Peter Stevens painter & printmaker

Not every professional practising artist worth their salt is represented within the gallery system. Alot of people work outside the commercial networks, just doing their own thing. Some are particularly private; others align themselves with artist-run spaces or pop-up spots. Some self manage their careers on-line via their website. Facebook is becoming a common place for an artist to 'exhibit' their wares. 
At times, for the viewer, the gallery system feels very closed. Yes, there are some great shows on at any given time, but the aesthetic and what is available can be frustratingly limiting. Credibility comes in many forms (including having a commercial dealer to speak for you) but ultimately it is the enduring quality of the work which defines it. I remember as a young, very impressionable student being instructed by my mentor that "the difference between a good and lousy work of art is its integrity and honesty". Tricky at times to interpret but worth holding onto when considering art that has only itself as a reference point. It isn't about who shows with whom and sometimes it isn't even about what gets bought up quickly: it's about the artwork itself and the artist's ability to tell his/her own story.
Peter Stevens is one such artist. He has been working consistently over a 25-30 year period, mostly outside a commercial arena and has built up a significant body of work. He has shown publicly in the past - more recently with Tim Olsen Gallery www.timolsengallery.com, in prize exhibitions Paddington Art Prize and at the moment in a group printmaking exhibition at Danks St in Wilson St Gallery www.wilsonstreetgallery.com.au; and, for someone without a dealer, his work has been well collected. 
A graduate from Sydney College of the Arts in printmaking and painting in the mid 80s, Stevens completed his post grad degree in printmaking. As a young artist, he worked as a studio assistant to such luminaries as Robert Jacks, Tim Storrier and Brett Whiteley. Whilst none of them specifically influenced Peter's own style, all of them did impress on him the key to a sustaining career lies in finding one's own voice, an independent voice which remains true to one's own self.
Steven's own practice has been the pursuit of this - the search to establish his own mark.
His is a steady continual progress, working across painting and printmaking, sometimes combined, experimenting with technique, media, scale and colour. Underlying his core subject is his love of the Aussie bush which draws him back to childhood memories of discovery, fascination and boyhood wonder. Peter's view of the Aussie bush is not an expansive all encompassing one, rather observations of the detail within it. Over the past decade it is the image which has remained consistent - birds and moths, not random images he has fixed on but ones with personal meaning and resonance. He takes the motif and sticks with it, working it over and over, to see where he can take it and how far it can go.

Beatles from the Dodd Collection,
Queensland Museum

The birds are tied to memories of his childhood and his grandfather, a hobbyist ornithologist, in western NSW. It was after the death of his grandfather that Peter gained access to his precious library of books which became, in the artist's hands, the research and the canvas. 
The more recent moths allude to Steven's fascination with the collector and the classification of nature, "...a sort of scientific exploration without the need for scientific accuracy through the exploration of painting." (Peter Stevens 2008) He was inspired by the Frederick Parkhurst Dodd Collection of the Queensland Museum. It is a great story about an early 20thC banker-turned-insect enthusiast in FNQ who pursued his passion to collect, document and classify insects, including moths. Known as The Butterfly Man of Kuranda Dodd enjoyed creating amazing displays of his collections, in highly decorative beautiful ways, to highlight the incredible beauty of the bug. 

Peter Stevens Moths IV 2011
oil on canvas 97x102cm

In Moths IV the moths are self-consciously displayed as if being studied through a lens. They are held still and suspended, contained over a series of translucent white circles - a bright light? a petrie dish? Either way their beauty is captured and celebrated.

Peter Stevens Yuraygir sea eagle II 2011
oil on canvas 59 x 62cm

A very recent work Yuraygir sea eagle II sees Stevens working with both printmaking and painting. A tightly patterned backdrop supports the aloof bird in space, as it sits and turns slightly, this time to assure us of its place in the natural world, rather than on display in a museum. These are quietly beautiful pieces.

