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Contemporary Art Awards 2018
Finalist Exhibition
Exhibition:11 January - 11 June 2018
Congratulations to the 2018 Winners
First Prize: Kym Frame (QLD)
Highly Commended: Carmel Louise (VIC), Amandeep Kaur (ACT), Rhys Knight (VIC)
Adam Pearson, Al Roberts, Alberto Monte Rego, Aldona Kmiec, Alejandra Sieder, Amalea Manifis, Amandeep Kaur,
Amber Countryman, Amica Whincop, Anastasia Parmson, Andy Mullens, Anna Russell-Smith, Annalise Fogg, Arjang
Razzazian, Carmel Louise, Danae Thyssen, Daniel Kneebone, Daniel O'Hanlon, Daniel Sherington, Ella Baudinet,
Elmari Steyn, Eugene Rubuls, Greg Flynn, Helen Oprey, Hugh Kerr, Jae Hyun Kwon, James Gardiner, Jan Bird, Janelle
Amos, Jeramie Scahill, Jonathan Garcia Mainou, Jude Hotchkiss, Julie Hollis, Kate Bender, Katrin Terton, Kay Armstrong,
Kym Frame, Lauri Smith, Leah Doeland, Leah Jeffries, Leah Mariani, Leonie Scott, Lilli Waters, Logan Moody,
Mark Bagally, Matthew Portch, Mehrnoosh Ganji, Michael Burgess, Michael Dyson, Miho Watanabe, Noriko Sugita,
Rhys Knight, Robin Wagenvoort, Rochelle Alahendra, Rodney Greenstreet, Roger Callen, Rosie Lloyd-Giblett,
Ruby Purple, Sally O'Callaghan, Samir Hamaiel, Sandra Cipriotti, Sheilla Njoto, Shereen Mahmoud, Silvia A Sellitto,
Skye Tranter, Stephen Tiernan, Susannah Paterson, Virginie Senbel-Lynch, Wade Goring, Wayde Owen, Wendy Goodwin,
Ken Goshen, Peter & Molly, and Youjia Lu.
This self-portrait is essentially a multi-layered and multi-faceted exploration of balance. I have explored the concept of balance through colour, shape, dark & light and also the aspect of balance within myself. Having had a long and tumultuous relationship with a variety of forms of self-expression, I have stumbled across a style of creating that I feel embodies my wish to create something beautiful, unconventional and controversial in its aesthetic. This work combines my love of folk-art & decorative elements, with the desire to explore spiritual aspects of myself, concepts of idealism and juxtaposition. Self Portrait in Winter (2017) is a pivotal or climactic piece in a series of abstract and surreal pen drawings.
Self Portrait in Winter
Al Roberts
Every day, when I put my work shirt on I quickly contort my body into peculiar positions, so I do not have to undo any of the time-consuming buttons. I save approximately forty seconds per day putting on and taking off my shirt this way. Over the average working person's life, it can save forty seconds per day, three minutes and thirty-three seconds per week, 2.66 hours a year, which equates to five full days over a 45-year working career. That's a lot of time you can save from merely not wasting your time with buttons.
Alberto Monte Rego
Gripping for Life
Archival inkjet print
Queensland, Australia
Like a lot of my work, this piece began with an intended play with simple photographic techniques to bring movement and life to the subject. Secondary, through the editing process, a phase of revelation begins, when appreciable lines, shapes and colours combine to create a narrative. "Gripping for Life" reflects those elements and appearing forms, a dark, deep, perhaps damaged picture of our depressed forests. But, it also reveals a strong, resilient and alive state. Focusing on aesthetic values, the image is intended to stimulate our visual senses and encourage reflection on our relationships with nature.
