Articulate Turns Six - ends December 24th 5pm.

images of artist's talks last weekend by Sue Callanan

BLOWN AWAY opening event last night

  opening talk by Nick Vickers




 

 

  photos: Sue Callanan (top) and William Seeto

Blown Away is open from Friday 22 April - the opening event is Saturday 30 April 6-8pm

Blown Away - Reflections on the Casualties of War

by Liz Ashburn and Vivienne Dadour

Open 11am - 5pm Fri - Sun, 22 April - 8 May 

Opening event 6-8pm Saturday 30 April
The exhibition is to be opened by Nick Vickers

This is a Head On event

INVITATION pdf

FACEBOOK EVENT

Blown Away is a collection of art works that deal with issues particularly urgent for today. Encompassing photography, sculpture, drawing and installation, the works in this exhibition are a collaborative project by two artists, Vivienne Dadour and Liz Ashburn. Here they reconsider the well known facts surrounding the US bombing of Laos in 1964 to 1973, and the continuing carnage in the Middle East. These actions are not hidden as they have been reported in the media, but their very notoriety obscures and obliterates the individual tragedies and cultural displacement that are part of the reality of past and present, war and conflict in these regions. The artists’ engagement in focusing on such events aligns with the political sub-texts often found in their previous artwork. Documentation of what may have been obliterated, ignored, hidden or obscured provides the continuing ideological basis of their collaboration. 

Blown Away continues their concerns over the failure to recognize the humanity of others, the indifference to the rights of civilians in situations of armed conflict and the reliance on aggressive solutions in preference to negotiation. The actions and influence of the producers of munitions, bombs and landmines in continuing the industrial slaughter begun in World War 1 is indefensible as these products result in blighted lives, displacement, mental illness and the destruction of many cultural and artistic endeavours.

Blown Away makes visible what becomes evaporated in war — truth, life and culture.  They have deliberately chosen to exhibit over the Anzac period as this time of meditation on conflict seems to invite both reconsideration of the past and renew a desire for a future where there is peace.

Vivienne Dadour -Meeting Place (installation detail) 2016 Archival digital prints, artifacts, paint, string. dimensions variable

In Meeting Place and My Grandpapa and Uncles Used To Be Soldiers Vivienne Dadour connects the paradox between the gentle culture of Laos people and the “secret battlefields” of the Vietnam War. Between 1964-1973 the US Air Force dropped more than 2 million tons of ordnance on Laos for the general purpose of killing and exterminating civilians in order to prevent the entry of arms into Vietnam.  viviennedadour.com

Liz Ashburn- IED (Improvised Explosive Device) with Butterfly Bombs (installation detail) 2016, ceramic artillery shells rewired to become landmines, ceramics, acrylic and electrical wires. dimensions variable.

In Iraq Suite Liz Ashburn places the richness of Muslim decorative traditions in contrast to the imagery provided by Western mass media about the armed conflict in the Middle East. Know Your Landmine! introduces the use of landmines, which kill 15,00 t0 20,000 people every year and cost the people they were used against, US$3 -15 to produce and US$300 - 1,000 to remove.

lizashburn.com/ 

Articulate Turns Four: Colour, Form, Line - open till 28 December

William Seeto, Colour, Form, Line, 2014, 30x22cm, pure pigment inks on premium photo-paper

Colour Form Line blog

PRESS RELEASE

Articulate Turns Four: Colour, Form, Line opening reception Friday 19 December, 6-8pm. Open 11-5pm each day 20-28 December, except for 25 and 26 December

Curated by Dr. William Seeto

Colour, Form, Line is a theme-based group show curated by William Seeto for the end-of-year annual exhibition titled Articulate Turns Four. The exhibition theme of colour, form and line sets the context by providing a framework that enables discourse, and offers a means of connecting diverse art practices.

The artists in Articulate Turns Four: Colour, Form, Line are Lisa Andrew, Elizabeth Ashburn, Clementine Barnes, Lynne Barwick, Linden Braye, Brogan Brunt, Sue Callanan, Andy Chi Yau Chan, Shirley Cho, Clara Chung, Vivienne Dadour, Ella Dreyfus, Judith Duquemin, Edwin Easydorchik, Michele Elliott, Nola Farman, Kath Fries, Brigitta Gallaher, Jane Gavan, Beata Geyer, Anne Graham, Veronica Habib, Yvette Hamilton, Laine Hogarty, Adrian Hall, Barbara Halnan, Sahar Hosseinabadi, Tom Isaacs, Melissa Maree, Rose Ann McGreevy, Anne Mosey, Christine Myerscough, Jennifer O’Brien, Sue Pedley, Sergio Plata, Jacek Przybyszewski, Christopher Raymond, Margaret Roberts, Marlene Sarroff, Kevin Sheehan, Andrew Simmons, Sardar Sinjawi, Anke Stacker, Paul Sutton, Jane Burton Taylor, Toni Warburton, Gary Warner, Cecilia White, Elke Wohlfahrt and India Zegan. 