Dorothy Napangardi Karntakurlangu Jukurrpa no 2, 2010
intaglio  ed 30
image courtesy the artist and
Whaling Road Print Studios

Stevens has continued to work as a master printmaker for almost 20 years with Diana Davidson at Whaling Road Prints Studios. A master printmaker basically recreates an artist's work as a print. Together Peter and Diana have collaborated with many well known and respected Australian artists to create suites of prints which reveal the essence of the artist’s hand,a strong empathy for their work and a deep knowledge of the many printmaking techniques which they so willingly share. Artists such as Guy Maestri, John Firth-Smith, Luke Sciberras, Dorothy Napangardi and most recently with Elizabeth Cummings. 
Not all good artists are household names or in national collections. The gift, combined with skill, knowledge, experience, confidence and history are attributes that define all serious artists. Stevens has this in spades. 
As for the relationships developed between the master printmaker and artist, that is a subject worthy of a blog on its own - soon ...... 

Janet Laurence: After Eden at SCAF

WOW - this is something not to be missed.
Janet Laurence: After Eden commissioned by and installed at the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) in Paddington is an absolute must. www.sherman-scaf.org.au 
SCAF is the follow on from the highly successful Sherman Galleries. It was established in 2008 as a privately run foundation that aspires to present far-reaching installations, exhibitions, research and education programmes. There have been some incredible events since it morphed from commercial gallery to a not-for-profit foundation - Ai Weiwei, Jonathon Jones, Brook Andrew - which also celebrate productive partnerships with public institutions, regional galleries, universities and art events.
Much has already been written about Janet Laurence: After Eden, and much more will be written, discussed and thought about. This is a beautiful, thoughtful, provocative experience. 
The various media that make up the entire piece says alot really about how Janet works and has worked over many years: After Eden, 2012
    hanging gauze - each vignette/ tableau is gently cordoned off behind a gauze;
    glass with duraclear - Janet's work is identified by the layering of this photographic process   onto glass sheets which are then invariably layered across other sheets to create a delicate translucency;
    acrylic, oil, pigment, wood, steel, minerals, crystal, plants (living, artificial, dried),
   Chinese medicine plants, ash, salt - a full range of material which describes a cross over between the scientific and painterly worlds
   silicon tubing, specimens from the Australian Museum & the Macleay Museum, Uni of Sydney - reminiscent of laboratories and museum classifications;
   projected images - the contemporary medium, in both positive and negative, which brings into sharp focus the drama of the subject.
There are no dimensions cited: it is an all encompassing installation, quietly filling an exhibition space and your senses.
It is a bit like walking into a hospital ward where patients are still and quiet, and attendees are respectful, moving slowly and quietly, speaking in hushed tones. The lighting is low. Cordoned off tableaus are gently spot lit; projected video images hazy against the gauze backdrop. The outside world is closed off: you've entered a dreamy world, where animals hold sway.

Janet Laurence After Eden (detail) 2012 multi media
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation.
Image courtesy the artist.

But this is not about patients being cured and discharged. This is akin to a hospice, whose priority are animals who face extinction and loss of habitats. 

Says Laurence "We talk about climate change, but we live in an age of mass extinctions and the loss of bio habitats."

The tableaus are themed and titled: Blood and Chlorophyll, Abandoned, Traded, Bewildered, Love and Extinction, Fabled and the the central circular one of varied taxidermied small birds ironically titled Anthropocene that is, humans as the most important and central factor of this geo-epoch.
Each part of the total work comprises a range of objects and materials, all of which have been carefully gathered and grouped, to establish relationships and meanings which resonate. They are akin to those wondrous scientific, museological cabinets of curiosities, but in After Eden the formal classifications and descriptions are not so much clinical as descriptors of an emotional mood. 
Just about all the areas of the plight of animals and their habitats are covered, but this isn't an aggressive campaign of animal rights or liberation rather one in which we are gently provoked to empathise and so, understand. Laurence provides us with a framework for thought. 
It is a cherished partner to a recent major work featured in the Botanic Gardens for the 2010 Biennale of Sydney, which spoke of plants, a veiled freestanding room, Waiting - a medicinal garden for ailing plants. Definitely a piece worth preserving in itself. 
This exhibition links in closely with the politics of the well-known Sherman family's other passion, that of animal rights, organised through their not-for-profit thinktank Voiceless www.voiceless.org.au
There is a good catalogue to accompany the exhibition, with discussions reaching back into Janet's earlier work, see www.janetlaurence.com  Thanks again to Andrew and Cathy Cameron for having the foresight and generosity to support this publication. Benefaction is good.

