Leo Garrouste
An exhibition of definitive works
From the 23rd of March 2010
With the Exhibition Launch Party taking place on Saturday 27th of March from 3pm.

Art can show something impossible. This exhibition, which focuses mainly on china ink, stencils and comic illustrations, is a recent collection of works compiled by the artist during his numerous travels.
Leo aims to affect you, entertain you, to take you on a journey so to speak.
He presents the absurd and the surreal, a surrealism not restricted to the unconscious….but one which gives shape to hypothetical worlds; where animals, nature and tribal shapes together form part of an intricate architecture.

Image-Leo signing : “Leo signing the his stencil artwork recently completed at 50 Marong rd.”

Whether one enjoys the humour in one of his surrealist comics or the beauty of tribal patterns woven into an Asian-styled stencil, Leo will strike his viewers with an original voice, technical proficiency and a dedication to the malleable dimensions of artistic production.

Open Studio! Throughout the month long exhibition, Leo will be showing his finished pieces and displaying his method of creation to the public in an interactive manner. He will be available for both comment and conversation.

A MURAL BY LEO GARROUSTE CAN ALSO BE VIEWD AT 80 MARONG RD.
Image-50Marongrd: “ Stencil Artwork at 50 Marong rd, Bendigo”

Visit www.leogarrouste.com to see more of Leo’s works.

Image- “Prise de tete, ink on paper.”
Image – “Gulliver, ink on paper.”

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Saturday workshops…bookings essential

Djembe Drum tuition with Nicole Lewis

· Saturday 30 Jan @ 11am & 1pm

· Saturday 6th Feb @ 11am & 1pm

In this workshop Nicole teaches traditional West African rhythms on djembe and basic percussion theory. Drums are provided or can play your own. Proceed at your own pace while participating as an integral part of the group. Music is a skill for life and drumming together provides a great challenge for the adventurous. Get a group of friends together and book now!

Writer’s workshops w. Dr. Rodney Blackhirst

· Saturday 13th Feb @ 11am & 1pm

· Saturday 20th Feb @ 11am & 1pm

The Pregnant Pause (strategies for effective spoken word)

This workshop is for writers interested in reading their work aloud and the idea that timing is everything. Sure such factors as clarity, projection are important, but the key to spoken word is pacing. The pace of reading and the art of knowing when to let you audience hang!

Mercifully Short (or ‘The Last Thing the World Needs is Another Novel’)

This writer’s workshop is devoted to being brief… how not to bore readers with long wordy tones. Just as some talkers like the sound of their own voices, some writers are overly fond of their own prose. We will consider the genres of : the short story, the mini-saga, the quatrain and the one-liner, an exercise in fearless self-editing.

Phone: 5442 1753 / Email: artspace@allanswalk.com

Robyn Burgess, Raft

2 January – 23 January

Artist Talk /closing 3pm Saturday 23 January.

Conceived by Stephen Turpie, and managed by Allan’s Walk emerging
curator Daniel Russell. RAFT conjures up ideas about abandonment, adrift in
the sea, fashioning found materials to a useful end purpose. Surviving a
wreck, an accident, a disaster, and an escape.

All these associations suggest dread, inflicting further questioning about
the raft (both physically and metaphorically). For example, how do we
picture dread? Is there an aspect of the sublime inherent in this concept?
Is there a reference to the current state of border control in this and
other countries?

The lead artist Stephen Turpie further explained, “At times you may as well
be better off building your own raft and setting your own course. Many of us
have built childhood rafts to fulfil our yearning to travel to imaginary
lands.

Artists are taking these imaginary leaps every time they create works, and
ask the viewer to come along with them, to immerse themselves in their
journey, and to hopefully open up new ways to experience life’.”

This exhibition brings 25 artists together, responding to the theme of RAFT
through an A4 sheet of watercolour paper provided to each of the invited
artists.”

Anton Hassell, The Protein Chain

The title of my drawing is ” The protein chain” and if a preface is the
story behind the image, then here is a preface:

‘All things natural, including our species, are caught in paradoxical
situations at every turn. The raft we grasp for survival is both our
platform from which to launch raids on necessary resources and our
defense against those that seek us as a resource to their continued
existence. As a construct (rope, logs, tab A attach tab B) the raft is
the only concrete structure in an entirely fluid contextual universe.
Apart from logs and twine, our raft can be as architectural as a
mcmansion in Silvania Waters, as ritual as ‘family’ and ’self’
concepts or, less sturdily, it can be a social contract that gives each
of us our identity as citizen. Like the raft of The Medusa, rafts are
destined to unravel most inconveniently, and should they
surprisingly remain intact, come eventually to serve as grave-beds for
those who stay afloat. Still, all in all, a raft remains the better
option, in my view, to that of swimming.’

Bridget Keena, Travelling with Charon

Chris Evans, Mimic

Dee Gill, Contrarian 1

Jacques Soddell, (d)raft, still from video

A raft from a wartime propaganda film floats in the middle of an empty sea, but other images fleetingly appear. Jewish refugees on a the SS St Louis unsuccessfully seeking escape from the holocaust. Vietnamese refugees seeking escape from the consequences of a war involving Australians. Afghani and Tamil refugees escaping war and persecution by hoping to reach Australia.

