KEN + JULIA YONETANI / SUSTAINABILITY FORUM TALK AT HAZELHURST REGIONAL ART GALLERY

In Conversation with Ken + Julia Yonetani_Video courtesy of Hazelhurst Regional Art Gallery

Tomorrow on Saturday 12 April 2014, Ken + Julia Yonetani will be participating in a forum talk at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre.

Coinciding with their new exhibition at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, The Last Supper, they will be discussing the topic of Sustainability, featuring guest speakers Megan Fizell and Michael Mobbs.

The Last Supper installation will be exhibiting from 22 March - 18 May 2014.
Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre - 782 Kingsway, Gymea NSW

KEN + JULIA YONETANI / THE LAST SUPPER

 Ken + Julia Yonetani_Still Life: The Food Bowl (detail)_2011_Murray River Salt_dimensions variable.

From 22 March - 18 May 2014, Ken + Julia Yonetani will be exhibiting a new installation, The Last Supper, at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre. Developed during a four month residency at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, the installation references and recreates art historical imagery of The Last Supper via the creation of a nine metre long banquet table, heavily laden with a feast sculpted entirely from Murray River salt.

In The Last Supper the artists extend their prominent 2011 work Still Life: The Food Bowl in scale and concept. The Last Supper points to concerns arising from increasing salinity levels in Australia and unsustainable agricultural practices. In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster,  the massive banquet of luxurious foodstuffs also becomes a larger visualisation of the problems of food security and safety in an increasingly toxic world. In the words of the artists: “Here salt is a metaphor for the death of the land, sacrificed in the production and consumption of what has become The Last Supper.” The religious and historical associations of salt, as a sacred substance that sustains life yet also can invite death, are infused within a powerful work about what is placed on our dinner table in the twenty first century.

Ken + Julia Yonetani are also included in the following current and upcoming exhibitions: Desire  at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre (until 11 May 2014) and The Lorne Sculpture Biennale (8-30 March, 2014) where they have been commissioned to create a performance piece on 29 March.

The exhibition opening for The Last Supper will be held on Friday 21 March from 6pm. Ken + Julia Yonetani will also be participating in a panel discussion, The Last Supper: A Sustainability Talk, at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery on 12 April at 2pm.

For further information on works being exhibited as part of The Last Supper please contact Artereal Gallery.

Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre
782 Kingsway, Gymea NSW
Open daily 10am-5pm
Free admission

KEN + JULIA YONETANI / HAZELHURST REGIONAL GALLERY ARTIST RESIDENCY

Ken + Julia Yonetani_Hazelhurst Residency

From 22 March - 4 May 2014, Ken + Julia Yonetani will be exhibiting a new installation, The Last Supper, at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre. 

Developed during their four month residency at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, the installation recreates the Last Supper dining table as a 9 metre long banquet sculpted entirely from salt.

Following their 2011 solo exhibition at Artereal, Still Life:  The Food Bowl, this work continues to address the concerns arising from increasing salinity levels and environmental toxins, and its impact on food production and food safety. The salt works bring focus to the environmental cost of agricultural production and connect with the historical associations of salt - as a powerful, sacred substance that maintains life by enabling food preservation, but also induces the death of ecosystems and the collapse of empires. 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.

Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre - 782 Kingsway, Gymea NSW
Open daily 10am-5pm, free admission

ART + FOOD / BEYOND THE STILL LIFE

Ken + Julia Yonetani_Urn of Grapes_2011_ Murray River Salt_edition of 3_74.5 x 33cm

Ken + Julia Yonetani are currently included in a group exhibition entitled Art + Food: Beyond the Still Life at Brenda May Gallery.

Art + Food: Beyond the Still Life will consider the representation of food within the visual arts and beyond the standard still life tableaux. The consumption of food is a universally shared experience, enabling people viewing the exhibition to connect with the issues surrounding consumerism, food production and cultural identity. 

Some of the highlights will include a large installation of biscuit tins amassed by the artist Christine Turner over a 15-year period as well as an installation by Sue Saxon + Jane Becker of hundreds of fragile eggshells on strands of lights. The show will also include a number of photographs featuring melting ice sculptures by Janet Tavener, the colourful remnants of meals by Vin Ryan and both a colourful and melting ice block by Will Nolan. A sculpture composed of Murray River salt by Ken + Julia Yonetani will be offset by the artistic rendering of salt diffraction by Al Munro. The only traditional still life painting in the exhibition is by Michael Edwards who paints cement fruit which makes for a perfect pairing with the actual cast cement hamburgers by Will Coles. 

Curator, Megan Fizell, is a Sydney-based art historian and writer concerned with the representation of food in the visual arts. She is currently the Manager at Brenda May Gallery and is the voice of the popular food and art blog, Feasting on Art, an innovative translation of painting to plate – recipes inspired by art.

The exhibition opening for Art + Food: Beyond the Still Life will be held on Saturday 6 October from 4-6pm at Brenda May Gallery, 2 Danks Street, Waterloo.