In formulating the exhibition, the curator was briefed to invite artists and coordinate installation on the ground and first floors of Articulate. In order to facilitate curation, a theme was set that reverse-curated the show by allowing artists to choose whether they took part or not. In making work, artists were encouraged to reference the thematic elements individually or in combination, directly or indirectly, as metaphor or reality. The theme offered structure by addressing different ways of working with the view to presenting an alternate outcome. It was a guide that allowed variation of practice and enabled discourse between different artists’ work. In setting parameters it brought together diverse practices, dealt with individual viewpoints, and drew work together. During installation, the artworks were assembled and curatorial positioned so they worked-off each other in order to create a cohesive exhibition.

The curator, Dr. William Seeto is an established artist and independent curator. He completed a Doctorate in Philosophy at the University of Sydney, and has curated exhibitions at the Tin Sheds Gallery - University of Sydney and Articulate Project Space. His practice of 33 years revisits abstraction by examining perception, and different ways artworks heighten or displace experience.

“It must be emphasized that in seeing a work of art that has been composed by precise means, the viewer does not perceive dominant details. His impression is one of perfect balance to which all the parts contribute, an impression which not only applies to the parts as such, but is transmitted also to the relation existing between the work of art and the viewer.” (1925) Theo van Doesburg

LAST DAYS - TRACES IN A LANDSCAPE: ON THE EDGE OF GRETA

Open 12-5pm Thursday - Saturday + last day: Sunday 27 May, 12 - 3pm

Traces in a Landscape: On the Edge of Greta is a protest against forgetting, and aligns with the political sub-texts often found in the work of Elizabeth Ashburn and Vivienne Dadour through their aim to reveal what has been obliterated, ignored, hidden or obscured. Using photography, watercolour and drawing the artists express the presence/absence dimension of landscape that was once teeming with immigrants displaced by the conflict in Europe during the Second World War, in what became known as the Greta Migrant Camp, located on the edge of the town of Greta in the Hunter Valley of NSW.

www.lizashburn.com

www.viviennedadour.com; 

Traces in the Landscape: on the Edge of Greta - opening images

Vivienne Dadour and Elizabeth Ashburn

Traces in the Landscape was opened by Professor Janet Chan of the University of NSW

(see opening speech here) 

Traces in the Landscape: on the Edge of Greta open from tomorrow

New Hours: Thursday - Sunday 12 - 5 pm May 3 -27 2012

Opening drinks Saturday 5 May, 3-6pm: Traces in a Landscape: On the Edge of Greta

open from Thursday 3 May at Articulate project space. 
Hours: Thursday - Sunday 12 - 5 pm May 3 -27 2012


Traces in a Landscape: On the Edge of Greta is the culmination of a collaborative project by two Sydney artists, Vivienne Dadour and Elizabeth Ashburn that extended from 2010 to 2012.      

Vivienne Dadour  Stereoscopic Views series 2 #1 2012

 Digital print on Ilford  pearl paper 32.9x 48.3cm (ed of 10) ©

Liz Ashburn Traces #1 2012, Watercolour on board 36x 37.5 cm  

This art project was conceived as a archeological investigation of a site on the outskirts of the town, Greta, in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales. From 1939-49 it was the site for the largest army training camp in Australia. Between 1949-1959, it became known as the Greta Migrant Camp a venue for a massive immigration program for those displaced by the conflict in Europe during the Second World War. Both the involvement of Australian soldiers in international conflicts and the great wave of resettlement of migrants remain significant events in Australian history.

Dadour and Ashburn engaged with examining the present landscape for the residue and remnants of previous actions or occupancy through an active process of art making related to what has survived. They responded individually and collaboratively using photography, watercolour and drawing to express the presence/absence dimension of this landscape. As the occupants of the Greta site were situated on the edge of the town of Greta, Ashburn and Dadour are aware they also are on the edge of the multiple histories of this site. Traces in a Landscape: On the Edge of Greta is a protest against forgetting and aligns with the political sub-texts often found in the work of these artists through their concern in revealing what may have been obliterated, ignored, hidden or obscured.

One implication of their collaboration is that by making aspects of this site accessible to others a reality implicit in this regenerated landscape can now be shared.

www.viviennedadour.com; www.lizashburn.com


press release

Traces in a Landscape: On the Edge of Greta is part of Head On.