In the Process of Healing (2017) is an immersive installation of photography, sound and space which attempts to remove the stigma around trauma and normalise conversations that are difficult. In the Process of Healing (2017) tells a story of hope and survival. Responding to the stories of institutional abuse and growing rates of suicide, I have worked with a local refugee family to create a moving and respectful collection that reflects the process of healing. My vision is to give hope. To document the invisible lives, drowned by society's attempts to maintain normalcy through keeping their eyes shut, pretending that lives don't exist, referring to them as numbers. These are important conversations to have in our community, and this installation provides a contemplative and physical space for conversations about trauma and moving forward in life. "
The room with the 'Chair of Nails' is terrifyingly effective and heightens a physical sense of traumatic experience within the body and the mind. The floating images on fabric depict a family of refugees with their faces hidden, conveying a sense of fear, hope and the journey towards healing.
Aldona Kmiec
Invisible Lives (From the Process of Healing Series)
Invisible Lives
Photograph on fabric
Invisible Lives - Chair of Nails
Antique chair, old barb wire and nails
Alejandra Sieder
I am here in front of you. My soul is a fire, brilliant and powerful as yours. I control my thoughts, and I convert them into real evidence that is created from my mind. I have the potential to create everything I want, like you, in harmony with the Universe... All my thoughts are like seeds, they have life itself, and through my magical hands, they become realities when the environment is perfect to materialise them. I have my own power as you have yours. We are together through the path on this same Earth. I invite you to go on a journey inside your mind, your soul, and your skin and then find your own extraordinary gift. Have you realised all the power you have in your cells?
Shaping thoughts into physical manifestations
Acrylic, oil and ink on canvas
Alejandra Seider
Amalea Manifis
Anamnesis in classical philosophy is the act of significant remembering; it does not simply refer to the past, but its resonance within the present. Anamnesis and its antithesis (historical amnesia) are central to the work of Amalea Manifis. Her work is an active reconstruction of the past from the fragmentary remains of an original trace. Amalea focuses on her own ancestor's history, particularly the genocide in Smyrna in 1922. Without the individual and collective memory, narratives between generations can be silenced, barred from entering the field of history.
Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Amandeep Kaur experiments with digitally created photomontages that have layers of deliberately fabricated liminal spaces in which the idea of the self is explored. Amandeep creates the works using digital photographs of various local and foreign spatial environments that she has visited in the recent past. Her work is often women-centric and questions the displacement, dislocation and also the connections and negotiations of women through the journey of transmigration. Her current works are titled 'Liminal Mindscapes' as they explore possibilities of belonging to multiple places and the merging of local and global environments through multiple auto-ethnographic narratives.
Liminal Mindscapes (Aussies Clouds in Tokyo)
Digital print - limited edition of 9
118.9 x 84.1cm
Amber Countryman
I realise a dirty old piece of coal, and white satin gloves don't usually have much in common, but what connects them? MONEY. This coal jewellery is meant to represent wealth and excessiveness. I wanted to inspire questions of cost...not to the wearer, but to the environment. I want to ask if the economy, jobs and personal fortunes hold more value than the environment we rely on to sustain us. I want to suggest renewable, long-term energy sources as a more viable option than this dirty old piece of coal...leave it in the ground.
What's the Cost
Coal, jewellery findings, stand, satin gloves and fabric
Amica Whincop
"If I should die this very moment, I've never known completeness, like being here with you" - Lamb (Gorecki)
It is a constant effort to find balance amidst the unpredictability and chaos of life. Nature becomes the place I turn to where the chaos becomes calm, and the contradictions find balance. My art-making reflects this constant search to capture the beauty, tranquillity, and balance inspired by the rhythms and energy of the natural world. The mystery and the wonder that emerges within the natural world are sources of endless inspiration.
Ink, acrylic, enamel, aerosol on canvas
152 x 76 x 3cm
Anastasia Parmson
I want to take drawing past its conventional two-dimensional format by combining it with other mediums such as sculpture & ready-made, video & performance, social media & augmented reality. To not just seen – but experienced.
Stripping everything down to the line - that is the most basic form of every drawing. A way to simplify, to blank out heavy implications and make things more light and approachable. Ultimately, I want my work to be about drawing people together. Perhaps creating a world in drawing can strip away enough preconceived notions to allow for a new space of co-existing.
