Saturday, 10 November 2012

Chelsea HOPPER - "Dead Tired"

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"Beached"

"Pooped"       

Images courtesy of artist and Bruce Gallery

The latest exhibition at BruceGallery by artist Chelsea Hopper gives us insight into the practice of sunbathing by seniors. What comes to mind is contemporary version of The Sunbaker by Max Dupain.

Random individuals are photographed on various beaches throughout Perth tanning on towels oblivious to their surroundings. Enlarged postcards of retirement in its glorious form. Hopper has used the out-dated mode of film in an SLR camera. She had the images printed and then Hooper enlarged them herself.

One image titled "Pooped" is of a man who is lying facedown under a tree on a beach, fully clothed taking a rest from the world. He looks to be a tourist that is lost and stranded and is exhausted falls onto the sand. Another image titled "Beached" depicts a woman with a floral swimsuit, facedown on a towel with her belongings for the day beside her. It could be her only solace between looking after grandchildren and cooking for the husband.

Hopper has creatively depicted this genre of people, not the grey nomads but the over sun-kissed retirees, busking in all their glory.

Until the 17th of November, 2012

http://www.bruce.org.au/
http://www.chelseahopper.com/

Tuesday, 30 October 2012

Daniel AGDAG - "Sets for a Film l’ll never make"

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                                                         Empire Building
                                                                                           Image courtesy of artist and Off the Kerb Gallery
                                                       The Wait
                                                       Image Courtesy of artist and Off the Kerb Gallery

This latest exhibition at Off the Kerb Gallery is the first solo show for artist Daniel Agdag.
The title of the show adeptly describes the thread of each of these five intricately made works. As you walk into the gallery, you could mistakenly have entered a curiosity shop blended with the fantasia of writer Ronald Dahl and the surrealism of director Tim Burton.

At first greeted by the most robust and largest of the works is Amalgamated, a setting of an historical building site with warped nuances only viewed after further investigation. It looks to be a scene from a New York street or busy metropolis. All complete with a W class tram morphed with American cable cars. Created with cardboard that has been manipulated, rolled, flatten, cut and moulded. The attention to detail is spectacular and to think such a heavy laded piece could be light in weight boggles the mind. The architecture of the work is brilliantly composed and obviously researched.

The other works stand in glass domes presented on plinths pertaining to museum kept artefacts of a distant era.  The Wait is the most delicate of the pieces, which resembles an old hot air balloon warped slightly with the experimental makings of a machine. The glass dome protects this prototype with its transparent and delicate balloon as though it will deflate at any given moment if an insect would land on its surface.

These small sets expose the viewer to the artists imagined industrial estate. Far from the modern unsavoury factories and large corrugated sheds. A small wonderland of obscurities.

Until 9th of November

Sunday, 27 May 2012

Craig COLE – "Concrete Hermits"



                                          Concrete Hermits
                                                        Craig Cole
                                                        Courtesy of the artist 

This latest solo exhibition by artist Craig Cole is a set of polished concrete pieces that have been illustrated with oil paint. Each piece has a scene of an infamous character of Footscray set among the familiar urban landscape. The detail is impressive with each block of concrete standing at 10 x 30 cms. The pieces are well curated, framed on custom made shelves positioned at eye level giving each room to breathe.

Cole has obviously made himself familiar with these characters over a period of time. Each are oblivious to his attention and continue with their daily lives which may involve collecting trollies, asking for a cigarette to a passer-by or waiting for a bus. These are the people who are unaccounted for that is, outside mainstream society. They exist by other means of distribution and are more familiar to their community than say you or me.

Cole has executed their existence skilfully. A photographic snapshot of people on the peripheral of society. Using their own ways of survival instinctive of the human spirit. They may limp, wear clothes that are irregular, scream when it’s not appropriate or simply feed pigeons for pleasure when they can’t afford food for themselves. The raw and complicated painted on polished cold concrete gives warmth and a sense of direction of each piece.

On until the 10th of June.