Then and Now opened tonight

Michele Beevors and Nuha Saad

open 11am-5pm Friday - Sunday 6-21 October

Link to Artlink review by Craig Judd

photos: Margaret Roberts

Then and Now: Nuha Saad and Michele Beevors - opens Friday 5 October6-8pm

6 – 21 October 

Open 11am-5pm Friday - Sunday

This exhibition addresses the shifts in working methodologies over many years of encounters between two artists, Nuha Saad and Michele Beevors who met while sharing a studio at art college.

From left Nuha Saad, Untitled 2018 (work in progress-detail), acrylic on wood; 
Michele Beevors, Dustcatchers, 2018 ( work in progress-detail), wool

Nuha Saad works with the formal aspects of the space between painting and sculpture. Saad has been engaged for a long period of time with the decorative and the architectural. The work reinvigorates long overlooked spaces and displays an inherited sensibility which is influenced by both (post)colonial woodwork with its turned ornamentalism and a Lebanese/Australian heritage where counting, patterning, and colour have remained consistent themes These themes undermine the grim, muted and dour colour pallet of our colonial past and reinvigorate, playgrounds, public spaces and home furnishings in unique combinations of colour and shape which confront the viewer in surprising ways and overturn our expectations of the inherently bland urban architecture we expect in cities and in vogue living rooms, negotiating the difference between formalisms strict, this not that formula, and Minimalism's phenomenological encounter with a body in space.

Michele Beevors' practice has been interested in figuration as an encounter between feminism and commodity culture attempting a materialist critique in large scale sculptures in a series’ dedicated to disarm Disney Princesses, the typical Hollywood movie star and particular examples from art history, in which the female forms appear as armoured, abject and rampantly humorous in a riotous array of domestic materials and assorted cleaning products that also examines women’s labour in terms of the clean and tidy home and handcrafted traditions of knitting, and sewing. Informed by a pop sensibility, with a nod to the coming environmental crisis brought on by rampant global capitalism and its stockpiles of waste Beevors' work moves between figurative sculpture and the domestic abyss.

Michele Beevors 2018

About the artists:

Michele Beevors is an Australian artist and a Senior Lecturer at Dunedin School of Art in New Zealand. Beevors holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University, a Master of Visual Arts from The Australian National University, School of Art and a Bachelor of Visual Arts from City Art Institute. Beevors has exhibited in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Europe.

https://www.michelebeevors.org/   https://www.instagram.com/woollyskeletons/

Nuha Saad is a Sydney based sculptor working in the areas of installation, galleries and public art. Saad holds a Master of Visual Arts from Sydney College of the Arts and a Bachelor of Visual Arts from City Art Institute. Saad has exhibited extensively in both solo and group exhibitions in public, commercial and artist run galleries and her public artworks have been featured in public buildings and urban renewal projects, including large scale commissions for City of Sydney and Transport for NSW. http://nuhasaad.com/nuha-saad   https://www.instagram.com/nuhasaad1/

Four great artists' talks and performance today

Fiona Kemp

Nuha Saad

Danica Knezevic

Kath Fries

Photos: Fiona Kemp and Nuha Saad

Stable - Artists' talks and performance at 3pm on Sunday December 4

 ROOMSHEET

Nuha Saad The Sun Casts Shadows  of a Nostalgic Hue 2016

Nuha Saad The Sun Casts Shadows  of a Nostalgic Hue (detail) 2016

Fiona Kemp Stable 2016

Fiona Kemp Stable 2016 detail

Kath Fries Decant 2014 unfired ceramic ink water; Exhale 2016 beeswax charcoal paper

Kath Fries Exhale 2016

Stable opens Friday 18 November 6-8pm

Artists: Nuha Saad, Kath Fries, Danica Knezevic and Fiona Kemp

Opening: Friday 18 November, 6 - 8pm

Artist talks: Sunday 4 December, 3 - 5pm

Exhibition: 19 November to 4 December 2016
Open hours: Friday to Sunday 11am - 5pm

STABLE connotes many things including mental, physical, environmental, elemental stability and instability; a shelter for horses; or a bringing together - as in a stable of artists. These ideas are explored in Stable, a group exhibition by Nuha Saad, Kath Fries, Danica Knezevic and Fiona Kemp who all share mutual interests in exploring both the conceptual and material qualities of their practices, working with site-responsive, experimental and embodied processes. Together the four artists will generate new interpretative connections to critique the themes of stability and stables in Articulate project space. Their scope is broad, Nuha Saad works with abstracted ornamental objects, Kath Fries with ephemeral forms, Danica Knezevic with durational performance, and Fiona Kemp works conceptually within her multidisciplinary practice. Materiality will be a central concern in Stable, as these artists playfully and thoughtfully push the limits of their practices and mediums.

