Exhibition 56

c3's 5th Anniversary Show
OPENING ON WEDNESDAY 19th JUNE FROM 6 - 8 PM

EXHIBITION RUNS FROM 19th JUNE - 7th JULY 2013

CIVILISED PEOPLE

FOYER + SPACE A + SPACE B

c3 celebrates its 5th anniversary by presenting a special project over 3 spaces, reflecting upon how the value of community spaces and ARI’s can be built via a continuous exchange of meaning, energy and shared experience. 

Over the 5-year program 1065 artists have contributed to the culture of the gallery and over 150,000 visitors have come to the space, investing a huge amount of thinking around the development of art and ideas.

A VIA B

Nathan Gray - Helen Grogan - Eugenia Lim

Simon Attwooll - Tobias Richardson (USA)

+ 5 artists whose names will be disclosed during the exhibition

Curated by Simon MacEwan + Jon Butt

For this exhibition five works have been selected from the archive of c3’s past five years of exhibitions, and their respective authors have been invited to each write a short text that they feel embodies/encapsulates the intention or objectives behind that particular work.

Five more have been artists invited, each given one of the texts and asked to make a work interpreting the information contained in the text. The texts do not include any information regarding the physical manifestation of the works they reflect, only the objectives, methodologies and intentions of the artists.

LIGHT YEARS

Paul Philipson - Louise Paramor - Jon Butt

There is a life to be lived, one imagined, created with blind force. Rooted far in the fundamentals of dirt, not owned or dictated by anyone. It's in a permanent state of becoming, never to decay; a home you can't grow out of, a beauty not stolen.

The longing that has travelled light years to be with you, the most human feeling of all.

VOLCANOES BENDING AND TURNING TO PICK UP SALT LEFT BY THE WAVES

Benjamin Woods

The project volcanoes bending and turning to pick up salt left by the waves engages the latent sculptural potential of action and picturing by enacting a major choreography and multiple material and discursive participations. The work seeks to deliver both a particular field of relations and an openness by combing possibilities for liberation, responsibility, celebration and influence.

PROJECT SPACE

MERE REAL THINGS

JULIAN AUBREY SMITH

This series of paintings is an investigation into the Gestalt principle of reification as a component of illusionism.  To reify is to regard or treat (an abstraction) as if it had concrete or material existence.  These works are focussed upon the point at which superficial marks upon one surface read as another surface entirely.  They are realist paintings masquerading as abstractions, or perhaps vice-versa.

GALLERY 2 + 3

AWKWARD BEAUTY

Presented by FORM (WA)

Helen Britton - Justine McKnight - Michelle Taylor

Awkward Beauty is an interdisciplinary collaboration between Munich-based contemporary jeweller Helen Britton, Perth garment designer Justine McKnight and Perth photographer Michelle Taylor. The exhibition takes the complex notion of ‘beauty’ and spins a multi-layered, multi-material narrative around this; a narrative which is imbedded within the vast physicality of a 17 hectare historic railway workshop site on the outskirts of Perth, on Australia’s isolated western coast. Each artist has created a body of 10 works (jewellery, garments, photography) as a direct response to the work created by the others. In some instances this process of exchange, reaction, interpretation and collaboration has occurred across continents: some of Britton’s works were made from her studio in Munich, Germany and shipped across seas to McKnight’s studio in Perth, Western Australia. Awkward Beauty is designed and delivered by FORM, a Western Australian cultural not-for-profit which develops and advocates for excellence in creativity across communities, disciplines and sectors.

ARTIST TALK: THURSDAY 20TH JUNE AT 10:30 AM

EXHIBITION 55

c3 opens it's new show on Wednesday the 22nd May from 6 - 8PM
Show runs from 22nd May - 9th June

GALLERY 1
FOYER SPACE
PAINTINGS WITHOUT HEADS
ALISON KENNEDY
Alison Kennedy is interested in how traditional concepts of painting and being can be questioned. She critiques the grand view of Romantic narrative paintings to explore how a contemporary woman artist can approach these universal concepts.  
One way that painting can do this is through using new forms and materials in experimental ways to express the bodily experience of being, hence the title Paintings Without Heads. Paintings have a spatial dimension as well as a conceptual, analytic one.
Kennedy draws on her reading of Heidegger’s Being and Time which considers the questions of being as action-in-the-world driven by the unconscious more than conscious intent.  What do we do when we paint? Do we reveal or conceal?

SPACE A
PROCESS / RITUAL 
EMMA LANGRIDGE – BRUCE ROWE – NICHOLAS RYRIE
Curated by Vivian Cooper Smith
Process / Ritual brings together three diverse artists working in geometric painting with an emphasis on repetition and discipline. 
With practices that incorporate meticulous detail and a meditative focus this exhibition asks where does process end and ritual begin? 

SPACE B
PHINK FISH
MALCOLM LLOYD
Phink Fish is a fictitious character, born out of the repetitive process of making art. 
A Phink is someone who tells on other people, art is the Phink of the artist.

Phink Fish Phink Fish please run away from me
Phink Fish Phink Fish please come play with me
Phink Fish Phink Fish why don't you dance with me
Oh Phink Fish Please don't tell on me

PROJECT ROOM
THE MESSENGER
MARIANA JANDOVA + TONY CRAN
Space probe Voyager traverses the depths of space, a diminutive creation of human ingenuity and an overwhelming desire to reach out, to stretch oneself beyond the limits imposed by our beautiful living Earth. The departure of Voyager from its earthly home was but one of the signifiers of the rapidly changing society in the second half the 20th century. Just like Voyagers’ message of peaceful exploration and communication with other life forms out there somewhere, the society witnessed an increasing occurrence of a new type of social movement; one advocating non-violence, respect for other cultures and beliefs and a direction toward a more humanistic way of life.

GALLERY 2 
DOG HOUSE
MARGARET MCINTOSH
In the past I have explored ideas of domestic narrative, and the spaces we occupy. How familiar elements in these places, such as a fence or a window, imply things outside what the viewer sees. This new exhibition Dog House continues these previous ideas but more specifically focuses on the vulnerability of the human condition through our relationship to domestic pets and the landscape.

GALLERY 3
LOOKING FOR CHARLIE
PENELOPE TROTTER
Looking for Charlie is an installation based performance work where, with the permission of my grandmother, I endeavour to find the American soldier named “Charlie” with whom she has been in love since he was stationed in Melbourne during World War II. Within the installation I “become” my grandmother in order to act as a conduit for their possible reunion, and to personally explore the feelings of reminiscence and psychic fracturing that are associated with thwarted war romance, longing and a desire for knowledge of Charlie’s eventual fate. This work in particular addresses and liberates the common repressed desire for women to pursue the other.

EXHIBITION 54

c3 opens it's new show on Wednesday the 24th April from 6 - 8PM
Show runs from 24th April - 12th May

GALLERY 1

FOYER SPACE

OPPOSING FORCES

CLARE DAVIES

Opposing Forces presents newly produced work that explores the common themes of separation, bodily functions and magical thinking, amongst other things. Drawn by an interest in the psyche and subconscious imagery, Davies’ attempts to create tension or an opposing force between these odd shapes and colours. They appear to either be on the verge of battle or about to get very close. The resulting installation alludes to the natural cycle of decay and renewal, the relationship between our bodies and everyday objects and general human awkwardness. Davies has used a wide-ranging array of materials from paper, fabric and wood to refuse and other found objects.