Janet Laurence After Eden (detail) 2012 multi media
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation. 
Image courtesy the artist. 

Janet Laurence's solo exhibition Fabled which sits alongside After Eden opens at BREENSPACE opens on 30 March. www.breenspace.com. Can't wait. 

Art Month Sydney: in Millers Point and Annandale

I've been doing the gallery circuit for a while now. I try to break out of the usual routes & explore new territories and outposts but, I admit, it is not regularly enough. So it is with pleasure when I learn of something new, such as Gallery 8, discovered via Sydney's Art Month.  www.artmonthsydney.com.au

The gallery is an artist-run space in a great part of town, at the bottom of Kent St, on Argyle Place, Millers Point right next door to the Lord Nelson Hotel. The shopfront space follows a bend in the road, so it isn't until you actually round the corner and are standing in front of the window, that you have any sense of what it is. 

Art Month Sydney fills a much needed gap. There are many festivals in this city, rolling across the annual calendar, celebrating most things cultural but until only 3 years ago, there was no dedicated spot for the visual arts. It is a fantastic idea for artists, gallerists, collectors and newcomers, to dedicate one month to all things visual in Sydney. There is a lot on offer throughout the year, but the focus Art Month affords has to be good. I think there are still teething issues, about managing the scale of the programme and spreading it evenly across town and the allotted few weeks, whilst meeting the needs of the key stakeholders - gallerists, artists, buyers - but it takes time for these things to come together. It possibly needs a central point and focus, something of its own, from which all other official events spin off. It will gradually firm its foundations and find a true direction. La Roma wasn't built in a day .....

It was an image on the its website that caught my eye - a sculptural installation at Gallery 8 www.galleryeight.com.au  by Kath Fries in her exhibition Scorch. 

The works feel modest until you realise that each small wall piece is bronze. There is nothing modest about working in bronze. It is ambitious, laborious, intensive, expensive and made to last a life time. 

Kath Fries Scorch V 2011 (detail)
bronze, twine and charcoal
image courtesy the artist and Gallery 8, Sydney

The wall pieces are small bronzed magnolia branches, slightly more than twigs, dotted with buds. Some are intertwined with a rough string, some weighed down with a pendulum-like lump of charcoal. She speaks of things impermanent being rendered permanent. The budding branch is destroyed in the casting process but reformed in bronze, its burgeoning growth suspended in time. Fiery processes have destroyed both the branch and the wood, to recreate one as a bronze replica and the other, a charcoal remnant. The small branches sit as 'details' of the large floor installation, Hold dear 2011. Medium becomes the metaphor for the artist who says of her practice "the transcience of existence and fragility of life are recurring themes....". www.kathfries.com

The artist-run space is a varied phenomenon and often works as a collective set up: the artists supporting each other to exhibit, promote and sell their wares in an environment which allows for greater experimentation and exploration. Funding bodies play a major role in these spaces, supporting the set up and administration of them as well as the projects themselves. Fries' installation was supported by a grant from NAVA, the NSW Artists' Grant initiative. 

Then, by contrast to an artist-run space - there is William Kentridge's exhibition Universal Archive (parts 7-23) at Annandale Galleries. Run by Bill and Anne Gregory, Annandale Galleries has been around since the late 80s/ early 90s. It is in an old masonic temple with soaring ceilings and a great sense of occasion. It is the only gallery in Australia which represents Kentridge and there is a great piece by Bill in the accompanying catalogue about how he came across Kentridge's work and then the artist himself. It gives an insight into the gallerist/ artist relationship and how it develops.
The sheer volume of work and Kentridge's capacity to create so intensely across so many media - prints, drawings, sculpture, video/ film, costume design, opera direction - is breathtaking. He is South African and lives in Johannesburg, a city which he claims as his inspiration. This small archive reveals his work to be a multi-faceted, complex, international practice, part political commentary, theatre of the absurd and observations of uncertainties in daily life. He reflects on the cultural and political shifts in a country which has undergone vast shifts in recent decades, a bit like the Goya of his time and place. At times he works alone and at times brings together many talented collaborators, but either way his practice is firmly rooted in the basics: his sense of place and his desire to draw. Drawing is fundamental. The charcoal drawings are what creates the wonder in the stop-animation film Other voices (bought by the National Gallery of Australia). This is a jaw-dropping feat of drawing and erasing, adding and subtracting of imagery. 
Dense and rough and large in scale, the many B&W drawings which make up this film are wonderfully expressive and dynamic. They create a story that is in part narrative and in part dream like. Each image is part erased, part redrawn as animation requires, but often not quite rubbed away so a ghostly shadow remains. 

