Calendar
Calendar
The HUM calendar features exhibitions & events by New Zealand arts practitioners working or living abroad.
6720 Days, 2276 Full Moons
Stanley Street Gallery, Gadigal Lands Sydney, Australia
10 April —
04 May 2024
Aotearoa New Zealand has experienced 6720 days and 2276 full moons since the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in February 1840. Produced with the support of Creative New Zealand and in partnership with Stanley Street Gallery, this new iteration of the Handshake Project is an official mid-winter celebration that symbolises the coming together and unity of the nation, respecting and embracing cultural differences.
6720 Days, 2276 Full Moons features nine contemporary jewellers from Aotearoa New Zealand who contemplate themes of discovery, origins, integration, transformation, virtue, cultural respect, differences, and conflict. They are: Becky Bliss, Nadene Carr, Aphra Cheesman, Nina van Duijnhoven, Neke Moa, Mia Straka, Caroline Thomas, Sarah Walker-Holt and Raewyn Walsh.
Aotearoa New Zealand has experienced 6720 days and 2276 full moons since the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in February 1840. Produced with the support of Creative New Zealand and in partnership with Stanley Street Gallery, this new iteration of the Handshake Project is an official mid-winter celebration that symbolises the coming together and unity of the nation, respecting and embracing cultural differences.
6720 Days, 2276 Full Moons features nine contemporary jewellers from Aotearoa New Zealand who contemplate themes of discovery, origins, integration, transformation, virtue, cultural respect, differences, and conflict. They are: Becky Bliss, Nadene Carr, Aphra Cheesman, Nina van Duijnhoven, Neke Moa, Mia Straka, Caroline Thomas, Sarah Walker-Holt and Raewyn Walsh.
Nikau Hindin, Time Honoured Technologies panel discussion
White Bay Power Station, Sydney, Australia
12.45PM — 1.30PM
10 March 2024
Join Biennale of Sydney artists in a discussion about knowledge systems and technologies which are either devalued or subjugated by the narrow logic of Western cultural imperialism. In this conversation they speak to the technologies and knowledge systems explored in their work and the way such technologies have shaped their individual practices. Spanning Māori visual language and technology to the systemic erasure of Aboriginal design, aquaculture, and architectural history and more, the panel speaks to the importance and value of communities maintaining and preserving knowledges over time.
Time Honoured Technologies takes place at Program Hub, White Bay Power Station on Sunday 10 March 2024 from 12.45–1.30 pm. Tickets cost AU$10 (Standard) or AU$5 (Concession / Unwaged).
Join Biennale of Sydney artists in a discussion about knowledge systems and technologies which are either devalued or subjugated by the narrow logic of Western cultural imperialism. In this conversation they speak to the technologies and knowledge systems explored in their work and the way such technologies have shaped their individual practices. Spanning Māori visual language and technology to the systemic erasure of Aboriginal design, aquaculture, and architectural history and more, the panel speaks to the importance and value of communities maintaining and preserving knowledges over time.
Time Honoured Technologies takes place at Program Hub, White Bay Power Station on Sunday 10 March 2024 from 12.45–1.30 pm. Tickets cost AU$10 (Standard) or AU$5 (Concession / Unwaged).
24th Biennale of Sydney: Ten Thousand Suns
six venues across Sydney, Australia
09 March —
10 June 2024
The 24th Biennale of Sydney, titled Ten Thousand Suns and led by artistic directors Cosmin Costinaş and Inti Guerrero, takes place across six iconic Sydney locations, showcasing the creations of leading artists from diverse corners of the globe.
Presenting work at this edition of the Sydney Biennale are Aotearoa artists John Pule at the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Nikau Hindin together with Ebonie Fifita-Laufilitoga-Maka Fungamapitoa and Rongomai Gbric-Hoskins at White Bay Power Station; Pacific Sisters and Pauline Yearbury, both at the Art Gallery of New South Wales; and Te Whā a Huna at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
The 24th Biennale of Sydney, titled Ten Thousand Suns and led by artistic directors Cosmin Costinaş and Inti Guerrero, takes place across six iconic Sydney locations, showcasing the creations of leading artists from diverse corners of the globe.
Presenting work at this edition of the Sydney Biennale are Aotearoa artists John Pule at the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Nikau Hindin together with Ebonie Fifita-Laufilitoga-Maka Fungamapitoa and Rongomai Gbric-Hoskins at White Bay Power Station; Pacific Sisters and Pauline Yearbury, both at the Art Gallery of New South Wales; and Te Whā a Huna at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Ella Sutherland, Image, Interrupted
UTS Gallery, Sydney, Australia
13 February —
12 April 2024
Image, Interrupted considers the ways in which contemporary artists use strategies of deflection, disruption and subterfuge to trouble the data-generated image. The group exhibition, curated by Eleanor Zeichner, includes new and recent works of photography, painting, textile and video that find loopholes and misdirections in the technologies that shape images today.
As a material, a subject and a non-human collaborator, data drives these artworks and their commentary on contemporary politics, storytelling, environment, conflict and sex. Image, Interrupted considers the material textures of these hybrid forms, and the practices of artists who complicate the machine-generated image via the tactile imagination.
Image, Interrupted considers the ways in which contemporary artists use strategies of deflection, disruption and subterfuge to trouble the data-generated image. The group exhibition, curated by Eleanor Zeichner, includes new and recent works of photography, painting, textile and video that find loopholes and misdirections in the technologies that shape images today.
As a material, a subject and a non-human collaborator, data drives these artworks and their commentary on contemporary politics, storytelling, environment, conflict and sex. Image, Interrupted considers the material textures of these hybrid forms, and the practices of artists who complicate the machine-generated image via the tactile imagination.
