Last chance to view nationally significant exhibition
22 November 2019
Locals will have one final chance to view the nationally significant Boyd works this weekend, with the exhibition Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul closing this Sunday 24 November.
24 November.
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) has been delighted with the visitor response to the Bundanon Trust touring exhibition that opened in September, with visitors travelling from around the state to view the exhibition that explores Arthur Boyd’s lifetime of landscape paintings.
Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul features works principally from Bundanon Trust’s collection, and was curated by Barry Pearce, Emeritus Curator of Australian Art AGNSW.
The exhibition features more than 40 paintings, including a group of masterpieces borrowed from major state art museums, plus 20 works on paper as well letters, photographs and sketchbooks spanning almost half a century, featuring works from Boyd’s adolescence through to his final years.
Dr Rebecca Coates, Director of SAM says, “Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul has been a triumph. We have received wonderful feedback from visitors both locally and nationally about the importance of bringing major exhibitions of this nature to our regional audiences.”
Unique to the Shepparton viewing of this show is the accompanying exhibition The Boyd Family: A Legacy of Pottery, a SAM curated exhibition that showcases significant ceramic works by the extended Boyd family held in the SAM collection. The presentation of these two collections together provides great insight into the Boyd family legacy.
Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul is supported by the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians.
Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul
A Bundanon Trust touring exhibition
Until 24 November 2019
The Boyd Family: A Legacy of Pottery
A SAM curated exhibition with works from the SAM collection
Until 1 March 2020
Applications closing for regional artists solo exhibition at SAM
22 November 2019
Regional Victorian artists have one week left to get their applications in to exhibit their art at the Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) in March 2020.
Following on from the success of previous years, SAM will again go local in March 2020, and is seeking applications from talented local artists for the opportunity to exhibit their work in a solo exhibition.
Proposals will be accepted from artists living in or originally from North Central and North East regional Victoria and maintain strong connections within these locations.
SAM Curator, Lara Merrington says, “SAM Local Spotlight is an exciting, profile-raising opportunity for a regional artist. The aim of the exhibition is to encourage, inspire and promote local and regional cultural activities in our community, and provides a great opportunity to gain professional experience working in an art museum context.”
Previous SAM Local Spotlight artist Maree Santilla encourages any artist considering applying to give it a go. “The opportunity and support provided by SAM Local has helped me gain the confidence to apply for further opportunities to exhibit and develop my arts practice. SAM’s curatorial input presented new possibilities in how I might edit my work for a space and distil a focus conceptually. Subsequently, I am able to take that learning experience and integrate it into future exhibitions,” says Santilla.
For further information on how to apply to become the SAM Local Spotlight artist in March 2020, visit SAM’s website www.sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/sam-local-2020.
Submissions for SAM Local Spotlight are open now and will close on Monday 25 November, at 5pm.
Should you have specific questions about the exhibition, artists can discuss with SAM’s Curator Lara Merrington on (03) 5832 9893. All applicants will be advised on selection by 29 November 2019, and an announcement will be made on the SAM website.
Gala Dinner with The Boyd’s + Friends.
9 October 2019
Tickets are selling fast to the Friends of SAM Gala Dinner that is sure to be a night to remember.
Promising to be plenty of fun, the evening will also involve an auction of art, wine and accommodation packages.
Descendants of the famous Boyd family will be in attendance, and guests will be entertained by music from ‘Just the Three of Us’ and Rick Brun, whilst enjoying the delicious food and wine offerings.
Attendees will also have the opportunity to enjoy a pre-dinner tour of the sensational Boyd exhibitions currently on display at SAM; Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul and The Boyd Family: A Legacy of Pottery. Tours can be booked when purchasing tickets.
As the major fundraising event of the year for The Friends of SAM, President of the Committee, Ann Fagan is hoping the night will be well supported by the Greater Shepparton Community.
“We are privileged to have Arthur Boyd’s work on show at SAM alongside some of our own collection of Boyd ceramics.” Ms Fagan says. “The Committee is delighted to present this dinner to contribute to the celebration of the Boyd family legacy. Regional wineries, artists and businesses have given generously to help make the event a success. It promises to be a fun evening so organise your tickets now.”
Date: Saturday 19 October 2019, 7pm.
Location: Riverlinks Eastbank, 70 Welsford St Shepparton.
Cost: $120 per person. Tables of 10. Smaller groups can be accommodated.
Tickets available from Friends of SAM Committee members, the SAM Shop (03) 5832 9860 or via Eventbrite
Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul is supported by the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, and Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians.
Keep the kids entertained these school holidays with SAM
12 September 2019
Allow the kids to explore their creativity this school holidays with hands-on activities at the Shepparton Art Museum, from Monday 30 September to Thursday 3 October.
Kicking off the program is Flora, Fauna, Fun!, an outdoor watercolour painting workshop being held at Kidstown. Led by artist Miranda Sofroniou, these free half hour sessions will demonstrate how to depict nature using watercolours, with parents and carers encouraged to join in.
Taking cues from the upcoming SAM exhibition The Boyd Family: A Legacy of Pottery, the beginner’s clay hand-building workshop will see kids create their own ceramic koala figures to take home after firing.
For those with an interest in paper collage, the Paper Plains workshop encourages children to take inspiration from Arthur Boyd’s landscape paintings, and then recreate their own artworks out of only paper and glue in this fun and messy setting.
Finally, SAM and Aquamoves are teaming up to provide a fun sensory play activity with a whole lot of pool noodles, shaving cream and more. This outdoor activity is ideal for those with plenty of energy and wet weather gear is a must!
“Holidays at SAM are always a great opportunity to engage creative young minds,” said SAM Director Rebecca Coates. “This year we have workshops in SAM, at Kidstown and at Aquamoves. We’re taking SAM out of the galleries to introduce more kids and families to creative ideas and having fun. Some events are free and some are low cost but all allow children to build confidence, learn new techniques and make new friends.”
Monday 30 September: Flora, Fauna, Fun! Watercolour painting with artist Miranda Sofroniou. Half-hour sessions from 10:30 – 1:00pm at Kidstown. FREE.
Tuesday 1 October: Clay Koalas. Ceramic workshop. Morning or afternoon session at SAM. Friends of SAM $10 or General Admin $15.
Wednesday 2 October: Paper Plains. Landscape paper collage workshop. Morning or afternoon session at SAM. Friends of SAM $5 or General Admin $10.
Thursday 3 October: Splash ART. Sensory play workshop. Morning or afternoon session at Aquamoves. FREE.
