OPENING 6 – 8pm Wed 23rd June

Worm Mountain is a curated exhibition of new work by emerging artists with a focus on natural history and interactions with nature as explored through seven contemporary arts practices.

Worm Mountain brings together a group of emerging artists who are inspired by various aspects of the natural world to generate work that is highly evolved and visually engaging.

Works are presented across a range of art forms featuring, video, photography, wall drawing, painting, sculpture and mixed media, we have approached the topic of Natural History with unique perspectives and inventive approaches to both subject and media.

Presenting a range of artists who list interaction with nature and the sublime as concerns in their work, manifesting in various forms as, decorative, historical, scientific, sociological and spiritual. The exhibition aims to represent the full spectrum of these concerns as a reflection of Contemporary Art and Natural History.

Wednesday June 23 6:00pm till 8 pm
Sunday July 11, 2010 close
C3 Contemporary Art Space @ the Abbotsford Convent
Abbotsford Convent Foundation
1 St Heliers Street
Abbotsford VIC 3067
Tel: (03) 9415 3600

UTOPIAN SLUMPS
Ground Floor, 33 Guildford Lane Melbourne
Hours: Wed – Sat 12 – 6pm
Other times by appointment: +61 403 009 291

Utopian Slumps is pleased to announce the re-launch of the gallery and opening at its new premises in Melbourne’s CBD on Thursday 15 April 2010 with a group exhibition, Territorial Pissings.

Territorial Pissings will bring together fifteen Australian artists to explore the notion of mark-making: with all the glib inferences of the Nirvana song. Surveying territorial pissing as an abject methodology — how the encrustation and infestation of things relates to ownership of space — the exhibition aims to address ironic incarnations of ownership and assertions of ‘property’ in contemporary art. The exhibition will acknowledge both the intense cynicism underpinning this notion, as well as the more complex and indefinable motivations behind mark-making more universally.

Michelle Hanlin’s work explores mark-making as branding, through the iconography of heraldry and grotesque decorative forms; Sean Bailey’s experiments with alternative symbolism similarly question ideas of ownership, though using a much more abstract language; whilst Tom Polo’s practice addresses the visual or objective measures of success and failure in art (and in life, more broadly) by analysing and mocking modern society’s inherent desire to one-up itself.

Accompanying these are Dan Bell’s pseudo-decorative installations of objects and jewelled adornments, which will give a new take on the temporal ownership of space; while Masato Takasaka continues to explore his own interest in the re-framing of existing images to investigate notions of pop-cultural ownership and rock history through the medium of the readymade and his trademark ‘alreadymade’.

The artists brought together in Territorial Pissings will, through their individual practices, make their mark on the new Utopian Slumps premises.

Territorial Pissings will take place at Utopian Slumps, Ground Floor, 33 Guildford Lane Melbourne, from 15 April to 8 May 2010. For further information please contact Melissa Loughnan on +61 403 009 291 or melissa@utopianslumps.com.

Saskia Leek and Rob McHaffie courtesy of Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney
Gemma Smith courtesy of Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney

I am now based in my new tumbled down, damp studio which sometimes turns into a river. I need a builder. Here is a photo of the space before I moved in.. still full of the old tenants stuff, will repost an image once i make it my own. The river thing hinders the process a little.

I have two works (above) in the Chalk Horse Xmas Show – Chalk Reindeer.
Come along if you are in Sydney.

17th December – 21st December
CHALK REINDEER
Thursday
Opening – 17 December 6-9pm

GALLERY HOURS
Wed – Sat
12 – 6 PM

ADDRESS
94 Cooper Street
Surry Hills NSW 2010

I will be in The Shilo project at the Ian Potter Museum of Art opening 28 Nov 2009 to 14 Mar 2010

The Shilo project is based on Neil Diamond’s 1970 album, the cover of which features a connect-the-dots portrait of Diamond for fans to complete. The project invites up to 100 contemporary Australian artists to complete a ‘blank’ cover and will display their sleeves alongside those found in op shops completed by unknown individuals.

This kaleidoscopic exhibition of art and record sleeves is a tribute to pop idols, classic tunes, record collectors, fans and vinyl. At the same time, it poses conceptual challenges to artists. The original sleeve promises an image of Neil Diamond but doesn’t deliver: When is a portrait not a portrait? Completing the puzzle reveals the portrait but may trash the sleeve.

If you live in Australia you can check The Sunday Arts Show segment on it – should be such a fun show!