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DEBUT XII
17 Feb – 5 MAR 2016
Alexander Dathe
Isabelle de Kleine
Aaron Hoffman
Ruth O’Leary
Danielle Reynolds
Joshua Stevens
Tonahalfbish
Sean Whittaker
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT
Ruth O’Leary | Peaches, 2015, ft. Sanné
Mestrom’s ‘Weeping Woman’, single channel
high definition video, 3:58 mins
Danielle Reynolds | A cheeky glimpse
of a vacuous hole, 2015, mixed media
installation, dimensions variable
Aaron Hoffman | Untitled (Latch), 2015,
18k gold plated brass latch, dimensions variable
Tonahalfbish (Annabelle Hayes + Bronte
Berenger) | YoYo, 2015, still from videoperformance work
Alexander Dathe | Bunch of Bananas,
2015, mixed media, dimensions variable
Joshua Stevens | Wicker Work, 2015
(detail), photograph and woven wicker
| Photo by Clare Rae
Sean Whittaker | Half Full Extent, 2015,
HD Video and blue paint | Photo by Clare Rae
DEBUT XII
CURATORS | XANTHE DOBBIE + CAITLIN PATANE
OPENING NIGHT + PERFORMANCE | Thurs 18 Feb, 6–8pm
Tonahalfbish (Annabelle Hayes + Bronte Berenger)
17 Feb – 5 MAR 2016
Alexander Dathe | Isabelle de Kleine | Aaron Hoffman |
Ruth O’Leary | Danielle Reynolds | Joshua Stevens |
Tonahalfbish | Sean Whittaker
At first glance, failure seems to be the flavour of Debut XII,
BLINDSIDE’s 12th annual survey exhibition of new artistic
talent. But look a little closer and you’ll find that this is a failure
lined with hope – in many cases an assertion of disbelief in
failure as a negative. This year’s selection is curated by Xanthe
Dobbie and Caitlin Patane, and comprises eight works by recent
graduates of Melbourne’s three major Fine Art institutions:
RMIT, MADA and VCA.
Whilst the methods and messages of the respective works differ
vastly, the exhibition’s collective voice speaks volumes about
the feeling of emerging from the safety of the institution and
into the great unknown. In what, for most, are graduate works
reframed for a gallery context, these artists carefully negotiate
the difficult territory between student and practicing artist,
aspiration and self-doubt, failure and success. Perhaps Danielle
Reynolds says it best when she speaks of ‘enduring a dystopia
with the hope of a utopia’.
Reynolds’ contribution to the exhibition is a mixed media
installation titled A cheeky glimpse of a vacuous hole. A robotic
vacuum cleaner crowned with an artificial fern moves awkwardly
about the space while an LCD screen plays a video of a rock
on a string banging into the walls and floor. An iPod mounted
on the opposite wall plays Vanessa Amorosi’s Shine on repeat.
The motivational pop anthem, whose refrain “Everyone you
see, everyone you know is gonna shine” was originally written
as “Everyone you see, everyone you know is gonna die”. As
Reynolds reveals, Amorosi was encouraged to change ‘die’ to
‘shine’ to be more uplifting. This contrast highlights the tension
in Reynolds’ work: a light-hearted approach to the ultimately
tragic sense of life.
ISABELLE DE KLEINE | Untitled Collage #1, 2015, digital video, 7:52mins
Sean Whittaker takes a similar approach in his video installation
Half Full Extent, a tongue-in-cheek examination of the the role
of aspiration in contemporary culture. A television screen shows
a section of wall that a disembodied roller paints into. The
colour of the paint in the video – a vivid, almost Yves Klein blue
– corresponds to a matching stripe of blue paint on the actual
wall where the screen is mounted. The looped nature of the video
makes the task of the roller Sisyphean in the sense that it never
succeeds: a tragic figure so caricatured it becomes slapstick.
In Whittaker’s own words, the work ‘probes the push/pull
relationship of effort and reward, questioning the importance
of both whilst simultaneously commenting on the nature of
optimism and pessimism and where the two intersect.’
The notion of intersection is important to Alexander Dathe,
who shares an interest in the spaces between things. His work
Bunch of Bananas consists of a bunch of green bananas
placed on a broken concrete title on the floor of the gallery.
Naturally, the bananas will ripen and discolour during the
course of the exhibition, making the work a durational study of
the contrast between synthetic and natural. This, according to
Dathe, creates a point of intersection ‘between formal harmony
and a state of entropy’.
Similar concerns are at play for Joshua Stevens, who says that
his Wicker Work ‘operates in the grey area between tasteful
and putrid.’ Referencing mass-produced decorative picture
frames, Stevens’ handwoven large-scale wicker imitations which
house the faces of women from the original stock photos draw
a comparison between the fabrication of sentiment and the
assumed authenticity of the hand-crafted.
Aaron Hoffman’s work Untitled is gold-coated latch which
is installed in a small area of wall. Rendered useless by the
installation, the latch nonetheless creates a sense of anticipation
and growing anxiety, as if the wall will open up at any point,
thereby shifting expectations of the functions of both object
and space. As Hoffman notes, ‘by intervening in the function
of objects, I challenge their fate in relation to open and closed
systems, redirecting their course to visually agitate the uncanny.’
Ruth O’Leary also intervenes in the function of objects. The
set for her video Peaches is Sanné Mestrom’s public sculpture
Weeping Women, which resides in the Ian Potter Sculpture
Court outside the Monash University Museum of Art. This
In its twelfth year, BLINDSIDE’s annual curated project DEBUT
brings together a dynamic selection of Melbourne’s Fine Arts
graduates from RMIT, MADA and VCA. DEBUT XII presents a
collection of the most outstanding works from emerging artists
spanning performance, installation, print and screen.
sculpture captivated O’Leary because it is so reminiscent of
modernism despite being intended as a feminist statement
against modernism. By building walls around the public
sculpture and thus making it into her own set, O’Leary
questions what ‘public’ means. That the sculpture takes the
form of ‘weeping women’ is significant – the female body is
seen as public property, and therefore a place where moral
judgements are passed, as in the scene where her character
Peaches is pregnant and smoking, and therefore ‘bad’.
Some of these ideas are echoed in Isabelle de Kleine’s ‘moving
portrait’ Untitled Collage #1 which the artist describes as
‘a figure in a constant state of change, yet constrained to a
singular act’. The digital video collage presents a fragmented
moving image of a woman slowed down to a tenth of its
original speed such that, at a glance, it might be mistaken for
a still photograph. This reflects the way in which reality can be
distorted and misinterpreted by glitches in our perception.
Glitch is also the key for Annabelle Hayes and Bronte Berenger,
whose work as performance duo TONAHALFBISH operates in
the gaps between sense and nonsense. In their own words,
they are ‘two girls forging their path, paving the way with
crushed dust and sand.’ TONAHALFBISH will perform YoYo at
the opening of Debut XII, with residue of the performance to
remain as documentation for the duration of the exhibition.
With a quiet confidence and a good sense of humour, Debut XII
asks that you reconsider notions of failure and success that
oppose each other. On the whole, the artists involved in this year’s
exhibition seem much more interested in places where the two
overlap, and the discoveries that can be borne of these places.
In the words of Samuel Beckett, ‘Ever tried. Ever failed.
No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.’
– Georgia Robenstone
Georgia Robenstone is a multi-disciplinary artist from Melbourne.
georgiarobenstone.com
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