Bookings are essential as numbers are limited – visit https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/programs-and-events for more information.
Accomplished author to visit Shepparton.
21 August 2019
Join author of Art for the Country: The story of Victoria’s regional art galleries, Dr Don Edgar and SAM Director Rebecca Coates as they discuss the rich histories and current challenges facing our rural galleries.
Rural galleries play an integral role in shaping Australia’s exhibition landscape and in connecting our communities. Don’s historical knowledge of the Shepparton Art Museum will prove fascinating. “Shepparton’s civic leaders started a small collection which grew to become one of Australia’s leading art galleries. It was helped by a central lobbying group (the VPGG/later RGAV) which handled funds, organised travelling exhibitions and insisted on a regional approach to the arts, with new galleries specialising rather than trying to duplicate the comprehensive collections already in the bigger centres,” Don explains.
A robust and informed conversation is likely, and is particularly relevant as we head into development of the new SAM building. “The need for a strong rural voice remains true today, for if the government truly wants to decentralise our congested cities, the arts are a key to attracting new arrivals to country towns with a rich and vibrant cultural life,” Don says.
Don Edgar is a sociologist with many years of experience in social research, policy advice and business consulting. He was foundation Director of the Australian Institute of Family Studies (1980-93), leading research and policy advice to both federal and State governments on every aspect of changing family life in Australia.
Since then he spent some years as Associate Professor at the Monash Key Centre in Industrial Relations, has been a consultant to business and welfare services, and is the author of many books, including ‘Introduction to Australian Society’, ’Child Poverty’, ‘The War Over Work: The future of work and family’ ,’Men, Mateship, Marriage’, ’The Patchwork Nation: Rethinking government, re-building community’, ‘The New Child: In search of smarter grown-ups’ (with Patricia Edgar), ‘PEAK: Reinventing middle age’ (with Patricia Edgar), and ‘ART FOR THE COUNTRY: The story of Victoria’s regional galleries’.
Date: Thursday 26 September 6 – 7.30pm
Location: Shepparton Art Museum, 70 Welsford St Shepparton.
Cost: FREE. Light refreshments provided.
Booking essential via Eventbrite.
SAM is looking for library volunteers
19 August 2019
As part of the transition to the new building, SAM is looking to audit and catalogue its library of art books and magazines to make it available to the community to access and use as a resource at the SAM Library in the new building.
SAM is working with GV Libraries on this project and is hoping to find suitable volunteers to work with us on this project.
Volunteers will need to have some experience in cataloguing or auditing and are preferably available from now until December 2020 on a part time basis.
The construction of the new Shepparton Art Museum next to Victoria Lake is well underway with completion of the project expected in December 2020.
New SAM will act as a cultural meeting place creating connectivity to indigenous and multicultural origins of the region’s heritage, while providing the opportunity to interaction through art, food, enjoyment and educational experiences.
In the meantime, the Shepparton Art Museum is business as usual as it continues to present an exciting range of exhibitions and programs that engage audiences.
If you are keen to know more, or think you might have time and skills to spare, please contact Katie Zeller at SAM on 5832 9861.
New SAM Showcase features ‘slow art’ ceramics
12 August 2019
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is delighted to partner with Craft Victoria to present Melbourne-based ceramicist Zhu Ohmu in its Showcase #23 from Wednesday 14 August to Wednesday 6 November 2019.
Showcase #23 will feature a completely new body of work titled Way To Your Heart.
Originally from New Zealand, Rose Wei graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) in 2012 and now works in Melbourne under the pseudonym Zhu Ohmu.
Ohmu’s works are built through stacking, folding, pressing and pulling; these actions are often dictated by the weight of moist clay. Forms emerge intuitively and seem to ebb and flow, often pushed to their structural limits. Unlike a printer, the artist can detect the slightest change in the properties of the clay body under different environmental conditions.
This embodied knowledge of plasticity and workability, only gained by spending time with the physical material, allows the artist to work with and manipulate the clay. In the absence of a mechanical process, no two vessels can be the same. This project is a celebration of the artist’s hand in the age of automation.
Ohmu’s coiled pieces investigate the resurgence of the handmade and the ethics of slowness in an age of mass production. Through the SAM Showcase, she explores the entangled relationship between human and non-human ecologies in the current geological age.
The initial concept for Zhu Ohmu’s vessels was a response to the rise in popularity of 3D printed ceramics. Corresponding to biomimicry – the imitation of systems of nature – the artist wanted to explore how forms would emerge if she used her hands to mimic the way a 3D printer operates through extrusion.
Pieces are available for purchase, as with all SAM Showcase items, or if you want to learn more and immerse yourself in art-making, Ohmu is also leading a public workshop where participants can create their own Amoebic Planter using hand-building techniques.
The Craft x SAM Showcase is a curated program of exhibitions in partnership with Craft Victoria and Shepparton Art Museum.
Showcase #23: Zhu Ohmu
Date: 13 August – 6 November 2019
Location: SAM showcase display – at the entrance to SAM
Cost: FREE, pieces available for purchase
Workshops
SAM Monthly Makers: A fine cut; Zhu Ohmu
Saturday 24 August from 10:30am to 12:00pm
Paper-cutting workshop, 7-15 yr olds
Price: $15
Bookings: Eventbrite.
Amoebic Planter Workshop for adults; Zhu Ohmu
Saturday 24 August from 3:30pm to 5:30pm
Create your own hand-built funky planter
Regular: $45
Friends of SAM: $40
Bookings: Eventbrite.
Women artists influence new SAM drawing wall artwork
25 July 2019
Visitors to Shepparton Art Museum and Eastbank will soon notice a new artwork on the wall near the Riverlinks box office with the thirty-sixth drawing wall being created next week.
Artist Carla McRae’s Drawing Wall Resting, rising 2019 is painted in acrylics and draws from some key pieces in A Finer Grain: Selected Works from the SAM Collection exhibition currently on display at SAM.
The 4 x 12 metre painting centres around a rendition of Ethel Spowers’ ‘Resting Models’ linocut print. A strong Australian woman artist and passionate modernist, Spowers was prolific throughout the 20’s and 30’s.
Artist McRae reflects “the women in this piece rest affirmed and at ease in each other’s company. Key pieces from the collection, refined and rendered down to simplified geometric forms and bold colours, drift and rise behind the women. Margaret Preston’s magnolias bloom, alongside forms derived from the ceramics of Penny Smith, Fiona Murphy, Susan Laurent, Angela Valamanesh, Kirsten Coelho and Khai Lieu.”