Rudd takes a weak stand. Abbott says send the refugee boats back. Fraser says you can’t do that today – it may have been acceptable in the 30s, but not today. He’s wrong – it wasn’t morally acceptable to refuse refugees in the 30s. He’s right, its not acceptable today.

A cold wind blows, a (d)RAFT.

Jane Rusden, Hopeful's Adrift

Linda Botham, untitled

Mark Cain, untitled

Ruth Turpie, untitled

Stephen Turpie, meduse

Robyn Burgess, Raft

 Bridget KEENA

26^th November – 19^th December 2009

Opening Celebration: 1pm Saturday 5^th December

Allan’s Walk Artist Run Space

Shops 5 & 7, Allan’s Walk, Bendigo

Opening Hours: Thursday & Friday: 11am – 4pm, Saturday: 11am – 3pm

Mirror, Mirror will consist of two large installations, one in each shop of Allan’s Walk Artist Run Space. The exhibition surveys a range of the artist’s work, covering some breadth of the artist’s oeuvre, including painting, photography & drawing.

Two themes are strongly observed; the first a preoccupation with the portrait and especially the self-portrait, the second the need to reflect one’s environment, and how this in turn reinforces or imbues the portraits with a greater sense of gravity.

Keena draws heavily from her “drawing” practice of photography and the collection of images. Reminiscent of the photographic work of Nobuyoshi Araki, Keena exposes her private life. From the mundane to the intimate, there is perhaps a somewhat obsessive compulsion to record and to retain the detritus of modern life.

The sheer proliferation of photographs could trivialise the work; however the artist chooses to paint from some images rather than others. This selection allows Keena to monumentalise moments, thrusting them into the canons of art history.

In the same sense that the Impressionists sought to capture the fleeting nature of light; to paint from the mirror or the photograph, as in all depictions, can only attempt to hint at the “élan” or essence of what is contained in the vignette and only as seen by the artist. The mirror acts as a description of reality however this is all the image is; it is not reality and it is not tangible.

Knowing this, the artist attempts to go beyond presenting scenes, and to instead immerse the viewer in an experience not dissimilar to the artist’s own cognition of existence. To do this the artist has intervened in the space of the gallery, installing simulacra of Keena’s private internal and external life as ontological ruminations.

Mirror, Mirror

Friday 20th November

4pm Children’s Animation Program, Campbell Theatrette, FREE

This year’s Australian International Animation Festival descends on Bendigo with a selection of program’s from the animation festival held earlier this year in Melbourne, as well as a local component featuring Bendigo animators, including award winning animator Susan McMinn.

The screenings are on Friday 20^th November at the Campbell Theatrette (next to the Library) and Allan’s Walk Artist Run Space and on Saturday 21^st November at La Trobe University’s Visual Arts Centre in View St.

Presented by Allan’s Walk Artist Run Space, La Trobe University’s Visual Arts Centre and Undue Noise, with the assistance of the City of Greater Bendigo, the program will feature a free children’s animation program, an evening of local animation screenings, talks and performance (yes, some Bendigo animators perform their works), programs of Australian, International and Digital animation, as well as a session with Dennis Tupicoff, an internationally recognised Melbourne-based animator.

The festival program commences with a selection of Children’s Animation on Friday afternoon (4pm) at the Campbell Theatrette, next to the Library. This features some of the best animated films made recently made for children, as well as a couple of films involving the work of Central Victorian school children.

The festival will be officially opened on Friday at 7pm by multi-media artist Claire Smith, who first brought the festival to Bendigo about three years ago. This opening will be at Allan’s Walk Artist Run Space on Friday evening and will highlight the work of Bendigo Animators. This free event will feature performance involving animation by Paul Fletcher, who controls his live animation presentation with a vacuum cleaner, and choreographer Megan Beckwith, who projects her own 3D animations onto her dance performance. Also will be animated films by young Bendigo Animators, Christopher Tay, Daniel Russell and Erin Ricardo, who will also talk about their animation techniques.

On Saturday the festival moves to the Theatre at La Trobe Visual Arts Centre (VAC) in View St. The day starts with a Digital Panorama at 11:30am, featuring recent digital animation. This is followed at 1pm by a session with Dennis Tupicoff, an internationally recognised Melbourne-based animator who will present his films Chainsaw, His Mother’s Voice, and Darra Dogs and talk about his animation experiences. At 3pm, there will be an International Panorama, which will feature mainly hand-drawn animation to contrast with the earlier digital program. The festival finishes with an Australian Panorama at 5pm, which will feature the best of recent Australian animation, including Susan McMinn’s award winning The Last Warhorse, which was awarded the prize for Best Australian Student Animation at the Australian International Animation Festival this year. There will be an admission charge for the sessions at the VAC, but this will be only $5 a session, which is a real bargain for such high quality recent animation.

Supported by Bendigo City Council, Allans Walk, Undue Noise and La Trobe University VAC.

