ARTIST INTERVIEW // NICHOLAS IVES

Nicholas Ives practices predominately in oil painting, and currently works from Melbourne Australia. 

Nicholas has been exhibiting throughout Australia for the past 15 years, and has held numerous solo exhibitions as well as participated in over 40 group exhibits across commercial, artist-run and state-run galleries. In addition, Nicholas has curated and co-curated exhibitions, ranging from independent pop-ups as well as the Linden Centre for Contemporary Art. 

With a strong interest in responding to time and place and his environment Nicholas has held studios abroad in Prato, Italy and Berlin, Germany, and has travelled widely across Europe, the U.S., and Asia.

Ives' practice explores the idea that the incidents and experiences of painting can articulate multiple possibilities for newly lived realities. For Ives, a painting is the mid-state of an event that operates as an experience with infinite divergence; that is, the instability of the painting process is a fluid reality that moves in the direction of the unlimited. The moment of painting is lived and defies abstraction, as it is an experiential travel towards a multitude of moments both past, future and side by side. 

Nicholas Ive's work is currently included in our group exhibition Future Process, co-curated by Michael Staniak and Ryan McGennisken. To coincide with the exhibition, we asked Nicholas to tell us a little more about his artistic practice...

Nicholas Ives_I’ve been tricked again_2015_oil on linen_95x105cm

Describe your work in 100 words or less: 

My work has focused on figuration over the last few years, however I view the figure as a 'painterly' site where many ideas can be explored. These pieces are dreamy, absurd and have a touch of a collage... They are unstable, illogical. They deal with ideas of irrationally while being fully engaged with the materiality of paint and the strange pursuit of their own creation.

Why Art? 

I can't do much else! But anything creative is vital in life I think, it's organic and is an amazing opportunity to remove yourself from the routines of day to day life. Art is also vital I think to society and culture and can foster new ideas, encourage debate and enable change.

Has your artistic practice changed over time? 

Yes & no. I try to remain open to stimuli around me - It keeps me in the present moment, and so my work has organically evolved over the years. There are tentpole ideas I seem to return to, the figure, but I avoid style - I never want to feel that I can't explore a certain idea or way of working because it doesn't fit my constructed 'singular ' narrative. I have explore the found-object, figurative painting from found sourced material, limited & stoic portraiture for a number of years that has recently evolved to more absurd, brighter figuration.

Nicholas Ives_For no reason and I'll admit i really don't know_2015_oil on linen_156x125cm each

Which artistic movements do you most identify with? 

No singular movement, but I can observe a figurative painting tradition that has evolved through time & various cultures around the world. I'm drawn to Spainsh classism- Velasquez, Goya, through to Manet and Cezanne. Recently perhaps Hockney, Bacon & Freud, and the contemporary work of Neo Rauch, Michael Borremans.

How do you work? Can you tell us about your process? 

I really like to always move and experiment with new things. With every new piece or small series I try to include a new element, I try to alter my way of working. This 'disruption' is a strong theme for me, like the 'black swan' theory which alters preconceived ideas. I enjoy exploring these themes or instability and divergence- the fluidity of paint is perfect for this.

What themes and ideas do you pursue? 

These ideas of divergence and rupture from a singular form lead to an infinite field of possibilities. The absurdity of a world of multiple realities excites me, and this fluid and unstable existence that we live is inspiration enough to create something new every time I begin working.

Nicholas Ives_I’ve been tricked again_2015_oil on linen_95x105cm

What is your dream project? 

I don't think I have one really, I focus more on the present.... But I love getting involved with other artists or anyone really to explore ideas so maybe a big collaborative project.

Where would you like to be in 5 years? 

I guess I'd love to be in a position where I can just paint everyday. Travel is a big thing for me as it expands your world and forces to you move, change, adapt and not become rigid in your thinking. I'd like to be travelling, living in another country maybe...?

If your work was a…

• Song, it would be… human & felt

• Smell, it would be… intriguing

• Meal, it would be… delicious

• Animal, it would be… friendly

• Word, it would be… evocative

• YouTube video, it would be… http://youtu.be/ZqzESY7SIqU

Rhianna Walcott // talks philanthropy and contemporary art with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia

MCA Young Ambassador Rhianna Walcott, photograph: Elena Chamberlain

In addition to her role as Artereal Gallery's Manager and Curator, Rhianna Walcott is a strong advocate for philanthropy within the arts. This month, she was interviewed by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia, about her role as an MCA Young Ambassador Committee Member, the crucial role philanthropy plays in the arts, the artists on her wish-list and upcoming exhibitions and events in her diary. 

