CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS // IS THIS ART?

Are you an emerging or student video art filmmaker or writer?

dLux Media Arts and Artereal Gallery would love to feature your work in our IS THIS ART? screening in August.

Submissions close Friday, 3 July.

TULLY ARNOT WINS NAB PRIVATE WEALTH EMERGING ARTIST AWARD AHEAD OF SOLO EXHIBITION AT ARTEREAL FOR ART MONTH 2015

Image: Tully Arnot, Nervous Plant, 2014, 80 x 80 x 70cm, artificial plant, servomotors, microcontroller, light sensor, electronics, motion.

Tully Arnot, who was this week announced winner of the NAB Private Wealth Emerging Artist Award, will present a solo exhibition at Artereal Gallery as part of Art Month Sydney’s March 2015 programme.

Selected from over 300 emerging artists across Australia, Arnot was awarded the new, $10,000 acquisitive award on Wednesday, which seeks to recognise unrepresented artists in their first 10 years of practice.

“I’m stoked to be the winner of this year’s NAB Private Wealth Emerging Artist Award. As a young artist in Australia, it’s great to see an award recognising the many young artists working tirelessly across the country,” said Arnot.

As part of Art Month Sydney 2015, Tully Arnot’s exhibition at Artereal Gallery will showcase a new series of work that continues his exploration of the value of our relationships with non-sentient forms, and how these feed into our capacity to interact meaningfully with one another.

To bring this to life, Arnot will integrate complex technology with everyday or crass components – a merging of high and low thought that exemplifies the post-sentient nature of our increasingly connected, but ultimately disconnected world.

Arnot’s work is currently on display as part of the Finalists Exhibition at HASSELL Studio, Level 2, Pier 8/9, 23 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay Creative Precinct, Sydney. The exhibition is open to the public and will continue until Friday 20 September, 2014. The finalists include Julian Day, Mike Hewson, Katie Lee, Lisa Sammut, Camille Serisier, Bridget Walker and Jason Wing.

Tully Arnot’s exhibition at Artereal Gallery will run from Wednesday 4 March and will be on display until Saturday 28 March 2015. For more information, please visit www.artereal.com.au

DISSOLVE: 'WAYS OF SEEING' AND 'WAYS OF BEING'

Annamarie Dzendrowskyj kindly takes us behind the scenes of her practice and gives us a sneak peak into the making of her latest series of work...

Photo taken at National Art School 2011

My work is driven by a love of experiencing and exploring life. My previous job as a scuba diving instructor provided a first-hand experience of the submline- awe/terror and void in relation to nature. The underwater world is in constant flux. Everything you see is affected by movement, light and weather conditions, nothing is clearly defined. This previous experience has literally influenced how I approach painting, which intuitively results in work that reflects 'on land’ years of seeing what appears as dissolved forms underwater.

The work presented in the exhibition Dissolve at Aretreal Gallery (February 2012) was derived from my experiences of the Hospiz residency in the Austrian Alps in Feburary/March 2011. The residency offered conditions from sunshine to whiteout ,and also the opportunity to observe the unexpected.

The following photos were views from my window in the Austrian Alps. The photo bottom right was after 5 days of solid snow and the window was literally “snowed in”.

The unexpected took the form of a drive to Bregenz, about 2hrs from the Alps. A natural phenomenon occurs by the Bordense (Lake Constance) during winter where the town is situated. A fog hovers over any clear areas, so dense that it obscures vision. Bregenz itself is relatively clear as a town, but when you get to the lake, all visual perspective is destroyed.

The road to Bregenz, taken from moving vehicle. Austria Feb/March2011

View overlooking the Bordense (Lake Constance) from the town of Bregenz, Austria, Feb 2011

My process in developing work from these experiences, began with reviewing photograhphs. I view the act of taking a photograph as being equivalent to a sketch, a method to capture a fleeting moment, photos through the window of a moving vehicle, of rapidly changing weather. The selection of photos to consider when making work were not based on a specific narrative, although the selection might be described as filmic in the sense that I aim to select photos that relate to each other through tone/colour/presence/absence of form.

There are challenges with this process as a starting point. For example, to achieve a blurred movement from inside a vehicle, the type of vehicle and speed will affect the outcome. If a photo is being taken through a window affected by condensation, the amount of condensation present may be either too much or too little. The weather itself is crucial. To obtain bad/stormy/hazy weather, means being in the right place at the right time, which isn’t always possible. Notions of chance therefore play a large part in securing a workable starting point. The lack of control in the resulting photograph is appealing, and exciting, I never really know what to expect.

The next step I took was to sketch on drafting film from memory and photos whilst in Austria . Once back in Australia, I worked from the developed photos with the knowledge that I was now back in the land of vast blue skies and sunshine and wishing for the experience of the grey and non-descript. So memory and emotion comes into play.

