Exhibitions

The exhibition Brave New Worlds investigates the impact of human intervention in the world, examining how it has shaped the present and imagining how it might shape the future.

With startling imagination, Brave New Worlds brings to life some of the terrifying and exhilarating possibilities long embraced by science fiction, reminding us, unflinchingly, that we are hurtling toward an uncertain future. In a collection of intertwining narratives, the works in Brave New Worlds offer a vision of our world to come that is politically charged without being pessimistic; it is a vision that ultimately celebrates the resilience and ingenuity of earth’s inhabitants.

Curated by Anne-Marie Hurtgen & Kirsten Cunningham

Artists:

Amr Alfaleh, Kirsten Cunningham, Sophie Clague, Jessica Edwards, Julia Featherstone, Josh Harle, Laura Hill, Anne-Marie Hurtgen, James McDonald, Gail Reingold, Intan Tenacious, Miren Zarate and Freya Zinovieff

The next group exhibition to open at BREENSPACE, The Drawing Room, will include the work of three COFA graduates, Joyce Hinterding (Master of Digital Media), Prudence Murphy(Bachelor of Fine Arts/ Master of Fine Arts) & Nike Savvas (Master of Fine Arts).

"The Drawing Room exists outside of the 'mark-making' convention. The works in the exhibition look to Kandinsky's proposition that a line is a point set in motion, and explores the ways in which artists build analogies between drawing, thought and movement. The exhibition includes both gallery and invited artists, and features a range of approaches to the discipline of drawing."

More info.

SPI graduate Abdullah M. I. Syed is currently exhibiting in New York in the group exhibition Méré Humd(r)um: Contemporary Art from Pakistan.

The exhibition explores how a new generation of artists has embraced progressive modes of post-colonial art practice to offer new interpretations and pose new questions in direct response to the chaos around them, and how extraordinary possibilities are born of extraordinary circumstances.

More info.

Stories in Form will look at the dynamic process that involves designers, products and owners in the storytelling process. From the initial ideas that inspire the product, to changes in the object resulting from use, every product has a story. Importantly, Stories provide an opportunity to break the throwaway relationship we have with our things, and encourage owners to keep their products for longer.

A series of dining chairs by Alice Springs based designer and COFA Bachelor of Design (Hons) graduate Elliat Rich will be presented at various stages of wear. Over the course of their life, the chairs become more beautiful as a result of their interaction with the owner.

COFA graduate Hobart Hughes and COFA staff member John Gillies are in the group show Five Bells: A Visual Ode to Sydney at Damien Minton Gallery.

I looked out my window in the dark
At waves with diamond quills and combs of light
That arched their mackerel-backs and smacked the sand
In the moon's drench, that straight enormous glaze,
And ships far off asleep, and Harbour-buoys
Tossing their fireballs wearily each to each,
And tried to hear your voice, but all I heard
Was a boat's whistle, and the scraping squeal
Of seabirds' voices far away, and bells,
Five bells. Five bells coldly ringing out.
Five bells.

This passage from the poem Five Bells by Australian poet Kenneth Slessor appears in the very first section of the book ‘Sydney’, by Delia Falconer.

This has inspired the Damien Minton Gallery to invite 40 artists to contribute artwork about Sydney.

This work is based on the found object and the intriguing luminosity that is achieved through the mixture of oil paint and the combination of paraffin wax and bees wax

In work developing from her BankART Life III residency in Yokohama, Japan in 2011 undertaken with Artspace curator Mark Feary, COFA Bachelor of Fine Arts/ Master of Fine Arts graduate Kate Mitchell extends her exploration of the subject within temporally stretched, endurance action work.   

"Magic Undone features the work Fall Stack, a five channel video work, which places the artist in mundane settings – a grocery store, a liquor store, bakery, chemist, and video store – made surreal through their cartoonish playfulness as the artist endlessly falls through the frame.   Negotiating that disconcerting notion of the endless work/life cycle Mitchell’s own abrupt descent provides no respite as she repeatedly cycles through these colourful everyday scenes."

More info. 

Master of Fine Arts graduate Noelene Lucas is exhibiting in a group show at Articulate project space.

The artists involved in Cloud Collectors have each had a long fascination for the diffuse, changeable and ephemeral nature of clouds.

COFA Bachelor of Fine Arts & Master if Fine Arts graduate Nathan Babet will exhibit alongside Alexander Poulet at the Eastern Bloc Gallery.

The uncanny has been traced to the 'residual' of animistic origins in the development of primitive peoples. Heidegger furthers this association by conceding that the origin of feeling "not at home" must derive from a primeval phenomenon.

These photographs sit as a prelude to an exhibition of a larger body of work at Tin Sheds Gallery in April this year. Enacting the traditional guild of 'Wandergesellen' (Travelling Journeymen) as an itinerant 'Zimmerman' (Carpenter) on 'walk-about' (auf der Walz), I intend to embark on a journey through regional Australia. This journey references the Australian folklore of the 'swagman' in association with Germanic mythology. The gesture of embodying facets of this guild acts as a reference point! between landscape, the body and my own genealogy, which traces my Gre at Gradfather's profession as 'district forester' of the region Červená Voda (Red Water) - Czech Republic.

More info.

A solo exhibition utilising natural and urban settings to create a consuming contrast that displays our expansive effect on the Earth.

A solo exhibition of sculpture based work by Sophie Clague in response to the COFA redevelopment building project.

My uncle once received an award from the City of Melbourne for the person who has most contributed to making Melbourne “a living city”. He told an interviewer on radio that his father had gone down to Eastern Beach in Geelong every Sunday morning, regardless of the cold, to volunteer to teach the local kids to swim. When my uncle asked him why, he said: “because I can”. My uncle said that since his father’s passing a year ago, he had come to realise the importance of service to the community. My grandfather had actually died three years previous to the interview… When my mother asked my uncle why he had lied to the interviewer, he said: “because it made for a better story”. BECAUSE WE CAN.

Artist:

Tully Arnot, Andrew Burford, Alexandra Clapham, Lydia Dowman, Benjamin Holdstock, Gemma Messih, Bridie Moran, Stella Rosa McDonald and Zoe Roberston.

COFA Visual Arts graduate Peter Griffen will launch his new book In and Out of Abstraction at Wagner Art Gallery in conjunction with an exhibition of his work.

In and Out of Abstraction is a stunning showcase of Griffen’s artwork with the artist’s own commentary about each painting covering the background and techniques, and often the thoughts and influences that may have come into play in its creation.

More info.

COFA Alumna, Melanie Waugh has occupied the studio residency at Curwoods Lawyers in Australia Square for one year. "Island", is an exhibition that represents the culmination of the work produced during her residency and is inspired by her time spent in the Caribbean.