Grace Wright, The Belly and the Members
Ames Yavuz, Gadigal Lands Sydney, Australia
03 February —
24 February 2024
Ames Yavuz presents The Belly and the Members, a group exhibition of works by Karen Black, Cybele Cox, Sarah Drinan, Mehwish Iqbal, Solomon Kammer, Juz Kitson, Caroline Rothwell and Grace Wright.
The exhibition takes its title from Aesop’s fable, in which the members of the body rebel against the belly, believing her idle and self-indulgent. The feet stand still, the hands won’t lift a finger, and the mouth refuses food. The members soon find that they can’t survive without the belly and repent their folly, acknowledging that each part of the body sustains the rest. The artists in this exhibition reimagine this figure as flesh, myth and landscape, embracing her as a container of multitudes. They shift well-worn perspectives on the body politic to reclaim the belly as a symbol of resilience and a seat of feminine power.
Ames Yavuz presents The Belly and the Members, a group exhibition of works by Karen Black, Cybele Cox, Sarah Drinan, Mehwish Iqbal, Solomon Kammer, Juz Kitson, Caroline Rothwell and Grace Wright.
The exhibition takes its title from Aesop’s fable, in which the members of the body rebel against the belly, believing her idle and self-indulgent. The feet stand still, the hands won’t lift a finger, and the mouth refuses food. The members soon find that they can’t survive without the belly and repent their folly, acknowledging that each part of the body sustains the rest. The artists in this exhibition reimagine this figure as flesh, myth and landscape, embracing her as a container of multitudes. They shift well-worn perspectives on the body politic to reclaim the belly as a symbol of resilience and a seat of feminine power.
Nikau Hindin, Badu Gili: Celestial
Sydney Opera House, Gadigal Lands Sydney, Australia
15 December 2023 —
01 December 2024
As a celebration of the rich history and contemporary vibrancy of Australia’s First Nations culture, Badu Gili continues the traditions of Bennelong Point, formerly known as Tubowgule (‘where the knowledge waters meet’), a gathering place for community, ceremony and storytelling for thousands of years. Badu Gili: Celestial, the vibrant new animation of powerful First Nations storytelling features the work of Meriam artist, Gail Mabo from Mer Island in the Torres Strait, and international First Nations artist Nikau Hindin, a Te Rarawa and Ngāpuhi woman from Aotearoa New Zealand.
Using Mabo’s star maps constructed out of bamboo and cotton, and Hindin’s Māori aute (bark cloth), the digital animation explores the ancient practices of celestial navigation across two cultures, with vibrant symbols and sounds bringing to life the stories of our skies and waterways. A soundscape accompanies the animation, with powerful music by Nigel Westlake supporting Mabo’s work, and Te Kahureremoa Taumata (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) and Te Kuru o te Marama Dewes (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Rangitihi) complementing Hindin’s.
The lighting of the sails occurs daily from sunset, 8pm, 8.30pm, 9pm and 9.30pm.
As a celebration of the rich history and contemporary vibrancy of Australia’s First Nations culture, Badu Gili continues the traditions of Bennelong Point, formerly known as Tubowgule (‘where the knowledge waters meet’), a gathering place for community, ceremony and storytelling for thousands of years. Badu Gili: Celestial, the vibrant new animation of powerful First Nations storytelling features the work of Meriam artist, Gail Mabo from Mer Island in the Torres Strait, and international First Nations artist Nikau Hindin, a Te Rarawa and Ngāpuhi woman from Aotearoa New Zealand.
Using Mabo’s star maps constructed out of bamboo and cotton, and Hindin’s Māori aute (bark cloth), the digital animation explores the ancient practices of celestial navigation across two cultures, with vibrant symbols and sounds bringing to life the stories of our skies and waterways. A soundscape accompanies the animation, with powerful music by Nigel Westlake supporting Mabo’s work, and Te Kahureremoa Taumata (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) and Te Kuru o te Marama Dewes (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Rangitihi) complementing Hindin’s.
The lighting of the sails occurs daily from sunset, 8pm, 8.30pm, 9pm and 9.30pm.
Simon Denny, Landscapes
Fine Arts, Sydney, Sydney, Australia
09 November —
20 December 2023
Fine Arts, Sydney presents four new paintings on linen by Simon Denny; the most recent developments in this format of Denny’s work, which debuted earlier in 2023 with his solo exhibition at Kunstverein Hannover, Germany, and have since been the focus of solo exhibitions at Frans Masereel Centrum, Kasterlee, Belgium and at Altman Siegel, San Francisco, United States.
These new works are painterly landscapes, each depicting a place in a metaverse. They speak to colonial landscape painting: a genre which, from the 15th—19th centuries and beyond, used the artistic languages of largely European picture-making that were familiar to its intended audience to represent unfamiliar territories and enhance claims to ownership of the places depicted. Adopting the strategy rather than the style, Denny has reinvented and shifted the genre for our time and conditions with an artistic language that feels familiar to us, using styles, formats and techniques of modern and contemporary painting to represent unfamiliar new territories of the metaverse and enhance claims to it.
Fine Arts, Sydney presents four new paintings on linen by Simon Denny; the most recent developments in this format of Denny’s work, which debuted earlier in 2023 with his solo exhibition at Kunstverein Hannover, Germany, and have since been the focus of solo exhibitions at Frans Masereel Centrum, Kasterlee, Belgium and at Altman Siegel, San Francisco, United States.
These new works are painterly landscapes, each depicting a place in a metaverse. They speak to colonial landscape painting: a genre which, from the 15th—19th centuries and beyond, used the artistic languages of largely European picture-making that were familiar to its intended audience to represent unfamiliar territories and enhance claims to ownership of the places depicted. Adopting the strategy rather than the style, Denny has reinvented and shifted the genre for our time and conditions with an artistic language that feels familiar to us, using styles, formats and techniques of modern and contemporary painting to represent unfamiliar new territories of the metaverse and enhance claims to it.
