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MAY 1998

Tracey Moffat exhibition opens

Sydney art collector Reg Richardson last night officially opened the latest exhibition by Tracey Moffat, the aboriginal photographer who is making a splash in the art galleries of the world.

An article appeared on Tracey Moffat in the Sydney Morning Herald last week that told us how the world’s major museums were "fighting to get her work" – well Orange has it first – thanks to Reg Richardson.

Reg Richardson and his wife Sally were making something of a sentimental journey to Orange, as Sally was born here, and Reg was born in Broken Hill. As a result, Reg has also lent the exhibition to Broken Hill Regional Gallery, and helped Tracey Moffat with connections and locations when she was shooting the exhibition in the Broken Hill area.

Indeed, although Tracey Moffat is now one of our truly international artists, the exhibition is notably regional – it was shot around Broken Hill (in Moffat’s well known "documentary filmic" style), using some notable Broken Hill cultural types as extra’s, including the director of the regional gallery, and the regional ABC manager.

It also uses professional actors, female body builders and various characters from Sydney and other parts, but nonetheless captures something of real life on the margins of rural society – the events of this exhibition are certainly identifiable to all country people, and the subjects seem to come direct from Moffat’s own experience of marginalisation.

Tracey Moffat was born in 1960 in Brisbane of mixed European and Aboriginal parentage. After graduating from the Queensland College of Art in 1982, she moved to Sydney, where she began exhibiting her work in 1984. Moffat first gained critical acclaim for her short film Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1989), which competed in the Cannes Film festival in 1990.

She is currently enjoying an eight month run of her work at the DIA Center for the Arts in New York, which offers viewers a major introduction to her work. The Dia exhibition contains four components using her film, video and still photography.

The April issue of New York’s Interview Magazine contains a fairly solid chat with the artist, the introduction to the interview says of the exhibition being shown in Orange "Up in the Sky is a series of twenty five black and white photographs, mostly of Aboriginal people in the outback , and is perhaps the most impressive example of why Moffat is emerging as an artist of both high ambition and steadily increasing achievement: It’s been a long time since you’ve seen anything quite like these photos."

This is terrific attention for the artist to receive, and I have a sheaf of clippings from other world art journals that say similar complementary things about her work. Note that in the section I quoted above the writer says the exhibition is of "mostly Aboriginal people" – well in fact it is not. There are far more Europeans in the exhibition. This is I suppose an example of a tendency that Moffat always fights against – that of seeing her as solely an "Aboriginal artist" concerned with Aboriginal social issues. While it is true that Aboriginal issues do occupy a big part of her work, she is equally concerned with the politics of the wider society, and also with an almost surrealist exploration of her own psyche. Naturally her aboriginal background is important to her, but so is the white society in which her vision was formed.

Moffat wants to be seen as an international artist – an artist of universal concerns. Her ambition, and her talent, are great, and I think she will likely succeed in whatever project she undertakes.

In the interview Moffat complains that all anybody ever writes about her work is its "exotic" nature – I must say that I do not see it as exotic at all – she has made a series of images which, although they are far more general than particular, speak strongly for the underclasses on the margins of affluent society – such people are to be found in every rural community, and also in the cities.

The photographs make no particular moral point, that I can discern, but present people subject to poverty, violence and alcoholism without "editorial comment". Such is the force of her staged compositions and carefully chosen subject types, that all rural people will identify with the tragic and frightening alienation in her work.

David Moore and Sydney Harbour

This fine exhibition of photography over 50 years continues in the large Gallery one space until 31 May. In Orange Regional Gallery we have without a doubt, two of the finest exhibitions of photography around.

SEPTEMBER98

Two International Exhibitions open in Orange

Last night Peter Gibson, Teacher in Charge of Arts and Media at Orange TAFE, had the difficult task of Officially Opening three major exhibitions at once! Fortunately, Peter Gibson is both artist and educator, and he was able to perform this role with alacrity.

The Gallery is hosting some remarkable art at the moment, and as Peter pointed out, it is terrific to be able to boast even one international exhibition of quality – let alone two!

The first of the international artists is Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, who is very famous indeed.

The second is Bill Davis, a young photographer from Cincinnati, who we believe may well ascend the heights of fame one day. The third exhibition is Object of Ideas, a show of fine Australian craft work in various media.

The Paolozzi show runs only until 11 October, with the other two shows closing a week later on the 19 October.

Eduardo Paolozzi:Artificial Horizons and Eccentric Ladders-Works on Paper 1946-1995 comes to us as a touring exhibition organised by New England Regional Art Museum and sponsored by the British Council and newImages with assistance from the NSW Ministry for the Arts. It is a rare collection of superb works on paper by the internationally renowned artist Eduardo Paolozzi, one of Britain’s greatest living artists.

Paolozzi is regarded as one of the originators of the Pop Art movement, making many innovations that preceded the American members of this movement .

He created collages and prints presenting a wonderfully surreal fusion inspired by the modern art of the day (including Surrealism): from German geometry to foundries, shipyards, factories, and engineering, from medicine to French sheet music, from Greek antiquities to modern opera.

The exhibition traces the development of Paolozzi’s ideas through the reworking of constant themes and motifs. It begins with a group of collages made in 1946 and concludes with collages and screenprints made during 1995.

It includes examples of collages from the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, the early use of screenprinting and monotype in the 1950’s, collages for the elaborate multicoloured screenprints and lithographs of the 1960’s and 70’s, and studies for major public commissions such as the mosaics for Tottenham Court Road Underground Station.

The exhibition includes 66 works in total, 22 drawn from the British Council Collection, but 44 on loan from Paolozzi’s own collection – these of course have rarely been seen before, and hold special meaning for the artist.

Bill Davis – Portraits of Rite

Portraits of Rite is a fine exhibition of black and white photography organised by Orange Regional Gallery from works made over the last four years by a young American photographer.

Bill Davis flew out for the opening last night, and impressed those who met him with his sincerity and dedication to his artform. Many of the rich black and white studies in the exhibition were made while he was artist in residence in Prague, Czech Republic, and reflect a strong handling of light and contrast borne out of the mastery of considerable technical difficulties experienced at the time.

I hope that this exhibition and catalogue will be widely seen, as I think the work of Bill Davis will be appreciated by most people. Portraits of Rite is an impressive exhibition not only because of the excellent aesthetic eye of the artist, but also for theoretical and technical reasons.

When first I saw his work, I was immediately drawn to what may be called the "fine art" genre pieces, the surrealistic works and beautifully composed still life and landscape. While clearly owing a postmodernist debt to a number of painters, Davis renders these painterly subjects using a finely tuned range of tonal values a part of his vision as a black and white photographer.

Davis brings us some of the richest velvety blacks, I have seen for a while, and I greatly enjoy the "formalist" works in the exhibition, which all make good use of the photographic possibilities of contrast and chiaroscuro. In many of these works there is an homage to the international pioneers of formalist photography, as there is also a strong relationship to the traditions of artist printmaking. Davis values the visible presence of the "hand of the artist"

Objects of Ideas

This exhibition comes from the Crafts Council of Queensland, where it was originally put together in order to introduce the work of some of Australia’s most "cerebral" craftspeople to remote and deprived deep north audiences. The exhibition tour has fortunately been expanded to include the sophisticated big cities of the enlightened south such as Orange.

The exhibition has the aim of bringing together ten craft artists who create work about ideas, yet who embrace the traditional qualities of their craft. The catalogue essay by curator Jacquelyn Murphy tells us that "While each demonstrates an individual approach to making, their commonality lies in their dedication to the knowledge and development of their medium, which in turn informs the conceptual content of their work".

While the stated theme does not seem to embrace all the included works equally, it is true that the works by the included artists contain a bit more "meaning" than most craft, (which is often purely utilitarian, and not intended to be other than useful or decorative).

The exhibition contains works by Morley Grainger, Marion Gaemers, Brian Hirst, Ben Trupperbaumer, Helmut Lueckenhausen, Marion Marshall, Sheridan Kennedy, Warren Langley, Susan Ostling and Gwyn Hanssen Pigott. This Gallery has shown works by quite a few of these notable Australian craftsworkers in other group exhibitions, including one show that we organised, so it is good to see our judgement echoed by other curators.

The exhibition contains interesting and well made work by each of the artists.

My only reservations are that the works in the exhibition are pretty small. This is no doubt so that remote venues can be accommodated, but as a number of these artists are known for their work on a larger scale, it is a pity that some of these are not included. Helmut Lueckenhausen for instance, makes some of the most convoluted, impressive large pieces of wooden furniture in Australia, yet his presence is restricted to three small boxes (beautifully conceived and crafted however).

Also, the exhibition seems to be trying to revive an argument that I thought had expired - the old chestnut of the difference between art and craft. This is particularly apparent in the catalogue, but also I think in the choice of works. The overall presentation, in a rather heavy handed way, seems to be trying to shock the ignorant into a realisation something like - "Yes Hortense, Craft can carry meanings just like Art, and may even be considered to be Art!"

