James Cochran

Painter and muralist James Cochran’s abiding concerns are with the contemporary city and its society, the alienation of the individual and the possibility of rehabilitation and redemption. His own experiences, including a brief period of homelessness in his youth, his emergence as a graffiti artist and as a muralist working with community groups, and his study of classicism and modernism, have provided the foundations of his painting. In the exegesis he submitted towards his Master of Visual Arts degree at the University of South Australia in 2002, Cochran outlined his concern with figurative, narrative painting and addressed the continuing relevance and function of realism in the post-modern era. He had by then developed a distinctive style of representational realism, depicting individuals and groups going about their daily business or recreational activities.

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by Chris Reid

Heather Betts

Heather Betts’s art is expressive, gestural, dreamy and anguished. It evokes inner emotional and psychological realms, states of being of which we are too often unaware. Startling human and animal forms populate her work. In her paintings, these figures grow out of or float above carefully worked grounds of strong colour. This balance of idea and feeling captures the dynamics of our inner state, that moment at which a strong emotion emerges into awareness and then resolves itself into conscious thought. For example, Knave depicts a powerful, upright figure in front of a mesmerising red ground. The figure faces us but seems lost in thought; looking inwardly and apparently limbless, he lacks agency, that is, he is unable to touch or grasp or to act in the world, or even to navigate it, but he is sensually and psychologically aware like a dreamer
in a dream.

Betts’s sculpted figures resemble the figures in her paintings but they have metamorphosed into solid objects. In Absentia contains a figure suspended in front of the canvas, as if it has migrated from the spirit or dream world to the real world, or conversely, that the imagery in the painting has emerged from the figure.

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by Chris Reid

Victor Rubin

In an earlier interview Rubin stated that, “The history of art is in my work”.1 Since his first show in 1971 Rubin has indeed taken inspiration from various semi-abstract modernist painters such as Cubist artist Pablo Picasso, and Surrealist artist Max Ernst. He has then reworked the techniques of these artists into his own unique style that endeavours to recreate the recognisable. To do this, Rubin combines the ancient alchemical method of deciphering symbols of wisdom called Hermeticism, with the Cubist method that goes under the same name of Hermetic (or Analytical) Cubism. In recreating the recognisable, Rubin states that he is depicting the creative exploration of trying to recover the lost domain. For Rubin the lost domain is an Arcadian place where there exist the ultimate civilised luxuries, yet it is also a primal place that relates to the primitive, much like the yearnings of many of the modernist painters. The intention of his current show is that such a process of yearning will thus be projected through the viewer’s own psyche and personal response to the works.

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by Penelope Trotter

Andrew Atchison - Kelly Murphy - Ali McCann - Timothy Kendall Edser- Beau Emmett
curated by Christian Thompson

This exhibition brings together a group of emerging Australian artists and through their work we are presented with a field of recognisable images and symbols that belong to a uniquely Australian aesthetic vocabulary.
These artists imbue their individual perspectives and experiences via this these layered texts and the frames of reference extend from ones own body to the suburban lounge room and into the galaxy of stars.
Their autonomous voices permeate through a myriad of mediums ranging from photography, drawing, installation, painting and performance. This collection of works signals a distinctive shift in the approach of contemporary Australian art practice to the landscape.

The juxtaposition of the natural and the urban transpires the works of these artists; their work looks directly at the immediate environment instead of reaching to international trends.

These works are not just borrowed or appropriated notions of what one thinks or has been taught is Australian, no historical revision, but rather fresh original and independent expressions of self, the urban and natural environment offering a rich palette to articulate our unique visions of being Australian to the rest of the world.... (continued in the PDF document)

by Christian Thompson

John Aslanidis and Tony Woods

The history of Australian geometric abstraction is grounded in a love affair. After studying under the French cubist artist Andre Lhote, Grace Crowley returned to Australia in 1929 to disseminate revolutionary principles regarding aesthetic structure. Ralph Balson was among those who responded and together, the artists cultivated a mutual passion for abstraction which progressed from semi-abstract cubist compositions to elegant renditions of pure geometric forms. Contemporary artists who continue this tradition also embrace the constraints of a limited visual repertoire which is then explored as an inexhaustible source of variety.
John Aslanidis is fascinated by the optical possibilities of round coloured forms. His works are constructed with an unconventional combination of airbrushed acrylic and hand-brushed oil. Each circle consists of two colours layered upon each other, which then overlap with other circles. The forms expand and contract to create moire patterns which float across the canvas. These paintings are inspired by the abstract structures of contemporary music, so for Aslanidis, the experience of listening to music is often a trigger for visual ideas. The wave-like emanations pulse with vitality; there is an ever-present sense of festivity in these spectacular works.
There is also a celebratory aspect to the angular compositions by Tony Woods; it is as though he has painstakingly reproduced a ground upon which triangular confetti has fallen. Woods harnesses the skills learned from a 46 year career of painting to explore the effects of optical dynamism. The surface of the works reveals a dichotomy of revelation and concealment; whilst the upper layers draw attention to new shapes and textures, the corners and colours from earlier applications emerge unexpectedly within the composition. The repetitive motifs highlight the breadth of texture in the paintings: here a section mottled with newspaper, or swept with a broom, there the craquelure of oil paint or the fine shades of a brush. Despite the tension of textural detail coupled with diversity of colour, the works stand as cohesive, balanced compositions.
Paintings like these are created in the spirit of dedication and discipline, but also in abandoned enthrallment to form. The flickering works by Woods and the pulsing circles by Aslanidis gift the viewer the possibility of endless optical play. The love affair continues.

by Jane O’Neill