Zac Langdon-Pole, Entity Studies
Station Gallery, Sydney, Australia
04 November —
25 November 2023
Entity Studies by Zac Langdon-Pole is a new series of puzzle works that employ a third image or ‘ghost stencil’ which haunts the combination of two distinct images. Spanning the spectrum of abstraction and figuration, the works ask viewers to trace the moment when one thing can become another.
Langdon-Pole’s investigation into visual perception stems from cognitive science studies, which use two-tone black and white images, known as ‘Mooney images’, to test the laws of ‘closure’. By reducing an image to its most abstracted palette of purely dark and light tones, reminiscent of Rorschach ink-blot tests, scientists can understand how prior experience and ‘best guess inference’ shapes our perception.
Pushing these cognitive experiments to their extreme, Langdon-Pole layers connections between such disparate images as: recent NASA space telescope photographs, 19th-century colonial landscape paintings, marbled paper bookends of taxonomic encyclopaedias, and mythological fable paintings such as The Ship of Theseus and The Bird in the Borrowed Feathers. With this new body of work Langdon-Pole seeks to unravel historical mythologies that shape our present.
Entity Studies by Zac Langdon-Pole is a new series of puzzle works that employ a third image or ‘ghost stencil’ which haunts the combination of two distinct images. Spanning the spectrum of abstraction and figuration, the works ask viewers to trace the moment when one thing can become another.
Langdon-Pole’s investigation into visual perception stems from cognitive science studies, which use two-tone black and white images, known as ‘Mooney images’, to test the laws of ‘closure’. By reducing an image to its most abstracted palette of purely dark and light tones, reminiscent of Rorschach ink-blot tests, scientists can understand how prior experience and ‘best guess inference’ shapes our perception.
Pushing these cognitive experiments to their extreme, Langdon-Pole layers connections between such disparate images as: recent NASA space telescope photographs, 19th-century colonial landscape paintings, marbled paper bookends of taxonomic encyclopaedias, and mythological fable paintings such as The Ship of Theseus and The Bird in the Borrowed Feathers. With this new body of work Langdon-Pole seeks to unravel historical mythologies that shape our present.
Rosanna Raymond, Liveworks 2023: OF THE TIME
Carriageworks, Sydney, Australia
19 October —
29 October 2023
Across ten days this October, Performance Space presents Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art, a celebration of works from their forty year archive that consider the impact of time on art, actions, ideas and the bodies that carry and move culture forward. By looking to the future through the lens of the recent past, their anniversary program OF THE TIME surveys the communities, collectives, shapeshifters and storytellers who form the beating heart of Performance Space, through a curated mix of work, old and new.
On 21 October 2023 OF THE TIME features new work by Aotearoa artist Rosanna Raymond. K'AINGA CommonWealth - K’lub Measina is a Night Dance of the Deities Rising from the deep sediment of the Moana, celestial deities emerge through the Star Mounds giving birth to an otherworldly realm of shiny things in the K’lub.
Across ten days this October, Performance Space presents Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art, a celebration of works from their forty year archive that consider the impact of time on art, actions, ideas and the bodies that carry and move culture forward. By looking to the future through the lens of the recent past, their anniversary program OF THE TIME surveys the communities, collectives, shapeshifters and storytellers who form the beating heart of Performance Space, through a curated mix of work, old and new.
On 21 October 2023 OF THE TIME features new work by Aotearoa artist Rosanna Raymond. K'AINGA CommonWealth - K’lub Measina is a Night Dance of the Deities Rising from the deep sediment of the Moana, celestial deities emerge through the Star Mounds giving birth to an otherworldly realm of shiny things in the K’lub.
Natasha Wright, What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This
.M Contemporary, Sydney, Australia
12 October —
28 October 2023
.M Contemporary presents What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This, a new body of work by New York-based artist Natasha Wright that explores the significance of the female body as icon. Works include a snapshot of portraits and intimate close-ups exploring what really lies behind the scenes. Gender, sexuality, vulnerability and power, seduction and aggression – these dichotomies motivate the work.
Drawing on references from art history, advertising and fashion, Wright explores the representation of females throughout history. Paintings often address psychological elements of a character and a range of human emotions. Wright is interested in contradictions – the interior just as much as the exterior. Her women balance a complicated dichotomy of the grotesque and the beautiful.
.M Contemporary presents What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This, a new body of work by New York-based artist Natasha Wright that explores the significance of the female body as icon. Works include a snapshot of portraits and intimate close-ups exploring what really lies behind the scenes. Gender, sexuality, vulnerability and power, seduction and aggression – these dichotomies motivate the work.
Drawing on references from art history, advertising and fashion, Wright explores the representation of females throughout history. Paintings often address psychological elements of a character and a range of human emotions. Wright is interested in contradictions – the interior just as much as the exterior. Her women balance a complicated dichotomy of the grotesque and the beautiful.
Talanoa Forum: Moana Rising
Powerhouse Ultimo, Sydney, Australia
10 October —
12 October 2023
First presented at the 59th Venice Biennale, the Talanoa Forum extends the themes of Yuki Kihara's Paradise Camp exhibition by bringing together 24 artists, curators, scholars, activists and policymakers from Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, Sāmoa, Tahiti, and Italy.
Over three days, this interdisciplinary program will highlight urgent issues around small island ecologies, climate justice, decolonial museology, diasporic and Pacific alliances. This event is free and bookings are required. Talanoa speakers from Aotearoa include: Aanoalii Rowena Fuluifaga, Ioana Gordon-Smith, Noma Sio- Faiumu, Rosanna Raymond, Sefa Enari, Tau'ili'ili Alpha Maiava and Yuki Kihara.
First presented at the 59th Venice Biennale, the Talanoa Forum extends the themes of Yuki Kihara's Paradise Camp exhibition by bringing together 24 artists, curators, scholars, activists and policymakers from Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, Sāmoa, Tahiti, and Italy.