Untitled (My space at May Space)
Ready-made objects, paint, paint marker
82 x 151 x 127cm
Andy Mullens
Hear! Hear! (2017) is a sculpture featuring two megaphones pressed face to face. This piece was born out of my frustrations at contemporary political and social attitudes. I repeatedly found myself feeling futile despite my efforts to campaign for what I believe. Driven by an interest in the phenomenon of echo chambers and social media algorithms that only serve to reinforce one's beliefs, this work questions these modes of communication and consumption. I also interrogate the effectiveness of trying to convince "the other side" of our own beliefs: it seems no-one wants to have their mind changed, including myself.
Hear! Hear!
megaphones and timber
Anna Russell-Smith
Inspired by my love of the earth and to make use of everyday disposable materials my series of 'Tyred Forrest' artworks were born. The tyres used were found on the side of the road and from this an art piece transpired into something appealing. Interestingly, the steel cable inside the tyres is used to make the tree branches.
Each year in Australia, the equivalent of 48 million tyres reach the end of their life, only 16% of these are domestically recycled. Around two-thirds of used tyres in Australia end up in landfill, are stockpiled, illegally dumped or have an unknown fate.
Tree of Hope
Recycled tyres
80 x 105 x 8cm
Annalise Fogg
Growing up in beautiful sunny Queensland, Moreton Island became our annual camping holiday. There is something about the clear blue waters, fresh air and abandoned beaches that relaxes me. Each trip we trek up to the lighthouse at the end of the island. The array of blue hues that spread from coast to coast is filled with an abundance of marine life. As the waves crash up onto the rocks below, the sea turtles become clear in a cloud of white foam. I get to see this view every year as I sit on the seat that overlooks the island.
This piece is a response to the movement, colour and calmness that I feel at the lighthouse. Although the waves may crash, the sounds of the water hitting the rocks from a distance are mesmerising. Combining acrylic with water and manipulating the angle of the canvas while wet, I was able to portray a calming movement that takes you from one edge to the next. The closer you look, the more you will see. Separating forms, developing cells and intricate dots create a piece that allows you to look close, close your eyes and hear the ocean.
Beneath the Ocean Current
Acrylic on canvas (solid oak frame)
Arjang Razzazian
Universal Punk (2017) puts together the visual icons that once belonged to a counterculture; to bring to attention that it is now fed by consumer fashion industry and homogenised to be a part of the mainstream market. So, if the counterculture still exists, it cannot be defined by such clichés.
Universal punk is made of everyday advertisements objects: mannequin, leather necklace, ice cream cone, stilettos and headphone.
Universal Punk
Glass, resin, found objects
Carmel Lousie
Carmel Louise
This artwork consists of 8 hand cut layers mounted to create one piece. This process emulates many levels of the gentrification process occurring across Melbourne. It begins with acquisition/demolition of defunct warehouses, then construction of "contemporary apartments". As a result, the traditional industrial flavour of the area has been transformed by a new demographic. The businesses now sell gourmet everything, to provide for the population boom which in turn drives the need for more housing. The result becomes a metaphor for both the deconstruction process/ reconstruction of our neighbourhoods into something new, contemporary and divergent from its past.
Constructional No.1, V1 in 3D
Danae Thyssen
Beyond the Illusion of Hope and Despair
Boxed frame with Giclee Print on photo rag
South Australia, Australia
When we let go of the illusion of hope and despair, we recognise there is only love. Challenges are just misguided reminders that we can adapt and overcome. We can survive any situation that presents itself.
Transformation begins when we relinquish fear and open ourselves to the magic of possibilities. The time for change is here, the time for change is now. Let go of the old self, let go of all things holding oneself back. Now is the time to manifest our divine purpose and live in the power of true identity. It is time to step into thine most authentic self and awaken the soul.