While the northern rednecks may not realise that fibre, ceramics, glass and wood carving can carry intellectual weight just like paintings do, most people in New South Wales have known this for years and couldn't care less about the alleged differences between art and craft.

Here the historical derivations of the words "art and craft" seems to have created an illusory philosophical problem. Ludwig Wittgenstein might have said of this exhibition "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." And that is of course, what the artists are doing - their works do the "talking" for them. Not so alas for curators and people like me!

NOVEMBER98

Off Center Portraiture

Occasionally some researcher with infinite patience undertakes a scientific statistical survey of paintings in the world’s museums. Recently an analysis of over 700 famous portraits has discovered that most are centred not symmetrically but on one or the other eye. A neuroscientist called Christopher Tyler made this claim, which intrigued art historians all over the world.

Indeed, the findings seem to be correct, and even though most artists are probably not aware of it, they very slightly turn the head of the sitter and centre the painting on one eye. In so doing, they seem to gain greater "engagement" with the gaze of the sitter. Apparently it is a signal of increased attention to look at someone with head slightly turned and one eye making a "penetrating" gaze.

Go East – German Contemporary Art

It would be interesting to do a similar survey on the number of smiling faces in German art – not very many I think. German Art is generally serious and high minded, and it has been taken very seriously by its audience for many hundreds of years. Hitler (who was a bit of a painter himself) took art so seriously that he imprisoned many artists and banned most modern art as "degenerate".

Likewise the Communist rulers of the former East Germany, who expelled over 600 artists and persecuted many more between the end of the second world war and the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.

Those of us whose business does not lie in self expression can not know how soul destroying it is to be officially forbidden from telling the truth as you see it. It is no wonder that so many artists chose or were forced to leave their homeland.

So there is something admirable, even noble, in the efforts of some of these seven artists to "speak their minds", to retain their artistic integrity.

Eberhard Havekost (b 1967) is the youngest artist of the seven. His works focus on an important materialistic aspect of the new life – housing. His unpeopled and alienating suburban houses (can one say Jerry Built?) have something of the lonely emptiness of metaphysical art, and imply a crushing disappointment with the expected benefits of capitalism.

Angel Hampel (b.1956) is a high profile artist who has some works on paper made with ash and charcoal. These are beautiful and powerful works peopled with the composite creatures of mythology. Her human figures seem to be sprouting extra heads and limbs, are in the process of becoming a new being, but are captured in a phase of monstrosity.

This idea of "twinning" of a incomplete joining process also informs the next two artists Jean Kirsten and Yana Milev.

Kirsten has made some very fine screen prints on fine rice paper, which are printed on both sides, and are meant to be suspended in free space so that they can be seen from both sides. Each side of the print is different, and transmits light differently, so from either side we see a different aspect of the "Gestalt". Kirsten has made these excellent works, which I find very lovely, with something of the constructivist spirit and vision that can be found in Germanic baroque music. As in the Constructivist art of the early century, he has used simple geometric forms in grey black tonalities, but these forms gain an added tension, almost a freneticism, when combined in a fugal manner with the other side of the work.

Yana Milev (who was selected to participate in one of the worlds most prestigious art exhibitions, Kassel Documenta 1997) has submitted six large photo-mechanical screenprints in which the massive re-building works in East Berlin (is it Potsdammer Platz?) are shown. I understand that there are many billions of dollars worth of building works going on in this square mile or so. Certainly the skyline of her photographs are forested with builder’s cranes looking rather like mad birds pecking into gaping wounds in the earth.

However, as one follows through the six works in the series, these building works are progressively obscured by collaged elements reminiscent of the Constructivist works of Kirsten, yet also reminiscent of the characters of Hebrew script. Perhaps the artist is making a comment about the return of Jewish influence through the influx of international capital? Whatever her motives, these are striking and memorable works which again make use of these notions of fracture and forceful re-joining.

Maix Mayer is a very interesting photographer, whose very large prints show his early training as an academic natural scientist. He has shown also shown six works, brooding black and white close ups of a barren grassy field under an oppressive sky. There is something highly unsettling about these works in themselves, a feeling that is explained when one comes across the small words "Commandants Cottage" and we realise that the subject is a ruined and obliterated Nazi extermination camp. This is not the only work in the exhibition that makes oblique comment about the rise of neo-Nazism.

Mayer is a photographer of distinction..it is difficult to precisely pin down the reason for the palpable power in his images..partly I think their success lies in the fact that, like the work of Tracey Moffat, he does not tell us too much.

Go East also features powerful works by Jan Morgenstern and Maren Rollof. The former gives us a series of small spontaneous drawings of a mother and child that are reminiscent of the work of Ian Fairweather – with some of the same evocations. Maren Roloff has gained a world wide reputation for innovative and poetic use of humble materials, particularly rubber car tubes. These remind us of the deprivations suffered by East Berliners, as well as the power of an art whose mother is necessity. The artist has made a quite amazing sculptural piece with a beautiful presence which extends to over twenty feet in length, and yet is cut in one piece from about a two by one metre section of truck inner tube.

Go East runs until 15 November.

DECEMBER 98

Great Realist War Artist Exhibition

Ivor Hele: The Heroic Figure

Right throughout the Christmas period until 24 January Orange Regional Gallery is hosting the magnificent war paintings of Ivor Hele, Official WW2 War artist and five times Archibald Prize Winner.

This is a major touring exhibition from the Australian War Memorial, only suitable for quite large exhibiting spaces. Normally such a show remains the province of the big State galleries, so we are grateful to the Australian War memorial for making it available to Orange.

The exhibition was opened by Orange ex-pat Helen Withnell, who is now Assistant Director of Public Programmes at the War Memorial. This orange connection reinforces the good relationship we have with the War memorial that began with our collaboration on the very popular Still Action Damien Parer exhibition.

As it happens, Parer and Hele met during the war, and I think there is evidence that the work of each influenced the other.

A Floor talk prior to the opening was given by the exhibition Curator Lola Wilkins. She deserves congratulations for an excellently researched exhibition, and for the publication of a very good catalogue, fully illustrating in colour the exhibition. This is really one to keep for posterity.

Ivor Hele was the first official war artist appointed in the Second world war, serving in diverse battle theatres as Nth Africa and new Guinea as well as in Australia. His success in the appointment led to a further commission in the Korean war with the rank of major, the highest held by an Australian war Artist. As well as being Australia’s longest serving official war artist, Hele five times won the Archibald Prize for portraiture and was an extremely accomplished figure and landscape painter. Hele’s wartime work is the pinnacle of his achievements and carries on the great tradition of George Lambert who set the standard for Australian war art during the first World War.

This travelling exhibition is funded by the Minister for Veteran’s Affairs Commemorative Program entitled "Their Service –Our Heritage", and it is good to see so many representatives of the local service and ex-service organisations present at the Opening.

The Australian war Memorial has Australia’s largest collection of the paintings and drawings by Ivor Hele. The collection includes a recent donation from the artist’s estate of 80 drawings and sketches covering all periods of his career, this augments the over one hundred oil paintings (some truly huge) in the collection.

Ivor Hele was born in Adelaide in 1912. Showing an early artistic ability, he travelled to Paris at the age of sixteen to gain a solid academic training in life drawing, figure studies and portraiture. He was inspired by Rodin and the old masters at the Louvre, and went on to study anatomy at Munich, where he concentrated on musculature when drawing from the nude model. Hele was essentially a studio painter, drawing his subjects on the spot but preferring to finish the works in the comfort of his studio. After his appointment as an official war artist, Hele sought the tranquillity of his studio to recuperate from his war experiences.

I must say that I was surprised to discover his reliance on the studio…as the works we are showing have an immediacy and presence that usually dissipates somewhat in studio work. I guess Hele was profoundly impressed by his experiences, and of course he was in possession of his excellent on the spot sketches, and was able to recreate the atmosphere so well.

Hele’s style changed dramatically throughout his career as official war artist. In North Africa he painted with a soft, pink palette: his paintings from New Guinea became dark and sombre, conveying a sense of gloom and despair. Hele was unable to complete a series of paintings of soldiers in Lae because the experience of working in New Guinea had affected his health. Featuring dramatic orange and greens, his paintings from the Korean War reflect concern and a heightened sense of physical fatigue.

After his war service, Ivor Hele lived a long and interesting life (as artists so often do) as one of Australia’s foremost portrait painters. He died in 1993.

Current Orange Regional Gallery exhibition tours

Speaking of successful exhibition tours, our own Desert Journey has begun a five venue tour. It is currently showing in Griffith, then moves on to Dubbo, Wollongong, Broken Hill and Moree Regional Galleries.

Kerry Creecy, Director at Griffith, tells us that the exhibition is being very well received, with people saying it is an excellent balance of the traditional and the contemporary and that it conveys the enjoyable atmosphere of the Journey very well.

Although many of the visitors had not seen work by these artists before, they had heard of some of them, and knew that the Central West was becoming a hub of arts activity in Australia. A number said that they would visit Orange Regional Gallery to follow up on the exhibition.