Over three days, this interdisciplinary program will highlight urgent issues around small island ecologies, climate justice, decolonial museology, diasporic and Pacific alliances. This event is free and bookings are required. Talanoa speakers from Aotearoa include: Aanoalii Rowena Fuluifaga, Ioana Gordon-Smith, Noma Sio- Faiumu, Rosanna Raymond, Sefa Enari, Tau'ili'ili Alpha Maiava and Yuki Kihara.
Heather Galbraith, Kelly McDonald, Victoria McIntosh, Neke Moa, Rowan Panther, Deep Material Energy II
Australian Design Centre, Sydney, Australia
05 October —
22 November 2023
Deep Material Energy II is a collaborative project developed with four artists from Australia and four artists from Aotearoa, curated by Heather Galbraith, Professor of Fine Arts, College of Creative Arts Toi Rauwhārangi. Within this geographic and cultural context, the artists contemplate their art practices in relation to their respective countries. Bringing together a suite of practices involving a deep and holistic engagement with materiality, the exhibition also considers the nature of contemporary jewellery, body adornment and objects, realised through the processes of making, shaping and transforming materials.
A prominent thread connecting the visually diverse works is a shared fascination with found and recycled materials (including those from city streets, the beach, op shops, scrap metal merchants, and the rural landscape). The artists interrogate the physical, historical, political, cultural and intangible resonances of the materials they use; each employing slow hand-crafting as a way of thinking through the process of making and to meticulously unleash the potential of the materials they use.
Deep Material Energy II is a collaborative project developed with four artists from Australia and four artists from Aotearoa, curated by Heather Galbraith, Professor of Fine Arts, College of Creative Arts Toi Rauwhārangi. Within this geographic and cultural context, the artists contemplate their art practices in relation to their respective countries. Bringing together a suite of practices involving a deep and holistic engagement with materiality, the exhibition also considers the nature of contemporary jewellery, body adornment and objects, realised through the processes of making, shaping and transforming materials.
A prominent thread connecting the visually diverse works is a shared fascination with found and recycled materials (including those from city streets, the beach, op shops, scrap metal merchants, and the rural landscape). The artists interrogate the physical, historical, political, cultural and intangible resonances of the materials they use; each employing slow hand-crafting as a way of thinking through the process of making and to meticulously unleash the potential of the materials they use.
Talia Smith, Primavera 2023: Young Australian Artists
Modern Contemporary Art in Australia, Sydney, Australia
09 September 2023 —
04 February 2024
Primavera: Young Australian Artists is MCA's annual exhibition of emerging artists living and working in Australia, aged 35 years and under. In its 32nd year, Primavera 2023 is guest curated by Sydney-based artist and curator, Talia Smith (b. Ngāmotu, Aotearoa New Zealand) and considers the idea of the ‘collective body’ and the ways in which communities and growing movements attempt to question, challenge and manoeuvre through failing societal structures. The six participating artists—Tiyan Baker, Christopher Bassi, Moorina Bonini, Nikki Lam, Sarah Poulgrain and Truc Truong—investigate themes of protest, perseverance, and reimagining through works of various media, including installation, video, painting, sculpture and text.
"What brings these artists together is the way they reckon with the perils of history, education, culture, and language to question authoritative structures and systems. They assert that there is more than one way of living and offer impressions of how it might look." — Talia Smith
Primavera: Young Australian Artists is MCA's annual exhibition of emerging artists living and working in Australia, aged 35 years and under. In its 32nd year, Primavera 2023 is guest curated by Sydney-based artist and curator, Talia Smith (b. Ngāmotu, Aotearoa New Zealand) and considers the idea of the ‘collective body’ and the ways in which communities and growing movements attempt to question, challenge and manoeuvre through failing societal structures. The six participating artists—Tiyan Baker, Christopher Bassi, Moorina Bonini, Nikki Lam, Sarah Poulgrain and Truc Truong—investigate themes of protest, perseverance, and reimagining through works of various media, including installation, video, painting, sculpture and text.
"What brings these artists together is the way they reckon with the perils of history, education, culture, and language to question authoritative structures and systems. They assert that there is more than one way of living and offer impressions of how it might look." — Talia Smith
Francis Upritchard, Sydney Scallop
Fine Arts, Sydney, Australia
01 September —
28 October 2023
Fine Arts, Sydney presents a solo exhibition of work by Francis Upritchard, the artist's first with the gallery. Sydney Scallop brings together a collection of new and recent sculptures made in the range of forms both ancient and modern for which Upritchard’s work has become known: figures, vessels, urns and creatures that are modelled, cast and painted, with materials including bronze, glass, ceramic, thermoplastic, shibuchi and bone.
Francis Upritchard lives and works in the United Kingdom, Italy and Aotearoa. She represented New Zealand at the 53rd Venice Biennale, and has made exhibitions at museums and institutions worldwide. Upritchard recently unveiled a large-scale commission Here Comes Everybody for the new Art Gallery of New South Wales building in Sydney.
Fine Arts, Sydney presents a solo exhibition of work by Francis Upritchard, the artist's first with the gallery. Sydney Scallop brings together a collection of new and recent sculptures made in the range of forms both ancient and modern for which Upritchard’s work has become known: figures, vessels, urns and creatures that are modelled, cast and painted, with materials including bronze, glass, ceramic, thermoplastic, shibuchi and bone.
Francis Upritchard lives and works in the United Kingdom, Italy and Aotearoa. She represented New Zealand at the 53rd Venice Biennale, and has made exhibitions at museums and institutions worldwide. Upritchard recently unveiled a large-scale commission Here Comes Everybody for the new Art Gallery of New South Wales building in Sydney.
Liz Coats, Essence
Utopia Art, Sydney, Australia
29 July —
19 August 2023
Liz Coats has been exploring the use of natural botanical pigments for this new series of Essence paintings. Layers of translucent colour dance and weave, minutae of texture and patterns shift across the surfaces.