“They form a world of strength and companionship for these women; soft and sharp, light and dark, deep and uplifting. This piece speaks to a sisterhood and is a celebration of the contrasting, complex and powerful spirit of these artists and their artworks — a force growing stronger, together,” said McRae. SAM Director Rebecca Coates said that this new Drawing Wall commission compliments the new collection show, A Finer Grain: selected works from the SAM collection, and continues to develop a connection between visitors of SAM and the performing arts centre.
McRae is a Melbourne-based artist and illustrator with a distinct modern graphical style of art. Her drawings pull together a blank space with clean lines, geometric shapes and strong colour. Always working to create clear, simplistic and honest images, McRae’s work depicts open narratives inspired by the beauty of everyday moments, small gestures and simple pleasures.
After graduating from the Graphic Design and Communication program at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, McRae’s unfurling illustration practice drove her to Melbourne, where she has been working and exhibiting ever since. From editorial, publishing, branding and apparel to sock design, large-scale mural projects and teaching programs, McRae has worked and collaborated with notable local and international clients around the world.
EVENT:
Join Carla McRae for a lunchtime Artist Talk at SAM where she demonstrates her art and design practice. Thursday 1 August from 12.30 – 1.00pm. Registrations at Eventbrite.
Get your portrait taken by renowned photographer Ponch Hawkes at SAM
22 July 2019
Shepparton Art Museum is hosting photographer Ponch Hawkes for her project Flesh After Fifty, 500 Strong which involves photographing nude portraits of women over the age of 50 on two days on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 August.
Ponch is encouraging women over 50 of all cultural backgrounds from the Goulburn Valley to participate by having their portraits taken at SAM.
Ponch will be creating a series of 500 photographic portraits of women over the age of 50 in an attempt to capture changing images of women in different ages and stages of their lives. These portraits will be displayed as part of a concluding exhibition Flesh After Fifty: Changing Images of Women in Art presented in March 2020 in Melbourne.
The photoshoot will take 15 minutes, in which participants have the option to bring an object to conceal their face from the camera to remain anonymous.
Background:
We live in a society swamped with images, where high value is placed on physical appearance and an association between attractiveness and youth, particularly for women. Flesh after Fifty will explore and challenge negative stereotypes of aging whilst celebrating and promoting positive images of older women through art.
Australian artists have a history of photographing, painting and sculpting the female form, mostly by and for men whose interest in exploring youth, vulnerability and beauty has dominated the images we recognise. The way in which artists portray older women often reflects public attitudes. Images of older women have changed over the last century as fashion, community, politics and society have changed. Much of the time, images of older women are absent altogether. Some artists, however, are able to rise above fashion and convention to externalise personal desires and aspirations that challenge preconceived perceptions and expectations.
Artist Information:
Ponch Hawkes is an Australian photographer whose work has been widely exhibited and is part of the Australian National Gallery, NGV and State Library of Victoria collections. The subject matter of Hawkes’ work is documentary, and can be seen as a commentary on Australian society and cultural life since the 1970’s. Her work considers topics of the body, the community and relationships we hold to both, within a feminist framework.
Artist Talk:
Ponch Hawkes and Project Curator Jane Scott will talking about the opportunity to be involved and the project more broadly as part of the SAM Out Late series on Thursday 1 August at 6.00pm, where potential participants or curious minds are invited to listen, learn and ask questions about the project.
For more information and frequently asked questions please visit www.fleshafterfifty.com
SAM introduces kids weekend art program
18 July 2019
Shepparton Art Museum is expanding on the range of kids programs with a weekend workshop series called SAM Monthly Makers to cater for children aged seven to 15 years of age starting on Saturday 27 July.
The Monthly Makers joins SAM Little Hands for toddlers and children which is held once a month on a Wednesday morning and SAM Art Club, an after-school program held on Tuesdays for primary school aged children.
The weekend workshop series commences with Clay Houses where children and teens can make abstract clay houses with hand building techniques.
“The houses can be as quirky and creative as the maker’s imagination,” said Public Programs Officer Lisa Linton. “We want kids to come in and explore creativity and have a go at interpreting that in clay.”
“They can take some inspiration from Julie Bartholomew’s ceramics on display in the Sidney Myer Fund Australia Ceramic Award exhibition. Julie’s work explores our relationship with our environment and can spark some ideas for the makers,” said Lisa.
The workshops are $15 each and are held from 10.30 to 12 noon. Bookings for the workshop are essential; please visit Eventbrite.
In August the second Monthly Makers weekend workshop will be A Fine Cut where kids can work with artist Zhu Ohmu to create their own rice paper artwork using nature and flowers as inspiration.
Exhibitions celebrate Boyd family’s artistic contribution
15 July 2019
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is delighted to present Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul, A Bundanon Trust touring exhibition in its first Victorian showing, alongside a new exhibition curated by SAM celebrating the Boyd family legacy in ceramics.
This is the only time that these two major exhibitions will be presented together, offering visitors new understandings of the relationships and connections between Boyd’s landscape paintings and ceramics.
Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul features works principally from Bundanon Trust’s collection.
The three-year national touring exhibition curated by Barry Pearce, Emeritus Curator of Australian Art AGNSW, explores Arthur Boyd’s lifetime of landscape paintings.
The exhibition features more than 40 paintings, including a group of masterpieces borrowed from major state art museums, plus 20 works on paper as well as letters, photographs and sketchbooks spanning almost half a century, featuring works from Boyd’s adolescence through to his final years.
Alongside Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul, SAM will present The Boyd Family: a legacy of pottery, an exhibition showcasing many of the over 140 ceramic works by the extended Boyd family from the SAM Collection. Celebrating decoration, the domestic and the every-day, these works reveal the way in which art and design intersected for the Boyd family and the influences and inspirations that crossed art, architecture, literature and life.
The exhibition features works by William Merric Boyd (1888-1959) and Doris Boyd (1889-1960), Arthur Boyd’s parents; Lucy Boyd (1916-2009) and husband Hatton Beck (1901-1994); Arthur Boyd (1920-1999) and Arthur Merric Boyd Pottery which included collaborations between Boyd, Neil Douglas (1911-2003) and John Perceval (1923-2000); Guy Boyd (1923-1988) and Martin Boyd Pottery; David Boyd (1924-2011) and wife Hermia Jones (1931-2000); Mary Boyd (1926-2016) and husband John Perceval (1923-2000).