Daniel Kneebone
Danny Kneenone
The Jewelled Rose II, takes a luxuriously illustrative look behind the curtain at the opulent and sensuous world of burlesque. This image portraying renowned burlesque performer Zelia Rose a leading Australian burlesque performer who actively contributes to the vaudeville scene in Australia and Internationally. Therefore, the aim of the work is not only to shed light on the burlesque industry but to reveal the artists who continue to cultivate this genre in Australia. Capturing a moment of evolving drama, creating a sense of wonder and intrigue, bringing the viewer to a foreign midpoint between reality and illusion and revealing the freedom of expression that is burlesque.
The Jewelled Rose II
Archival digital print on galerie prestige gold fibre silk - edition of 10
Angel Peacock portrays Lola Ramone an Australian burlesque performer through narrative art. While society worships archetypical heroic male football images, there is no female equivalent — but for me, the answer is burlesque. Strongly influenced by women's attitude and spirit, the artform comes to life through theatricality and strong visceral archetypes. Angel Peacock aims to shed light on the burlesque industry and how these performers inspire women to embrace their femininity, as well as shine a spotlight on the artists who make this unique cultural scene what it is in Australia.
Angel Peacock
Daniel O'Hanlon
Torn was a vision I had for some time, by using metal slugs from a metal punching machine that is left to waste I created this sculpture with these slugs which enabled me to created this piece with all the curves and details in this piece of art work. The name Torn has come from this piece as it has an incomplete look about it is exactly what I visioned
Metal slugs from CNC punching machine
Daniel Sherington
Transition 4 (2017), is a drawing that highlights the beauty that lies within the transitionary movement of Ballet: as performed by my sister. The piece captures my sister seconds before a 'Grand Jette'. Decontextualizing her from her surroundings, and floating her on the page, she surreally exists just within that moment: the moment of the in-between; of freedom; and of the free fall. For each movement in dance to be complete, there exists a transitionary stage. These stages, which precede and follow the movement, are something that appears completely raw: moments of duality where freedom dilutes the immense amount of concentration and discipline to create what everyone is waiting for.
Ink on Arches paper (300gsm)
There's something ironic about making an endangered animal entirely out of plastic. Blowing air in it - to pretend that it's there.
Hippo in Plastic
Ella Baudinet
Ella Baudinet is a Melbourne based artist working primarily with oil paints. Baudinet's work focuses on the individual's unique perceptions of abstract expressionist aesthetics. Combining elements of expressionism, abstraction and pseudo-surrealism, she explores the parallels between the conscious and subconscious mind. While we sleep, we are submerged in an environment created and perceived simultaneously by our own minds. Our brains are a virtual reality system, providing us with sensory stimuli based on our own experiences, emotions and the person's characteristics. Our subconscious mind is highly active while awake and determines how we perceive our surroundings. As dreaming transports us from one state of mind to another, Baudinet's paintings provide a parallel platform by inviting the viewer to envision representational characteristics in the work, thus creating the individual's unique experience.
Elmari Steyn
Western Australia, Australia
Eyrie: S28o37.595'/E116o25.327 (2017) is an abandoned eagles nest tree at Gullewa in Western Australia. It is part of my current printmaking project that explores the interaction that we allow ourselves with nature, through trees, especially unusual, individual and expressive trees, even misshapen trees. Every tree expresses its own unique narrative, character, size, shape and function. Whether in untouched wild places or in urban settings, trees retain their individuality, their true form and nature; their connection and relationship to an area, with its climate, wind and setting. Each work is of an individual tree, reproduced as a copper-plate line and aquatint etching.
Eyrie: S28o37.595'/E116o25.327
Etching and aquatint on archival paper
Umbra: S33o38.347'/E115o01.567 (2017) is a unique tree located in a car park at Yallingup in Western Australia. It is part of my current printmaking project that explores the interaction that we allow ourselves with nature, through trees, especially unusual, individual and expressive trees, even misshapen trees. Every tree expresses its own unique narrative, character, size, shape and function. Whether in untouched wild places or in urban settings, trees retain their individuality, their true form and nature; their connection and relationship to an area, with its climate, wind and setting. Each work is of an individual tree, reproduced as a copper-plate line and aquatint etching.
