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Opening: Heather Shimmen ‘Betwixt’ at 101 Gallery, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 29th October – 22nd November 2008

Heather Shimmen (Australian, b. 1957) 'Cry' 2008 from the exhibition Heather Shimmen 'Betwixt' at 101 Gallery, Melbourne, Oct - Nov, 2008

Heather Shimmen (Australian, b. 1957)
Cry
2008
Linocut print on paper and organza

“(Somewhere) betwixt nature and civilisation, past and future, fact and fantasy. Shimmen guides the viewer on a magical history of the landmarks and turning points which connect these extremes … Pictures of skewed, stretched and distorted women are abundant. There are moody pieces where Victorian women look uncomfortable in the Australian bush. In fact their discomfort is palpable as they begin to morph into the local shrubbery, their beauty spots being replaced with twigs … These images wear the marks and piercings of the subverted.”

Pamela Irving. Catalogue essay

Arriving late from the Rennie Ellis opening there was a lively crowd in attendance at the opening of Betwixt by printmaker Heather Shimmen at Gallery 101, Collins Street. The exhibition had been opened by the well known sculptor William Eicholtz. Also in attendance were artists Louise Rippert whose exhibition Trace at Deakin University Art Gallery had opened the previous night and Carolyn Lewens who I studied photography with at RMIT University in the early 1990s and who is now completing her PhD.

The work is feminine but also muscular and visceral, expanding past the edges of the paper. Images are composed in fractured spaces, Ned Kelly surrounded by emblazoned Life Savers, Australian creatures no longer loveable and pliable but dark and threatening. These elements are balanced with the use of delicate printed organza feathers for example. The work challenges conventional iconic wisdoms about Australian culture, morphing traditional stereotypes: no longer is it the Australia child lost in the bush (see Kim Torney’s Babes in the Bush) but the bush invading and subverting adults, animals and the city.

This is a body of work that is both conceptually and technically well resolved, displayed to advantage in the gallery space. Well worth a visit.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Left to right: Artist Louise Rippert, sculptor William Eicholtz, architect Vaughn Barker and artist Heather Shimmen
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Heather Shimmen (Australian, b. 1957) 'Lost 1' 2008 from the exhibition Heather Shimmen 'Betwixt' at 101 Gallery, Melbourne, Oct - Nov, 2008

Heather Shimmen (Australian, b. 1957)
Lost I
2008
Linocut print on circle of felt, unique state

More artwork from the opening of Heather Shimmen’s exhibition Betwixt at 101 Gallery, Melbourne

Heather Shimmen (Australian, b. 1957)
Wicked
2008
linocut on paper and ink

Heather Shimmen (Australian, b. 1957)
Such Is Life
2008
Linocut print on paper and organza

Heather Shimmen (Australian, b. 1957)
Catalogue front cover with the work Lost II
2008
Linocut print on circle of felt, unique state

101 Gallery

This gallery has now closed.

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Opening: Rennie Ellis ‘No standing only dancing’ at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia

Exhibition dates: 31st October, 2008 – 22nd February, 2009

Opening: 30th October, 2008

Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003) 'Girls' Night Out, Prahran' 1980 from the exhibition Rennie Ellis 'No standing only dancing' at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Oct 2008 - Feb 2009

Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Girls’ Night Out, Prahran
1980
Silver gelatin, selenium toned fibre based print

A very social and lively crowd gathered at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square on the evening of 30th October to celebrate the life and work of the Australian social photographer Rennie Ellis.

After opening comments by the NGV Director Dr Gerard Vaughan there was a funny and erudite speech by Phillip Adams AO who had flown down from Sydney to open the exhibition. The crowd enjoyed the anecdotes about his relationship with Rennie and said he thought that dying was a good career move on Rennie’s behalf and that he would have loved the fact that he had a retrospective at the NGV. Adams observed that Ellis used to be everywhere, at every party and opening, using his astute eye to record and never to judge. Applause all round for a life well lived.

