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Katie Saunders

Banquet

10 Feb - 10 Mar 2012 : Opening at 6pm Fri 10 Feb
Saunders depicts a banquet that offers meagre rations of imagery, empty yet expectant food implements and sparse content through her series of new paintings. The banquet, an exercise in celebratory excess, is also gluttony by default as it offers more food than those at the party could possibly consume in one sitting. Not questioning the dietary intake of her audience, Saunders just wants to simplify.

Image:
• Title: Banquet 1, 2011
• Media:oil on linen, 30x30cm
• Courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney

theweathergroup_U, Jeffrey Lee

Koongarra 2012

10 Feb - 10 Mar 2012 : Opening at 6pm Fri 10 Feb
This two-channel video installation presents a collaborative project between theweathergroup_U and Jeffrey Lee, the last member of the Djok clan. As the sole senior custodian of Koongarra, a mining lease surrounded by Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, Australia, Lee continues to fight to ensure that his country remains unharmed for future generations. He feared the same kinds of leaks, spills and license breaches that allegedly took place at the nearby Ranger uranium mine. For many years Lee resisted extremely lucrative offers from the French energy giant Areva, eager to extract uranium worth over five billion dollars. In June 2011 Lee travelled to Paris to meet with UNESCO officials. After more than 30 years of dispute and despite vigorous opposition from Areva, Koongarra was finally added to the World Heritage List.

Image:
• Title: Koongarra (video still), 2008

Angelica Mesiti

The Line of Lode and Death of Charlie Day

10 Feb - 10 Mar 2012 : Opening at 6pm Fri 10 Feb
The work was shot on location in Broken Hill in far western NSW working with the local community and in response to extraordinary stories and experiences associated with the unique environment of this mining city. Mesiti's work reflects on how experiences of a region converge and overlap. She is interested in how these histories carry weight in daily life. The after school ritual of local kids riding their bikes is transformed into a lyrical image of eternal flight. The choreography of their movements suggests a non-verbal understanding of place. These poetic images note that the nurturing of shared histories and care for the land resides with them. The work reflects on how stories are carried by people through generations, and that they are not so much histories set in the past, as an enduring set of relationships between land and people.

Image:
• Title: The Line of Lode and Death of Charlie Day, 2008
• Medium:High definition video transferred to DVD, colour, stereo sound, PAL, 16:9.

Clare Davies

Window

10 Feb - 10 Mar 2012 : Opening at 6pm Fri 10 Feb
Based on the memory of an internal window in the central desert on a very hot day, Window is presented as a curtained frame backlit by the sun. Teetering on the edge, the sun threatens to combust the structure.

Image:
• Title: Window (detail), 2012
• Medium: pistachio shell, raffia, dimensions variable

Pip McManus

Ocean River Sea

23 Mar - 21 Apr 2012 : Opening at 6pm Fri 23 Mar
For many years I have been collecting small snatches of water movement, shot from a fixed, hand held position and sourced from rivers and sea shores across the world. This rough quality footage, captured by a standard definition compact digital camera, reveals the constant and quintessential element that engages with me throughout my journeys. I live in the desert, but it is water, not earth that has grounded me when I am far from home.

Image:
• Title: Reconnaissance, 2010
• Medium: video installation/

Ash Keating, Jonnie Leahy

A New Lifelong Landscape

23 Mar - 21 Apr 2012 : Opening at 6pm Fri 23 Mar
A painterly study through video exploring and coming to terms with the landscape surrounding the edge of road in Thorpdale South, where my mother lost her life. Making sense and peace with this place through my art is part of the grieving process and a signifier of the beginning of a lifelong relationship with this place within the Gippsland landscape.

Image:
• Title: A New Lifelong Landscape (production still), 2011
• Medium: HD Video,courtesy of the artist and Fehily Contemporary

Olivia Hittmann

Do you like Pina Coladas? Pineapples is my Business!

23 Mar - 21 Apr 2012 : Opening at 6pm Fri 23 Mar
Master Kong (aka Confucius) said "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." Forget Orientalism, this is Tropicalspasmo – letters from the Orient – a print-installation depicting the complete rejection of post-colonial discourse in favour of Pina Colada Dysmorphia.

Image:
• Title: Panel from screen print suite 5 Bucks 2009 exhibited at Henry Jones Art Hotel Hobart

Triumph of the Line

4 May - 2 June 2012 : Opening at 6pm Fri 4 May
The act of drawing, arguably the most spontaneous of art forms, often allows the imagination to run wild, as seen in the works of a number of emerging artists from around the country such as Nat Koyama, Drew Bickford, Tom O'Hearn and Carmel Seymour. Such artists present essentially surreal imagery, as though the direct act of pencil or pen on paper has loosened odd beasts from the inner-psyche. The works exhibited here, from more established practitioners to youthful pioneers, opens the door to a vastly larger realm of expression and intellect, an immediacy that harks back to humankinds first yearnings for communication and myth-making, the world of the Line.

Image:
• Artist: Becc Orszag
• Title: Walk Forward, 2010
• Media: pencil on paper

Simon Pericich

Hacked

4 May - 2 June 2012 : Opening at 6pm Fri 4 May

Image:
• Title:Pix$ell
• Medium:youtube video 4:57min

Leanne Waterhouse

Solitary Cohabitation

4 May - 2 June 2012 : Opening at 6pm Fri 4 May

Image:
• Title: Solitary Cohabitation (detail)
• Medium: digital print