Dr Rebecca Coates, Director of SAM says, “Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul is a tour de force. We are delighted to be bringing this major exhibition to our regional audiences. Together, these two exhibitions explore the trajectory of one of our nation’s most important artistic families. Landscape and nature inspired and influenced so many of the extended Boyd family, and Australian flora and fauna is celebrated and revealed in a myriad of ways in the paintings and ceramics featured in each exhibition.
“Presenting the Boyd pottery drawn from the SAM collection alongside Bundanon’s Arthur Boyd collection provides a unique insight into the Boyd national legacy,” Dr Coates said.
Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul offers the first in depth look at the artist’s powerful early grasp of the landscape as a subject. Bookended by Boyd’s youthful paintings of the Mornington Peninsula in the 1930s and the final phase of his career depicting the Shoalhaven area in southern New South Wales in the mid-1970s, Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul considers not only the topographic landscape, but also the landscape Boyd carried within himself.
As a friend of Boyd, guest curator Barry Pearce brings a unique insight to his curatorial role, allowing this exhibition to move beyond the traditional academic understanding of Boyd’s career and delve deeper into the rich personal landscape of the acclaimed Australian artist.
Barry Pearce said, “Boyd’s profound delirium of light and dark, swinging between euphoria and apprehension through diverse notions of landscape over almost half a century, is the focus of this exhibition. The story of Arthur Boyd is one of genius evolving out of childhood innocence to which in some ways, through extraordinary complexity, it returned at the end of a long productive life. His was an artist’s odyssey through landscape both seen and imagined.”
Linking these two exhibitions is archival material showcasing painter Arthur Boyd’s first studio, a purpose-designed building by Robin Boyd (1919-1971), conceived and built specifically for his cousin. This exhibition forms part of a series of collateral events organised around the Centenary of Robin Boyd’s birth.
Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul is supported by the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians.
Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul, A Bundanon Trust touring exhibition
14 September 2019 – 24 November 2019
The Boyd Family: a legacy of pottery drawn from the SAM collection
14 September 2019 – 15 March 2020
Image: Arthur Boyd, Lovers on fire in boat with kite, c.1965, oil on canvas, Bundanon Trust Collection
More information on the Exhibitions page.
Clay workshop series with expert local ceramic artist
11 July 2019
Well-known Mooroopna ceramic artist Kaye Poulton will be running a series of workshops throughout August for people interested in increasing their clay hand-building experience.
Taking inspiration from the artworks in the 2019 Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award, participants will work independently and create an original body of work, supported by the expertise of Ms Poulton.
Kaye has been working with clay for thirty five years and is known for her raku forms but also produces figurative, sculptural and thrown porcelain and stoneware pieces.
She lives near the Goulburn River in Mooroopna and has works in the collection at Shepparton Art Museum. Her work is available at Craft Victoria, SAM, Bendigo Pottery and various other retailers.
“I began working with clay in the late seventies in Kerang. I enjoyed the malleable feel and endless possibilities of using this wonderful material,” said Kaye.
“I enjoy making work on the potter’s wheel as well as hand formed figurative and sculptural work. I make my own glazes from raw materials and enjoy the challenge of the alchemist, constantly adapting and modifying my glazes until they create the right surface and finish for my pieces,” she said.
“Working in clay sculpture is a vehicle for self-expression and enables me to explore many aspects of the human condition. I am a keen observer of human and animal behaviour and enjoy working on large scale works and small complex allegorical pieces.”
This workshop for adults will run Monday 5, 12 & 26 August (we skip 19 August to allow for the drying and firing of work). The workshop is suitable for those with prior clay hand-building experience and all materials and firing are included.
Bookings are essential, please visit Eventbrite.
When: Mon, 5 – Mon, 26 Aug 2019 at 6:00pm / 8:00pm
Where: Shepparton Art Museum, 70 Welsford Street, Shepparton
How much: $140 ($130 Friends of SAM)
Contact: 5832 9861
NAIDOC Week at SAM: Conversation with leading emerging Indigenous photographer
8 July 2019
Indigenous photographer Hayley Millar-Baker will participate in a conversation about some of her photographic processes, themes and ideas revealed in SAM’s new acquisition, A Series of Unwarranted Events, as part of NAIDOC Week at 12 noon on Tuesday 16 July.
Update: Watch the video of the conversation below.
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SAM Community Engagement, Indigenous officer Belinda Briggs, (Yorta Yorta, Wamba Wamba) will host the discussion with Millar-Baker who is of the Gunditjmara Peoples whose Country rests in far south-western Victoria bordering the Glenelg River in South Australia.
The new acquisition, Untitled (Theft of the White men’s sheep), is one of five works in A Series of Unwarranted Events, works that collectively suggest a narrative and a pictorial framework from which to explore and reconcile National identity. Utilising a personal archive held for safekeeping by her grandfather and her own collection of images captured on and off Country, Millar-Baker’s photographic works interrogate the historical, social and cultural complexities carried from the past through to the present day.
Untitled (Theft of the White men’s sheep) portrays the colonial and geographical remnants associated with the now infamous Eumeralla Wars. From 1834 to 1849 a chain of violent and bloody events took place between the Gunditjmara and the European squatters colonising the lands between Port Fairy and Portland, Victoria. Millar-Baker’s collage of imagery juxtaposes Country, with its large expanse of volcanic hills, with the colonial architectural heritage that still remains in order to encourage new conversations around the impacts and legacy of colonisation from a First Nation’s perspective.
In her artist’s statement on these works, Hayley Millar-Baker said “The Gunditjmara would often capture livestock from the colonists’ settlements and return to camp through rocky terrain deeming the colonisers incapable of retrieving their stock without injury”. Her observations acknowledge the defiance, strength and resilience of her People in the face of colonisation.
Through her contemporary approaches to photography, Millar-Baker draws strength from her bloodlines, history, and landscape – confronting and crafting past, present, and future stories of South-East Aboriginal existence, and honouring the connectedness of intergenerational experiences of Aboriginality.
Millar-Baker has undertaken major collaborative projects as part of Our Country including Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) Education in partnership with Melbourne Indigenous Transition School (MITS), Heide Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition, 2019, and the Melbourne International Arts Festival, as part of the ART TRAM series, 2018.
Millar Baker was shortlisted for the influential John Fries Award for early career visual artists John Fries Award 2019 and has her work is included in major collections including MUMA, State Library of Victoria and Warrnambool Art Gallery.
The session is free but bookings via Eventbrite are essential.
