Co-ordinator and artist Ash Keating is joined by a team of collaborating artists who will be constantly reconfiguring the salvaged materials to create their own installations, interventions, structures and object-based works. This shifting creation happens within a dramatic backdrop of reused vinyl advertising billboards, manipulated in the tradition of culture jamming.
Ash Keating, with Kay Abude, Campbell Drake, Ardi Gunawan, James Guerts, Bianca Hester, Inverted Topology, Susan Jacobs, Rus Kitchin, Bridie Lunney, Lucas Maddock, Pandarosa, Mia Salsjo and Soo-Joo Yoo
About the artist/s:
Ash Keating recently completed a BFA Honours in painting at the Victorian College of the Arts and was nominated to the board of West Space in 2006. Ash predominantly integrates ecological issues into a hybrid visual art practice and has a 2009 studio residency at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces.
Recent projects include: Parched, 2007: a time-based mural on the Mockridge Fountain in Melbourne; Pascua Lama, 2006: a diverse media work created in Santiago, Chile as part of TRANS VERSA at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo; and 250-hours–work for 1 person, 2005–07, exhibited in Publicity at Artspace, Sydney and CACSA, Adelaide in 2007.
Ariel Aguilera & Andrea Benyi are the duo behind Pandarosa. Their studio has expanded their visual approach to not only include graphics, but also outcomes in exhibition, installation, projection & interior based projects.
They have a commitment towards a process where thinking, dreaming and researching are valued, and aim to break the preconceived idea that design and art cannot co-exist. The pair regularly exhibit their work in galleries including Craft Victoria, Gallery 101, Spacement, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, RMIT Gallery, IMP, Ryan Renshaw, Citylights, Platform and as part of the 2006 Next Wave Festival.
Indonesian artist Ardi Gunawan completed a Bachelor of Fine Art in Painting (Honours) at Monash University in 2006, and is currently completing a Master at Monash University. He is a recipient of both Monash Graduate and Monash International Postgraduate Research scholarships.
Recent group and collaborative projects include: Substructures, Conical (2007); Floats like a brick doesn’t…, Bus (2007), everything, again, FirstDraft (2007); an edge meets an edge, Spectrum Project Space 2007; Open Day, Monash Faculty Gallery 2007. His forthcoming solo exhibition will be held at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces in May 2008.
Inverted Topology is a collaborative art project that transforms everyday building materials into dynamic geometric sculptural forms. Inverted Topology aims to make work that intuitively reacts with space, creating a critical dialogue between location and construction.
Creating work that is site specific means that every exhibition or intervention adapts to a new environment. The site becomes a starting point in the discussion as to what form the final work will take. The project has become a space for experimentation, for discovery, for working collaboratively and extending the possibilities of making new forms and sharing ideas.
Bridie Lunney studied sculpture at RMIT, utilising installation, video and photography in her practice. Her most recent exhibitions include Structure, Space and Place for Nillumbick Shire Council, where she was also granted a residency. Her works are site responsive and concerned with the body in the urban environment.
Rus Kitchin completed his Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) in 2007 at the Victorian College of the Arts, following a diploma of Public Art at RMIT in 2004.
Kitchin was a finalist in the Woollahra Travelling Scholarship Exhibition at the VCA Gallery, and the recipient of the Acacia and Tolarno awards at the VCA Graduate exhibition in 2007. In 2007, Kitchin exhibited work in group exhibitions at Kings ARI and Until Never. In 2008 he will exhibit in Berlin at Video Lounge, and in Melbourne in the group show Graphin at Mahoney’s Gallery. Rus has a solo exhibition in June at Until Never.
Bianca Hester recently completed a PhD in sculpture at RMIT University. She is a founding member of CLUBSpropject inc, works within the collaborative group OSW with Scott Mitchell and Terri Bird, and teaches in the department of Sculpture and Spatial Practice at VCA. Her practice involves installation, collaboration, event-making and publication.
Recent projects include: provisional devices for a propositional living space (involving a collaborative component with Jude Walton and Daniel van Cleemput) at Gertrude Studio 12 in 2007; westspace east at PKW Singapore 2007; abstraction, architecture, space at RMIT project space in 2007; and project projects (open and hosted) at RMIT project space 2006. She is currently working towards a solo project at the Showroom in London in early 2008.
Campbell Drake completed a BArch (Honours) at RMIT after completing First Year Drawing at the Victorian College of the Arts and a First Year Bachelor of Modern Languages at Melbourne University (French and German). Campbell graduated with First Class Honours in Architecture at RMIT (2005). In 2003 Campbell received a scholarship to study Architecture at TU University in Berlin.
Campbell’s work ranges through the artistic practices; his work shows a great interest in the relationship between art and architecture. His most recent constructed works, Blundell at Merricks Beach and Pushka Cafe & Bar in the Melbourne CBD, have been published and widely praised.
Lucas Maddock was born and schooled in the South Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. He studied Graphic Communication at Swinburne University, before commencing a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) at the Victorian College of the Arts. Previously involved in street art and public murals, Lucas’ efforts are now focused in the areas of oil painting, bronze sculpting and various other creative projects. Past works have been concerned with human relationship, the environment and issues of social justice. Lucas was awarded the Philip Hunter & Vera Moller acquisitive prize in Proud 2005 for his work Refuge, a video featuring the artists paddling a junk-style boat in the National Gallery moat. He is currently in his final year of undergraduate studies at the VCA.
James Guerts’ art practice has centred on the spatial and his extended drawing projects including live-feed video, GPS drawing, ephemeral installation, time-based performative photography and site-specific land-art projects. These works have explored the human relationship to ecological forces.
Recent site-specific, ephemeral and land-art projects include the 90 Degrees Equatorial Project, (Experimental Art Foundation 2007), which took place at four points, equally spaced 90 degrees apart on the equator; Bridge Drawing Water in 2007, which involved a draw bridge opening for a row boat with live-feed aqua microphones on the oars projected to a public space via radio; and Tidemark #2 in Amsterdam, 2006, which involved constructing a virtual dam made of image signifiers positioned around Amsterdam acting as water gauges on a common height of sea level.
Kay Abude is currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) majoring in Sculpture and Spatial Practice at the Victorian College of the Arts. Her casts from Foreign Object Intervention were displayed at the McClelland Gallery for the 2007 Mary and Lou Senini Award for Ceramics. The Supermarket was an installation at the VCA Graduate Exhibition 2007 and selected for exhibition in the Filippo Raphael Fresh! Award 2007.
Kay is a recipient of the Theodor Urbach Encouragement Award and the Blair Trethowan TCB art inc. Award and will be exhibiting at TCB in July 2008.