The MCA Young Ambassador Program  gives members a chance to not only provide vital support to the MCA, but also exclusive access to twice-monthly events, openings, curatorial talks and tours and visits around Sydney's visual arts scene. 

Read the full interview below or here. 

"As a long-standing supporter of the Young Ambassador program, can you tell us what motivated you to get involved?

For me personally, working in the arts, I feel passionately about supporting the industry as much as possible. So aside from the opportunity to meet new people and the appeal of the events themselves, the main motivation for me in joining the Young Ambassador program was the idea that it would allow me to give something meaningful back to the arts.

What has been your most memorable experience of the program?

It’s difficult to say! I have had some amazing experiences with the MCA Young Ambassadors over the last four years. Morning tea with Tracey Emin at Amanda Love’s house would be a definite highlight though. Also, the opportunity to hear Simon Mordant speak about his experiences as both an art collector and a philanthropist and Liz Ann Macgregor’s curatorial tour for Anish Kapoor’s exhibition and studio visits with amazing artists such as Alex Seton and Hayden Fowler were also highlights.

As a committee Member you’ve always been a strong advocate for the philanthropic aspects of the program – can you tell us why it is so important to you to support the MCA in this way?

As an arts institution the MCA has always been committed to working with and supporting the careers of Australian artists. By offering philanthropic support to the MCA, I feel that I am playing a small role in assisting the MCA to continue to nurture, grow and develop this legacy whilst also supporting the broader contemporary art scene within Australia. 

A common misconception amongst younger people is they assume supporting the arts is beyond their means. You don’t need to be amongst Australia’s wealthiest in order to contribute in a meaningful way. That is why I find it so exciting to be part of the MCA Young Ambassadors and to witness the ways in which the program has grown and supported the MCA. For example seeing the MCA Young Ambassadors fundraise for, and acquire a work by Hayden Fowler for the MCA’s permanent collection at MCA Social 2013, was something I was really proud to be a part of.

Have you any advice for other Young Ambassadors who want to widen their perspective on giving or ways they too can support the arts?

Aside from offering philanthropic support to institutions like the MCA, I think the best way you can support the arts is by actually collecting art. Working so closely with such a broad cross-section of contemporary artists, I have seen how much it means to them when they find out a work has been acquired by a collector – the encouragement, validation and recognition which it provides is so important – particularly for emerging artists.

Collecting art is also so much easier these days – whether you start by acquiring work from one of the grad shows or via an online art platform such as Ocula or through developing a relationship with a commercial art gallery – collecting is such an exciting and rewarding journey and something that can very quickly become addictive!

Being surrounded by fabulous art daily in Artereal must be very tempting – are there any artists on your collecting wish-list at moment?

I have to exercise a lot of self-restraint. I’ve recently acquired a work by Liam Benson (who has been at the top of my wish list for a very long time) – so next on the list would be a number of younger artists such as Louise Zhang, Tully Arnot and Michael Staniak. Also Juz Kitson and Rebecca Baumann - both Primavera alumni!

Looking ahead in 2015, what’s on your not-to-be-missed list in visual art and cultural activities in Sydney?

I am really looking forward to Sydney Contemporary and the satellite art fair Spring 1883 – both in September this year. I am also intrigued to see Jodie Whalen’s new performance based work which will be at Campbelltown Arts Centre later this year. I’m also really excited about Ry David Bradley’s upcoming exhibition at Artereal Gallery this November. And then there is Sydney Film Festival which is coming up in June!"

MICHAEL STANIAK TOPS PHILLIPS AUCTION IN LONDON

Michael Staniak recently topped London-based auction house Phillips' July 3 Paddles ON! sale auction with his work IMG_885 (holographic) which sold for an amazing £25,000 against an estimate of just £3,500 - 4,750. 

Paddles ON! is an auction and exhibition celebrating digital art presented in partnership with the microblogging platform and social networking website Tublr. The July 3 sale was curated by Lindsay Howard and is the second auction dedicated solely to digital art at Phillips.

For the full story see Nicholas Forrest's report for Blouin ArtInfo

MICHAEL STANIAK / BIEN OU BIEN? + THE SALON IS A LIVING ROOM

Michael Staniak's is currently showing as part of a group exhibition entitled BIEN OU BIEN? to be held at the newly formed MONCHERI in Brussels. MONCHERI is a project space that opened its doors in April of this year to much acclaim during the Art Brussels fair. It is the love child of two Parisian galleries, Galerie Jeanrochdard and Valentine, and is dedicated to exploring new talent from around the world. The show will run from June 11 until July 31st.

