture, Wish You Were Here: Representation and Coerciveness of the Architectural Photograph to the Postcard which examines modes of representation in the architectural image, specifically through the postcard format. The atlas of memories presented within the exhibition draw on what we see in the layering of representations from postcards, architectural drawings, paintings and iconic photographs, to establish ways of seeing through a repeated representational language and the coerciveness of buildings and places. These simulacra become the containers of memory, the visual cue to the unveiling and revealing of the experience of monument and place. VIEW the exhibition images image: Pantheon (detail). Image courtesy of the artist |
DEADCENTRE?
Vernacular Extractions - Mapping Western NSW. 14 January - 13 February 2022 A studio project for students from UoN’s School of Architecture and Built Environment DEADCENTRE followed a looping transect along the Baaka/ Darling River system mapping the architecture and landscape in its path through multiple media. A suite of drawn, collaged, written materials were applied to document the various towns encountered layering town morphology, landscape systems, historic structures, key buildings, industries, residual and operating mine sites to create descriptive cartographies. Travelling Studio Project: Coordinators - D’Arcy Newberry-Dupe , Brenton Porter Participants: Claudia Smith, Lachlan Howard, Larissa Gafa, Jack Piercy, Alex Jones, Chloe Gesler, Madeline Brennan, Ally Cullingford, Rueben Bacon, Will Henry, Lachlan Adams, Paris Perry, Emily Symes, Samantha Bailey, Sophie McCarthy, Mackenzie Beets, Mahalia Leckner, Zachary Sheffield. |
SUZI ZGLINICKI (PhD)
UNKNOWN LANDS 15 January - 13 February 2022 In so many aspects of human endeavour women of achievement have been rendered invisible, but there were prolific women artists who painted landscape, won prestigious awards and made a living from their art. Unlike that of artists who are men, their work is not included in art history. Unknown Lands addresses the imperative to acknowledge the presence of female landscape artists in the profession from 1700 onwards. It uses the symbolism of topographical maps and core imagery to link the fundamental reality of their lives with the bounty of their art. It is a bridge from our foremothers to the present and an opportunity to recognise the lives of these remarkable women. VIEW the exhibition images image: Unknownlands, sand dunes 2021. Image courtesy of the artist |