On entering the exhibition space viewers were treated to a simple but effective installation of his work, with overtones of the 1970’s-1980s interior decor with yellow and white circle graphics and hanging fabric chandelier. The curatorial staff at the NGV (notably Susan van Wyk) have chosen over 200 works from an archive of over half a million images for the exhibition in a process that has taken over two and a half years.

As an immigrant arriving in Australia in 1986 I remember 397 Club that used to be at 397 Swanston Street. After every other place had closed this club attracted people from every walk of life: pimps, prostitutes, drag queens, faggots, lesbians, straights and druggies. Rennie was probably there recording the scene. We were there just for a good time. It was fun and this is what Ellis’ photography is. Not burdened by overarching conceptual ideas Ellis recorded what he saw insightfully, balancing social commentary and spatial organisation in the construction of his images. The image Girls’ Night Out, Prahran 1980 (above) is a pearler (with the look on the woman’s face) and neatly encapsulates the magic of his image making.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Opening of the exhibition 'No standing only dancing' by Rennie Ellis at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia October 30th 2008

Opening of the exhibition No standing only dancing by Rennie Ellis at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia October 30th 2008.
Photographs © Marcus Bunyan

The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia
Federation Square
Corner of Russell and  Flinders Streets, Melbourne

Opening hours:
Daily 10am – 5pm

National Gallery of Victoria website

Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive

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Exhibition: Louise Rippert ‘Trace’ at Deakin University Art Gallery, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 29th October – 6th December, 2008

Louise Rippert (Australian)
Recording (detail)
2008
Collage; thread, aluminium and silver gilt and pencil on khadi paper
38 x 37cm
Collection of Deakin University

Deakin University Art Gallery present an exhibition by this Melbourne artist of new work.

“Favouring the use of archival, translucent, brittle and fine materials in her labour intensive and near devotional ‘manuscripts’ of stitching, pattern and perforation, Rippert creates mixed media works of the utmost delicacy … This is the first solo exhibition of Rippert’s work in a public institution and will present her past and recent work.”

Rippert’s work is extraordinary. Taking paper of every sort Rippert inscribes the surface: stitches, weaves, colours and indents the paper, making annotations that develop personal narrative. Delicate and insightful her work celebrates what it is to be human – to be lovers, to be a daughter, to dance, to record. Rippert uses repetition of form in grids and circles to achieve her archetypal works, touching the deepest patterns of our lives.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Louise Rippert (Australian)
Cochin Mandala
2005
Collage; glassine, pencil, thread and gouache on paper
Private collection

For many artists the process of art making has a mysterious fascination that continues to draw them back to experimenting, searching and the experience of creating. At the very least, it is reasonable to suggest that art making in this respect is supramundane; an experience particular to itself, simultaneously autonomous but contingent on an “other”, challenging but ostensibly satisfying, baffling and revelatory as – in this sense – creating art involves the artist’s responses, reflections and what is sometimes referred to as an inner dialogue with the work.

The medium (in that very specific conjuring sense of the word) and the interaction with it then becomes a vehicle in which this dialogue has an opportunity to “arise”, or be “heard”. It may be in these cases that the exercising of inner consciousness marks an escape or a period of sanctuary from the regular rigours of life, or that it denotes the labour of a different kind, of higher purpose, intellectual inquiry or even some manner of transcendence.

The term meditative is often ascribed to this transformation of consciousness and the introspective process of art creation. So is it meditation? Certainly many artistic traditions have involved high levels of training and discipline. Certainly many forms of meditation have involved an “other” to provide musing, focus or distraction for the mind. Both have shared common traits of concentration, labour, devotion, repetition, patience and practice. In the artwork of Louise Rippert, certainly the preconditions for such a meditation are identifiable.

The inherent irony with formal artwork is that short of sitting over the artist’s shoulder the audience experiences the result of process, rather than the process itself. However, the beauty (in more sense than one) of Louise Rippert’s work is that in many cases she leaves paths that can be followed or re-imagined, whether it is in the delicacy of her stitching and folding or the sequential approach to numbering that characterises many of her works. We can sense the endeavour. We can see the labour. We can begin in the middle of a spiral or circle and follow the numbers to their logical conclusion. Our mind in many respects can literally “join the dots” and so make the abstractive leap back and forth in time to appreciate this process of becoming.

