'Hands On' at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery

If there is one exhibition you see this December make sure it is Hands On at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery. Curated by Artereal's very own Cash Brown, the exhibition opens on the 4th December 2010 and runs until 29th January 2011.

"Hands On is an exhibition of works by contemporary artists who use hand crafts as tools of expression in their practice. The show incorporates a rich variety of materials, including recycled plastics, yachting ropes, yarn, human hair, leather, recycled fabrics and natural grasses. From knitting and leather craft to tapestry and weaving, an array of unlikely or even denigrated methods are used with great skill, and often wit, to produce works of depth, meaning  and cultural relevance." - Cash Brown

Hands On will feature work by over twenty five artists including Bridie Connell, Adrienne Doig, Minka Gillian and Rodney Love, who recently exhibited as part of Meta4 at Artereal.

A feature on this exhibition can be found in the latest edition of Artist Profile magazine.

Q&A with Minka Gillian

Tulips, 2008, polyester monofiliment, wire, perspex, 94 x 50 x 65cm

Your choice of methods and materials is rather unorthodox for a contemporary artist, is there an element of environmental concern, personal health, economic or practicality that led you to choose these, or is it more of a conceptual concern?

Growing up my mother had very serious allergies to almost everything therefore I lived in a house without plastics or new products that could give off  harmful chemicals, so viewed plastic as toxic and repellant. Using natural and second hand material was then a very obvious choice for me coupled with the poverty of being a student. The last two years of Uni brought many changes in my life a major one being the improvement of my mother’s health, many of her allergies disappeared after the treatment of an undiagnosed illness, plastics were no longer such a taboo and I felt less tied down by the past. My attraction to used objects was partially the history that I feel is imbued in old or used objects that I feel adds a richness to my work.

I introduced fishing line into my work to get a glass like quality. The transparency of the material enables me to explore more complicated internal forms while allowing these forms to layer over each other and still be read from the outside. The less forgiving nature of synthetic material has also challenged me to focus on the technique and form.

Where and when did you discover the expressive qualities of your medium and how did you learn the skills required to make the work?

I was slow to see the potential for weaving as an artistic medium, partly because of the snobbery I felt towards basketry as an art form. It took until my 3rd year of Uni to realize I could incorporate weaving into my work. At the beginning I was caught up in the intricacy of weaving and made small, precious objects as my skill and confidence grew so did my work. However I am often frustrated by the slowness and limitations of my art form but am too reluctant to relinquish any control over the outcome to outsource any of my work at the moment. This may become a necessity as my work grows in size and complexity.

'Tulips' is currently being exhibited as part of META4; a group exhibition of four Sydney artists, all of whom harness techniques that are traditionally associated with women’s handiwork and craft to express, to challenge and sometimes to parody the concepts and psyche behind gender stereotyping, femininity and domesticity. Exhibition runs 1 September - 2 October 2010.

Minka Gillian will also be a part of 'Hands On', a survey of Australian contemporary artists whose primary mode of production is usually assosciated with home crafts. Curated by Cash Brown, this exhibition can be seen at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery from 4 December, 2010.

Q&A with Adrienne Doig...

Adrienne Doig, Self Portrait 0 to 40, 2004, hand

 painted set of 5 Russian Dolls, dimensions variable.

Your method of production is not usually taught at art school, what got you started on it?

I taught myself embroidery from a book. I learned basic sewing at school, also my grandmother was a very good dressmaker and knitter and I picked up her sensibility. I like the intricacy of the work and the hands-on quality. I find small details greatly add to the work’s interest. I am very fussy. I like everything to be well made and for there to be fine points to engage the viewer. My work, both with embroidery or machine sewing, is quite meticulous. I want to achieve a certain finish and surface complexity. A high level of technical finesse was once highly valued in ‘handiwork’, it is now not so often found, but its something I aspire to. I want my work to look beautiful and well made. I want to revive those past skills in my work. I want the ‘craft’ of my work to be of a high standard. In using materials like tea towels, fabric scraps and old clothes, I can also draw on past traditions of the homemaker and of domestic industry, which I like.

In the past people had to use the materials that came to hand, fabrics were recycled and the imagery was often autobiographical and or local. Today most craft is an industry. I’m thinking about activities like quilting and cross-stitch; it is all very homogenised, pattern book stuff, much of the originality and inventiveness of the past is lost. Using these older traditions and working methods adds an ambiguity to my work that hopefully challenges distinctions between craft and art.

Your work is a series of self portraits, are they a reflection of how you see yourself as a woman in the Australian domestic landscape, or how others may see you?

Superimposing my self-portrait across the image on the tea towel can create a clumsy picture. The two elements are an uneasy fit. The choice of materials and the ‘anti-style’ techniques of applique, embroidery worked onto the kitsch imagery of the tea towels creates a kind of patchwork image, which I think accentuates the humour and also makes obvious the fictional nature of portraiture.