Artists featured are all from the Central West - Ros Auld, Loretta Blake, Michael Carroll, Marianne Courtenay, Robert Crombie, Eris Fleming, John Winch, Madeleine Winch, Lynn Winters and Tim Winters.

Another tour of an Orange Regional Gallery show is currently being developed, with two venues including the new Mosman Regional Gallery in Sydney signing on so far. This is the excellent Bill Davis photography exhibition Portraits of Rite. We expect that this show will tour throughout the eastern states in 1999/2000.

Fibre Imprints, the Shibori exhibition curated by Margaret Barnett is also on tour, having been seen in Canberra and Melbourne already. It is currently in Toowoomba with two other northern venues to go before it ends.

Still Action, the war photography of Damien Parer is now up to its thirteenth or so venue, including showings in Sydney and Melbourne. It opens next in Bundaberg. This exhibition was seen by over 50,000 people in Sydney alone.

All in all, I estimate that around 225,000 people will have seen a current Orange Regional Gallery touring exhibition by the end of 1999.

Local sponsors interested in future touring productions of this Gallery should ring me on 0263615136.

JAN 99

Agnes Goodsir "In a Picture Land Over the Sea"

A lovely exhibition by a little known expatriate painter Agnes Goodsir ( 1864 - 1939) has opened in Gallery One. The large exhibition of oil paintings and watercolours was opened by the exhibition’s curator Karen Quinlan, of Bendigo Regional Gallery.

Karen has done terrific work in putting together what is a very fine show of works by Goodsir, I think the first time that this has been done in Australia since two selling exhibitions in 1927.

It is appropriate that the exhibition was prepared under the aegis of Bendigo Gallery, as it was in that city that Agnes Goodsir received her first formal art training, having moved there from the country town of Portland to study at the Bendigo School of Mines. Many of the works in this large show are sourced from Victorian Regional Galleries and family of the artist.

Goodsir was in some ways the typical artistic expatriate, being fascinated from her youth by art, artists and what she thought the spiritual home of art - Paris. Although she did not begin formal studies until she was in her thirties, once decided upon an artistic career, she pursued her dream with a single mindedness, that saw her moving to Paris in 1899 where she continued to study for a further five years at the famous Academies of Colarossi and Julian.

Fortunately she came from a wealthy family, and her studies in Europe were (as was often the case for female artists) financed by her father - although after about six years she was selling enough work to become independent. Indeed, she did very well, sharing with Rupert Bunny, E Phillips Fox and Bessie Davidson the rare honour of election to the Salon Nationale des Beaux Arts.

She returned to Australia only once, in 1927, aged 63. She came in some triumph, having just been elected to the Salon and with numerous showings at the Royal Academy in London under her belt. Local newspapers reported that she had achieved fame as a portraitist and painter of still lifes, and that she had painted Ellen Terry, Lady Russell, The Baron Avonza and Count Leo Tolstoy. While in Australia she received numerous portrait commissions as a result of this favourable publicity - notable in this exhibition is a very fine portrait of Banjo Paterson - which is I think one of the best in existence of the famous Orange "ex-patriate".

However, following her final return to Europe, she faded from public memory, being admired only by a small band of scholars and collectors, as well as by family members - many of whom inherited pictures after her death.

Agnes Goodsir was however, unusual as an ex-patriate artist in that she never returned again, and certainly did not rely upon Australian buyers. The majority of our artists that I can think of who have chosen to be domiciled overseas have sold most of their work to Australians.

We do not really know her reasons for choosing to remain abroad, but it is clear that her personal inclinations deprived this country of her considerable talent, and deprived her likewise (until now) of deserved fame in her country of birth.

Anyone who sees this exhibition will be immediately impressed with the penetration of her characterisation in portraiture as well as by her delicate skill as a colourist. Although she chose to live surrounded by the innovations of the avant garde, she remained a conservative painter. She admired many modernists, but not much has impressed itself on her work. For instance she expressed admiration for the Japanese Parisian Tsugoharu Foujita (1886 - 1968), but any traces in her own work of the modernist "Japonissme" have come via Whistler and the academics such as Bougereau. There is not a trace to be seen in her work of contemporaries such as Picasso and Matisse.

Agnes Goodsir "In a Picture Land Over the Sea" is a most enjoyable exhibition - allowing the visitor a rare thrill of pleasant discovery, elegant beauty and a touch of the sort of pan-continental sophistication that makes me think of lines such as Eliot’s 1922 "April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain" and "In the room the women come and go, speaking of Michelangelo".

The marvellous fashions worn by Goodsir’s society subjects is another fascination, making the ugly and tasteless clothes of the 1990’s look very sick in comparison.

The exhibition is accompanied by a very good colour catalogue by Karen Quinlan that contains delightful insights and the fruits of good research. Her contemporary quotations reveal much about Australian attitudes and tantalise us as to the real reasons Goodsir stayed away for so long.

Artisans of Industry - The Fine Art of Design

Also opened last night is an interesting local show featuring paintings, drawings, photography and sculpture by Chris Anderson, Anthony Fitzsimon, Kel Gleeson, Loretta Goodacre, Trevor Hood, Mark Lovick, Tavia Lyons, Alf Manciagli and Duncan McRobert.

These people are all better known as commercial artist’s and graphic designers - artist’s whose work you see around town each day of your life without necessarily knowing who did it.

However, we are not showing their commercial work, but rather the fine art works that they have made for themselves for their own pleasure, without expectation of reward. Some of the artist’s were quite surprised when curator Mark Lovick approached them to put together this sort of show, as although many had been trained in formal art schools, they had not thought of exhibiting their work for years.

I believe that some of these artists are uncommonly good at their commercial work – indeed we are lucky to have their skills in Orange. It is interesting to see their talents applied to fine art, and to recall that originally there was little separation of the notions of "advertising" and "art" – they closely resembled each other because as the advertising industry grew in the nineteenth century fine artists were enlisted to illustrate and promote products. Occasionally we see a return to this notion – as in the "psychedelic" posters of the sixties.

The work in "Artisans of Industry" is all very different, ranging from witty character studies to landscape. I am sure that visitors will enjoy the show, and will enjoy having their "doors of perception" opened to the wealth of talent that exists largely unnoticed.

BACK TO PRESS RELEASE INDEX (TOP)

MAR 99

An Affair with FOOD

The gallery has mounted a special exhibition designed as a part of the forthcoming festivities for the Food of Orange District. The exhibition is now open to the public, although its formal Opening will coincide with the launch of the F.O.O.D Festival on 9 April.

Entitled An Affair with FOOD, the exhibition features paintings by two Sydney artists, one from Queensland, and five from the Central West. All the artists have worked around the theme of food, and as might be expected, they have concentrated on the tactile, decorative and sensual qualities of fruit, vegetables and prepared meals.

All the work is for sale, and my thanks are due to Art House Gallery and Australian Galleries of Sydney for making this possible, and also to Jane Arnott of F.O.O.D for drawing my attention to the works of Trebilcock and Ryan.

It would be easy for such an exhibition to slip into a neat predictable mould where "safe and slick" still life paintings ruled. But this is not the case with An Affair with FOOD.

Although there are indeed decorative still life works in the show - Stephen Trebilcock from Sydney is one of the best in the country in this genre - I have also included fellow Sydney- sider Selina Snow, whose faux - naif paintings of chefs like Neil Perry and Christine Mansfield add a human presence, and remind us of the great pleasures of the table when man transforms, through his art, the original ingredients (which are God’s art).

Selina Snow is a unique and witty artist whose dog lying on a bed of sausages is the quirkiest work in the show.

The textural and formal sensuality of food is emphasised by Trebilcock through his elegant composition and careful paint handling while Orange artist Prue Hawke and Errol Smith of Millthorpe express sensuality through other means.

Both juxtapose fruit and human anatomy in ways which remind me of Eliot’s classic line "Do I dare to eat a Peach?". These artists revel in the looks of sensual bliss (that so easily merge into lust) of people eating, and they also delight in the erotic forms of fruit and vegetables and their resemblance to body parts (Honi Soit Qui Mal y Pense!).

But these artists are devoid of the misanthropic vision of say, Fred Cress, and they manage to subtly imply the hovering presence of the seven deadly sins without delving into a sort of illustrated Dr Faustus.

I am a great admirer of the subtlety of their work, and although most people would not associate the new electric colour palette being used by Prue Hawke with "subtlety" I always find her colours original, harmonious and expressive, not merely decorative.

Her subtlety lies in an ability to express quite powerful, even shocking, feeling - yet the work is still attractive and appealing to the eye. Errol Smith has a gift for understatement and the transmission of his unique way of seeing with economy of means and quirky line.

Kate Ryan from Queensland has some lovely still life pictures that combine a certain freedom of handling with a very sure vision that is reminiscent of some of the still life work by Donald Friend. Kate Ryan is gaining a strong reputation for her water colours and when I was compiling this exhibition her work was admiringly mentioned by a number of art dealers.