Umbra: S33o38.347'/E115o01.567
Eugene Rubuls
"Nature is my religion, and the earth is my temple."
My paintings express my infinite admiration for the diversity of colour, form and textures of the natural world. This is something I want to share with everyone who is ready to see it.
My artworks are inspired by some of the most spectacular visual images of the underwater world that have not only aesthetic impact on the viewer, but can also trigger emotions and important questions. When you love something, you naturally want to protect it so I would like my art to be a window into a world not everyone has the opportunity to see. My goal is to capture and preserve unique habitats and scenes, exquisite moments and create a visual depiction of the natural world - an endangered world, which sadly may not be here in the future.
Clown Fish
60 x 75 x 1.5cm
Chasing Coral
122 x 92 x 3.5cm
Greg Flynn
This acrylic painting is in memory of those families of the 'FV Dianne' boating tragedy. This fishing vessel sank in wild seas off the town of 1770 in October 2017. Only one survived, two bodies recovered and four bodies unaccounted. This piece combines the underpainting tinged with red representing hope and despair, but also fear, isolation, hopelessness and the tempest at the time. The limited palette and the intensity of the angles express the torment of those on board and the families left behind.
Helen Oprey
I play with paint, colour, texture and proportion in an attempt to portray work that is beautiful, unique and intimate. My style is emotional and not constrained by the limits of realism. Each artwork is an experiment and adventure to push my learning which creates something new to me, but always, in the end, the painting has to hold together. Thus I never get bored, and it helps to keep my work fresh.
The Lived in Room
Acrylic and textured paper on Canvas
Letter to my Daughter (2017) is an emotional artwork depicting my daughter as she endures inevitable life struggles. It is what all mothers know of their daughters - that although life is sometimes hard, unkind, unfair and confusing, they are ALWAYS beautiful to their mothers. I have depicted my daughter with her big bright eyes in a sea of colour and chaos. LIFE
Letter to my Daughter
101.5 x 101.5cm
Hugh Kerr
Carnival (2017) is about behaviour under the mask of anonymity. I recently re-read Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Although allusions to indigenous people in the book often seem euro-centric and essentially racist, it remains a fascinating examination of the human condition. The boys' donning of disguises worn and gradual descent into barbarism and to me has resonances with current trends in society and particularly social media where anonymity (or at least distance) removes normal rules of behaviour.
Rapacity is a stark illustration of the physical functions of human settlements. As well having an ideal for the best of human settlement, promoting general well-being, harmony, equality, vibrancy and the sharing of knowledge and culture, I feel it is important to examine them at their worst. Rapacity presents a view of a city as an almost cancerous entity, the embodiment of the insatiability of human consumption which sucks in the resources and degrades the surrounding land.
Rapacity
Jae Hyun Kwon
I see my sculptures as a residue of a series of unconscious struggles in pursuit of my cultural identity. Technically, my sculptures are American household commodities wrapped in Hanji, Korean traditional handmade paper. Through giving a Korean colour and texture to an American commodity, I investigate the issues with merging two different cultures.
Dyed Korean handmade paper, beer bottles
James Gardiner
Scape 2-17
Tooling board (high-density polyurethane foam) finished with beeswax
This sculpture is part of a series that has been running since 2011. Based on the influences such as natural eroded and stratified rock formations, science fiction and my interest in cities and the way they form or agglomerate over time. The series first emerged from an investigative exploration for 3D printing artificial reefs at full scale; sculpture was used as a method to free up my thinking and to explore form and topology.
This work is in tooling board, a high-density polyurethane foam which has similar properties to timber while having superb strength, durability and can take extraordinary levels of detail. The sculpture is part of an investigative endeavour to develop new tooling techniques with sculpture. The sculpture series also includes stone, recycled timber and lost foam castings with pewter.
Photographer: Ben Guthrie
Jan Bird
The painting, Jandamarra's War (2017), was initially inspired by Paul Kelly's song "Jandamarra/Pigeon" (on his album "The A to Z Recordings). This led to further research into the true story of Jandamarra, an Australian Aboriginal man who led a rebellion against invading pastoralists in defence of his people's ancient land and culture.