William Kentridge Drawing for the film Other voices 2011
charcoal & coloured pencil on paper
image courtesy the artist and Annandale Galleries, Sydney

The video Anti-mercator is very different in style, combining many filmic techniques, including stop animation, in which Kentridge toys with concepts of time. Random, dadaesque even, with the artist himself front & centre, lecturing, drawing, running, commenting. Again drawing is fundamental, at one stage even being 'undrawn' as the film is run backwards.  As a dear friend's mother always said, "time is a human construct" and we are beholden to it. It is a destructive yet predictable force and it is because of this, we seek to hold onto order. Kentridge is quoted in John McDonald's essay in the accompanying cataloge: "What we do as people is to try and keep coherence in the face of disintegration."

Kentridge has shown with Annandale Galleries since 1995, and has featured in Biennales here too. There was a major video installation of his on Cockatoo Isl in the most recent one. This exhibition is one not to be missed. www.annandalegalleries.com.au

In the meantime, I'm back out on the hustings. 

Adelaide in March, when art forms collide

Adelaide last weekend was a city on steroids. Art in all its forms (does Clipsal V8 car racing qualify?) was colliding at every intersection. The Festival and everything else was opening and happening. So much going on in one small city and, aside from the car racing thing, so many great things to see and do. It was only the locals feeling the strain. 
On arriving we did what we always do - eat. Art appreciation is best done on a full stomach. Lunch was at Chianti Classico: classico by name and so beautifully classico by nature www.chianticlassico.com.au We lament there is nothing like it in Sydney, so we made the most of it. Only then were we ready to face the demands of an intensive few days of art. 

First stop, Parallel Collisions the 12th Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of SA www.artgallery.sa.gov.au This is the major exhibition of the Adelaide Festival, held every 2 years and the only one dedicated to contemporary Australian art. 
Guest curators Natasha Bullock and Alexie Glass-Kantor have brought together an impressive group of artists who work across many art forms: sculpture, installation, video, photography, painting, drawing, weaving and music. The premis (in a nutshell as opposed to the expanded weighty tome which accompanies the exhibition) is that ideas and materials can co-exist ie run parallel, as well as across one another though in another dimension, ie time. A reasonable hypothesis but, to be honest, I did get a bit lost in the artspeak. Nonetheless I enjoyed engaging at my own pace with the exhibition. The artworks were great, with the interplay between them and the ideas resulting from all that are memorable. For me this is what makes an exhibition sing - bringing artworks together under a certain guise and allowing them to speak to one another, to bring about new or extended meanings.
It is important to begin in the old wing of the Gallery with the old colonial collection, funnily enough, before heading downstairs to the contemporary wing. Several exhibiting artists had been invited to play with these rooms and works, and then continue with related artworks downstairs. The conservative stuffy colonial wing had been jolted awake, not just with a fresh coat of paint, but with a rejigged and potent political and cultural rethink. 
Rosemary Laing was keen to work in the room with 'her Glover' - she knew the work, the space and placed one of her fabulous Groundspeed works opposite the Glover, A view of the artist's house and garden, in Mills Plains, Van Diemen's Land. Both artists consider notions of human influence in a landscape, that of formal gardens and introduced plants placed within the wilds of nature, but one work is from 1835, the other 2001.