Stuart Town artist Lyn Winters has a number of very closely observed and beautifully drawn coloured pencil works of fruit and vegetables. These are small glowing works where the form of the fruit is perfectly melded with harmonious colour so that the light source seems to emanate from within the fruit like a peaceful spiritual emanation. Understatement is also a strength of this artist, who seems to me to have hit a new peak with these fine little drawings.

Sita Cooray has some highly coloured and pleasing decorative works making good use of contrasting textures. She combines still lifes of fruit and vegetables (and chillies - not only her bright colours are reminiscent of her native Sri Lanka) with the Orange landscape that produced such an array of fine food. Some of these landscape vignettes are really drenched in light, and hint at new directions for her work.

Finally we are showing some new paintings by Kay Greenhill, very strong formal works in almost pure monochromes with just hints here and there of bright colour. Each has as a putative subject foodstuffs of some sort arranged on table or bureau, and to my eye these works reference both Paul Cezanne and the late John Brack, almost as an hommage. These are good paintings, where pure form is allowed its aesthetic significance without undue distraction. As with the highly formal work of Brack and Cezanne there is a sort of biological importance about the form (not merely linked to the food subject matter).

An Exchange of Views

Also showing is the large show of works we have borrowed from our neighbours in Bathurst Regional Gallery. We hope that this exchange (they showed some of our collection a year or so ago) will signal a new era in collaboration, perhaps with other jointly curated exhibitions that will enlarge our individual presences in the region.

This exhibition will come as a surprise to all our visitors, even those familiar with the collections of Bathurst. We are showing works that are very recent acquisitions as well as many that have not been shown for decades, and of course the choices and favourites of Brenda Gray and myself are probably quite different from what the Bathurst Gallery staff may have chosen. There are benefits in seeing with another’s eyes - indeed this is the whole point of art.

JULY 99

New Art Technologies

Until 8 August only, we are showing in our large space an interesting show of artworks made using the latest computer technologies.

Unlike many of the alleged artworks one sees made on computer, these are made by professional trained artists, and the works are aesthetically pleasing as well as making excellent use of the new possibilities opened by digitisation.

We are showing two separate exhibitions – one is Lightfingered, featuring wall works by six artists curated by RMIT curator and printmaker Lesley Duxbury. The other is a show of paintings by Melbourne artist Tim Ralph which provide background to a computer video he has made in which he animates one of the surrealistic and visceral paintings for which he is known.

The artists involved in Lightfingered, Sarah Winfrey, Louise Weaver, Fran van Riemsdyk, Megan McPherson, David Harley and Lesley Duxbury are clearly fascinated by the new opportunities of digital manipulation, but they have not let the medium dictate the form.

I think it would have been possible to achieve the effects seen in their works without the computer, but it would have taken a very much longer time – particularly in the works where three dimensional paper forms are fitted together.

I have recently returned from viewing Frank Gehry’s architectural masterpiece in Spain – the new Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. This magnificent building is composed of structures that were literally drawn freehand into a computer, which then calculated the engineering details and generated templates for computerised steel and stone cutting machines.

The travertine and titanium clad walls are in very few places regular or symmetrical in both diameter and width, being based on undulating and widening organic forms. Literally, the planet has never seen anything like this before – although there were and still are stone masons capable of cutting the cladding as exactly, it has been estimated that it would have taken around 70 years – the time it used to take to build Gothic cathedrals (and Gaudi’s cathedral in Barcelona will take 170 years!). The computer programme used by Gehry, originally developed for the aerospace industry, allowed him to complete the project in just seven years.

This seems to me to be the best use of computers in art – the ability to simplify the technical processes, to allow the vision of the artist the most complete and rapid emergence. Of course, the medium will in many ways influence the "message", just as the use of differing thicknesses of brushes or types of paper will help determine the final product.

This does not mean that computers will end up "dominating" art like some Terminator robot in a beret. As can be seen from Bilbao, and from the works now at the Gallery in Orange, the important thing is always the artist’s way of seeing.

Too much "computer art" has been made by cybergeeks without artistic training, and ends up resembling an overproduced website, or the proverbial dog’s breakfast.

The works on show in Orange are made by artists, and that is the essential point. Anyone interested in the use of new technologies in art should see Lightfingered and Tim Ralph.

Free Public Talk at Gallery on New Technologies

Curator of Lightfingered – Lesley Duxbury, will give a lunchtime lecture on Monday 2 August, between 1 and 2pm in the Gallery. This will hopefully be a good chance to learn some cutting edge techniques.

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At the End of the Pier: Paintings by Neil Cuthbert

Orange painter Neil Cuthbert’s exhibition of paintings on the theme of migration by sea continues to delight, even astonish our visitors.

I have even heard the culturally cringing comment "this guy is too good to be a local artist".

Of course I immediately told this visitor that nothing is too good for Orange, and that we are blessed with some excellent artists in the Central West. It became clear that the visitor had simply meant she had not seen artists of this quality in other parts of regional Australia.

There is no doubt that Neil has put together a first rate exhibition that is being very well received.

Made over four years as part of a thesis for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts, this is a singularly well crafted and thought provoking show. Not only has the artist succeeded in terms of the traditional verities of composition, figuration and colouristic design but his subject matter treats of considerable layers of meaning and emotional response.

And all of this made with enough rare confidence to also add humour and nostalgic charm!

It is a delight to see art, that although clearly transmitting some serious ideas, is also not embarrassed to be good humoured, making many sly witticisms about all sorts of things from art history to naval lore to Blackpool "I’ve lost my little Willy" postcards.

Part of the success of the exhibition stems from the fact that the artist does know what he paints – Neil was a seaman for 14 years in the British and Australian merchant navies before going to art school. It is so important for artists to have actual experience of their subject if they want realism and depth of meaning.

Every time I look at these pictures I see something new in them, far too much for this column to recount.

If you want to find out more (and you will if you have seen the pictures) come to Neil’s Public Floortalk on Monday 30^th August at 1.00pm in gallery 3 amidst the exhibition.

Cinderella’s Gems

This too is an excellent show – in my opinion the best general Australian group touring show in ten years.

The exhibition Curator’s, Belinda Allen and Tony Geddes give this exhibition rationale "Cinderella’s Gems illustrates the relationship between art and the intellectual mission of ten universities in New South Wales and the ACT. As such, the exhibition constitutes a powerful and compelling public statement about university art museums and collections and the contribution they make to the visual arts.

"Tucked away on university campuses around NSW and the ACT are some 8,000 works of art. Most of them live in offices, meeting rooms, public foyers and corridors only to be seen by staff and students. Collectively these works represent a substantial historical and cultural record of achievement by more than 1500 artists including painters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors, multi-media artists and a range of craft practitioners. Eminent names like Lloyd Rees, Grace Cossington Smith, Sydney Nolan, Margaret Preston, Brett Whiteley, Emily Kingwarreye and Rover Thomas share space with innovative, although less familiar, contemporary artists such as Peter Aitken, Gordon Bennett, Gloria Petyarre, Bronwyn Oliver and David Jensz.

"Universities collect art for a variety of reasons defined in acquisition policies. Foremost among these are enhancing the physical environment in which students and staff work and study, serving teaching and research needs and illustrating particular dimensions of the Universities’ research work."

There are many impressive works in Cinderella’s Gems, and it has been very well chosen to hang together. The only odd thing is that the important Sydney University Collection is not drawn upon – something remarked by a number of visitors.

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From Turon to Tambaroora ; Contemporary Hill End landscapes by Peter Wright.

This fine exhibition by the well known artist who died just four weeks ago continues in Gallery 2 until 22 August.

The Opening last week attracted over 100 people from out of town, mostly from Sydney, and the high profile art scene people who attended was evidence of the very high esteem in which he is held. This is a fine show, towards which the artist worked in the knowledge that he was dying.

Wright was aware that he was working in a tradition of Hill End painting pioneered by Drysdale, Friend, Whiteley, Bellette and many other leading artists in our history.

This exhibition is a fitting continuation of an important tradition in the Central West.

AUGUST 21 1999

From Turon to Tambaroora has been a very well received exhibition with many people from Sydney and beyond making the trip to see the show. Many people have left comments in the visitor’s book addressed to the artist, a way of paying their last respects to a much loved artist and friend.

The exhibition will now tour to four other venues in New South Wales.

Peter Wright died of cancer just three week before the show opened, in late June 1999. He had the disease for a couple of years, but his habitual cheerfulness and good temper sustained him to the end. He was a very funny and witty man, and was able to make jokes about his imminent demise.

From Turon to Tambaroora: Contemporary Hill End Landscape Painting by Peter Wright was curated by Brenda Gray in close consultation with the artist. Brenda has selected the show into thematic groups that cover the range of work he made in Hill End. These works are unlike many of the works he has made throughout his career, and reflect his sense of history as well as his vision of beauty in a strange landscape.

About half of the works in the exhibition were made after Peter discovered he was dying, and it is possible to read symbolism into some of the works that may not have been intended by the artist. Peter Wright was most conscious that he was working within a special tradition that holds an honoured place in Australian painting. The title he chose for his show –"Hill End Landscape Painting" is I think more relevant to the look and feel of this exhibition than his illness.