The extra dimension to the work exhibited in LOUISE RIPPERT: TRACE is that the result also speaks not just of the process, but the intent. There is equilibrium, harmony and quiet in and across these works, which compels revisiting that very painstaking process. While having exhibited artwork annually since 1994, Rippert’s modus operandi has meant limited opportunities to show substantive bodies of work. She has been represented periodically in the National Works on Paper Prize at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery and in 2005 she was the co-winner of the Blake Prize for Religious Art.

Deakin University Art Gallery is therefore very proud to present LOUISE RIPPERT: TRACE, the first solo exhibition of Louise Rippert’s creations in a public gallery and would like to thank the artist for collaborating in this project. Thanks are also extended to the following people for their contributions to this project; Euan Heng, artist, for his opening remarks to launch this landmark event, Diane Soumilas, Gallery Co-ordinator, Glen Eira City Council Gallery for her insightful catalogue essay, to the private collectors who have loaned works and Jasmin Tulk for designing the catalogue to mark and accompany this important exhibition.

Victor Griss
Exhibition Curator

Originally published in Louise Rippert:Trace, Deakin University 2008

Louise Rippert (Australian)
Trace
2008
Collage; pigment baking paper, tracing paper, pencil, thread and adhesive contact on drafting film
94 x 94cm
Collection on the artist

Deakin University Art Gallery
221, Burwood Highway
Burwood 3125

Opening Hours:
Tues – Friday 10 – 5pm
Saturday 1pm – 5pm

Deakin University Art Gallery website

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Book: Edward S. Curtis: Visions of the First Americans (with Eugene Atget and Diane Arbus)

November 2008

Edward S Curtis (American, 1868-1952)
Nuhlihahla-Qagyuhl
Nd

Following my thoughts on the series The First Australians on SBS we have this wonderful coffee table book of photographs: Edward S. Curtis: Visions of the First Americans with images taken from his seminal 20 volume work The North American Indian.

Curtis worked on the project from 1906 to 1927 hauling his large format glass plate camera across the United States much as Eugene Atget did at roughly the same time in Paris, taking photographs of the old city and its hotels, shops, parks and gardens. Atget died in 1927 with his art recognised by few whilst Curtis lived on into the 1950’s, dying in obscurity and poverty after the fame of his ground breaking work had disappeared. Both photographed a vanishing world capturing it for prosperity on fragile glass plates. Both brought to their projects a unique vision and a belief in what they were doing.

Atget’s photographs of people half seen through shop doors and windows, like shadows of the night. Curtis’s photographs of masked Yeibichei dancers wearing elaborate attire. Curtis thought he was photographing the dying races of the American Indians. Atget knew he was photographing the collapsing spaces of old Paris. Both use the space of the photograph to signify their intentions: an understanding of their subject matter, an empathy with a disappearing way of life, a need to record their vision of this world – and an intensity of insight into that condition.

No other photograph has the space and timelessness of an Atget. No other image the presence of the plains that Curtis summoned.

His masked dancers remind me of the last photographs of the great American photographer Diane Arbus in their candour and beauty, posthumously called Untitled. Finally Arbus has found a subject matter that she could return to over and over again. As did Atget and Curtis.

As Doon Arbus has commented,

“These images – created out of the courage to see things as they are, the grace to permit them simply to be, and a deceptive simplicity that permits itself neither fancy nor artifice … The photographs appear to be documents of a world we’ve never seen or imagined before – one with its own rituals and icons, its own games and fashions and codes of conduct – which, for all its strangeness, is at the same time hauntingly familiar and, in the end, no more or less unfathomable than our own.”1

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Arbus, Doon. “Afterword,” in Diane Arbus: Untitled. London: Thames and Hudson, 1995.

~ Diane Arbus: Untitled
~ Edward S. Curtis: Visions of the First Americans
~ Some late Diane Arbus photographs from Google Images
~ Eugène Atget Wikipedia entry
~ Eugène Atget Google images

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