Winter school holiday fun activities at SAM
27 June 2019
The Shepparton Art Museum is offering a week of hands-on school holiday activities to allow kids to explore their creativity from Monday 1 to Saturday 6 July.
Kicking off the program is a clay workshop Mischievous Me on a Plate where children can create a portrait of themselves on a plate with help from Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award finalist Stephen Bird. Stephen makes quirky portraits of his family, friends and even characters in folk tales.
SAM and Aquamoves are teaming up to provide a fun Sensory Play activity with a whole lot of pool noodles, shaving cream and more. Wet weather gear is a must!
Kids that prefer a less active workshop might like to learn the art of origami where they can create a figure from folding paper. For something different check out the blu-tak workshop with Drawing Wall artist Alex Pittendrigh. Kids can build small artworks with this everyday medium to help shape a giant blu-tak artwork in the Maude Street Mall. Alex is also running another workshop at SAM where kids create an artwork they can take home.
“Holidays at SAM are always an excitingly creative time,” said SAM Director Rebecca Coates. “This year we have workshops in SAM, in the Maude Street Mall and at Aquamoves. Some are free and some are low cost but all allow children to build on their personal and professional creativity, their confidence, and learn new techniques and approaches to art while meeting new friends.”
“I would encourage anyone who would like to introduce their children to the museum to book into one of our workshops and find out what else is on offer at SAM,” she said. “We have two new exciting exhibitions which the whole family can enjoy.”
Bookings are essential, except for the Mall activities, as numbers are limited – visit SAM’s Events page for more information.
LISTEN: Interview with Rebecca Coates and Lynda Draper for ABCRN The Art Show
27 June 2019
Lynda Draper, the newly announced winner of the Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Prize for 2019, and SAM Director Rebecca Coates, were recently interviewed By ABC RN’s Fiona Gruber to discuss the state of play for ceramics in Australia.
Lynda’s work, Somnambulism 2019, is a series of eight incredible sculptures that resemble royal crowns. They were inspired by themes of Royalty—an idea that came to her when she was on a recent residency near the Palace of Versailles, outside Paris.
To listen to the interview, please click through to the ABC RN website.
LISTEN: Interview with Rebecca Coates and Christopher Thomson
24 June 2019
SAM Director Rebecca Coates was recently interviewed by Christopher Thomson for Vision Australia Radio’s Behind the Scenes program about the Finer Grain exhibition.
You can listen to the interview by visiting the Vision Australia Radio website or via the player below.
This episode of the Behind the Scenes program was aired on Monday 24 June 2019.
Start listening at the 13:39 minute mark for the beginning of the interview.
Ceramic Prize winner announced
21 June 2019
The prestigious $50,000 Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Prize for 2019 has been awarded to Lynda Draper for her work Somnambulism 2019.
The work entails a series of busts of kings and queens, their forms echoing the neoclassical statues discovered in grounds of a European palace, shrouded during the winter months to aid conservation. Monument-like, Draper places these new figures on tall white plinths. Their crisp whites, pearly pinks and pastel hues appear ghost-like and translucent, in contrast to the usual weightiness of bronze and concrete more commonly used for sculptures in parks and public spaces.
For the artist, Somnambulism, or sleepwalking, is the dream-space between conscious and unconscious thought. The title conjures a psychological space with echoes of the wintery parklands, gardens and decorative excesses of the Château du Versailles, on the outskirts of Paris, France, where Draper was recently an artist-in-residence.
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The Judging panel commented:
“The winning body of work by Lynda Draper, Somnambulism, 2019, is startling in its freshness. The narrative and ambition pushes at the very margins of what we understand clay to be able to do. In some respects, the coil form is the most rudimentary of forms. However, Draper extends this rudimentary form into a series of portraits of royal personages that takes our understanding of architecture, space, decoration and form in gravity-defying new directions. These works are both childlike and sophisticated all in the one package.”
Director of the Shepparton Art Museum [SAM], Dr Rebecca Coates, commended all finalists for the depth of their engagement with the ceramic medium and the particularly high quality of their presentations.
“The judges were looking for a work of exceptional quality; a work that engages with themes and ideas of our times; a work that is technically and conceptually ambitious; and, as an acquisitive prize, makes a strategic contribution to the development of the SAM Collection.
“This nationally significant award is now seen as an opportunity for artists working in the ceramics medium in Australia to go beyond their previous ambitions. It is less of an award in the traditional sense and more of a challenge and a potentially career-defining opportunity. This is a different ambition from many other art prizes today in that it allows artists the space, after their first expression of interest, to go away and develop something to even higher levels. This year for the first time the Judges shortlisted six artists rather than the usual five, due to the calibre and quality of ideas and proposals.”
“All of the artists have responded to the challenge with universal ambition. In this sense, it has been like a true competition with each surpassing any expectations. The artists have over-performed in terms of scope and ambition for each individual project,” Ms Coates said.
Curator, Lara Merrington said “Through a residency at the Chateau du Versailles, in Paris, Draper invites us to consider a European heritage, and our often-complex relationship to the history of Australia’s first European settlement and its impact on the Australian landscape and people. Brought up on the European rituals, history, myths and legends, these tales of kings and queens, princes and princesses, dark forests and wintry Christmases take on an alien-ness in relation to our lived Australian context.”
The other 2019 finalists are: Julie Bartholomew, Stephen Bird, Greg Daly, Juz Kitson and Isadora Vaughan.
This year’s judges are Lisa Slade (Assistant Director, Artistic Programs at the Art Gallery of South Australia), Stephen Benwell (Artist) and Rebecca Coates (Director, SAM).
SAM’s reputation as the leading collection of ceramics in Regional Australia is further reinforced staging this fifth biennial of the Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award exhibition.
The relationship between the Sidney Myer Fund and Shepparton Art Museum spans over 28 years. Through this relationship, and the acquisitive Award, over 175 works have been acquired.
Image: Lynda Draper with her winning work at SAM, photo by Amina Barolli.
Explore the creative world of ceramics with workshops
12 June 2019
With the winner of the Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award being announced on Friday 21 June the Shepparton Art Museum is providing workshops for people of all abilities with two of Australia’s leading ceramics practitioners in this award.
SAM is running workshops on the weekend with two of the shortlisted artists with works on display in the exhibition. The first workshop on Saturday 22 June – Building our Landscapes with Julie Bartholomew – provides an opportunity to work with clay. The workshop uses techniques such as ‘burn-out’, sgrafitto and sculptural techniques to build a series of forms exploring nature.