Certainly Peter has made some works that prefigure notions of death and pain, most notably the powerful group of small clay sculptures, but mostly, the works are best seen as an artist working within a local tradition established by masters like Friend, Drysdale, Whiteley, Bellette, Firth Smith and others who have painted and lived at Hill End.

No doubt he wished this to be his best show, not only because it would be his last complete body of work, but also because of the stature of the others who have gone before and established a vital tradition in this area.

Thus, I am inclined to see even the works whose subjects are wrecked cars as emblematic more of the nature of Hill End than of Peter’s own travails. Peter was far too clever not to have been aware of the symbolism, but don’t forget that Drysdale and Friend had made images of desolation and decay at Hill End while they were both in rude health. Hill End is, after all basically a ghost town kept alive by the skin of its teeth.

Even if Peter intended these images to reflect his own condition, his essential charm and good humour shines through, and there is not a hint of depression or anguish anywhere. It is a remarkably direct and unpretentious landscape show that reflects so well the artist’s own character to those who knew him.

It is this, I think that is the most moving thing about this show. Lesser creators would perhaps have battled with their angst and pain, but Peter Wright the consummate professional, the artist who has been associated with many of the major happenings in the Sydney art scene for over three decades, chooses to make a lovely and descriptive art that honours the tradition of Hill End itself. In doing so he revealed more about his own essential nature than he may have if he had chosen the expressionist route.

It is certainly the best work by Peter Wright that I have seen.

A series of Whiteley and Rees influenced undulating hillsides with road catch the eye for their accurate and dizzying perspective, yet the roads that figure in many of this series are clearly going somewhere interesting, and also have come from somewhere interesting.

All of his colours are soft, even muted, yet all are pleasing, making good use of the bleached earth colours of Hill End. Another series of orchards and vegetable gardens are painted in a charming fresh manner, in a faux naïve style with a strong vein of humour.

Wright made good use of his media, his monotypes taking advantage of the element of chance in this medium to lead in spontaneous directions. Most of these the artist has reworked with additional markings to emphasise some of these accidents of chance. Others, as his friend Tim Storrier sadly pointed out, he just did not have enough time to rework.

Only one work does have a gloomy atmosphere - a black heavily worked charcoal drawing of a late afternoon, a dead tree casting a long shadow on a hilly paddock. Another charcoal he has called "Black Infinity", but it is interesting to see that in both works the single tree is surrounded by other trees and that there is no essential tension apparent in the subject or composition. All is as it must be in the nature of life.

Over his career Peter has used a number of quite different styles, some very expressive and deep. However this simple landscape show probably says more than most of his other works.

I feel proud to have been able to help this body of work have its first showing, because it speaks of the alchemical power of art to transform life and bring new ways of seeing at even the most desperate times. Art can not cure cancer, but those who were with Peter Wright at his worst moments speak of the sustaining nature of his work and how it gave meaning and more ease to those times.

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FORG Art Award

Art Awards are sometimes criticised, usually by those who do not win them.

Critics of art prizes, who are usually artists themselves, say that there is a basic logical fault in attempting to compare things that are very different in both subject matter, intent, and style. These people say that art is the attempt to see with new eyes, and to lead others to see in this new way. They say that comparing ways of seeing, is a bit like comparing languages, and giving the prize to Russian because it is a more beautiful and expressive language than English.

They point out that the beauty and power of any language rather depends on what is actually said, and in any case, speakers will usually prefer their own native language, and experience other languages in its terms. Likewise, they say, for art judges, who are often accused of bias towards one style or another..

It is also alleged that it is a bit odd to award prizes for something that is essentially not a competitive activity.

Detractors of prizes say that making artists compete, demeans the product to the level of something essentially brainless, like a running race. Artists do not like to see themselves as Forrest Gump.

They allege that art is not about entertainment, or about trying to do something better than anyone else, so why give prizes and make a competition where there is none?

Well, although there is much truth in all of these arguments, the fact is that art competitions are a very well established and accepted part of the art scene. They are awarded I think in the majority of the world’s countries, certainly in all European countries, and I guess art prizes can be traced as far back as the ancient Druidic and Celtic bardic poetry Festivals from which sprang the modern Eisteddfods. Or to the equally ancient Chinese examinations for the Imperial beaurocracy, which involved an art and calligraphy competition.

The ability to win some prizes and some media attention have become an established stepping stone into the "big time". Brett Whiteley, for instance, won a Travelling Scholarship when he was a young artist that really set his feet upon the path to fame and fortune. Ditto for Tim Storrier and for the majority of successful artists in this country.

There would be very few professional artists who have not entered say the Archibald Prize at least once in their careers. Very few of these countless artists have even managed to be hung in the show, and just a tiny number have actually won the Archibald.

Just the same, the Archibald, and other art prizes, have become a rite of passage for artists in Australia. They provide a benchmark of public approbation to test one’s work against, and they also provide a jolly good reason for producing your best work.

When all is said and done the possibility of winning cold hard cash and basking in public adulation is pretty good motivation for knuckling down and doing your damnedest to make great art.

Now, the cavilling critic will say that there is no guarantee that this does in fact happen, and that many of the well known prizes actually contain second rate work painted just to win the money according to the known taste of the judges.

Most people however, think otherwise, and regard art prizes as being great motivators and a source of encouragement, to the winners as well as to all the entrants who are able to judge their own work on just about as level a playing field as they are ever going to get.

This latter approach is held by our own Friends of the Orange Regional Gallery , who offer an annual award to district school students doing primary year six, and secondary year eleven. They put up cash prizes of $300 for each of these winners, which is we think one of the most generous cash awards in the country for school art at this level.

The FORG art award has been running now for enough years to see past winners go on to be selected for ARTEXPRESS and other major shows, and to begin promising careers in art and design. There is no reason why some of these past winners will not go on to great things in their chosen field of art.

Certainly, these winners talk about the great feeling of encouragement they received when they found that others shared their own belief and vision, and recognised their talent, (and of course, that the cash was the most money they had ever won before or since)!

This years FORG Art Award is currently on show in Gallery two until 14 November, opening last night with the concurrent Pack Age exhibition of professional contemporary art.

Although at the time of writing we have still not completed the hanging of the FORG award, and it has not been judged, I think that those works I have seen are of a high standard indeed, this year particularly the secondary works, which have sometimes been a bit weak in the past.

It really does look as though this may be the best FORG Award to date, and my congratulations go to FORG, to the students, and to the art teachers from the ten or so district schools who have chosen to allow their students to compete.

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What John Berger Saw (1)

John Berger (b. 1926) is an English writer and critic who has won the Booker prize for literature and also wrote the important books and television series on art and photography Ways of Seeing (1972) and About Looking (1983)

The bible tells us that The prophet is never honoured in his own land, a truth of which I have been reminded forcibly while preparing for this article on our current show "What John Berger saw", which runs in Gallery One until February 27.

For despite John Berger’s great popularity with artists and the general public, my 1994 CD rom of the (English) Penguin Reference Library does not mention him at all – no quotations, yet the comparable American product, the 1994 Microsoft Bookshelf gives over 40 quotations from Berger’s writings – even more quotes than it gives the much quoted Dorothy Parker.

This seems to me to be an interesting disparity, and is further highlighted by the fact that What John Berger Saw, a fascinating look at the influence of this powerful thinker and writer, a world first, is in fact an Australian exhibition, curated by Merryn Gates of Canberra School of Art. As in Berger’s writings, the periphery is often the source of the most important happenings.

The exhibition What John Berger Saw features paintings and photography by eight Australian artists who claim to have been influenced by his writings, which are easily applicable to the making of art.

The exhibition also has a collaborative work in progress by Berger with John Christie.

The Australians are Robert Boynes, Susan Fereday, Elizabeth Gersakis, Dean Golija, Paul Hoban, John Hughes, Tim Johnson, Peter Kennedy, Peter Lyssiotis, Polixeni Papapetrou, Gregory Pryor, Anne Zahalka and Constance Zikos. It is interesting that so many of the artists were born in other countries, reflecting I suppose Berger’s preoccupation with the themes of migration and dislocation.

Because of the wide range of Berger’s thought, and also because of the rather fragmentary and "unclosed" style of his didactic presentations, I thought it would sensible to present a series of quotations from his writings, so that visitors to the exhibition could have his ideas resonating in their minds as they saw the show.

From Ways of Seeing 1972

Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at

Emigration, forced or chosen, across national frontiers or from village to metropolis, is the quintessential experience of our time.

Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. . . . The nude is condemned to never being naked. Nudity is a form of dress.

From About Looking 1980

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.

The zoo cannot but disappoint. The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals. Yet nowhere in a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal’s gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond.

From Keeping a Rendezvous (collected essays 1992)

Nothing in the nature around us is evil. This needs to be repeated since one of the human ways of talking oneself into inhuman acts is to cite the supposed cruelty of nature.

Ours is the century of enforced travel . . . of disappearances. The century of people helplessly seeing others, who were close to them, disappear over the horizon.

All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this—as in other ways—they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it.