Wanting to explore nature’s colours in their essence, Coats explains: "Within the physical limits of a painting surface, colours can appear to shift in hue and spatial volume in relation to one another. This is my focus, while there is no definitive way of experiencing this. I suggest a slow and soft way of looking, leaving expectations behind. A sense of stillness with movement in colour relations is a natural effect of light fall and one’s visual stance."
Liz Coats has been exploring the use of natural botanical pigments for this new series of Essence paintings. Layers of translucent colour dance and weave, minutae of texture and patterns shift across the surfaces.
Wanting to explore nature’s colours in their essence, Coats explains: "Within the physical limits of a painting surface, colours can appear to shift in hue and spatial volume in relation to one another. This is my focus, while there is no definitive way of experiencing this. I suggest a slow and soft way of looking, leaving expectations behind. A sense of stillness with movement in colour relations is a natural effect of light fall and one’s visual stance."
Grace Wright, The World Moves
Gallery 9, Sydney, Australia
12 July —
12 August 2023
The World Moves is Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland-based Grace Wright's third solo exhibition with Gallery 9. To create this body of work, Wright relocated to Sydney; each painting found its starting point in the walks the artist took around the city, and her observations of the elemental interplay between water, land and light.
While the majority of paintings in The World Moves are dramatic chiaroscuro experiments, there are also works that evoke a gentler, crepuscular light. Wright’s studio practice is an often-subconscious filtration of her movements through the world, harnessing and distilling daily encounters into abstract expressions of landscape.
Join Grace Wright and Sebastian Goldspink in the gallery on Saturday 15 July at 2pm for an artist talk and exhibition walk-through.
The World Moves is Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland-based Grace Wright's third solo exhibition with Gallery 9. To create this body of work, Wright relocated to Sydney; each painting found its starting point in the walks the artist took around the city, and her observations of the elemental interplay between water, land and light.
While the majority of paintings in The World Moves are dramatic chiaroscuro experiments, there are also works that evoke a gentler, crepuscular light. Wright’s studio practice is an often-subconscious filtration of her movements through the world, harnessing and distilling daily encounters into abstract expressions of landscape.
Join Grace Wright and Sebastian Goldspink in the gallery on Saturday 15 July at 2pm for an artist talk and exhibition walk-through.
Steve Carr, In Bloom (IndigiGrow)
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia
05 July —
02 October 2023
In Bloom is a living sculpture that invites consideration of the often uneasy relationship between nature and industrial ‘progress’. Here, 11 bronze-cast car tyres are stacked in a seemingly random arrangement to form a planter. Following previous iterations in Aotearoa New Zealand, this is the first presentation of In Bloom in Australia.
The artist has collaborated with La Perouse-based Aboriginal-owned social enterprise and native plant nursery IndigiGrow. Together, they have made a selection of critically endangered Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub species, found in the sandy coastal stretches of Dharawal, Bidjigal and Gadigal Country in Sydney. In Bloom includes flowering species such as Dillwynia floribunda and Westringia, alongside edible plants, such as Karkalla. The artist hopes that seeds from the planting will disperse and regenerate back into the land from which they have been removed.
In Bloom is a living sculpture that invites consideration of the often uneasy relationship between nature and industrial ‘progress’. Here, 11 bronze-cast car tyres are stacked in a seemingly random arrangement to form a planter. Following previous iterations in Aotearoa New Zealand, this is the first presentation of In Bloom in Australia.
The artist has collaborated with La Perouse-based Aboriginal-owned social enterprise and native plant nursery IndigiGrow. Together, they have made a selection of critically endangered Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub species, found in the sandy coastal stretches of Dharawal, Bidjigal and Gadigal Country in Sydney. In Bloom includes flowering species such as Dillwynia floribunda and Westringia, alongside edible plants, such as Karkalla. The artist hopes that seeds from the planting will disperse and regenerate back into the land from which they have been removed.
Kate Newby, miles off road
Fine Arts, Sydney, Australia
29 June —
19 August 2023
Fine Arts, Sydney presents an exhibition of new work by Kate Newby, centering on a substantial work that has developed over six years. Kate Newby’s miles off road is a work that spans the room with handmade ropes from which hang elements formed in materials including bronze, white brass, porcelain, and wood-fired stoneware.
This expansive work is accompanied by a body of new and more intimately scaled sculptures in cast glass, formed in Texas and cast in rural New South Wales. There are small sculptures that replace the gallery’s doorhandles, giving functional tactility to her material forms. There are ceramic works for the wall, and floor-based sculptures in ceramic that hold kiln-fired pools of broken glass collected by the artist from the city streets of Melbourne and the city streets and beaches of Sydney.
Kate Newby has often talked of the value of ‘active observation’, and this is an exhibition of work that can’t be just stood and looked at but touched, walked along, under, over and around, down to the end and back.
Fine Arts, Sydney presents an exhibition of new work by Kate Newby, centering on a substantial work that has developed over six years. Kate Newby’s miles off road is a work that spans the room with handmade ropes from which hang elements formed in materials including bronze, white brass, porcelain, and wood-fired stoneware.
This expansive work is accompanied by a body of new and more intimately scaled sculptures in cast glass, formed in Texas and cast in rural New South Wales. There are small sculptures that replace the gallery’s doorhandles, giving functional tactility to her material forms. There are ceramic works for the wall, and floor-based sculptures in ceramic that hold kiln-fired pools of broken glass collected by the artist from the city streets of Melbourne and the city streets and beaches of Sydney.
Kate Newby has often talked of the value of ‘active observation’, and this is an exhibition of work that can’t be just stood and looked at but touched, walked along, under, over and around, down to the end and back.
