NEW SHOWS 02/09/08 – 20/09/08

MAIN GALLERY | Sean Rafferty & Camille Serisier

SKINNY GALLERY | Darcey Arnold

SOUND GALLERY| Jarrah de Kuijer

Opening Tuesday 2nd September 6-8pm…Until 20th September

BACKDROP
Sean Rafferty & Camille Serisier |

Sean Rafferty and Camille Serisier met in 2005 when they exhibited at the now defunct Wren Gallery in Sydney’s Surrey Hills. From their first meeting they recognised in each other’s work sympathetic areas of investigation, not just in the realm of materiality, but also through a parallel use of space and conceptual subject matter. In BACKDROP, both artists focus on the structure of landscape and theatrical space, and the way landscapes are depicted to satisfy a purpose. For both artists, the representation of the landscape as isolated by the image frame or proscenium arch provides a point of departure to explore their relative ideas. Like the diorama, which exists as a type of three-dimensional still life sans performers, the works in this exhibition will be presented in a pictorial space incorporating the depth of the stage space.

EXTERMINATE
Darcey Arnold |

The last fifty years have been particularly fruitful regarding the discoveries and development of technology in our society. We heavily rely on these technological advances, an addiction that has seen prolific growth in inner-city Melbourne. Everyone experiences constant exposure to technology, the social consequences emanating from the development of mobile phones and also social networking websites such as ‘FACEBOOK’/'MYSPACE’ is incredible, and has tangibly influenced etiquette of social interaction. And emulating a relationship or paradigm in which the technology, and the society who creates it, that are joined intimately, perhaps as old friends, society is so intimately entwined with technology to an almost disturbing extent.

ENDGAME
Jarrah de Kuijer |

As a Modern society we are continuously imagining our own demise. Likewise, Art has been declared dead over and over again since the days of Dada. Yet still new things are found in the refuge. It seems we are constantly on the edge of the end.
And then what? What follows the apocalypse? As human beings we have no concept of nothingness. The end only brings more endings. Thus, an ending can also be seen as another beginning. Like the saying goes; every destructive act is also an act of creation.
Endgame is a reinterpretation of technology and materials. The low-fi aesthetic and theatricality of the work creates a dialogue between notions of quality and gimmickry. Human attributes are embodied in banal objects using humour to play on the progressive role of technology and it’s effect on the human condition.
Four duplicate sculptures wave blankly back at their spectators. Blind, deaf and dumb, the crude kinetic machines incessantly attempt to communicate with a single universal gesture: the waving of a hand. Although appearing inane, waving has two obvious connotations; ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye.’
Like the four riders of the apocalypse or the doomsayer on the street corner, these degenerate commodities act as ironic signs to a future end that will never happen.