To live and die amongst foreigners may seem less absurd than to live persecuted or tortured by one’s fellow countrymen . . . But to emigrate is always to dismantle the centre of the world, and so to move into a lost, disoriented one of fragments.

The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied . . . but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing.

What John Berger Saw (2)

John Berger’s popular writings have been prescribed texts in Universities, Schools and Art Schools throughout the world since their publication in the early seventies.

Curator Merryn Gates, of Canberra School of Art, feeling that an appraisal of his influence was overdue, advertised in the art press for artists who have been influenced by John Berger’s ideas, and the selection we have is the result of rigorous paring down of very many submissions from artists all over Australia. The exhibition also includes a poetic and beautiful correspondence between Berger and his filmmaker friend John Christie.

The appreciation of the works on show is greatly enhanced by a knowledge of Berger’s ideas, as each of the artists has submitted works that elucidate one of Berger’s ideas, or rather have been made in response to his writings.

While there is an academic slant to the show, this does not mean that the exhibition is desiccated, distanced or dull. Rather, as is constantly stressed by Berger, the presented works of art are closely bound up with the everyday real life and beliefs of the artists and for the most part the works are vital and accessible - although the viewer benefits greatly from knowledge of Berger’s ideas, as have the artists.

Berger is one theorist whose ideas are capable of direct use by artists. His clarity is renowned, and his frequent use of images with textual explanation approximates the natural way that artists assimilate knowledge.

To make familiarisation with Berger easy, we are constantly running video programmes of his two famous BBC television programmes Ways of Seeing (1972) and About Looking, both of which had a huge impact at the time, not only for what was said, but particularly for the way in which it was said – using images and words in novel and unexpected conjunctions to make various points about ownership, about the context dependent meaning of artworks, and about the differences between drawings, paintings and photographs among many other discourses.

The Australian artists in What Berger Saw are Robert Boynes, Susan Fereday, Elizabeth Gersakis, Dean Golija, Paul Hoban, John Hughes, Tim Johnson, Peter Kennedy, Peter Lyssiotis, Polixeni Papapetrou, Gregory Pryor, Anne Zahalka and Constance Zikos. It is interesting that so many of the artists were born in other countries, reflecting I suppose Berger’s preoccupation with the themes of migration and dislocation.

Each artist has given the show work of consequence, with perhaps the most outstanding being Peter Kennedy’s huge wall of superb drawings.

Kennedy is known these days mostly for his film and video work, so it is a surprise to see these really excellent drawings, which seem to reveal far more of the artist than his other work. Berger says " A drawing is an autobiographical record of ones discovery of an event – seen, remembered or imagined… In front of a painting or statue (the viewer) tends to identify himself with the subject; in front of a drawing he identifies with the artist, using the images to gain the conscious experience of seeing as though through the artists own eyes".

So Kennedy has chosen drawing for the important autobiographical moment when he became disillusioned with socialism as practiced by the four "patriarchs" Stalin, Mao, Lenin and Marx.

The smeared and monstrous faces of these four, like the living dead, reflect their horrible fascination for, and the profound disillusionment of the artist. I say "living" dead because the accompanying series of drawings contains mutated images of the four communists surrounding some very beautiful drawings of Kennedy’s new baby son. As a whole this work seems to imply that although dead and corrupt, the essence of these four men remains floating around in the milieu, ready for take up by another generation – perhaps in a positive and evolved format.

Also running until 27 February is a show from the Historic Houses Trust of NSW concentrating on the great challenges of western NSW agriculture and the ways in which eight families are dealing with these problems. Featuring good black and white photographs of some historic properties like Tubbo, this exhibition is required viewing for anyone interested in the rural crisis and changing agricultural practices.

This important exhibition of photographs by Lindy Kerr documents how eight families on the land in western NSW are dealing with some of the crises of modern agriculture: salination, woody weeds, carp infestation, feral animals.

It was opened by the Chairman of the Historic Houses Trust, the fabulous Jack Mundey, who in his usual style got right to the heart of the matter, explaining the Historic Houses Trust interest in land management "if we don’t do something about conservation of the land and waterways, there won’t be any people left to conserve the grand old properties for future generations".

Jack Mundey has received two honorary doctorates and is honoured by the National Trust as an Australian Living Treasure for his life long commitment to practical conservation. He recently received the Order of Australia.

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SEP 2000 LE CHEMINANT AND SECRET PLACES

As is our usual strategy, the Gallery is showing three very different exhibitions at once, with the idea that any visitor, no matter what their preferences in art, will be able to see something that they like, and hopefully, like very much indeed.

The exhibitions will run concurrently until 1 August.

The 6^th Festival of Student Art occupies the big Gallery One space. It is a very large exhibition, featuring over 300 works, nearly all of which have been framed and mounted by our Education Officer, Brenda Gray, who also selected the works with the assistance of art teachers in Orange schools.

The show features work from Kindergarten right through to TAFE, so is a terrific way to follow the varying ways of seeing that develop as art is practiced throughout the entire student years. As a number of the TAFE students are already accomplished artists of mature years, we feel that we can be said to be presenting the full range of student work from beginner to professional .

For the first time, this biannual show has a theme – needless to say, it is The Olympics, and for those who can’t get enough of this event, we certainly have the icing on the cake – featuring many different angles on sport as seen by young and not so young artists.Many are truly delightful .

Secret Places, an unusual installation which is a collaboration between artist Sieglinde Karl, photographer Kate Hamilton, musician Ron Nagorcka and poet Hazel Smith.

The four conspirators have formed a work of coherence and power, which has been impressing many visitors with its feminist and ecological standpoint, expressed in an understated, yet provocative manner. The piece incorporates a stunning woven female figure set up on a burial tomb reminiscent of pre Christian burials.

Comments from the visitors book " "Feelings of the sacred and spiritual – the smells of the bush and sounds of poetry and birds and music make this a wonderful experience for all the senses" "The whole experience - smell, sound, seeing, walking in and out, was wonderful". Children have written "It was amazing, and I could not weave a woman out of pine needles" "It was mad and scary and gave me nightmares".

This is very well worth seeing…you will not easily forget this piece.

Upstairs, we are showing "As Above So Below" a series of paintings by Ruth le Cheminant.

For an artist domiciled in the Blue Mountains, le Cheminant's vibrant colour is a bit of a surprise…relating perhaps more to the splendid plumage of the mountain parrots than to the eucalypt and sandstone tonalities with blue grey sfumato hues we are used to in "traditional" painting from this area.

Le Cheminant is a dab hand at making striking harmonies with strong colour (made all the stronger perhaps by the blood red colour we have painted the walls), and in many respects this is one of the most striking colouristic exhibitions we have shown in recent years.

The show comprises attractive landscapes, nearly all made with horizontal or diagonal strokes of a one inch or so brush, where strong colour is laid down in stokes of roughly even length. In some works the colours are disparate, melding into bright landscapes of greater or less abstraction.

In others, various subtle hues of the same colour combine to form a study of colour itself, where the impasto of the surface and the slight differences in hue, combine to animate the surface. Depth and luminosity come from well chosen underpainting and the built up layers of brush strokes.

Other works combine decorative contrasting lines and motifs which also serve to add a dynamism to the surface, through making the eye jump a bit. In some, particularly the works of pure abstraction, the applied cross motifs serve a psychological function, evoking an event of strong personal significance in the artist’s life.

It is interesting how the viewer can somehow tell that in these paintings, where a jagged cross is placed on a bare field of colour, the cross does not serve simple decorative purposes, but has some as yet hidden importance..

This is a show that really glows on the walls, not with the subtle inner glow of say, a Mark Rothko, but with a sort of brash attractiveness…more Sydney than Melbourne we might say.

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New Acquisitions from Friends

I can now announce that the Friends of the Gallery have just made a number of important purchases for the Gallery. Firstly they have donated the entire series of prints made by Michael Kempson and Matthew Tome of the Prime Ministers of Australia.

This gift was made in celebration of the Federation of Australia, and I must say that I cannot think of a more suitable acquisition for this purpose, as the light hearted works by Kempson and Tome retain a great deal of the true Aussie spirit, and treat their subject with dignity, but with gentle satire.

Michael Kempson is one of Australia’s foremost printmakers, as well as being an Orange ex-pat. The works were purchased from the touring exhibition A Little Respect, which we showed early on this year.

The Friends have also purchased a work by Harry Sherwin of Adelaide, a fine gouache by a notable practitioner of the technique, which celebrates the formal qualities of the aubergine as it also celebrates Australia’s World Cup cricket victory. Not bad for one small painting!

The Friends have also purchased a quality Agfa document and transparency scanner, which the Gallery can use for preparation of catalogues and posters as well as in cataloguing the collection for the World Wide Web.

These are donations which are really useful, and important if the Gallery is to grow and meet the increasing challenges of decline in the funding base.

The Europeans, touring from the National Gallery of Australia, is an important show, which has caused something of a general re-appraisal of the impact of émigré artists on our culture. Although this show focuses on the contribution of just a dozen or so European migrant artists, it causes us to think of many others who also came here in the period 1930 to 1960, and of the particular ways of seeing that their life experience contributed to our own culture.