Danica Knezevic, Bound by longing, 2015, 

Performance, still from video 7:55 minutes

dijk.com.au

Fiona Kemp, Horse Gift Mandala, 2016, 

Horse feed bags sown together with horsehair, 

and horse sculptures received over the years as gifts. 

diameter 310 cm, Photograph: Ian Hobbs

fionakemp.com

Kath Fries, Suffuse, 2016, 

beeswax, charcoal powder, paper and light, (detail view).

Photograph: Kath Fries

kathfries.com

Nuha Saad, Work in progress - detail, 2016, 

Flock wallpaper, acrylic and furniture, dimensions variable

Photograph: Nuha Saad

nuhasaad.com

DOMESTICATED - final weekend, closing drinks 3-5pm Sunday 14 December

Domesticated is open Friday to Sunday from 11am to 5pm to Sunday 14 December.

Closing drinks on Sunday 14 December 3-5pm

Domesticated is an exhibition curated by Lesley Giovanelli of work by Will Cooke, Adrian De Giorgio, Robyn Donoghue, Beata Geyer, Anne Graham, Bettina Hill, Sione Falemaka, Steven Fasan, Mim Fluhrer, Lesley Giovanelli, Pip Giovanelli, Francesca Mataraga, Sarah Newall, Elizabeth Pulie, Margaret Roberts, Nuha Saad, Andrew Simmons and Toni Warburton.

see Artlife

 ROOMSHEET
photos below: Margaret Roberts

Andrew Simmons

Pip Giovanelli

Mim Fluhrer

From foreground R-L: chair: Steven Fasan, white floor piece: Margaret Roberts;
 wall: Adrian De Giorgio;  floor: Nuha Saad; blue shelves: Anne Graham.

Adrian De Giorgio

mat: Margaret Roberts, bin: Sione Falemaka, chair: Steven Fasan

foreground sculpture: Nuha Saad; mid-ground blue shelves: Anne Graham

blue stool: Nuha Saad; blue chair: Lesley Giovanelli; orange cupboard Sarah Newell; green circle: Mim Fluhrer

Sione Falemaka

Robyn Donoghue & Toni Warburton

Toni Warburton

Elizabeth Pulie

Bettina Hill

Will Cooke

Bettina Hill

Foreground Beata Geyer; chair Steven Fasan; wall Adrian De Giorgio

Domesticated opens Friday 28 November, 6-8pm

Artlife review

Domesticated opens Friday 28 November, 6-8pm and is open from Saturday 29 November to Sunday 14 December, Friday to Sunday from 11am to 5pm.

Domesticated is an exhibition curated by Lesley Giovanelli of work by Will Cooke, Adrian De Giorgio, Robyn Donoghue, Beata Geyer, Anne Graham, Bettina Hill, Sione Falemaka, Steven Fasan, Mim Fluhrer, Lesley Giovanelli, Pip Giovanelli, Francesca Mataraga, Sarah Newall, Elizabeth Pulie, Margaret Roberts, Nuha Saad, Andrew Simmons and Toni Warburton.

Domesticated is a playful and decorative furnishing of Articulate project space, including furniture and references to popular culture and the everyday. It aims to break with more traditional gallery viewing modes by creating a relaxed experience in the warehouse-like space of the Articulate project space building and blurring the line between the domestic realm, furniture showroom and museum.

Works such as rustic furniture, a converted washing machine and psychedelic wallpaper panels will transform Articulate into an artists' take on a living space, ignoring the boundaries of craft, design, decoration, art and architecture. Floor and wall works will form a backdrop to artists’ furniture/sculptures creating strange conversations between two-dimensional and three dimensional works where a wool cloud chair sits in front of a handmade wallpaper panel, African inspired wall hangings form the backdrop to an artists tableau and a Rietveld chair converses with hand-woven plastic mats and baskets.

 Adrian de Giorgio

Anne Bond

Beata Geyer

Francesca Mataraga

Elizabeth Pulie

Mim Fluhrer

Nuha Saad 

Lesley Giovanelli

Margaret Roberts

This project is supported by funding from Leichhardt Council