Nicholas Folland Untitled (jump up) 2012
found crystal & glassware, nylon coated steel wire & timber
Courtesy the artist & Ryan Renshaw Gallery, Brisbane

Nicholas Folland suspended 2,000 glass vessels from yesteryear with such precision - cruet sets, saucers, gravy dishes, nut bowls, punch cups & more - they formed a floating mountainous island. More the dowdy glass of suburban Australia than anything unique from colonial times, this work spoke of adventures in another time to another place - alluding to explorers and pioneers of another era. Magical and wondrous.
Jonathon Jones' work is so layered and so subtle in its rendering, it sits quietly waiting to be discovered. I think his piece, ironically, is key to understanding the curatorial proposition; ironic because it is not a new work, rather a new installation of existing, old works. Jones rehung in a discreet alcove many old works on paper from the Gallery's collection that depicted the Murray- Darling River systems & its tributaries. It is this river system which connects the Wiradjuri & Kamilaroi Aboriginal groups, which are Jonathon's heritage and which hold particular significance to these two groups. Effectively he was mapping his own heritage across a specific area, but as depicted in older colonial pictures. He uses the works from another time and another culture to introduce his forebears and their connections to the same landscape. 
To look and think this through, you must sit on the beautiful asymmetrical wooden bench, akin to a solid canoe, sited in the alcove, and made at The Jam Factory in Adelaide from a Murray River gum to Jonathon's specifications. Beautiful. Concept, production and installation completes a circle into which we are invited to pause and reflect.www.jamfactory.com.au 

Rosemary Laing Jim from the leak series 2010
type C photograph
image courtesy of the artist and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne

There is so much more to talk about, but I'll just focus on one room which I thought was particularly beautiful. This room, I think, presents a reconsideration of how we position ourselves in an Australian landscape. Picture these hung together: a woven circular reed mat by Yvonne Koolmatrie - the reeds from the Murray, smelling of grass; a felled cut-up gum tree from the banks of the Murray, which was painted with ceremonial white ochre, lain dramatically across the floor and lit from underneath by fluoros by Jonathon Jones; 2 expansive landscape photographs by Rosemary Laing, of wooden frames of buildings (probably houses) built into the trees, like ships aground, left to weather and rot and become one with the land. Images of Australian landscapes are so deeply ingrained in us, they have shaped our sense of place in all its forms. Bringing these works together (with the installation by Tom Nicholson - an upstairs/ downstairs multi-faceted piece) reflects on the past by offering up a contemporary perspective. It felt like moving through a gracious magnificent Aussie landscape, recognising the many inhabitants, past and present. 
A couple of other works which I must mention: Ricky Swallow's new small bronzes reference early modernist sculpture. Bronze is the most extraordinary medium, and with the patina (the surface finish) his pieces looked like the original cardboard constructions - kitchen paper and toilet rolls,sides of boxes: the fibrous softness of cardboard was so honestly captured in bronze.
My favourite video artist Daniel Crooks created a new piece set around the laneways of Melbourne. Slices of laneways pieced together, like viewing sets on a stage from the wings; people emerging and wandering through each lane dissolved into the edges. It captures slices of time and space in the inner city. And another fabulous video (though they are all digital these days) by Shaun Gladwell who was filmed from underwater, sitting on a surfboard in a weighted wetsuit upside down, also under water. Obviously an arduous thing to do and at times the weight and pull of the water felt oppressive. But generally it was a peaceful, meditative work - with ambiguous light sources, gentle rolling surf and soft blue water - in which there was no real up or down, just floating and being.

Tim Silver Untitled (object) 2011 - 2012
cedar timbermate woodfiller
courtesy of the artist and BREENspace Sydney

A full body cast of artist Tim Silver, lying seemingly asleep, became a poignant self-portrait. Cast from Selley's wood filler, the model was then deep frozen. Now on display, he will slowly thaw out, almost melt, dry out and crack. By the end of the exhibition, the body will be almost non existent. We are witnessing youthfulness in decay.
We saw so much, too much for this wee blog, that here now are some websites to check out: see curator Victoria Lynn's international exhibition Restless www.unisa.edu.au/samstagmuseum; a collaborative exhibition of Richard Lewer and Tony Garifalakis www.hugomichelgallery.com;  Deadly at Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute www.tandanya.com.au and UK based Matt Collishaw at Greenaway Gallery www.greenaway.com.au. Visceral rotting decay is the subject of a photographic and video exhibition by Collishaw, one of the original YBA(Young British Artist with Damien Hirst & Tracey Emin). He shows a depth and maturity which, I believe at times, his compatriots now lack. 

Enjoy another great meal and visit Press. How nice is it to be seated in a restaurant with stylish comfy chairs www.pressfoodandwine.com.au Or escape to the Hills & enjoy tapas on a sunday at Longview Winery www.longviewvineyard.com.au