16 November -
14 December 2013
200 Gertrude Street
200 Gertrude Street, FitzroyOpening: 15 November 2013, 6–8pm
Gertrude Contemporary’s 2013 Studio Artists’ exhibition presented a dynamic selection of new work by sixteen of Australia’s most innovative contemporary artists. As one of the longest-running and most respected studio complexes in Australia - then in its thirtieth year – the Gertrude Contemporary studio programme offers a select group of artists in the first fifteen years of their career the opportunity to develop their practice for two years in our exhibition and studio complex in Fitzroy. As well as a large subsidised studio, the Studio Artists also receive crucial creative and professional support and advocacy as part of the Gertrude community of artists, curators, writers and thinkers.
As an organization positioned at the nexus between the production of contemporary art through our studio programs, and its presentation through our exhibitions and publications, the Gertrude Studios exhibition is a unique confluence of our dual ethos. It offers audiences a rare opportunity to view works by 16 of Australia’s most innovative and acclaimed contemporary artists.
2013’s studio artists were working across a diverse range of media – including sculpture, neon, painting, casting, installation and even dreaming. Veronica Kent in collaboration with Sean Peoples set about to record the dreams they had whilst sleeping in each Gertrude Studio. Documenting their dreams on the corresponding studio doors as a story, they were also creating a large painting that collages all of their dreams into one composition that is akin to a biography of the studio complex’s dream states.
Meanwhile, Eliza Dyball brought a horse into the gallery to create a cast from its resting form in clay in the Front Gallery. This imprint of the horse’s pressure acted as evidence of a moment, and also managed to articulate both the immense weight of the horse, whilst also directing our attention to its profound absence. Ash Kilmartin’s work also speaks of absence as she displayed moulds of the space where keys were embedded and then stolen during her Studio 12 exhibition at Gertrude Contemporary in 2012.
Scott Miles’ new series of paintings explored the limits of sight and perception, skirting around the edges of visibility, whilst Sean Bailey’s oil and collage works are explorations in what is revealed through processes of obscuring.
Christopher L.G. Hill collaborated with past Gertrude Studio Artist Joshua Petherick to create Perspex stack-like sculptures that operate as archives of the fall-out between their collaborations and exchanges. With fragments of artworks and research material embedded between Perspex the sculpture archives the dynamic flow of ideas and objects that runs between the two artists.
This exhibition also featured spectacular and thoughtful new works by Fergus Binns, Bridie Lunney, Alasdair McLuckie, Agatha Gothe-Snape, Jess Johnson, Taree McKenzie, George Egerton-Warburton, Reko Rennie, Charlie Sofo and Hanna Tai.As part of the annual exhibition, Gertrude Studio Artists opened their studios to the public for one afternoon only on Saturday 23 November 1 - 4pm. This was an exclusive opportunity to meet the artists and gain an invaluable insight into their practices.