Participants can make a sculpture and take home their pieces at a later date once fired. This five hour workshop commences at 10.30 am is for people aged over 16 years and bookings are essential. The cost of the workshop is $150 and details are on the website.
Internationally respected ceramic artist Greg Daly will present a workshop Lustre: An overview with Greg Daly on Sunday 23 June from 10.30 to 2.30 which covers practical and technical components. Daly will present a brief historical survey of lustre from the ninth century beginnings in Egypt to contemporary times, talking to his work in the exhibition.
The workshop will cover pigment, lustre glaze, fuming and resinate techniques, with participants gaining a greater understanding of how to create a lustred surface on their own work.
The four hour workshop costs $35 and includes light refreshments. People must be 16 years of age and over. Bookings are essential.
Visit our events page for details and bookings.
OTHER SMFACA EVENTS
Panel Discussion – Judges & Judgement: the tough gig of awarding prizes
When: Thu, 20 Jun 2019 at 6:30pm
Where: Shepparton Art Museum, 70 Welsford Street, Shepparton
How much: Free, but registration is essential
How hard is it to judge a prize where the stakes a high? Hear from the judges of the 2019 Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award, including Lisa Slade (Assistant Director, Artistic Programs at the Art Gallery of South Australia), Stephen Benwell (Artist) and Rebecca Coates (Director, SAM), as they speak about the role of art prizes and ceramics in the contemporary climate.
Celebrating the Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award
In Conversation – Artist Talks
When: Fri, 21 Jun 2019 at 5:00pm – 6:00pm
Where: Shepparton Art Museum, 70 Welsford Street, Shepparton
How much: Free, but registration is essential
Join the excitement of the 2019 SMFACA celebrations and start your evening with an informal artist’s talk.
Listen to some of the finalists speak about their practice and inspiration in creating a specific body of work for this acquisitive prize exhibition, and help calm their nerves before the big announcement!
Celebrating women artists – A Finer Grain: Selected Works from the SAM Collection
11 June 2019
The latest curated exhibition of works from the Shepparton Art Museum Collection is now on display and presents key and lesser-known works by Australian women artists across several decades.
A Finer Grain: Selected Works from the SAM Collection spans the full breadth of SAM’s 83 year collection history. The artworks are displayed chronologically, loosely grouped by decade from the date of creation. The artworks span a range of mediums and subjects, and showcase the breadth of SAM’s material focus in works on paper, painting, and Australian ceramics.
SAM Director, Rebecca Coates, says “this approach offers insights into SAM’s collection and the history of its development, as pertinent then as it is today.”
The exhibition includes the first work by a female artist Alice Currie acquired by the museum in 1938, with an early focus on landscapes, still-lives and portraiture. “The exhibition highlights some of SAM’s collection strengths, such as the acquisition in the 1970’s of many of Australia’s now renowned early 20th century Australian Modernist women artists including Grace Cossington Smith, Margaret Preston, and many others, when their works were more affordable than their male counterparts,” said Dr Coates.
“From the 1970s and ’80s, ceramics became SAM’s collection strength, and one we continue to celebrate today as the most significant collection of Australian ceramics in regional Australia.”
“Importantly, the exhibition also includes the first acquisition by a female Aboriginal artist Dr Thanakupi Gloria Fletcher James, AO in 1991, and a number of recent acquisitions by Aboriginal artists from south-east Australia and across Australia. It reveals the importance these works have as part of SAM’s collection, enabling a fuller and more complex understanding of Australia’s culture.”
Rebecca Coates says the development of SAM’s contemporary collection reflects the many themes and ideas that artists explore in new and exciting ways but with ceramics remaining core to the collection – a point of regional difference for SAM.”
“There are always surprises and discoveries with exhibitions of this kind. Artists that can be overlooked and sometimes forgotten, or unfashionable artists and artworks are also celebrated along with the well know ones,” she said.
“It is the stories of people, artists and artworks that enable many of Australia’s great regional galleries to celebrate and rethink histories within our contemporary context in new and exciting ways.”
There are 114 works in the exhibition – 113 from the SAM collection and one on loan – with 15 indigenous works included. The works include both 2D and 3D art with 60 per cent of the works by living artists.
The exhibition opened on 18 May and will be on show until 25 October 2020.
New indigenous artwork acquisition for SAM
17 May 2019
The Shepparton Art Museum has added another significant work to its Collection, with the assistance of Carrillo and Ziyin Gantner, in recognition of the sporting and cultural legacies in the Goulburn Murray.
The Brothers is the fourth painting by the artist, Julie Dowling to join the SAM Collection and continues the relatable themes and stories of family, identity, Country and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. This work forms a part of the larger gift of Carrillo and Ziyin Gantner’s collection of predominantly Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander art to Shepparton Art Museum.
The Brothers, 2002 depicts three men dressed in the club’s football uniform either during or after a game. Two men are arm-in-arm with the football safely tucked under one of the brother’s arms, while behind them stands their team-mate. Meticulously rendered traditional symbols expand across the surface of the green footy oval and blue Australian sky, referencing representations of place, cultural symbols and Indigenous identity.
Dowling’s portraits often feature members from her own family, occasionally herself, and the familiar faces of iconic Australian figures. Her works have specific references and universal connections; they convey many stories, concerns or insights, told through the compelling eyes of her subjects.
Australian Rules Football was embraced by Aboriginal communities throughout Australia, creating sporting legacies and legends across the country. In our region of country Victoria this was also true. Local premiership winning sides emerged from families living at Cummeragunja (1890’s–1930’s), the All Blacks of Daish’s paddock (1946), and more recently at Shepparton’s Rumbalara Football Netball Club.
Belinda Briggs, SAM Community Engagement – Indigenous, and an active member of the Rumbalara Football Netball Club notes, “Sport, and playing as part of a team, enabled players to acquire a level of independence and freedom off the missions in a time where permission had to be sought by the manager. Bonds are made in the inner sanctum of teams and can offer a place of respite, belonging and affirmation of identity. Today these clubs are an important tool as ever, to foster culture, nurture families, and promote wellbeing.”
The other Julie Dowling works in the SAM Collection are:
Inside Out, 1999 (donated by Carrillo and Ziyin Gantner, 2017)
Woman Head, 2002 (donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Carrillo Gantner, AC, 2017)
The Brothers, 2004 (donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Carrillo and Ziyin Gantner, 2013)
About the Artist
Julie Dowling was born in Subiaco and is of the Badimaya People in the Mid-West of Western Australia. Largely working in painting, she draws on diverse art traditions including European portraiture, Christian Orthodox icons, mural painting and Badimaya First Nation iconography, or signs and symbols.
