Kate Smith – Mirage @ M16 Artspace

The corridor gallery at M16 has a fabulous intense set of 54 Mural panels by Kate Smith titled Mirage. Starting at one end the tones are dark and gloomy but they progress through vibrant autumn tones to almost snow like whites. The images embedded in the mirage range through cart wheels, trees, mummy like figures and a vast range of other partly formed indicative shapes.

I think I would prefer to see this set in another space. I think it would be marvelous to see this whole collection at a distance to get the scope of the whole thing. Murals are an engaging art form. There are parts of this set that we tried to put together in different orders matching parts to corresponding parts. It is a very engaging set.

Gallery sheet and pics below.

Peter Kongmalvong: An untold Story about Diaspora @ M16 Artspace

I love political art. Peter Kongmalvong’s art is visually arresting and politically insightful. As a photographer he has clarity and purposeful approaches to his work. To have a strongly Asian face embedded in a poster for a seemingly racist style political party is illustrative of his work. It would be an interesting experience to have Peter explain this work.
The pics below give a sense of what he does in his art.

Colour Restraint – Rebecca Baumann and Brendan Van Hek @ Campbelltown Arts Centre

Light, colour, reflection and projection combine to create a fabulous set or art works by Rebecca Baumann and Brendan Van Hek at the Campbelltown Arts Centre. In a big space there is an advertising device that enables three different adverts to be displayed in rotating panels but in this space it is undecorated transparent Perspex. A projector is fired at it and it reflects refracts and spreads the light to various parts of the room. One room has some minimally lit objects and creations. Another room has  large panels with coloured reflective surfaces that interplay reflections of each other and of viewers as they walk and stand in parts of the room.
One work has a curtain of gold tinsel stirred with a fan producing shadows on walls behind. There are some fluorescent lighting works that play around with colour and perception. These two artists have created some intriguing and vibrant walk through experiences.

Kati Thamo – Retold @ Beaver Galleries

Kai Thamo’s exhibition titled Retold is striking in its imagination and its execution. The textures are rich and filled with lots of surfaces tha cry out to be touched. The images play with seemingly real elements combined with fantasy parts. There are some remarkable images that look like they are on fabric but it is a convincing print.
Best way to show Kati’s work is with pictures and the gallery sheet below.

Echoes in Time – Vivien Lightfoot @ Belconnen Arts Centre

This exhibition has created a grand Australian historical sweep radiating back from the artist Vivien Lightfoot. The exhibition consists of a set of earthy pottery sculptures of figures in our history matched with more abstract illustrated smooth smaller white porcelain renditions.
Vivien explained her approach to us as we walked through the set and her explanation was elaborated by the great text panels that accompany the statues. Lightfoot has known relatives in Australia dating from the early years of the European occupation including the third English governor Philip Ridley King. The statues start early and progressing around the room follow a historical progress up to the artist’s parents.
I was thankful for Vivien’s great productivity in creating all the statues for their historical insight and personal character. She said that the faces are all anchored in historical drawings andr pictures.
Pictures and gallery sheets below.

See Sky – Maralyn Hutchinson @ Belconnen Arts Centre

The sky is a daily artwork. It creates new masterpieces many times every day and they change from any angle you watch them. Such creativity is awesome.
Maralyn Hutchinson uses those works as an inspiration for her works in this exhibition. There are fluffy whites and rich sunsets combined with ominous sets and all reflect the glory we see each day.
In one set she has combined a small art work with a quote from a famous person in which they reflect on clouds. It is a beautiful set of sky inspired paintings.
Gallery sheet and sample pics below.

Coalescences – Frances Loriente @ Belconnen Arts Centre

Frances Loriente has an intensity of detail in each of the works in this exhibition at Belconnen Arts Centre. There are some beautiful two colour works created in woodcuts and they are offset by sets of richly mixed coloured paintings and supplemented with metal sculptures. The theme of the set is in the title. Loriente says this exhibition brings together or coalesces the many strands of her practice and enthusiasms in a single exhibition.
Pics below and the gallery sheet.

Familiar Impurities – Llewellyn McGarry @ CCAS Manuka

This is a remarkable exhibition and it only goes for one more day. Every time I walk into a gallery I am in anticipation mode. The Canberra Contemporary Art Space at Manuka is a small white room but that gives a certain power to exhibit small sets. Llewellyn McGarry has used six works to create a portrait of the diagnosis and treatment of an unknown malady over a long period
One hundred polaroid pictures taken morning and evening. Two hundred glasses of water taken with various drugs for treatment, an interesting set of embroidered brains and other images. She has a typewriter some connected text and someMRI scans of her head.The piaster resistance is a white board close to the floor on which is arranged 52 lines of various pills.
Having worked out the basic focus of the works we were able to talk with Llewellyn McGarry and she tied it all together around her experience of pain and the challenges of dealing with un named painful conditions. This was a marvelous, touching set of creations with a clarity of expression I appreciated. Some pics below with gallery sheet.

Death of a Broadsheet – Alison Alder @ Megalo Print Studio and Gallery

A print studio doing a show entitled in “Death of a Broadsheet” seems a natural fit. Alison Alder has created some large prints that combine methods and styles that evoke the era of newspapers. There are enlarged imgaes of people like Robert Menzies. The first part of the layout of the exhibition is on the wall like galley proof sheets were stuck in the glory ages.The other part of the show is set out on a frame that looks just like a printing press that even has switches that would allow the presses to run. Colourful and evocative of what is nearly a past era, this is a fun exhibition.
Pics and gallery sheet

Mirage – Desert Forms and Images – Louise Owen @ M16 Artspace

Some pics and the gallery sheet below

Some pics and the gallery sheet below.