Brent Harris, Emma Fitts, Israel Birch, Michael McHugh, Tia Ansell and Virginia Leonard, Winter Group Exhibition
Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney, Australia
22 June —
12 August 2023
A new show featuring a selection of works from artists who have been with the gallery for 20 years to artists who are showing with Martin Browne for the very first time; from oil on canvas to algorithmic digital installations; from works created this year to pieces which have been hiding away in the studio for 25 years.
A new show featuring a selection of works from artists who have been with the gallery for 20 years to artists who are showing with Martin Browne for the very first time; from oil on canvas to algorithmic digital installations; from works created this year to pieces which have been hiding away in the studio for 25 years.
Gavin Hipkins, Cracked
Scala Gallery, Sydney, Australia
17 June —
09 July 2023
Aotearoa photographer Gavin Hipkins presents the Australian premiere of The Port (2014), a video work first exhibited in Leisure Valley at St Paul St Gallery in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
The Port features 18th-century astronomy instruments, Jantar Mantars, from New Delhi and Jaipur, India. These structures are presented alongside landscape motifs, and suburban architecture from Auckland's planned community Stonefields. The fragmented and repeated audio montage is taken from passages of H.G. Wells’ 1895 science fiction novella The Time Machine. The video navigates a plurality of spaces, including utopian urban planning, time travel, and the uncanniness of revisiting sites through memory.
Aotearoa photographer Gavin Hipkins presents the Australian premiere of The Port (2014), a video work first exhibited in Leisure Valley at St Paul St Gallery in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
The Port features 18th-century astronomy instruments, Jantar Mantars, from New Delhi and Jaipur, India. These structures are presented alongside landscape motifs, and suburban architecture from Auckland's planned community Stonefields. The fragmented and repeated audio montage is taken from passages of H.G. Wells’ 1895 science fiction novella The Time Machine. The video navigates a plurality of spaces, including utopian urban planning, time travel, and the uncanniness of revisiting sites through memory.
Yuki Kihara, Powerhouse Late x Vivid Ideas: Paradise Fair
Powerhouse Ultimo, Sydney, Australia
15 June 2023
Discovery and disruption with a side of wicked delight. Think "Alisi in Pacific Wonderland" where things aren’t quite what they seem. Artist Yuki Kihara, in collaboration with Matavai Pacific Cultural Arts, invites you to try a range of new experiences as you move in and around her new exhibition, Paradise Camp.
Take a sip and jump into a curated program of immersive activity, responsive choreography, audience participation and ironic cocktails in this special night flipping the script. An artist talk with Yuki Kihara takes place at 6pm.
Discovery and disruption with a side of wicked delight. Think "Alisi in Pacific Wonderland" where things aren’t quite what they seem. Artist Yuki Kihara, in collaboration with Matavai Pacific Cultural Arts, invites you to try a range of new experiences as you move in and around her new exhibition, Paradise Camp.
Take a sip and jump into a curated program of immersive activity, responsive choreography, audience participation and ironic cocktails in this special night flipping the script. An artist talk with Yuki Kihara takes place at 6pm.
Steve Carr, Making Arrangements
STATION, Sydney, Australia
03 June —
01 July 2023
Steve Carr's multi-disciplinary practice is concerned with moments of material transformation and the conventions of time. Presenting a digital video and a series of sculptures, Making Arrangements continues Carr’s exploration of objects, filmic history, tension and a material’s ability to engage and immerse.
By reshaping the classical techniques of carving marble and casting in bronze and plaster, seemingly banal objects and everyday scenes are brought to life. A water-balloon bursts over a tower of household objects, an abandoned basketball sits deflated with water pooling in its crater, and a pillow lays with the imprint of an absent head. Each moment challenges the viewer’s perception of such objects and encourages time for sustained observation and reflection.
“My aim is to create works that defeat conventional laws of time and space that fix the viewers’ attention to the quiet, unseen forces that underpin daily experiences.” – Steve Carr
Steve Carr's multi-disciplinary practice is concerned with moments of material transformation and the conventions of time. Presenting a digital video and a series of sculptures, Making Arrangements continues Carr’s exploration of objects, filmic history, tension and a material’s ability to engage and immerse.
By reshaping the classical techniques of carving marble and casting in bronze and plaster, seemingly banal objects and everyday scenes are brought to life. A water-balloon bursts over a tower of household objects, an abandoned basketball sits deflated with water pooling in its crater, and a pillow lays with the imprint of an absent head. Each moment challenges the viewer’s perception of such objects and encourages time for sustained observation and reflection.
“My aim is to create works that defeat conventional laws of time and space that fix the viewers’ attention to the quiet, unseen forces that underpin daily experiences.” – Steve Carr
Yuki Kihara, Paradise Camp
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia
24 March —
01 December 2023
Paradise Camp by Yuki Kihara and curated by Natalie King comprises a suite of twelve tableau photographs in saturated colour, situated against a vast wallpaper of a landscape decimated by the 2009 tsunami. Eleven of the works were shot on location in Sāmoa, from rural villages to churches, plantations and heritage sites, with a local cast and crew of over eighty people.
Kihara’s performative photography upcycles select paintings by post-impressionist French artist Paul Gauguin created during his time in the Islands of Tahiti and the Marquesas between 1891 and 1903. Kihara problematises Gauguin’s outsized legacy by re-enacting his paintings back in the Pacific, paying careful attention to the details of his works. These re-enactments instill a Polynesian inflection to each photograph and are based on strong personal relationships with Kihara’s sitters, all of whom are part of the Fa‘afafine and Fa‘atama communities. Kihara works with these models to represent her own vision of paradise, redirecting the viewer to the concerns of contemporary Pacific Islanders and ‘returning the gaze’ in a profound gesture of empowerment.
This exhibition also features new work by Kihara, created during an eight-week creative residency earlier in the year, and unveiled at Powerhouse Ultimo on 24 August 2023. BERTHA is a series of racialised vintage Pacific dolls collected from thrift stores and eBay, that have been upcycled and repurposed to tell the larger-than-life story of BERTHA, the drag alter-ego of Harold Samu.