Dowling works like an ethnographer, recording the deep-seated injustices in the Indigenous community. Her pictorial works have a strong political edge, however, because she speaks as a colonised subject and subverts the traditional power relations between the observer and the observed, the coloniser and the colonised. She was awarded a Diploma of Fine Art at Claremont School of Art in 1989, a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Curtin University in 1992 and an Associate Diploma in Visual Arts Management at Perth Metropolitan TAFE in 1995.
Since her first solo exhibition at Fremantle Arts Centre in 1995, Dowling has earned a substantial national and international reputation as an artist of extraordinary vision. Her work has been exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas, notably at Art Fair Cologne in 1997, Beyond the Pale: Contemporary Indigenous Art, 2000 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, and the RAKA AWARD: Places that name us, The Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, 2003.
https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/ngvschools/TraditionAndTransformation/artists/Julie-Dowling/
Image: Julie Dowling, Community / Language Group: Badimaya, The Brothers, 2002, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 121 x 91 cm, © the artist
Purchased with the assistance of Carrillo and Ziyin Gantner, 2018, in recognition of the sporting and cultural legacies in the Goulburn Murray. We acknowledge and celebrate early sporting teams, the Cummeragunja Invincibles and the All Blacks of Daish’s Paddock and more recently Rumbalara Football Netball Club. © the artist
New Drawing Wall highlights topical river issues
9 May 2019
The thirty-fifth Shepparton Art Museum Drawing Wall features artist Alex Pittendrigh with a work called Près des Eaux: Tears of Isis, a large abstract painting referencing water and river systems.
It ties together the artist’s interest in environment, but also his long-held passion for ancient cultures. This work specifically references symbolic and sacred readings of water in Egyptian tomb paintings. In a contemporary context, it references issues faced by river systems in Australia such as the recent catastrophic ‘kill’ events within Australian rivers such as at the Murray Darling basin /Menindee.
“The title is in part taken from an ongoing series of paintings of my own that are themselves riffing off an eponymously titled series of watercolours by Gustave Moreau at his house Museum in Paris, which were abstractions meditating on mythological subjects that appeared to the artist whilst in a liminal, sleep-like state,” said Mr Pittendrigh.
“At a symbolic level, water symbolises rebirth and new life after the destruction wrought by flood.”
The Drawing Wall zig zag pattern expands over approximately 10×2 m across the wall’s surface. The work has been painted with pencil and non-toxic acrylic and watercolour paints.
“On occasion the viewer will be confronted by irregularities or fractures in the overall geometric design, suggesting that the waters life giving flow has been disrupted or perhaps polluted by a lack of care for what has given life and a failure to heed the wisdom of those who cared for it long before,” he said.
About the Artist
Alex Pittendrigh was born in 1966 in Melbourne and lives and works in Melbourne and Tanja, NSW.
Working chiefly in painting, sculpture and installation, he maintains a strong interest in classical antiquity and how its long echo might usefully intersect with the present day and how it continues to resonate with contemporary culture’s anxieties and discontents.
He has undertaken residencies at The British School at Rome, Italy; The Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris; Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne, and has participated in group shows such as “Uncanny Nature” at The Australian centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), ”Lurid Beauty” at The National Gallery of Victoria, “Wilderness” at The Art Gallery of NSW, and others including Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Contemporary Art Tasmania, Hobart and Devonport Regional Gallery, and Two rooms, Auckland.
He was a founding member of the Artist run initiative First Floor in Melbourne, and has also exhibited at other ARIs such as Caves, Melbourne; Stereo Exchange, Copenhagen; and Dunedin.
New SAM Showcase focuses on Indigenous art
9 May 2019
The 22nd Showcase at the Shepparton Art Museum features Indigenous art from the Baluk Arts group and includes natural materials such as feathers and clay.
The exhibition is called ‘earth bound, in flight: ceramic artists of Baluk Arts’ and will be in the Showcase at SAM from 9 May to 7 August in collaboration with Craft.
Baluk Arts is a 100 per cent Aboriginal owned and operated non-profit Victorian Aboriginal arts organisation based in Mornington. Baluk (also spelt balluk or balug) is a Boonwurrung word meaning group of people.
earth bound, in flight is a record of making at Baluk, punctuating the importance of collaboration and shared understanding of culture and community. Artists here represent the beginnings of artistic practice and the achievements that come from many years of concentrated learning.
It features work by Lisa Waup, Cassie Leatham, Beverley Meldrum and Tallara Gray and feathers by Robert Kelly, Patsy Smith, Yvonne Luke, Lynnette Pitt, Robert Austin Djeranarlumn, Nick Kupetsky, Daniel Kelly, Sharee Harper, and Mai Katona.
The exhibition is free to view and works are available for purchase.
The Baluk Arts Showcase is part of curated program of exhibitions in partnership with Craft for SAM.
Image: Lisa Waup, Keeping Culture (5 of 7), 2019, Porcelain, Emu Feathers, Parrot Feathers, Cotton, Hand Forged Copper Railway Wire, Silver Solder, 21 x 10 x 10cm. Photo: Amina Barolli Photography
SAM preparing for prestigous Sidney Myer Australian Ceramic Award
29 April 2019
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is set to enhance its reputation as the leading collection of ceramics in Regional Australia with the fifth biennial $50,000 Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award exhibition, from 22 June to 1 September 2019.
The Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award, is Australia’s richest and most prestigious ceramic award. The relationship between the Sidney Myer Fund and Shepparton Art Museum spans over 26 years. Through this relationship, and the acquisitive Award, over 175 works have been acquired.
This year’s finalists are: Julie Bartholomew, Stephen Bird, Greg Daly, Lynda Draper, Juz Kitson and Isadora Vaughan.
The 2019 Award will be judged by Lisa Slade (Assistant Director, Artistic Programs at the Art Gallery of South Australia), Stephen Benwell (Artist) and Rebecca Coates (Director, SAM).
The Award celebrates and promotes contemporary Australian artists working in the ceramic medium by providing an unprecedented opportunity for a major national ceramic award and exhibition in Australia.
Artists are encouraged to explore and experiment with the ceramic medium and to express conceptual issues which are important to their practice.
SAM Curator, Lara Merrington says “This year themes emerging are relevant to our contemporary times: the environment and our human connection with and upon it, but also a sense of wonder and magic – perhaps an optimism and escapism that emerges from these heavier issues.”