This exhibition concentrates on Europe, but in years to come we will need a show dedicated to Asian emigres, who are only recently becoming well known in Australia, although there have been artists here for over one hundred and fifty years who came from Asia… their work is almost completely unknown to the wider community.

The Europeans is somewhat brooding in subject matter, and I guess this is to be expected given the traumatic events of the time frame surveyed. This somewhat angst-ridden atmosphere is heightened by the very dark lighting conditions in which we must show the delicate works on paper.

The Europeans contains however, some very beautiful and moving work..including a piece made in the second war internment camp in Orange by Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack…which, by its venomous choice of colours, seems to me to be playing with the name Orange as well as evoking a tortuous mental state.

The Europeans contains a small, but excellent choice of sculpture, jewellery, drawing and printmaking by artists, the extent of whose contribution is now undoubted.

The show is divided up into six sections: "Persecuted peoples in Europe", "Internees", "Dreams and Nightmares", "Art and Life", "Alienation" and "Search for Self". With such titles it is evident that this is not a feel good piece of fluff exhibition, but rather a serious examination of the sort of cultural and emotional baggage that the émigré’s brought with them, and how they translated this into the Australian experience.

I should say here that the free documentation that accompanies the exhibition is surprisingly light on for a NGA show, not too much depth in this at all, but that there is a very good book published for sale to accompany the show, which is very well worth adding to your Australian art library. The essays in this go into the sort of detail that is demanded by the very fine works in the exhibition.

There are no uninteresting works in this how, all have some important aspect or another to offer the viewer, and it is difficult to pick particular works over others to talk about in this column. However, I must mention in particular the sculpture by Inge King and Julius Kane and the fine medallions by Andor Meszaros. All of these artists are better known in Victoria, as they were based in Melbourne, but their work will certainly be known to most Australians, if not by name, as they all achieved success and commissions of national importance.

Andor Meszaros became the most prominent and sought after medal maker and relief sculptor in the country, many of whose works have been scattered across Australia. His Stations of the Cross made between 1942 and 1970 were especially popular, and can be seen in Cathedrals and museums in every state.

Julius Kane and Inge King were founding members of the Melbourne Sculptors group "centre Five Group" which was ahead of its time in promoting the role of monumental sculpture and its close relationship to architecture and to the wider community through public spaces. This group had influence far beyond Melbourne, and we owe them some thanks for the (slowly) emerging role of public art in this country.

Inge King still exhibits of course, but Kane and Meszaros are both dead now.

Inge King’s work "Flying Form" of 1961, is one of my favourite pieces in the show, welded steel of surprising airy grace. I wonder if it is just the context of this exhibition that causes me to see the ranked horizontals in grey steel as serried bombers? It is a highly original composition that is pleasant in form and texture.

Kane’s Adam and Eve of 1954 has also become a favourite, the looks of almost blissful innocence on their faces, and their odd hermetic gestures, are most charming…although I think I detect a critical cast in the treatment that makes of their fatuous innocence something almost evil – as though they have chosen not to see. I guess that there were very few survivors of the European holocaust who did retain a belief in pure innocence.

Life Forms Earth Forms

This is a show of consequence by four artists associated with Bathurst who have worked to ensure an harmonious and coherent exhibition. The works , paintings and ceramics by Tim Miller, Jeannie Holmes-Littlewood, Peter Marshall and Peter Wilson hang together very well, and have been drawing many appreciative comments from visitors.

Visitors all seem to have a personal favourite artist, which reflects well upon the overall quality of the show, but I suppose most comments relate to the beauty of Peter Wilson’s crystalline glazed ceramic pieces and to Tim Miller’s light dappled landscape paintings,

Certainly Wilson has mastered the intricacies of crystalline glazes, where the firing allows certain metallic constituents of the glaze to grow flower like crystals. This is a tricky enough process to control, as these glazes are notoriously slippery and tend to run off the ceramic body, but they also react with sand or other impurities in the clay to produce unexpected results, so the clay itself needs to be very carefully chosen. And when the potter has all of these variables under control, he still has to make sure that the crystal growth reflects and complements the actual form of the vessel upon which it sits. He also must make sure that the many possible colour combinations of his glaze formula all balance to produce exactly the effect he is after.

Peter Wilson has gained a high degree of control over the process, which really is a remarkable change from his past concentration on earthy raku fired pieces with their much greater reliance on random effects. Certainly crystal glazes are to an extent unpredictable, but Wilson has achieved great control, enabling attractive and decorative flourishes, such as contrasting coloured pooled rims and in most cases, no need to grind the foot of the piece.

Wilson’s forms too, although not dissimilar to those of the last decade, have evolved to mature and pleasing shapes of greater architectonic intent.

Tim Miller’s paintings also speak strongly of professional skill and control, although exercised so well that the viewer does not feel the effort. Rather, he makes free and impressionistic paintings of light and cloud effects that are both relaxing to view and harmonious in colour. His observation of nature is profound, and although he differs from them in many respects of technique and intent, he shares with the impressionist painters a fascination with the effects of local colour upon shadows and the fleeting delights of gentle light.

In the catalogue he says that he gets "a sense of reality or identity in expressing a feeling from natural stimuli". In many respects he is an unusual landscape painter, as he manages to convey more of subtle feeling and inner states than most …I guess he too is a seeker after Cezanne’s "petite sensation".

BACK TO PRESS RELEASE INDEX (TOP)

Some visitors have been asking about the exhibition of fine contemporary Australian prints made by master printer Diana Davidson in her Whaling Road Studio in Sydney. This show is upstairs in Gallery 3, and features beautiful works by Arthur Boyd, Charles Blackman, Liz Cummings, Kevin Connor, John Firth Smith, Donald Friend, Richard Goodwin and many other leading lights of Australian art.

People are confused about what an artist print is, and how it differs from a photographic reproduction.

Well the first point to make is that an artist print is made carefully by the artist, often in collaboration with a master printer, with the intention of producing a relatively small number of hand made works.

The artist may want to make prints because of their inexpensiveness , so he can reach sections of the market who cannot afford paintings or drawings, or he may just want to achieve certain effects that can only be gained through a print medium. Some artist prints are so beautiful that over time they have achieved prices that rival those of paintings – Rembrandt’s etching Christ Presented to the People for instance sells for over a million dollars US.

Certain textures, edge effects and colour harmonies can be achieved in artist printmaking that cannot be gained by other means. The velvety blacks of a mezzotint or etching just can’t be matched any other way, nor can the expressive lines of a linocut.

In artist limited edition prints, if a camera is used in any part of this process, it will generally have been used as part of the artist’s making of the image, rather than as the means of producing a low cost image. Some artist print making techniques may use a camera…for instance to transfer an image made by the artist to silk screen, but in general, if this is done, it is because the artist has wanted a "photographic edge" to the print. An example of this is Andy Warhol’s famous celebrity prints.

There is a vigorous collectors market for artist prints, enabled by the generally lower cost and high quality of such prints, which are usually made on fine hand made paper and have a lovely texture and matt sheen. The hand made aspect is a very important part of the high prices paid for Warhol’s prints…nobody would pay half a million dollars for an actual Campbells soup label!.

The second important point about artist prints is that although there are many different possible media used for the process, in general each printing block or plate is capable of making only a few first quality images, and then the printing surface begins to wear and image quality is reduced. Therefore, artist prints are usually limited to editions numbering only in the tens. Collector’s pay the highest prices for the lowest numbered prints in an edition.

To produce very large editions, say over one hundred impressions, photo mechanical techniques are generally used which produce long wearing steel printing plates .

Photo mechanical reproduction can reproduce very many identical images, and sometimes companies try to pass these off as limited edition artist prints. However, real artist prints are always marked by convention with the number of prints made in the edition, and they are always signed by the artist.

You will often see prints of well known artist’s works marked with edition numbers in the hundreds. A check with a magnifying glass will reveal the tell tale "dot screen" markings of photographic printed reproduction. Such works do not fetch nearly as much on the market as an artist print., where the highest prices are reserved for the very first satisfactory prints, which are marked by convention as Printers Proof and Artist Proof (PP and AP). The printer and the artist reserve the first one or two copies they are satisfied with, for themselves. And these have the crispest finish.

The third point about artist prints is that the artist must have made or overseen the original design on the printing surface itself. He or she will have drawn the design onto the lithographic stone, or the etching plate, or have gouged and cut the recessions into a lino cut or woodcut. If he has not actually drawn the markings straight onto the printing surface, he will always have drawn the design onto a tracing sheet which the master printmaker will then translate, under his supervision, into the printed medium. Cheap mass reproduction prints are merely photographs of an existing work, which are then translated into an offset or other printing press capable of making thousands of identical images. The artist need not have been any where near the process, and very often is not even aware of the making of such reproductions (as they are often made after an artist’s death).

Having been satisfied with the design, and the colours, format and paper, the artist will often hand the actual printing of the images over to the master printer, who is then responsible for printing the edition so that each resembles as closely as possible the original artist proof copy. The edition number will be decided by printer and artist based upon the possibility of producing a certain number before the image quality degrades too far.