Michael is also currently showing in a curated group exhibition entitled The Salon is A Living Room at Fanny, Berta in Vienna. 

The Salon is A Living Room focuses on human change in perception as well as the change in the way human's react to and enact in the world. Seeing these artists on the grounds of a new realism, of everything that is there and possibility exists in the realm of virtuality, art may become more avant-garde once again.

Other participants in the inaugural exhibition include: Jennifer Chan, Verena Dengler, Alexandra Gorczynski, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Nick Parker, Jon Rafman, Rafael Rozendaal and Lilli Thiessen. 

Founded by Isabella Ritter and Katharina Zimmer, Fanny, Berta began in August 2013 as a project deeply rooted in the spirit of Viennese Salon culture. The title of Fanny, Berta takes its origins from the first names of two established entrepreneurs within this culture at the turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries - Berta Zuckerkandl and Fanny Von Arnstein. Fanny, Berta will play host to many exhibitions within its rooms and halls of the Atelier Julius Caesar, as well as other spaces around the world. 

The Salon is A Living Room runs until 30 June, 2014.

MICHAEL STANIAK AND THE WRONG NEW DIGITAL ART BIENNALE...

After 18 months of preparation the inaugural The Wrong New Digital Art Biennale has been launched. Based out of Spain and Brazil, it is the first of its kind in the world to feature hundreds of digital artworks purely online. A collection of over 30 international pavilions, projects and events headed by curators from all around the globe, will be open to visitors for the next two months.

As part of this Biennale, Melbourne based artist Michael Staniak has been invited to curate one of ten international embassies to host offline projects. Michael has developed a project entitled IRL which has involved setting up a residency for four artists at Paradise Hills in Melbourne.

Participating in this residency are 4 Australian artists. The work made will investigate the recycling of found objects in the real world and found images online in order to recontextualize their meaning and uses. The residency, although resulting in mostly analogue works in a tangible gallery space, will be followed closely through an online format of social media discussion and blogging. In the social media world, IRL stands for “in real life”, where there is a distinct separation between what happens on and offline. IRL looks at how the work and discussions will be altered when uploaded to the Internet and whether or not face-to-face participation is at all necessary in the process of understanding the evolution of a body of work.

In addition to the IRL project, Michael has also curated iMOCA - one of the Wrong Biennale's online pavilions showcasing nine international artists working mostly via digital media:

"Commercial, institutional, profiteering, tacky, showboating, hype - these are all tags that have latched on to the character of the museum in recent times. The cafes, bars and gift shops are an unavoidable, not-so-subtle stop on the museum tour. The buildings are becoming more monumental, the shows heaving a bloated sense of grandeur. The museum constantly battles for attention in the public sphere, as do the artworks that adorn its walls.

So what is iMOCA? It is not trying to be an international mega museum. It is not trying to be a source of spectacle. It is simply an online space that offers nine international artists working through digital media to display their latest creations on the medium which the work was intended - the Internet. The site is not littered with incomprehensible jargon adding narrative where there may be none. It offers no dates and titles and context. It just features still or moving images that exist online, no distractions, no flashing lights, free for contemplation. Even the homepage pseudo floor plan offers simple navigation, something a maze of a contemporary museum does not.

But one thing a modern museum must shamelessly offer an audience is the opportunity to commodify the gallery experience. After all, the Internet is the primary international place of trade. Therefor it is only fitting that an online museum enter into that tradition. iMOCA allows the visitor to experience instant trading of digital files first hand and come away with a souvenir image of an object.

It is now up to the audience to decide. Will their experience visiting this online museum be a fond memory of viewing original works of the artists, or will it be a souvenir download that will forever stay on the hard-drive or be neatly printed and placed into a nice A4 frame? VISA, Mastercard and Paypal are accepted." (Michael Staniak, 2013)

Take the time to visit the iMOCA website and browse through the works of the talented featured artists. For further information on these projects see Nicholas Forrest's article for Blouin Artinfo here.

Michael Staniak is the Director of Paradise Hills in Melbourne and is represented by Artereal Gallery, Sydney. He will be showing new works at Artereal in June 2014.

ARTEREAL GALLERY AT SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY 13

Artereal Stand at Sydney Contemporary 13

From the 19-22 September 2013, Artereal Gallery was part of the inaugural Sydney Contemporary Art Fair, held at Carriageworks.

