Fractured Beauty exhibition Catalogue

Teo Treloar, Task 2, 2012, pencil and watercolour on paper, 21 x 21.5cm, photography by Jeremy Dillon
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Lee Bethel is represented by The Egg and Dart, Thirroul. Cobi Cockburn is represented by Sabbia Gallery,
Sydney. Aaron Fell-Fracasso is represented by The Egg and Dart, Thirroul. Madeleine Kelly is represented by
Milani Gallery, Brisbane. Teo Treloar is represented by Helen Gory Galarie, Melbourne.
FRACTURED BEAUTY 13 SEPTEMBER - 26 OCTOBER 2014 WOLLONGONG ART GALLERY
Corner Kembla & Burelli streets
Wollongong phone 02 4227 8500
www.wollongongartgallery.com
open Tues-Fri 10am-5pm
weekends 12-4pm
WCC©1371932.8.14
Wollongong Art Gallery is a service of Wollongong City
Council and receives assistance from the NSW Government
through Trade & Investment Arts NSW. Wollongong Art
Gallery is a member of Regional and Public Galleries of NSW.
FOREWORD
Wollongong Art Gallery introduced the
Local: Currentt project in its program in 2009.
The idea underpinning this project was the
Gallery’s desire for a closer and more
productive engagement with the large diverse
and active local artist community. After five
years and the participation and presentation
of the work of fifty local artists the final Local:
Currentt exhibition was shown in 2013
However, it was our intention from the start
that this exhibition becomes the springboard
to other projects that foster and support local
artists and their practices.
Fractured Beauty
y is the first in this new
series of exhibitions and explores notions
of disintegration in nature, society and objects
Artists are often expert analysts, examining
the overlooked or subtle aspects of the
human experience and the world we live in.
They often present new ideas as abstracted
visual experiences which can be both enjoyed
and decoded. The most successful art works
often provoke the viewer to think and engage
on a more intimate level which can result in
a more profound experience.
The development of microscopes 500 years ago
allowed deep investigation into the makeup of
plants, animals, the earth and the human body.
The ability to see microscopic parts and how they
interact has had an enormous impact our ability to
understand and control our world. The astonishing
and exquisite array of shapes, systems and
complex geometry seen by viewing on a
microscopic level, has also greatly increased
our visual language.
This exhibition has drawn together ten local artists
whose works thoughtfully investigate the smaller
parts of the whole, the idea of fragmentation and
the beauty, poetry and understanding which can
be found from analysing fragments.
Paula Schiller Gowans’ works are fragments
torn from real public narratives and archives.
Her juxtaposed paintings in this exhibition are
snippets of sites and imagined scenes, sourced
from her recent residency at Hill End. Present in
every scene is a reference to the Holtermann
Nugget, which was found in Hill End in 1872. The
nugget is the largest gold mass ever to make it to
the surface to be photographed before being
broken up into pieces and sold. Gowans relates
the nuggets size and shape to her own physical
and the beauty and poetry which can be
found from analysing fragments. The exhibition
includes the work of emerging and more
established artists who work across mediums
and practices, and who live and work within
our regional footprint.
Wollongong Art Gallery would like to thank
the artists, Lee Bethel, Cobi Cockburn,
Amandine Faggotter, Aaron Fell-Fracasso,
Paula Schiller Gowans, Madeleine Kelly,
Nina Kourea, Andrew Netherwood,
Teo Treloar and Nik Uzunovski for their
enthusiastic participation, and congratulates
them on an interesting and engaging exhibition.
We hope you enjoy the exhibition.
John Monteleone, Program Director
presence in Hill End, and imagines the nugget
remained intact as an observer and documenter;
recording the past, present and future as she does
in her oblique works.
Lee Bethel’s delicate paper works are also
produced from a recent Hill End artist residency.
Bethel got to know the dry landscape of the area
by collecting or ‘foraging’ for seeds and blossoms.
These fragments of nature found their way into
her work, punctuating her cut paper forms.
The artist’s mediative process of sorting,
classifying and ordering the seeds is in stark
contrast to nature’s random act of scattering the
seeds to the wind in order to fuel successful
propagation. The meticulously cut paper forms
reference architecture, scaffolding and boundaries.
The placement of the seeds within these borders
reflects the imposed ‘after nature’ aesthetic
common in colonial gardens of the area.
Also collected from the natural world,
Madeleine Kelly’s ‘rock poems’ are an intersection
of language and surface. Displayed in a long line,
each poem is composed of words and their
fragments inscribed into the smooth stone
surfaces, which at times also cleverly resemble
the stones forms. The artist describes the work
as ‘existing in a fragmented state of containment,
they are small monuments to the etymology of
words and the play of materiality and language itself a living thing.’