The work then takes a rather considered approach to begin with. I may or may not adjust the lighting/colour in photoshop, this is more appropriate to the twilight series, which are actually daylight images shifted in photoshop.

                   Twilight M25 I original photo                                                             Twilight M25 I black and white

Twilight M25 I painting in progress                                                        Twilight M25 I final result

The following applies to all work:

Draw in watercolour pencil...why? Drawing an image to begin with provides the ground for me. The imagery remains. I begin with the photograph. it is what is there (not saying it is real..thats another argument), just that is what is in front of me of. But what takes it away from a direct copy of a photograph, is to consider the painting as a shift from, an emergence of the image, that is then destroyed, brought back and then destroyed again and after many attempts at this process, finally realised. What is this process? Its an attempt at realising the images as it was as experienced...fleeting tho that may be. Hence the many attempts at removal/re-draw /remove/paint over, layer after layer. This then becomes the reason why I work with such thin layers of paint-almost nothing at times. Less becomes more...the less paint I use, the easier it is to remove, and re draw/re-paint, till the work reaches a point where it might be considered resolved.

     original photo                                             Road to Bregenz II in progress                  End result - Road to Bregenz II

   Original photo                                             Road to Bregenz IV in progress                   End result - Road to Bregenz IV   

At which point I leave the canvas, and then return a month or two later to re-consider. As this is a time consuming process, I tend to work on at least four-six paintings at any given point in time. I am always reconsidering previous work in line with current work. This affects both, whether for good or bad, but its a constant re- evaluation.

Since completing my degree at National Art School last November 2011, I’ve lost access to a studio space and been working at home. The floor and kitchen bench tops have become my work area. But as my process is inspired by exploring life experiences, these are of the prime importance, not where I produce the resulting work. I’m looking forward to my next adventure.....

Work space at home....2012

First exhibitions for 2012: Svetlana Bailey and Annamarie Dzendrowskyj....

Svetlana Bailey_10-17_2010_Type C print_edition of 8_100 x 100cm

First post of the year! We are back and Artereal Gallery has officially reopened after a blissful five week summer hiatus.

Our first exhibitions for 2012, two solo exhibitions of work by Svetlana Bailey and Annamarie Dzendrowskyj, opened on Wednesday evening. The exhibition has so far been a great success and very well received, with seven works selling prior to the exhibition opening!

It has become a tradition at Artereal Gallery in recent years to dedicate our February exhibition slot to emerging artists fresh out of art school and we have kept that tradition alive in 2012.

Svetlana Bailey has just graduated from COFA in Sydney and is recently returned from China having just completed a residency at Red Gate Gallery in Beijing. Her exhibition Fog is her first solo exhibition at Artereal Gallery and features recent works which investigate the insecurity of our experience within the landscape. Through her photographic images Svetlana explores the phenomenon of fog as a portal to experiencing the transitory quality of our surroundings.

Svetlana Bailey_10-01_2010_Type C print_edition of 8_120 x 120cm

In the process of creating her works, Svetlana seeks out locations of dense fog world-wide. Having researched and selected an area she can wait around for days for the appropriate atmospheric conditions and effect and the ideal photographic opportunity. The end result are her stunning images which capture the landscape covered in fog. This landscape is revealed as a place for introspection and a time for aloneness. In fog, objects become obscured and the horizon is blanketed or hidden, which stimulates ideas of boundlessness and the uncertainty of perception. Objects lose their finiteness of appearance, and we are reminded that the reality that surrounds us may not be as permanent or solid as we try to believe.

Annamarie Dzendrowskyj_Passing Time II_2011_oil on polymer canvas_60 x 84cm

Annamarie Dzendrowskyj_Twilight Road to Bregenz II_2011_oil on polymer canvas_29 x 38.5cm

Annamarie Dzendrowskyj, another recent graduate, has just completed her Bacherlor of Fine Arts with Honours at the National Art School in Sydney. Her solo exhibition Dissolve features newly completed paintings of the Austrian landscape resulting from a recent artist residency in Austria.

Annamarie's work seeks to explore and paint that ambiguous ‘grey area’ between presence and absence in the atmospheric and haunting Austrian landscape. Her images evoke a kind of netherworld that conflates time, place, vision, and memory. An investigation into the indeterminate nature of ‘ways of seeing’ and ‘ways of being’, Annamarie's works could be metaphors for states of mind as much as they are specific sites. Her landscapes appear to simultaneously emerge and dissolve, whilst still retaining recognisable elements of imagery.

Both artists have managed to create hauntingly beautiful work that is both subtle and powerful.

Thank you to everyone who came along to the exhibition opening and made it such an enjoyable evening. If you have not yet been in to see these exhibitions, they will run until 3 March, so be sure to drop in...