Artereal brings a selection of artists’ works to Sydney Contemporary that unfolds a diversity of stories, ideas, and social issues; significant among them identity, environmental sustainability and art in a cyber age. The works are in a range of media, distinctive for the experimental approaches and techniques of the artists that push the boundaries of conventional practice in painting, sculpture and photo media.

Anna Carey‘s fascination is with cities like the Gold Coast, and Las Vegas; cities that are built on dreams, on leisure and the notion of escape. Her works are formed from remembered and imagined spaces, with the finished work an amalgam of sculpture and photo media. She firstly creates collaged architectural models with subtle disconnections - formed in much the way we process memories. When she photographs them she captures the blenched light associated with remembering; the languor, the somnolence of daydreams. Her works appear authentic, but are merely artifice; not unlike the perceptions of the cities and places that they mirror.

Black scorched tree trunks and the pure, pristine and fluid qualities of cast glass coalesce in the sculptures of Stevie Fieldsend as potent memorials to primal and cathartic rituals. The works by this artist of Samoan heritage invoke rites of purging and release, shedding and healing and emotive themes of fear, abandonment, memory, sexuality, love and death.

Queer identity informs the performances of Liam Benson that gently subvert community perceptions of gender, race, culture, sexuality and national identity. He mines the visual languages and communication forms of advertising and popular media for both the themes and the documentation in photo media formats of his performances.

Cultural dignity is also at the heart of Karina Wikamto’s arts practice. Her work pays homage to Chinese, including her father, living in Indonesia during the time of the Vietnam War who were subjected to extreme modes of cultural prejudice that included a veto on use of their given Chinese names. Her work is expressive of her father’s and succeeding generations whose lives and heritage are still tainted by the repercussions of this harsh regime.

Michael Staniak’s focus is the language of painting in a digital age. The industrial processes and modes derived from digital imaging, from compositional elements, the colour, the glitches to methods of input and output inform his works. He avoids evidence of the hand but stays away from the clichéd language of the pixel. Despite the technological impetus, his works are undeniably paintings. They are tactile, voluptuous and gestural. He exploits and celebrates the viscosity of the paint medium and the emotional qualities of colour while expressing and articulating the process, the moment and momentum of image generation.

Giles Ryder is another artist who takes a reductive approach to form, colour and line and the interpretation of light and space. Characteristic of his practice is Dazed and Blazed II in which Ryder implements his honed industrial painting skills to custom-make machine tooled metal forms and apply meticulous auto-lacquer finishes. The sleek reflective metallic surfaces impact our senses and extend our perceptions of space and objects.

The mountains, bogs and tussock lands of the dramatic post-glacial landscape of the Southern Alps of New Zealand is the setting for the oblique and ambiguous sci-fi-like narrative of Hayden Fowler’s photographic series New Romantic developed from the catastrophic New Zealand bird extinctions, and a sense of loss and nostalgia for depletion of the ecosystem and of Maori culture. A corresponding melancholic wistfulness for man’s present day disconnection from the natural world and the scourge of species extinction pervades the prehistoric forest inhabited by hybrid exotic birds and poultry in Fowler’s video New World Order.

The picture frame cast in salt by collaborative artists Ken and Julia Yonetani is made from groundwater salt sourced from the Murray Darling Basin, an ecosystem that is extremely vulnerable to salinity. The significant choice of salt, and portrayal of an intentionally empty frame is at once a considered response to environmental degradation and also to the still life genre [nature mort], an artistic tradition that emerged in the sixteenth century as intensive agricultural practices were being developed, bringing new food produce to the tables of a rising European bourgeois class and the themes of consumption, luxury, vanity and mortality portrayed in these early paintings.

The work acknowledges the collaboration of Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Breughel the Elder on the Five Senses cycle of paintings (sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste) a series epitomizing indulgent consumption of the period. In this context salt becomes a metaphor for the rise and fall of civilizations throughout history, and the issues of environmental decline, climate change, and food security that face us on a global scale today.

Jess MacNeil is a London based Australian artist working predominantly in experimental painting and video. Her video, Angle of incidence shot in Paris in 2012 on the Pont des Arts, a pedestrian bridge crossing the Seine River in the vicinity of the Louvre, continues her preoccupation with space and with such esoteric concepts as ‘the shape of between’; the geometry and interstices between our individual vantage points - be they physical, perceptual or psychological, and also as manifested in the context of time and change.