Jandamarra's War
Eco dye, charcoal and oil on canvas
110 x 110 x 2cm
A mere 18 years after the death of Jandamarra, where the aboriginal people were chained and shot for spearing stock, the aboriginal population had now learnt to live peacefully with the white landowners and adopted a more European lifestyle. Many aborigines proudly enlisted in WW1 despite being afforded very few rights in the country they fought for.
Janelle Amos
This limited edition archival pigment print captures my ephemeral nature mandala of roadside Pomegranates from my hometown. My dear childhood friend and I would spend sunny days exploring, climbing and eating from this very tree. Constructed in the elements of the moment and photographed in the natural Autumn light.
My art practice is a contrast of ephemeral mandalas and abstract paintings. My work is intuitive, allowing the natural elements around me to guide the outcome. Engaging with nature has opened up a creative response to my everyday emotional life, and put me in touch with my honest creative expression.
History with a Tree
Archival pigment print on textured fine art paper
This limited edition archival pigment print captures my ephemeral nature mandala of Australian Natives from my hometown, aching of my personal connection to my country through my immediate natural environment. Constructed in the elements of the moment and photographed in the natural Autumn light.
Native Home
Jeramie Scahill
Like a surreal dream, a mix of components come together from different times and experiences. Uniting together to form an an abstract story that stretches the imagination and begs for an explanation. Sending the viewer on a journey of self interpretation. A black goose egg bound with silver bands with silver spikes each end. A Gothic Faberge egg suspended like a plumb bob swinging from two hardwood twigs collected from the very top of an ancient tree. Two twigs are bound with silver wire and held taught from the weight of the pendulating egg. A mirror finished Stirling silver pyramid emerges from a block of charcoal like like a contemporary growth causing a juxtaposition of upward energy against the downward strain of the pendulum. The charcoal plinth made from the core of an old tree with the story's of its battles with decay and life itself evident at every angle. Hollowed out by the smallest of ants and weather and time, the whole sculpture seems to teeter on the edge of being swallowed into its depths. An uncertain balance of nature and machine swinging precariously by a near invisible force.
Stirling silver, goose egg, charcoal, wood
Jonathan Garcia Mainou
My main purpose is to explore the aesthetics of the everyday through abstract visual stories about the city I live in. Using the urban landscape as a canvas, I deconstruct conceptual images as a way to escape from my daily life. By using a digital camera, I detached the sense of art from the tool and leave it to the viewer to see art as the everyday and the everyday as art. I choose not to edit the photographs as a way to examine and challenge the idea of purity and our personal perspectives on beauty.
Plexi Glass Mount
Jude Hotchkiss
These paintings articulate a dark testament to the unknown while holding the potential for a new genesis. There is a maelstrom of duelling powers, dark calamitous events that breed an uncertain future in a tumultuous world. At times an underlying planet is viewed from above, fractured cloud obscuring the geometric makings of a now disappearing civilisation. A feeling of profound change and upheaval lies in the violent forces overriding the geometries of a once structured and considered place. Terrible uncertainty prevails, the future is unclear, and the moment is yet to play out, for better or worse.
Earthburst
Oil and medium on canvas
122 xx 122 x 4cm
Stormforce
Julie Hollis
I wanted to be whimsical, and contemporary. I used white to make her hair sing, to move, to bounce. I imagine the viewer seeing her and smiling, be moved by her emotion but, wonder why she is frowning. I intended this image to be punchy and a little mysterious.
Little Miss Worrywart
Kate Bender
Kate Bender's oil paintings embody the representation of light, and the perception of and the interplay between space and form. Ostensibly the works are an illusionistic depiction of imagined forms and spaces, within which exists a harmony of colour, light and shape invoking within the viewer a sensorial experience evocative of emotion, mood, and music.
Abstraction is merged with elements of illusionism creating a simultaneous ambiguity and degree of playfulness in the immediate visual and sensorial experience. The undetermined forms float in a fictional space; at times open, ethereal and intangible; other times closed, appearing substantial and three-dimensional.