Greg Daly’s installation draws on a personal connection to landscape expressed through his glorious lustre glazed earthenware, paired with experimentations in new media.
Julie Bartholomew’s installation of tall cylindrical porcelain and glass columns are a response to climate change and scientific research in Antarctica.
Stephen Bird explores the intersection where painting, sculpture and ceramics overlap through an installation of satirical works informed by his Scottish heritage and a sometimes-interest in Greek Mythology.
This sense of myth and magic is carried through in Juz Kitson’s highly detailed sculptural works, which look at a human connection with the cycles of life, of plants, and of regeneration.
Isadora Vaughan’s site-specific installation investigates the interior and exterior landscapes of the human body as it relates to architectural space, geology and the natural landscape.
Linda Draper explores relationships between the material world and the metaphysical, and has been inspired by walks through the landscaped gardens of a recent residency in Versaille, France.
Ceramics has increasingly been adopted by emerging and established contemporary artists in exciting and innovative ways and recent national and international exhibitions have highlighted significantly expanded possibilities for the medium.
Director of SAM, Dr Rebecca Coates, said, “The selected finalists represent the exciting and innovative ways that artists are working with ceramics as a contemporary medium, and we are looking forward to seeing how their projects develop and evolve.”
The winner will be announced on Friday 21 June 2019. The exhibition opens from 22 June to 1 September.
BACKGROUND
The SMFACA is one of the most prestigious awards in the visual arts in Australia, with a uniquely ceramic focus. It has evolved over its many year history. It began in 1991 as the Sidney Myer Fund Australia Day Ceramic Award, and evolved into the Sidney Myer Fund International Ceramic Art Award in 1997, with the aim of providing an unprecedented opportunity for a major international ceramic award and exhibition in Australia.
In 2009, SAM reviewed the Award, and returned it to a format that showcases and supports contemporary Australian artists. Leading ceramicists, potters, master craftspeople and contemporary artists are now receiving recognition for extending their practice and the possibilities of ceramics. This has led to a significant repositioning from the craft realm into the contemporary art world. SAM has long supported this trend and it is this leading focus on ceramics that has attracted a new wave of emerging and established contemporary artists who have made the medium their own. Ceramics now appear in many national and international exhibitions and audiences are intrigued by the medium’s creative potential.
The Sidney Myer Fund was established by the will of Sidney Myer when he died in 1934. Having arrived penniless in Melbourne in 1899 at the age of 21, he wanted to give back to the Australian community in which he himself had prospered.
The Sidney Myer Fund Trustees are proud to be associated with an exhibition that understands, explores and challenges the possibilities of ceramics and art making in our contemporary world. As a direct outcome of the relationship between the Sidney Myer Fund and Shepparton Art Museum over 26 years, over 200 works have been acquired, creating a diverse and dynamic collection by both Australian and international artists.
In 2017, the Award featured outstanding new work by Glenn Barkley, Karen Black, Jenny Orchard (winner of the 2017 SMFACA), Laith McGregor and Yasmin Smith. Alongside the winner, Jenny Orchard, works by Glenn Barkley and Yasmin Smith were acquired for the SAM Collection.
Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran was awarded the 2015 SMFACA, his work showcased alongside exciting new work by Penny Byrne, Adam John Cullen, Sanné Mestrom and Ruth Hutchinson.
Previous winners of the Award have included such distinguished artists as Deborah Halpern, Gwyn Hansson-Piggott and Stephen Benwell.
More information here.
Re-animating art for contemporary audiences
14 April 2019
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) presents Arlo Mountford’s first major solo exhibition, Deep Revolt from 18 April – 10 June 2019 continuing SAM’s commitment to staging premier major shows by leading contemporary artists.
Melbourne-based, English-born artist Arlo Mountford’s exhibition Deep Revolt at the Shepparton Art Museum (SAM), playfully probes the terms in which we engage with art and the way meaning can be twisted, through a contemporary lens.
The exhibition is the only showing of Mountford’s works in Victoria and features large-scale interactive installations with video, animation and sound, drawings and sculpture, challenging the ideas of time, history and our contemporary norms through a 14-year span of his work.
SAM director, Dr Rebecca Coates says “Mountford mashes up visual culture in order to engage with and reflect on our contemporary world. Time and history are common themes. Arlo’s work is complex and contains varying dimensions of joy, humour, history and horror making it hugely engaging for a wide audience,” she said.
“The exhibition will appeal to a generation where making videos, memes and text clips for social media is now second nature to communicate and comment on the world,” Dr Coates said.
Amusing, strange and laden with art and contemporary culture references, his animated films are hand drawn with a mouse directly into a computer. He reimagines both real and created spaces from the art world, digitally reconstructing the interiors of iconic museums or retracing the brushstrokes of European masterpieces well known and loved for centuries. This process allows him to experience art with fresh eyes and offer new readings of its ongoing meaning and relevance in contemporary society.
SAM has included two additional works in the exhibition, The Folly, 2009, and Clock, 2016. The Folly reimagines three paintings by the Flemish renaissance master Pieter Bruegel (1525-1569), Hunters in the Snow (1565), The Corn Harvest (1565) and Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (1558) stitched together into one long panel. A bird flits from one painting to another, and the sounds of nature and barking dogs permeate the space. The results are a pleasing naivety that Mountford describes as very South Park.
The Clock, 2016 continues Mountford’s interest in time, but also references the ready-made object and hand-made aesthetic – a counterpoint to his highly technical video installations and digital works. “Mountford’s work in Deep Revolt is expected to resonate strongly with local audiences who appreciate a return to the hand-made, the DIY aesthetic, and in part, a yearning for a more simple life, in which play and imagination are central, and commodity subverted,” said Dr Coates.
Selected video works will trace a gradual distillation of Mountford’s ideas. His recent work 100 years (2016), an animated chronology of appropriated artworks charting the evolution of abstraction since the ‘zero point’ of Malevich’s Black Square in 1915, will provide a fitting end point to the exhibition.
OFFICIAL OPENING AND ARTIST TALK
The exhibition opens on Wednesday 17 April from 6.00-8.00pm with an artist talk prior from 5.00-6.00pm. RSVPs are essential via 5832 9861.
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) presents Arlo Mountford: Deep Revolt, an exhibition developed by Goulburn Regional Art Gallery and toured nationally in partnership with Museums & Galleries of NSW, alongside key works by Arlo Mountford. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.