The work of London based British performance artist Francis Thorburn seems to exist in a time that is not quite now. In his video of Free Ride the artist takes the title ‘Minister for Alternative Transport’ and introduces his seemingly cobbled together sculptural device, a heavy wooden wheeled vehicle, to London commuters and tourists. The rickety contraption lumbers through the busy roadways and traffic arteries with a delightful awkwardness, necessitating a use of physical energy to propel it that meets its transport needs, but with a noticeable lack of economy. However, what soon becomes clear is that this nonsensical instrument of transport is in fact not created for transport alone but rather as an opportunity for engagement. His works have been commissioned by both the Tate Modern and Tate Britain galleries.

To see more images from Sydney Contemporary, click here.

SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY OPENING NIGHT

Artereal Gallery is excited to be participating in the inaugural Sydney Contemporary. The gallery will be exhibiting work by ten artists including: Liam Benson, Anna Carey, Stevie Fieldsend, Hayden Fowler, Jess MacNeil, Giles Ryder, Michael Staniak, Francis Thorburn, Karina Wikamto and Ken + Julia Yonetani.

Artereal will be exhibiting at Stand A107. Don't forget to also keep an eye out for Ken + Julia Yonetani's salt chandelier which has been included in Installation Contemporary (curated by Aaron Seeto).

Nola Diamantopoulos will also be performing, as will Liam Benson, as part of Director's Choice (curated by Barry Keldoulis).

MICHAEL STANIAK / ARTIST INTERVIEW

Michael Staniak_SC/IMG_089_acrylic and casting compound on board with steel frames_60 x 45cm

Why did you decide to become an artist?

No decision was made. It was all very organic, or something like that.

Can you explain the process behind your work and the inspiration behind this process?

These works are process-based, meaning the act of making is just as important as the result. Non-traditional materials are used to enhance the likelihood of chance dictating outcome. They are colored in ways that mimic digital printing, mainly inkjet printing. 

Conceptually what are the ideas and concepts being explored and conveyed through your work? 

I see myself as a post-Internet artist, someone whose work is informed by my act of surfing the web and engaging in its aesthetics. But I don’t make work that is always intended for the Internet, instead lives in the tradition of the gallery confines. Although, eventually the work ends up on the Internet anyway.

What are your key influences as an artist?

Digital Media and the Internet… And painting and sometimes objects.

What is it that you want audiences to take away from your work?

I hope the audience takes nothing away. Hopefully, the audience will add ideas and discourse.

Tell us about one highlight from your career so far…

That would have to be my first international show in New York this year. 

What else do you have coming up in the near future and what are you working on next?

I am curating a pavilion of the first online biennale called The Wrong, to be held out of Sao Paulo, Brazil, this November. I am also involved in a group exhibition at Judith Charles Gallery in New York until October. 

MICHAEL STANIAK @ BLOCK PROJECTS

Michael Staniak_SO/IMG_526, 2013_acrylic and casting compound on board, steel frame_90 x 60 cm_Image courtesy of the Artist and Block Projects.

Michael Staniak is currently exhibiting a new body of work entitled STANDARD OUTPUT at Block Projects in Melbourne. The exhibiiton runs from 20 August - 14 September 2013 with the exhibition opening taking place on Saturday 24 August from 2-5pm.

"In computer programming, standard streams are preconnected input and output channels between a computer program and its environment (typically a text terminal) when it begins execution. The three I/O connections are called standard input (stdin), standard output (stdout) and standard error (stderr)[...] Standard output is the stream where a program writes its output data." - Wikipedia

Although these terms are no longer used in today's computer graphic user interface, the process is quite similar. As a user we no longer need to know code, however we input data via keyboard, mouse or touch pad, and the resulting output is displayed instantly on the screen. Using standard graphic programs like Photoshop, MS Paint and Google Sketchup and the distributive abilities of social media, our visual ideas are easily digitally illustrated, uploaded and shared globally via like-minded individuals and peer groups. The tropes now associated in computer graphics, although at times a somewhat generic aesthetic, have become commonplace. As our connections with digital media and screen technology become more fluid, so too does the flow of digital information back into our analogue environment. Is it a surprise then that more and more of these digital tropes are being repeated in an almost obsessive manner and are filtering into the language of painting?

With this in mind, the exhibition STANDARD OUTPUT not only explores some of these aesthetic shifts in painting that resemble a pseudo-modernist approach to process and form, but also examines this visually repetitious byproduct of social media, which at once could be read as a trending phenomenon or the beginning of a new "ism", something missing in contemporary art for the last decade. (Michael Staniak, Artist Statement, 2013)

Block Projects is located at 79 Stephenson Street, Cremorne, 3121 VIC Australia.

Michael is also currently working on a new body of works which we will be exhibiting at Sydney Contemporary 2013 as part of the Artereal Gallery stand.