A century ago art provocateur Marcel Duchamp overturned the definition of sculpture when he exhibited a found object as art. Fifty years later conceptualists, earth artists and performance artists tried to abandon the object altogether in an embrace of art as idea and experience. Today, it seems that the sculptural object is back and along with it artists’ renewed fascination for physical and transformative sculptural processes like casting and carving. In this exhibition however, sculptural processes are adopted not by artists usually associated with three dimensions, but by those usually more at home in the world of two.
 
For this year’s art fair Jan Murphy set her artists David Band, Kirra Jamison, Rhys Lee, Ben Quilty, Leslie Rice and Alexander Seton, the challenge of working differently and for most of them this meant taking a step into three dimensions. For sculptor Alexander Seton this meant the challenge of investing bronze with the physical presence of marble, his conventional material of choice.
 
Painters have long been drawn to sculpture – to the promise of breathing life into their work – and this Pygmalion complex has taken hold with the generation of sculptural works in timber, resin, pewter and bronze. Most of the artists are also showing two-dimensional work, thereby providing a touchstone for viewers and inviting a conversation between the known and the new.
 
But don’t expect monuments or public art statements, these sculptures are for living with. Intimately scaled, they present the challenge of something new to both artist and collector. By working in series, editions or multiples, these artists are able to make art available to a broader audience. Artists in the United Kingdom and Europe have in recent times begun working this way, demonstrating, like these artists, their technical finesse and conceptual agility. Just as the earliest sculptural practices involved the making of small scaled figures (the most famous being the 25,000 year old Venus of Willendorf) contemporary artists are embracing the votive, the magical and the intimate.
 
Join us at Stand # 60, 4-8 August,
Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne
 
www.melbourneartfoundation.com
 

Please join Heidi Yardley at the gallery on Thursday 15th July at 6pm when she will be speaking about her latest exhibition Gift For The Darkness.

Inspired by a visit to Victoria's famous 'Hanging Rock', the site always held fascination for Yardley not only for its natural beauty and mystery but as the site of the film 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' directed by Peter Weir in 1975.

This exhibition explores aspects of the Australian landscape and it's mythology with the human figure at the heart of the story. Clues to our collective consciousness of past Australian mysteries include the dingo as a possible reference to the disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain. However, the images do not offer literal interpretation but create a kind of mood and a melancholy familiarity. Amongst this is suggestion of ritual, lending an eerie quality to otherwise unassuming landscapes. At times decorated in body paint or sporting cuts and bruises, her figures seem lonely in their attempt to connect with primeval urges. The mystery and brutality of the Australian landscape is always present.

It was great to spend some time with Adam Lester in his studio and to preview his forthcoming exhibition, Gumbo.

Adam graciously answered all manor of questions regarding his work and practice and clients were treated to a sneak peak into the 'inner sanctum'—his studio. Studio visits give a rare and privileged insight into the working mind of the artist.

Gumbo will be hanging from Tuesday 15 June and can be previewed at the gallery or online under 'Upcoming Exhibition'.

For those who missed the ABC's Artscape on Tuesday night, the Ben Quilty and the Maggots video can be viewed on ABC's Artscape website by clicking here.

This is an insightful look into Ben's world and should not be missed.

Congratulations to Robert Malherbe who is a finalist in both the Archibald and Wynne Prizes. Selected from 849 entries, Malherbe's portrait of fellow artist Luke Sciberras is liiustrated to the right. A list of all finalists may be viewed at: http://www.thearchibaldprize.com.au/finalists/archibald/ The winners will be announced on Friday 26th of March.

Both Marina Strocchi and Dean Bowen are also finalists in this years Wynne Prize. $25,000 is awarded by the judges for the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours.

We wish all of our finalists the best of luck.

A Picture Book First and Foremost is a recent
publication illustrating the work and environments
of Australian artist David Bromley. Capturing the two
distinct and unique languages of Bromley’s work –
the female portrait and the children’s series,
this publication is presented in two unique editions.
The standard edition includes three books within
a handmade slip, while the limited edition presents
the three volumes in a hand made leather school
bag, with a limited edition print.  
 
One of the three volumes is dedicated entirely
to the artist’s various studio spaces. Beautifully photographed by Earl Carter, the images in this
book provide a rare glimpse into the magical worlds
that Bromley occupies.
 
Bromley’s only Queensland signing of A Picture Book First and Foremost will take place at the Jan Murphy Gallery on Sunday 21 March, 2-4 pm and in conjunction with the launch of his new exhibition, Pin-ups and Picture Books.
 
All Welcome.

Danie Mellor is the 2010 recipient of the Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing awarded by the Adelaide Perry Gallery, PLC Croydon.  His winning work, The Offerings (A Custom Ritual) is a diptych and mixed media on paper.

The first exhibition for 2010 is A.J. Taylor's Brisbane River. Hanging from Tuesday the 23rd of February, this latest body of work is a continuation of his fascination with the 'framed' view. However, unlike previous shows, the location takes a more significant role.