The work is self-portraiture but the imagery is a bit fantastical really. I do all these activities, but combining an image of myself skipping with an image of kangaroos is a bit like a performance or role play. It’s not really how I see myself, or how others see me, but at the same time they are true self portraits, they don’t show just what I physically look like, I think they really do say something about me, about the kind of person that I am.

'Self Portrait 0 to 40' is currently being exhibited as part of META4; a group exhibition of four Sydney artists, all of whom harness techniques that are traditionally associated with women’s handiwork and craft to express, to challenge and sometimes to parody the concepts and psyche behind gender stereotyping, femininity and domesticity. Exhibition runs 1 September - 2 October 2010.

Adrienne Doig will also be a part of 'Hands On', a survey of Australian contemporary artists whose primary mode of production is usually assosciated with home crafts. Curated by Cash Brown, this exhibition can be seen at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery from 4 December, 2010.

Q&A with Bridie Connell...

Installation shot: Hanky Panky Fiction

Bridie Connell, Kiss Me Quick, 2010, vintage

handkerchief, cotton embroidery, 26 x 26cm

Where and when did you discover the expressive qualities of your medium and how did you learn the skills required to make the work?

I grew up in an artistic home and it was always understood that I would attend art school however the patriarchal painting department I found myself in never really suited me. Turning to my mother’s collection of 70s craft journals and embroidery magazines for inspiration, I began to teach myself various home craft techniques and adapt them to satisfy my conceptual concerns.

You recycle and reinvent domestic objects, does the material come first and then the idea, or do you seek out the materials and methods to suit the concept?

I’m attracted to the awkward beauty of everyday objects and situations and my work combines personal and fictional narratives with a good dose of dark humour, to explore representations of women and femininity in art and popular culture. Often this is expressed through the subversive and nostalgic use of maternally inherited objects and ‘women’s crafts.’

Hanky Panky Fiction is a series of personalised 1950s and vintage handkerchiefs hand embroidered with the titles and tag lines from men’s adventure novels (pulp fiction publications) from the same era. The series is a playful investigation of female stereotypes and role-play in fantasy and in reality, contrasting the 1950s housewife with the pulp fiction bombshell – ideals which have been popularised by both genders for their ‘retro’ sex appeal – through the embellishment of delicately pretty, yet functional objects designed to get dirty.

Bridie Connell's 'Hanky Panky Fiction' series is currently being exhibited as part of META4; a group exhibition of four Sydney artists, all of whom harness techniques that are traditionally associated with women’s handiwork and craft to express, to challenge and sometimes to parody the concepts and psyche behind gender stereotyping, femininity and domesticity. Exhibition runs 1 September - 2 October 2010.

Bridie Connell will also be a part of 'Hands On', a survey of Australian contemporary artists whose primary mode of production is usually assosciated with home crafts. Curated by Cash Brown, this exhibition can be seen at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery from 4 December, 2010.

Q&A with Rodney Love...

Rodney Love, Embodied Landscape #1, 2009, socks and cotton, 16 x 20cm

Tell us about Embodied Landscapes 1, what was the intention behind this work?

This work is made from old socks. I imagine these socks as people wore them to go about their lives, walking across pavements and parks and suburban streets. They have taken on the energy from the lives they have been connected to - the lived experience has become embodied in these socks. Along the way they have encountered myriad landscapes, the stages upon which our lives are lived. And each time they returned home, they brought those landscapes with them.

With these works I’m not trying to represent a landscape, but merely show the physical products that have moved through various landscapes. Not only are the various people who donated these socks joined together by their shared humanity, but also by the shared environment - Our lives are shaped by our social experiences, but also by the world that sustains us. As we irrevocably change our landscape, so we change ourselves.

Where and when did you discover the expressive qualities of your medium and how did you learn the skills required to make the work?

I started at art school in the Sculpture department, but took classes in different areas – textiles, ceramics, papermaking - to learn as much as possible. The first textile class I took introduced me to a range of techniques, and weaving really appealed to me. I took further classes, and extended my knowledge, finding that similar conceptual concerns to my sculptural work could be expressed through this medium. As I was using the idea of the individual and the group in a lot of my work, the idea of the “fabric of society” was a natural fit.

'Embodied Landscape 1' is currently being exhibited as part of META4; a group exhibition of four Sydney artists, all of whom harness techniques that are traditionally associated with women’s handiwork and craft to express, to challenge and sometimes to parody the concepts and psyche behind gender stereotyping, femininity and domesticity. Exhibition runs 1 September - 2 October 2010.

Rodney Love will also be a part of 'Hands On', a survey of Australian contemporary artists whose primary mode of production is usually assosciated with home crafts. Curated by Cash Brown, this exhibition can be seen at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery from 4 December, 2010. 

Behind the scenes at Artereal...