Paradise Camp by Yuki Kihara and curated by Natalie King comprises a suite of twelve tableau photographs in saturated colour, situated against a vast wallpaper of a landscape decimated by the 2009 tsunami. Eleven of the works were shot on location in Sāmoa, from rural villages to churches, plantations and heritage sites, with a local cast and crew of over eighty people.
Kihara’s performative photography upcycles select paintings by post-impressionist French artist Paul Gauguin created during his time in the Islands of Tahiti and the Marquesas between 1891 and 1903. Kihara problematises Gauguin’s outsized legacy by re-enacting his paintings back in the Pacific, paying careful attention to the details of his works. These re-enactments instill a Polynesian inflection to each photograph and are based on strong personal relationships with Kihara’s sitters, all of whom are part of the Fa‘afafine and Fa‘atama communities. Kihara works with these models to represent her own vision of paradise, redirecting the viewer to the concerns of contemporary Pacific Islanders and ‘returning the gaze’ in a profound gesture of empowerment.
This exhibition also features new work by Kihara, created during an eight-week creative residency earlier in the year, and unveiled at Powerhouse Ultimo on 24 August 2023. BERTHA is a series of racialised vintage Pacific dolls collected from thrift stores and eBay, that have been upcycled and repurposed to tell the larger-than-life story of BERTHA, the drag alter-ego of Harold Samu.
Emily Wolfe, Head Games
PIERMARQ*, Sydney, Australia
16 March —
02 April 2023
PIERMARQ* presents Head Games, a group show featuring international artists Cosimo Casoni,Thérèse Mulgrew, Ritsart Gobyn, Nina Radonja, Jeremy Shockley, Adam Parker Smith and Aotearoa artist Emily Wolfe that explores the use of the visual techniques of trompe l’oeil, photorealism, storytelling and illusion to trick the viewer. Today, advancements in virtual reality edge toward a metaverse where the physical world can be experienced in a three-dimensional Internet. Through the traditional tools of paint and sculpture, the artworks in this exhibition recall the myth of Zeus and Parrahasius, reflecting human’s persistent desire, ancient and contemporary, to use tools and technology to create the illusion of worlds within worlds—inviting the viewer to the boundary between the physical and painterly.
PIERMARQ* presents Head Games, a group show featuring international artists Cosimo Casoni,Thérèse Mulgrew, Ritsart Gobyn, Nina Radonja, Jeremy Shockley, Adam Parker Smith and Aotearoa artist Emily Wolfe that explores the use of the visual techniques of trompe l’oeil, photorealism, storytelling and illusion to trick the viewer. Today, advancements in virtual reality edge toward a metaverse where the physical world can be experienced in a three-dimensional Internet. Through the traditional tools of paint and sculpture, the artworks in this exhibition recall the myth of Zeus and Parrahasius, reflecting human’s persistent desire, ancient and contemporary, to use tools and technology to create the illusion of worlds within worlds—inviting the viewer to the boundary between the physical and painterly.
Sione Tuívailala Monū, Queer Encounters
Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, Australia
17 February —
05 March 2023
Queer Encounters brings together artworks, including new commissions, by Dennis Golding, Bhenji Ra, Sione Tuívailala Monū and Sidney McMahon. The works are situated in, and respond to, the vestibule and Kaldor Hall at the entrance to the Art Gallery of New South Wales‘ historic South Building. Together, they create a ‘queer threshold’ that prompts alternative ways of looking, remembering and history-making.
Aotearoa artist Sione Tuívailala Monū presents spectacular apertures into real and imagined worlds of queer Moana diasporas, weaving together moving and still portraits of friends and family. Queer Encounters is part of WorldPride at the Art Gallery, an extensive program of art, performance, films, talks and more in association with Sydney WorldPride 2023.
Queer Encounters brings together artworks, including new commissions, by Dennis Golding, Bhenji Ra, Sione Tuívailala Monū and Sidney McMahon. The works are situated in, and respond to, the vestibule and Kaldor Hall at the entrance to the Art Gallery of New South Wales‘ historic South Building. Together, they create a ‘queer threshold’ that prompts alternative ways of looking, remembering and history-making.
Aotearoa artist Sione Tuívailala Monū presents spectacular apertures into real and imagined worlds of queer Moana diasporas, weaving together moving and still portraits of friends and family. Queer Encounters is part of WorldPride at the Art Gallery, an extensive program of art, performance, films, talks and more in association with Sydney WorldPride 2023.
Michael Parekowhai and Victoria Hunt, Dreamhome: Stories of Art and Shelter
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
03 December 2022 —
27 August 2023
‘Home’ is a small and familiar word that carries a live load of meaning. We think we know what is meant when we hear it. But the term trembles with pressure. Whose home is in question? Who shares that space? How is the sense of home measured? Dreamhome: Stories of Art and Shelter reveals what 29 artists from Australia and farther afield have made of the idea of home. For these artists, home is not only a house or a place, it’s also memories, people – and stories.
Māori-Australian dancer and choreographer Victoria Hunt presents a newly commissioned dance work KŌIWI as part of Dreamhome. Through dance, sound, song, lighting and body adornment, this immersive new work continues the artist’s investigation into the story of her ancestral meeting house, Hinemihi. Michael Parekowhai's Te Ao Hau installation also features in the exhibition.
‘Home’ is a small and familiar word that carries a live load of meaning. We think we know what is meant when we hear it. But the term trembles with pressure. Whose home is in question? Who shares that space? How is the sense of home measured? Dreamhome: Stories of Art and Shelter reveals what 29 artists from Australia and farther afield have made of the idea of home. For these artists, home is not only a house or a place, it’s also memories, people – and stories.