Hours spent on or around the iconic Brisbane River in the past two years has provided Taylor with ample photographic material. Far from being simple 'scenic views', these works continue to challenge our perceptions of the traditional landscape.

Like the impressionist artists that have inspired him, Taylor's aesthetic goal is to test our visual limits,making us complicit in the visual dynamic between experience and form.  As is now characteristic of his work, the margins or edges are unresolved, forcing the viewer to question what initially appears to be a familiar, almost comfortable view.He asks: "Can I make truly evocative painting from an apparently mundane landscape; something taken for granted as everyday and therefore uninteresting?"

 

The Gallery will be closed from the 25th of December until the 2nd of February 2010. 'Brisbane River' an exhibition of small works by A.J Taylor will open at the end of February.

Gonkar Gyatso & Huang Xu
4th December – 19th December

In keeping with the spirit of the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial, Jan Murphy Gallery in collaboration with  
China Art Projects, Beijing, presents an exhibition of recent works by Gonkar Gyatso and Huang Xu.
 
Gonkar Gyatso was born in 1961 in Lhasa and studied Fine Art in Beijing and London. He currently  
lives and works between New York and London, where he founded the contemporary Tibetan art gallery, The Sweet Tea House. Gyatso's work examines the cultural hybridism of globalization through his own experiences of life in the Tibetan Diaspora. He has exhibited internationally in galleries and museums in Europe, North America, China and Australia and his work is held in the collections of the Newark Museum (USA), the Pitt Rivers Museum (United Kingdom), Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (Australia), Burger Collection (Switzerland), Rossi & Rossi (London), Red Gate Gallery (Beijing) and numerous private
collections. He was selected to participate in the 53rd Venice Biennale and will be exhibiting at APT6  
in Brisbane.
 
In his Brisbane debut, contemporary Chinese artist Huang Xu, presents a series of otherworldly, oversize C-prints of discarded plastic bags remodeled in 3D scanners. These images, both mysterious and sublime, evoke the sumptuous folds of delicate, silken garments, recalling the traditional fabrics of his country’s imperial past and reflecting critically on his nation’s rush to modernity. Huang Xu was born in Beijing in 1968.  He established the Substratum Art Studio in 1989, the Migrant Bird Art Studio in 1991 and the Big Basin Studio in 2003.  He has exhibited in the United Kingdom, Australia and China and works in Beijing.

Congratulations to Alexander Seton who beat 42 other leading Australian sculptors to take first prize in the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize. 

Established in 2001,this prestigious prize attracts strong support from artists, collectors and critics and is one of only two national prizes that showcases the quality and diversity of sculptures of smaller dimensions.

An acquisitive award of $10,000, Seton won the prize with his work ‘I…U’, a Bianca marble hooded jumper with resin inlay. This work considers notions of self-presentation and communication. A ‘hoodie’ jersey lies crumpled on the ground, as if casually discarded by the wearer. Obscured lettering can be read on the crumpled chest of the jersey, ‘I…E…U’. The ambiguous missing centre word ending in E could be love, hate or something else?  The partial message in SMS text shorthand within the carved folds implies the transience, and inbuilt melancholy of frustrated and abbreviated expression.

James Guppy’s recent Survey exhibition, Seduction and Subversion, has just opened at the Tweed River Art Gallery. Exhibiting works from 1989 to 2009, this show is a well curated and thoughtfully constructed collection of paintings spanning the last twenty years. There is a comprehensive catalogue (available from the Jan Murphy Gallery), with essays by Alison Kubler and Andrew Frost.

Thank you to those clients who kindly agreed to lend their works to this show. Travelling to 10 venues over two years, their generosity has not gone unnoticed.

Seduction and Subversion will be exhibited at Tweed River Art Gallery, until 15 November 2009. It then travels to Ipswich Art Gallery: 28 November 2009 – 17 January 2010, before making it’s way down the East coast.

Currently exhibiting at the beautiful TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville, Victoria, Quilty’s survey show has been getting rave reviews. Initiated by The University of Queensland Art Museum, this exhibition looks at the past seven years of Ben’s production. Including his iconic Torana cars, budgerigars, portraits, skulls and more recent Rorschach’s, this show (and catalogue) is a must for all Quilty fans.

Again, our thanks go out to all those clients who have lent their works – even a small Quilty leaves a large hole on the wall! Your paintings will be back soon as this show ends on 15 November 2009.  For those of you who are interested, we have copies of a number of reviews from The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Art Monthly and The Courier Mail.

You may also be interested to read Germain Greer’s article on Ben Quilty in ‘The Guardian’.

Ben’s next solo exhibition is scheduled with the Gallery for May 2010.

David Bromley’s long awaited book is finally at the printers. A three volume production divided into ‘Boys Own’, ‘Nudes’ and ‘Studios’, A Picture Book First and Foremost is 240 pages in total. Available in both limited and normal editions, please call the gallery if you would like to pre-order a copy, +61 7 3254 1855.