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20/9/05 - 1/10/05 Fringe Festival Exhibition 05.1: PHIL (LUCKY) EDWARDS, CAROL VAN REESE, DARREN MCPHERSON & ANNE HASTIE. Paintings and mixed media.
4/10/05 - 22/10/05 Fringe Festival Exhibition 05.2: TANYA THOMPSON, MELINDA MUSCAT & FRANK DUYKER. Paintings and sculpture.
http://www.melbournefringe.com.au
Fringe @ Vanguard 05.1+05.2
Vanguard Gallery presents two exhibitions for the 2005 Melbourne Fringe Festival; showcasing a diverse range of works by seven contemporary
Melbourne visual artists. Mixed themes reflect upon modern lifestyles, culture, environment and politics.
Fringe @ Vanguard 05.1 20/9/05 - 1/10/05 Opening night: Thurs 22nd Sept 6-8pm
Phil (Lucky) Edwards
Born and raised in the Warragul area in West Gippsland Lucky Edwards developed a
passion for the outdoors and the remanet forests that dot the area. This passion
of the environment as a clean system that has intrinsic value has informed his
work themes from the outset. His Undergraduate training started in 1989 at the
Victorian College of the arts graduating in 1992. Lucky has lived and worked in
both the country and city. He has been a resident of Melbourne since 1999. His
artworks have become more critical of the effect that a city has on its outer
environment as it draws and redirects resources to maintain its industry and
residence. Since 2003 he has become particularly critical of the global economy
and the escalating devastation it bares on the planet. He creates dialog about
the role of consumerism on global growth and psychological formation found in
and by using glossy goods. Lucky advocates a fare and sustainable use of
environmental capital for all living things.
‘FACTORY PAINTINGS’
These oil paintings by Lucky Edwards explore the beautiful aesthetic qualities of factories. Beautiful rooflines, rows of chimneys and industrial water towers are painted utilising a striped back palette of warm and cool colours. Simply enjoying the form of the buildings almost sculptural quality they are contrasted with the more environmental insidious pollution related to manufacturing industries. The factories sit in isolation surrounded by a baron, warmer and polluted landscape. The factories are metaphors that communicate the objectification of consumerism and the distractive nature of globalisation. Like the aesthetic of the factories, new packaged goods are appealing but they hold the key to reduction and a more sustainable future.
Anne Hastie
Anne Hastie was born in 1955 in Melbourne, which is where she currently lives. She is a painting graduate of the VCA and of Phillip Institute of Technology. The focus of her work has always been abstraction, and her preferred medium is paint, both oil and acrylic.
A recent artist-in-residency program in Beijing afforded Anne a wonderful opportunity to focus on her arts practice within a very different environment to Australia. Not only was it a chance to work away from normal routines and distractions, the experience gave her the chance to respond artistically to locational and cultural features that contrasted greatly to her usual surroundings, as well as meet lots of Chinese and international artists. This experience proved a terrific boost to her work, and has had a profound impact on the pieces she has made recently.
Whilst Anne’s paintings are purely abstract in their imagery, she makes reference to the world around her, mainly to older aspects of the urban environment. Her paintings are a response to the layers, structures, colors, textures and light of the city; to maps, vistas and skylines, parks and gardens, high-rise buildings, construction sites, billboards, and to the various surfaces a city can contain.
In addition to qualifications in health service management administration and teaching she holds fine arts qualifications from Victorian College of the Arts (1975 and 1981) and Phillip Institute of Technology (1985).
Exhibitions in 2005 include at Cusp Gallery in Northcote (August 13 – September 3, 2005), Beijing’s Red Gate Gallery Artist-In-Residency Program - Open Studio, Beijing International Art Camp, and ‘Resemblance’ at Gabriel Gallery, Footscray.
Anne has participated in numerous group exhibitions, and held her first solo show in 1977. Her work is held in collections at Victoria University, Western Health and in private collections in Australia, USA and China.