When this number is reached, the printer will score the printing plate or black so that it cannot be used again. In the Gallery at the moment we have examples of printing plates with the cancellation mark made by master printer Diana Davidson evident.

I hope that what I have said here helps explain how delighted we are to receive a donation of Printer’s Proof prints from Diana Davidson, master printer, whose Whaling Road Studio is one of the foremost studios in Australia. The exhibition at the Gallery contains some of the best prints made in this country for twenty years, and has been very well received by most visitors.

Upstairs, Margaret Roberts’ Horizon consists of a number of video screens running concurrent movies of rail journeys. The artist has produced catalogues and various accoutrements for the show that further enhance the metaphors of expansion and travel.

The artist tells us in the catalogue " Horizon is a video installation which has come out of an interest in exploring the effect of our movement on the appearance of what we see. It is also influenced by an interest in locating ourselves in our environment, in a way which helps us understand where we stand, and our relationship to the world surrounding us.

Each video shown in Horizon, was made by pointing a video camera at right angles to the direction of the train, holding the lens against the train window, turning the camera on, holding it level as much as possible, and recording continuously for one hour. The camera records what any traveller sees as they look out of the train window into the passing world. However it records only a selection of it, as the camera lens is fixed at 90 degrees to the train, and records a much narrower band of vision than human eyes can see. A traveller has access to far more information than is provided by the camera's record, so that the moving image collected by the camera, is more concentrated and abstract in comparison with the moving world seen by the traveller.

This selection of visual information means the video-viewer can exert the same amount of concentration on a smaller range of visual information, enabling people to see some things more clearly, or, in practice, to realise that many things we see every day, are actually very confusing. For example, we can see how forms change as we move past or through them, how foreground (e.g. other moving trains) edit the background in and out of what we see, how the moving image tends to separate into segments which move at different speeds against each other, as if someone was pulling strings on a large theatre stage. Presumably we see these same sort of things everyday, or whenever we travel.

We may also see this familiar world in a different way in a video recording, because one of the many things deleted from the world we look at in the video recording, is our own presence in it. This presence is re-inserted here in the video installation, through combining several videos into a large drawing which emphasises the viewer's presence watching them. Viewers can see a map of the continent marked with the locations shown on each video, which, if they so wish, they can use to work out that they are in the centre of this large continental drawing. In Horizon (Orange), the videos document a long line from Perth, through Orange, to Sydney, and another short one from Dubbo to Orange. These lines could be understood as a drawing across the continent which marks, through the juncture of two lines, the spot where the videos are installed and where people are watching them

A cross (juncture) is one of those ambiguous things that does one thing and its opposite - it marks a spot but also deletes something through crossing it out. How we understand the meaning of any particular cross, in practice, is determined by its context and the extent of our knowledge of that context. As I travelled across these rail lines to make the videos, I realised that these lines and all the other elements of settlement- the cleared land, the fences, the roads, the towns etc - mark one way of knowing the landscape and delete another. Yet many of those deleted lines may still be there, if only I had the knowledge to see them. "

Although this may sound somewhat simplistic and documentary, numerous visitors are quite captivated by this piece by an artist with a unique way of seeing. I see her use of the land markings of railway lines, with the attendant mythology of development and corruption, as rather more a journey into Vico’s Sapienza Poetica than an exploration of the banal.

The NSW Ministry for the Arts funded Outreach project featuring the sculpture of Phil Hammial, Janine Hilder and Errol Smith has finished in Canowindra, and has moved into a shop window in the top block in Molong, where it will reside for the next two weeks.

Our Volunteer Gallery Guides, who have been manning the exhibition in Orange, Parkes, and Canowindra report that this is a hugely successful project, that has been very much enjoyed by the large numbers of school children who have attended workshops, and by the many hundreds of other visitors to the exhibition.

EVENT: PERFORMANCE ART LAUNCH OF ORANGE REGIONAL GALLERY OUTREACH PROJECT

From now until Sunday May 7, found object sculptural works by Hammial and Hilder, with further works by Millthorpe artist Errol Smith will be on display in the old Dulux paint shopfront, and then be on show in Parkes for a week before moving on to other Central Western towns, where the sculptures will be displayed in empty shopfronts courtesy of local landlords.

School children will attend workshops in the disused shopfronts where the sculptures will be shown.

Orange Gallery Director Alan Sisley says that perhaps the project may encourage others to think of alternate uses for the many empty shops that are the obvious casualties of the rural crisis. He says that this Outreach Project is the first of a number designed to bring art more directly into the community and to assist schools and adults who are hampered by distance from seeing more art.

The project is funded by the NSW Ministry for the Arts, an active participant in the NSW government’s policies of enlarging cultural possibilities west of the Divide.

Janine Hilder and Phil Hammial are well known artists, capable of making witty, even outrageous sculpture from the most mundane objects. Errol Smith too, has a unique way of seeing that will charm and intrigue passers by to the exhibition.

However, the artists are also fine performers as well as sculptors …Janine Hilder is well known to visitors to Darling Harbour, where she gives regular art performances, and Phil Hammial is well known as a poet..in fact he leaves for South Africa to be guest at a Poetry Festival on Friday.

Three New Shows begin

Last night the President of the Friends of the Gallery Peter McFarland officially opened the new exhibitions for the month.

The Friends of the Gallery have for a number of years offered cash prizes of $300 and $250 to the outstanding student entrant in both years 6 and year 11. They want to encourage students to keep on with their art, and a cash award is definitely a great incentive for young people..and buys quite a bit of art equipment.

This years winners will be announced in this newspaper next week, but I can tell you that many feel this to be one of the best years yet, with much good work to be seen, and there look to be some likely candidates for the year 12 ARTEXPRESS show next year.

This was one of Peter MacFarland’s first official duties as President of the Friends, having taken over from the excellent Bernie Huxtable recently. Peter has plenty of good ideas and enthusiasm for the Gallery, and although it is hard at present to find willing volunteer workers, Peter and the FORG Committee are steering a course towards new activities and a fresh approach for the Friends of the Gallery.

The FORG Art Award is but one of many "quietly achieving" things that the Friends do for the Community, and I do hope that next year, the official Year of the Volunteer, their membership will be boosted and more people who want to work for the Friends will come forward.

The FORG Art Award will run only until 26 November.

Sebastian is an exhibition of contemporary realist painting featuring ten young and middle career artists who specialise in the accurate portrayal of nature and the human figure. The Curator , Alison Kubler from the Gold Coast City Gallery, chose the name Sebastian after her cat. She says she wanted a name that didn’t carry any theoretical connotations...but I reckon she just likes her cat.

Alison’s method of nomenclature has appeal to me: why not name a show after someone I like? I was very fond of my mothers father, so I am going to call the next exhibition I curate Purvis Cornelius Rudolph Augustus Breadpoultice Smith.

Although the name Sebastian may be theory neutral, the works on show are not. There are many hip ultra realist works, including pixilated transcriptions from Quake, hand painted trompe l'oeil knitting patterns and monochromatic portraits visible only under raking light - all of which carry more than a whiff of the obfuscating French perfume beloved of Jean Baudrillard and other woolly Gallic philosophes.

Although Sebastian may be a cat’s name, in this show, the theory of the simulacra is top dog.

Despite my aversion to post structuralist philosophy, I confess that I enjoy this show more than a little. It is like nothing we have shown before, and I suspect that most visitors will share my enjoyment of these small slices of life on our modern planet, which for many people will raise two lovely and important questions - "what on earth is this about?" and "in heaven’s name why would you make a painting of that?"

Sebastian runs until 7January

This year our annual Christmas Selling exhibition features tribal artefacts from respected Sydney dealers Nomadic Rug Traders and Galleries Primitifs.

We have about two hundred intriguing things to choose from, Afghan hats and camel saddle bags, embroidered and sequined conical hats, Trobriand combs, betel mortars, Sepik figurines, Navajo Indian jewellery, Persian Carpet runners, Small Tapa cloths…an Aladdin’s cave of affordable objects d’art with prices around $20 up to over $1000.

The suppliers were asked to keep prices for most objects below $300, and although this is getting pretty hard with the great expansion of the so called tribal art market in recent times, Nomadic Rug Traders and Galleries Primitifs have been generous, and I think collectors will recognise some real bargains to be had.

The Christmas Selling exhibition is designed to provide an opportunity to buy a special present that you certainly will not find anywhere else in the Central West. In combination with the Gallery Shop, with its new range of jewellery and lovely things, the Gallery can provide most of your Christmas gifts.

The Christmas Selling Exhibition – Tribal Arts, will be open until 20 December, the Gallery Shop will be open everyday except Christmas Day. Tues to Sat 11to 5, Sundays 2 to 5.

The damp weather seems to have put a squib on enthusiasm for the Trip to the Edge bus tour to the Mountains planned for 20 November. We only have about half of the bookings necessary for this trip, so we have deferred this exciting journey to the new year..possibly late February. With apologies to those who booked. Watch this space!