LIAM BENSON // 'OVER VIEW' TRAVELLING INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF VIDEO ART

Image: Liam Benson, He Looks Just Like His Mother, 2012, HD Video, 2 mins 3 seconds

OVER VIEW
8 countries | 8 curators | 47 artists | 8 exhibitions | 240 minutes of film

Sydney-based inter-disciplinary artist, Liam Benson, has been selected for inclusion in Over View Travelling International Festival of Video Art, a film and video art project initiated in the Netherlands. 

Over View provides a spectrum of global visions from a compendium of artists, curators and countries and allows audiences to gain an ‘over view’ of creative practices in the world right now. Curators from participating countries have each composed a 30-minute screening program of contemporary moving image works from key artists in their homelands. The result is a significant collection of audio-visual ‘portraits’ from Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Egypt, Hong Kong, Mali, USA, and The Netherlands. 

The inaugural Over View festival commenced a world tour in 2014 and will now travel to Sydney during November 2015 for its Australian premiere. Presented by dLux Media Arts and UNSW, the Australian premier of Over View is curated by Sarah Vanderpeer from dLux Media Arts and opens  on Friday 6 November at UNSW Galleries. 

Sarah Vandepeer has curated a thirty minute program of video works to the theme of ‘what’s on’, in reference to current tendencies and dialectics in Australian contemporary art. Seven important emerging and established Australian artists have been selected: LIAM BENSON, JULIA DAVIS, JOHN A. DOUGLAS, NIKKI LAM, TONY LAWRENCE, LIAM O’BRIEN, NICOLA WALKERDEN.

Over View can be seen at UNSW Galleries from 6-7 November 2015.

LIAM BENSON // Selected for inclusion in Over View Travelling International Festival of Video Art

Image: Liam Benson, He Looks Just Like His Mother, 2012, HD Video, 2 mins 3 seconds

Sydney-based inter-disciplinary artist, Liam Benson, has been selected for inclusion in the inaugural Over View Travelling International Festival of Video Art, a film and video art project initiated in the Netherlands. 

Presented by dLux Media Arts and UNSW, Over View is curated by dLux Media Arts’ Sarah Vanderpeer and opens Friday 6 November at UNSW Galleries. 

The Sydney instalment of Over View includes the work of Liam Benson, Julia Davis, John A. Douglas, Nikki Lam, Tony Lawrence, Nicola Walkerden and Liam O’Brien. 

During August 2014, Over View previewed internationally at the Open Air Festival De Kaaij in the Netherlands as a compendium of global visions by video artists from eight participating countries.

EMILY SANDRUSSI WINS THE 2014 JOHN COBURN EMERGING ARTIST AWARD!

Emily Sandrussi_Domino Theory 7_2013_archival pigment print_100 x 100cm_edition of 3

Winner of the 2014 John Coburn Emerging Artist Award

Artereal Gallery would like to congratulate Emily Sandrussi on winning the 2014 John Coburn Emerging Artist Award! Emily was awarded the prize for her photographic work, Domino Theory 7, from the series Domino Theory, which is currently showing at Artereal Gallery until Saturday 20 December. 

The $5,000 award, which comes under the auspices of the Blake Prize, has been judged by Artspace Director, Alexie Glass-Kantor, Anne Ferran, artist, and Dr Alex Norman, a University of Sydney Lecturer of Studies in Religion. The judges commended Sandrussi’s work for its spiritual eloquence. 

Dr Alex Norman commented; “At many points throughout the judging we were moved by the extraordinary breadth, depth and seriousness of the works proposed. The John Coburn Emerging Artist Prize goes to an eloquent and poignant work reflecting on mortality and memory from the extraordinary young artist Emily Sandrussi”. 

Domino Theory is a poignant contemporary ‘memento mori’ that is both deeply personal and universal. It is an artefact that focuses on the passing of time, the trauma and legacy of a war decades after it has ended. The suite of images has been created from an archive of photographic negatives taken by the artist’s late Stepfather during service as a conscript of the Vietnam War. Her potent, pastel-hued photographic variations were created from scanned images, incorporating spontaneous corruptions to acknowledge the passage of time and distortion of memory. 

Emily Sandrussi commented; "I'm honoured to be selected for the John Coburn Emerging Artist Award. Opportunities like this are so valuable in establishing a career in the arts, I feel truly thankful." 

It’s been a big year for Sandrussi, who in December 2013, won the inaugural Artereal Gallery Mentorship Award and has since undergone a year of professional mentoring with the Artereal team. The mentorship has culminated in a solo exhibition of her work, which is currently being exhibited at Artereal Gallery. 

The 2014 Blake Art Prize received over 950 entries this year, which was honed to 52 finalists. An exhibition of all finalists’ artworks is on at UNSW Galleries until 31 January 2015. 

Emily Sandrussi is the third Artereal artist in the past four years to win the prestigious John Coburn Emerging Artist Award. Artereal Gallery would also like to congratulate Hayden Fowler and Owen Leong, both of whom are also finalists in the 2014 Blake Prize. 

Emily Sandrussi's current exhibition Domino Theory and Owen Leong's current exhibition Bloodmilk can be seen at Artereal Gallery until Saturday 20 December 2014. 

Emily Sandrussi_Domino Theory 9_2013_archival pigment print_100 x 100cm_edition of 3

Emily Sandrussi_Domino Theory 2_2013_archival pigment print_100 x 100cm_edition of 3

Emily Sandrussi_Domino Theory 12_2013_archival pigment print_100 x 100cm_edition of 3

HAYDEN FOWLER, OWEN LEONG AND EMILY SANDRUSSI SHORTLISTED FOR THE BLAKE PRIZE

Image: Owen Leong, Cutting (diptych), 2014, archival pigment on cotton paper, 100 x 143cm, edition of 2

Congratulations to Hayden Fowler, Owen Leong and Emily Sandrussi - all of whom are finalists in this year's distinguished Blake Prize and were selected from over 1000 entries.

Now in its 63rd year, the prestigious award is handed out annually by The Blake Society with the aim of challenging artists to investigate ideas and issues surrounding spiritual thought and religion in contemporary art and literature. Open to all faiths, artistic styles and media, the prize seeks to unearth the multitude of ways in which notions of faith can be explored in contemporary conversations.

Hayden Fowler's interdisciplinary practice reflects on the consequences of the increasing separation between humanity and nature at a time when it is becoming more and more difficult to define what is natural. He has been shortlisted for his mesmerising video artwork, New World Order. 

Owen Leong has been shortlisted for his artwork, Cutting (diptych), which depicts the artist's mother and father holding an orchid cactus entombed in wax. Also known as 'Queen of the Night', this plant can take up to a year to produce a flower that only blooms for a single night. Planted by his parents in the home where he was born, it has been nurtured and regrown from cutting to cutting and used by the artist's grandmother to make a healing soup.

In her suite of artworks, Domino Theory, Emily Sandrussi has been inspired by old photographs taken by her stepfather during the Vietnam War, which she has scanned and deliberately altered via digital corruption. Domino Theory is a poignant contemporary 'momento mori' which is both deeply personal as well as universal.

Image: Emily Sandrussi, Untitled, 2013, from the series Domino Theory, pigment inkjet print, 100 x 100cm 

  

Bloodmilk and Domino Theory can be seen at Artereal Gallery until 20 December.

The Blake Finalist Exhibition is presented at UNSW Galleries from Friday 12 December - Saturday 31 January 2015.