It Just Feels Like
Longing for Love and Light
Katrin Terton
I am drawn to organic materials such as beeswax, shed snake skins, feathers and hair as well as found objects. The chair and ladder in this piece are recurring metaphors in my work; representing contemplation and the wish to reach new places internally or externally, the need for stillness, the wish to escape, the desire to evolve. The seeker is open to step into new worlds and explore the liminal space in between while questioning where he or she came from and where the journey may lead…
A Seekers Thoughts
Beeswax, wire, hair, grass, feathers, shed snakeskin, timber
Kay Armstrong
Working with a limited palette, this was about mark making to create a sense of movement on the page. It's also about ageing, the inevitability of it all.
Down the Plughole
Ink, acrylic, digital print on paper
Working with a limited palette, I wanted to create something visceral, veinous and organic. I am obsessed with layers. They seem to me, a way to develop a sense of time/memory within a two-dimensional form.
Gills of the world
Ink acrylic, cardboard on paper
Kym Frame
In the Hold (2017) explores the human experience of holding and processing pain. An installation, the piece is comprised of a seated female form made from handmade banana fibre paper and a bundle of notes on hexagonal pieces of translucent paper. From a tear in the figure's left shoulder, light spills out, and at her feet, a panel glows. Atop this panel, a pile of the notes, some of which have fallen into tessellating patches, rest. Filled with memories and messages, these words capture the fears and burdens of 150 different women and represent the strength, vulnerability and resilience of women.
In the Hold
Handmade Banana fibre paper, methylcellulose, steel, cardboard, led light, waxed paper, human hair.
Lauri Smith
This work explores my interest in the relationship between people and their pets, that friendship and love between them that is like no other. I wanted to represent the importance of animals and how we are inherently similar to them and share the same love/heart. This sculpture is a portrait style of an elderly woman and her anteater/human-like pet to represent this concept. The pet is holding a human heart as an abstract offering of the love shared.
Rita + her pet Jude
Silicone, wire, foam, hair and wood
This work titled The Secret Conversation of Snow Yaks (2016) came from a vivid dream I had about three snow yak men set amongst a snowy landscape. These creatures were having a secret conversation which I (as the viewer) interrupted. I was inspired to recreate this other-worldly dreamed vision and continue to explore these ideas further.The process began with the initial concept/drawing to sculpting, mold making, casting and finishing, these creatures take on a life of their own.
Secret Conversation of Snow Yaks
Silicone, wire, and mohair
40 x 15 x 25cm (all three pieces together)
Leah Doeland
Do you hear the insects buzzing? Can you hear a bird calling? Is that a voice or just the whisper of the wind chasing its way throughout the leaves high above your head? Sweet and aromatic scents fill the air – breathe deep – Awaken your senses, Awaken your soul.
As an artist, I am continually inspired by the beauty of nature and the wonder of creation. Through my art, I explore imaginative aspects of our natural world. My work intends to captivate and calm the viewer while imparting a sense peace.
Leah D Jeffries
Painted in a manner that refers to a simpler time, yet the subject matter highlights a contemporary phenomenon. A compelling self-portrait with Leah's children. The eldest ten years old, along with her smartphone also in its 10th year. With all this device offers, does it take more than it gives? We are physically present, but mentally and emotionally absent, transfixed, doing anything but being present to what is important. "Just a sec…"
Leah Mariani
Doll Face (2017) is part of my latest series, I'm Just a Girl, which considers the way we view women. There is increasing social pressure for women to undergo procedures to stay looking young. Woman want clear, wrinkle-free skin, clear eyes, white teeth, perfect hair, long eyelashes, plump lips. Soon we will all look like dolls.
The pattern of the vintage dolls is achieved by adhering cotton fabric onto the canvas before painting in oils over the top. The dolls are innate, lifeless objects that have no facial expressions, much like women who have had too much Botox.
Printed cotton fabric, gesso, oil on canvas