Darren McPherson
With an infinitesimal number of choices of images, words, colors and chickens to select from; darren finds that keeping one thing constant, being the circle, doesn’t really help much. so why does he continue to favor the cable drum as a backdrop for his ‘visual one liners’? darren feels a certain rapport with the cable drum; their presence and physicality and inherent masculinity are amongst the qualities of these discs that allow him to think of them as his friends. “it’s just like working on a big donut” darren often says.
Having become comfortable with working on this surface, he empowers these boards with the confidence to tell their own stories, through himself, like a modern day gepetto.
Before discovering the drums, darren spent a lot of time drawing large circles with a specially adapted blackboard compass. however this presented the problem of dealing with the circle as either a positive or a negative area. in other words he didn’t know whether to concentrate on what was within the circles or their surrounds. he refers to this dilemma as ‘the double entendre’. Having freed himself from this troublesome dilemma, darren could begin to concentrate upon developing his own personal set of images and iconography; which he allows the drums to choose from. It is as if these images are like pawns in a precarious mind game, in which both darren and the cable drum are trying to outwit each other, as they together journey along the sentimental path of modern art.
Darren recently held a solo exhibition entitled Round Paintings With an Edge at Vanguard Gallery - Aug 2005
Carol van Rees
Working in the set construction industry as a painter, inspired in Carol van Rees an interest in industrial space. The vast structural interiors of old factories, studios and event sites led her to the development of these images. The reflective glass and steel elements in contrast with old rust and brick surfaces depict a change in time, capturing the industrial transition from old to new.
Carol van Rees recently held a successful solo exhibition entitled Industrial Light at Vanguard Gallery - April 2005
Fringe @ Vanguard 05.2 4/10/05 - 15/10/05 Opening night: Fri 7th Oct 6-8pm
Tanya Thompson
Tanya Thompson attempts to engage through her paintings the hopes, fears and longings of the Nepalese people who are undergoing rapid changes and uncertainty of their future in a modern world.
“In this forum the artist examine the common threads of humanity that link and unite people in their universality / commonality. Through the rich collusion of differing but equally stunning stylisation’s, we see caring, empathy, fragility, growth and change are projected in the characters of simple and beautiful humanity. They are interwoven to display a cultural continuum that transcends language, difference and intolerance.” - Tanya Thompson.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
22.03.2005 ‘In the Loop’ – ABC Radio Australia, Interview "Repect your body - don't loathe it !" An emerging Melbourne artist has just produced a series of paintings aimed at encouraging young women to ignore media images of "perfection". Tanya Thompson explains why she feels strongly about the current obsession with the body-perfect.
19.04.05 The Age (The Metro) ‘Love Your Body – It’s the only one you’ve got’- Rachel Wells
30.04.2005 A Dog's Breakfast - PBS Radio (106.7 FM) Melbourne Glen Morrow
27.04.05 Beat Magazine (Melbourne Street magazine) issue #959
Tanya recently held a successful solo exhibition entitled Dear Society at Vanguard Gallery - April 2005
Melinda Muscat
Melinda Muscat is a Melbourne based artist who has been painting and exhibiting for twenty years. Working in traditional and digital painting mediums her main focus is on vibrant colour and dreamlike landscapes, people and other elements all of a surreal nature, with a Flemish and Baroque influence.
Melinda recently participated in the 2004 Vanguard Galllery Xmas group show
Frank Duyker
Frank’s love of sculpture and particularly of wood as a medium, dates back to his early teens when he carved small pieces of Oregon in his suburban backyard. After training as both an engineer and designer he continued carving. In the 1980s he studied a series of furniture carving subjects at TAFE which greatly improved his skills to shape wood. In the early 1990s he used laser-cutting techniques to produce innovative sculptures and since then he has increasingly used mixed media to assemble low relief pieces.
In 2002-3 he worked as artist Chris Bell’s technical designer to construct the huge, hi-tech “Sun Drawing” sculpture. This sculpture is a system of motorised mirrors which respond to radio wave activity in the CBD of Melbourne. It is permanently installed at Federation Square.
Recently he has experimented with collages made from painted and routed wood, adorned with recycled computer hardware to form primitive panels reminiscent of bark paintings.