Aaron Fell-Fracasso’s mixed media collages are
physical juxtapositions of memories of landscape.
The forms in each work are fragments of locations;
mountain, waterway and foliage forms,
which Fell-Fracasso appropriates and re-arranges.
Nik Uzunovski, All of the parts that make us whole (a dance of desperation), 2014,
oil on board, 122 x 104cm, photography by Bernie Fischer
Amandine Faggotter, Align, 2014, watercolour on paper, 76 x 56cm,
photography by Bernie Fischer
Lee Bethel
Cobi Cockburn
Amandine Faggotter
Aaron Fell-Fracasso
Paula Schiller Gowans
Madeleine Kelly
Andrew Netherwood
Nina Kourea
Teo Treloar
Nik Uzunovski
The process of mark making is explored through
the use of various tools and media including solid
cut-outs and soft gestures of flowing watercolour
which allow the artist to explore aspects of spatial
composition and the subconscious generation of
the images.
Cobi Cockburn’s stately glass panels also
reference landscape, whittling down the features
of the land to a distant horizon line. The solid and
clear surfaces of the panels are broken into many
fractured echoes of the ever present line.
The works express a deep sense of presence
with an undeniable sense of absence, holding
the opposing forces in a fine balance.
Lee Bethel, (detail) Dispersal,l 2014, cut and folded paper, 75 x 56cm,
photography by Bernie Fischer
Madeleine Kelly, Rock Poem - Smoten, 2013, engraved beach stone with
cross contour of quartz, photography by Ross Pottinger
Moving on from fragmented experiences
of the outside world to internal contemplations,
Nik Uzunovski’s bold paintings investigate
memories and how we access these memories
over time. The paintings aim to map memories, as
a way to keep them in a suspended physical state.
Drawing on the recent experience of his late
Grandmother’s dementia, the artist is concerned
with the loss of important memories over time,
memories that can inform and teach us. The short
thick brushstrokes, fracturing off the picture plane,
work in combination with his varied and rich
colour palette to evoke a splintered state of mind.
Nina Kourea’s recent practice has largely centred
on the photographic documentation of local
people and groups. For this exhibition, the artist
has turned the lens inwards and in celebration of
the ‘selfie’, has presented a series of self-portraits.
The works investigate sexuality and gender,
referencing family upbringing and a rebellion
against expectations. Titled m_o_t_h_e_r, the
photographs present a confident outlook,
Cover: Andrew Netherwood, Smoking Causes Mutations,
2014, Epson Cold Press Paper on Alupanel, 90 x 60cm
following a long period of self-questioning and the
deconstruction of notions of success.
Amandine Faggotter’s watercolours examine the
idea that individuals are a fragment of a larger
societal group. The abstracted forms and symbols
play with the form of the brain and how we may
be connected to others through familial or
friendship ties, random exchanges or through
a collective subconscious.
Teo Treloar’s thoughtful works on paper depict
everyman’s struggle to make sense of the world.
The artist’s assured hand producing simple
shadowing forms which are at once solid and
tangible and yet tantalisingly insubstantial revealing no easy answers. The works are an
exploration of the human condition and a search
for meaning and reason, breaking down the larger
questions of life into smaller episodes of inquiry.
Andrew Netherwood’s photographs explore
temporal fragmentation; that is the fracturing
of time. The works document movement in a way
the eye cannot see, a technique first pioneered by
Eadweard Muybridge, in 1872. Created with digital
technology the multi-layered images slow down
time and allow us to see beauty in the calligraphic
movements of skateboarders in a plaza, shoppers
in a mall and the wonder of flight, both human
and avian.
Fractured Beauty presents the work of artists
who are exploring disparate ideas by seeking
out smaller elements of the ‘big picture’.
The works reveal the poetry inherent in nature,
an insight into the individual and collective mind
and the possibilities of fracturing history and time.
Louise Brand, Curator Fractured Beauty
Paula Schiller Gowans, (left) Tip, 2014, oil on canvas, 60 x 50cm, (right) Nugget Space, 2014, oil on canvas, 60 x 45.5cm,
photography by Bernie Fischer
Nina Kourea, m_o_t_h_e_r,
r 2014, digital print, 42 x 59.4cm
Cobi Cockburn, Close to White 7
7, 2014, bullseye glass, cane, fused, hot formed & cold worked glass, 112 x 90cm, photography by Greg Piper
Aaron Fell-Fracasso, Morning Mist,
t 2014, mixed media on paper, 39 x 50cm, photography by Jessica Maurer