Māori-Australian dancer and choreographer Victoria Hunt presents a newly commissioned dance work KŌIWI as part of Dreamhome. Through dance, sound, song, lighting and body adornment, this immersive new work continues the artist’s investigation into the story of her ancestral meeting house, Hinemihi. Michael Parekowhai's Te Ao Hau installation also features in the exhibition.
Richard Lewer, Lisa Reihana and Francis Upritchard, Sydney Modern Project
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
02 December 2022 —
02 December 2024
Nine Asia Pacific artists have been selected by Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) to create site-specific works for the gallery’s groundbreaking expansion project, Sydney Modern – a new standalone gallery that will almost double AGNSW’s existing exhibition space.
Said to be the largest commissioning program in AGNSW’s 150 year history, the nine artists are Lorraine Connelly-Northey (Waradgerie / VIC) Karla Dickens (Wiradjuri / NSW), Simryn Gill (Singapore / Australia), Jonathan Jones (Wiradjuri / Kamilaroi / NSW), Yayoi Kusama (Japan), Richard Lewer (VIC / NZ), Lee Mingwei (Taiwanese-American), Lisa Reihana (Māori / NZ) and Francis Upritchard (NZ). Displayed within and between the two buildings of this indoor-outdoor campus, the new commissions will be among the first artworks to welcome visitors, with many able to be experienced night and day.
Nine Asia Pacific artists have been selected by Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) to create site-specific works for the gallery’s groundbreaking expansion project, Sydney Modern – a new standalone gallery that will almost double AGNSW’s existing exhibition space.
Said to be the largest commissioning program in AGNSW’s 150 year history, the nine artists are Lorraine Connelly-Northey (Waradgerie / VIC) Karla Dickens (Wiradjuri / NSW), Simryn Gill (Singapore / Australia), Jonathan Jones (Wiradjuri / Kamilaroi / NSW), Yayoi Kusama (Japan), Richard Lewer (VIC / NZ), Lee Mingwei (Taiwanese-American), Lisa Reihana (Māori / NZ) and Francis Upritchard (NZ). Displayed within and between the two buildings of this indoor-outdoor campus, the new commissions will be among the first artworks to welcome visitors, with many able to be experienced night and day.
Séraphine Pick, Sundogs
STATION, Sydney, Australia
10 November —
21 December 2022
Sundogs presents a suite of oil paintings informed by the green and lush surroundings of the artist’s studio, each work containing fragments of her experience and relationship to the location. These new works explore the human history and connection to the botanical, encouraging the viewer to consider the importance of the natural world.
Employing an intuitive, semi-abstract approach to painting, Pick’s dreamlike works explore the transformative energies of nature. Through this approach, Pick offers a connection to the unseen inner space, to revel in the visual experiences and sensations of the natural world. Unstretched canvases, colourfully painted and stained, provide a backdrop for the paintings, turning the gallery into an immersive atmosphere. Pick’s works sit in a place between the abstract and figurative, the digital and the natural, the up-lifting and reflective, that encourage audiences to foster a sense of connection with the natural world.
Sundogs presents a suite of oil paintings informed by the green and lush surroundings of the artist’s studio, each work containing fragments of her experience and relationship to the location. These new works explore the human history and connection to the botanical, encouraging the viewer to consider the importance of the natural world.
Employing an intuitive, semi-abstract approach to painting, Pick’s dreamlike works explore the transformative energies of nature. Through this approach, Pick offers a connection to the unseen inner space, to revel in the visual experiences and sensations of the natural world. Unstretched canvases, colourfully painted and stained, provide a backdrop for the paintings, turning the gallery into an immersive atmosphere. Pick’s works sit in a place between the abstract and figurative, the digital and the natural, the up-lifting and reflective, that encourage audiences to foster a sense of connection with the natural world.
Peter Stichbury, Limited hangout
Fine Arts Sydney, Sydney, Australia
21 October —
03 December 2022
For his second solo exhibition with Fine Arts, Sydney, Peter Stichbury presents a series of paintings, each depicting an allusive single figure and are counterposing in scale. Using the pictorial conventions of traditional portraiture and exacting oil painting technique, Stichbury's paintings are constituted from the study of real, depicted, and imagined figures; his subjects are typically composites of images and identities drawn together from sources found in photographic media, as well as narrative-based material and images in the public domain. With sequent bodies of work over recent years, Stichbury has painted a cast of subjects whose portrait-like representations speak softly to the artist’s thematic interest in the observance of consciousness.
For his second solo exhibition with Fine Arts, Sydney, Peter Stichbury presents a series of paintings, each depicting an allusive single figure and are counterposing in scale. Using the pictorial conventions of traditional portraiture and exacting oil painting technique, Stichbury's paintings are constituted from the study of real, depicted, and imagined figures; his subjects are typically composites of images and identities drawn together from sources found in photographic media, as well as narrative-based material and images in the public domain. With sequent bodies of work over recent years, Stichbury has painted a cast of subjects whose portrait-like representations speak softly to the artist’s thematic interest in the observance of consciousness.
Fiona Connor, Behind the door
Fine Arts, Sydney, Australia
13 August —
01 October 2022
Fine Arts, Sydney presents the third solo exhibition by Fiona Connor. Fiona Connor’s work is often to do with communities of people and use of the built environment. This exhibition is a body of new work that comprises seventeen bronze sculptures. These sculptures are cast from hooks in public restrooms at various sites in the United States. The sculptures are installed on the wall and may be used as hooks.
Fiona Connor lives and works in Los Angeles, United States.
Fine Arts, Sydney presents the third solo exhibition by Fiona Connor. Fiona Connor’s work is often to do with communities of people and use of the built environment. This exhibition is a body of new work that comprises seventeen bronze sculptures. These sculptures are cast from hooks in public restrooms at various sites in the United States. The sculptures are installed on the wall and may be used as hooks.
Fiona Connor lives and works in Los Angeles, United States.