15 October – 14 November 2009
Opening Celebration: Saturday 17 October, 3PM

Frozen in Time is a series of photographic prints which explore moments where reality and the dream-like clash. Each scene is first captured in black and white with a pinhole camera, and then hand coloured by Daoust, blending memory and introspection to create scenes of mystery and illusion.

Nathalie Daoust is a Canadian artist currently based in Montreal. Her practice is concerned with unveiling secrets which lie below the apparent stability of life.  Daoust has recently shown work at Punctum Gallery, Tokyo, Senac Gallery, Sao Paulo, Licht Feld Modern and Contemporary Art Basel, and Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair, Istanbul. She is in Australia to participate in the Ballarat International Foto Biennale.

Frozen in Time is the outcome of a residency at the Christoph Merian Foundation in Switzerland earlier this year.

12 September – 10 October 2009
Opening Celebration: 12 September, 3PM

Brad Haylock practices variously as an artist, writer, curator and designer. He is currently a lecturer in Visual Communication in the Faculty of Art & Design at Monash University, member of the Program Committee and Board of West Space, and the Editorial Committee of un magazine.

Recent solo exhibitions include Everything you never wanted to know about fashion (but were too afraid to ask, Platform, Melbourne, Crazed and Defused at The Narrows, Melbourne, and A Beginner’s Guide to Politics, Platform, Melbourne. Recent design projects include Making Space and Objects in Space. Recent curatorial projects include The Art of the Bicycle at Don’t Come Gallery, Melbourne and the co-curation with Mark Richardson of Advance/Retreat at West Space, Melbourne.

8 – 29 August 2009
Opening Celebration: Saturday 15 August, 3PM

In Illuminations (I left on a Wednesday after a Terrible Row) Josey Kidd-Crowe contemplates desire for isolation and escapism.

For Kidd-Crowe the process of painting is as important as the finished piece, the work often appears hurried, the catharsis palpable. As well as being a form of emotional release, the paintings also have the feel that something brief and difficult to grasp is being sought.

Kidd-Crowe also installs found objects along side drawings on magazine pages. Used nostagically as mementos of the past they suggest an ambiguous sentimental value. Depending on how the objects are placed, this feeling of nostalgia is treated with either disgust or melancholy.

Illuminations approaches the desire for an escape with optimism, with the view that it may lead to positive transformations.

On Liberty and Death – Brad Haylock

We meet the world not with disdain, but with indifference — and regrettably so, for disdain would at least harbour a kernel of possibility. The spectacular is no longer read as such; everything before us is apprehended as mere information, as ocular data. There is no longer any point in looking in, behind or through. In the absence of the possibility of difference, one must give oneself over, either to the seduction of differentiation or to indifference. It is the latter that prevails, and yet the distinction here is moot regardless, for the former invariably devolves into the latter. We are beyond critique because we are beyond hope. All that remains is an acerbic and ever more self-indulgent storytelling.

Comprising a body of new work in a variety of media, Liberty and Death is a rumination upon the structural homogeneity of otherwise divergent ideologies, and an expression of the circularity or impasse of politics that this is understood to engender. This body of work takes as its point of departure a flag, specifically the anarcho-capitalist flag. At first sight, this yellow and black flag represents the ultimate paradox; the conflation of ideas that it signifies strikes us as irreconcilably contradictory. Upon reflection, however, or upon a closer inspection, synergies reveal themselves. Between these habitually opposed bodies of thought, similarities abound. Both espouse freedoms of the individual. Both are evangelical in their method. Both are premised upon the possibility of utopia.

The homogeneity of these divergent canons exposes the problematic of any utopian ideal. The title of the show, however, suggests a means of resolving this paradox, a conclusion to this line of inquiry: here, death is proposed not as an alternative to freedom but as its necessary equivalent, as the definitive and singular solution to an otherwise unanswerable question. And the works here echo or advance this sentiment with respect to artistic practice — this is, in no small measure, a commentary upon the politics of political art.

If you’re not against us, you’re with us announces an essential quality of politics, namely the impossibility of apoliticism or, in other words, the complicity inherent in non-dissent. This observation, however, is non-partisan, indeed too universal to be helpful. It represents critique without end, ambiguous in respect of both object and subject. Too photogenic, too consumable, it anticipates (or perhaps revels in) the consummation of politics.

Black on black (from zero form to absolute commodity) is perversely aspirational, hyperbolic. This work proceeds from a recognition of the seductive aestheticism of Malevich’s reductivist formal language and of the historical contingency of a radicalism of form. An unlimited edition, infinitely and indeed readily reproducible, Black on black wants to be the ultimate fetish object of political art.

Daydreaming about Utopia, by contrast, is perverse in its nostalgia, but also transitional in this body of work — transitional because a self-effacing sense of humour, and therefore some semblance of meaning, can be located in its title. No such revelation is proffered, however, in the case of the untitled champagne bottle. The incomplete redaction of the bottle’s label is clearly deliberate, the resultant flag unambiguous, but the meaning, the politics, of this work is indistinct. Likewise as regards the ink and graphite works on paper. These repeat the title of the exhibition, but unnecessarily, and their titles add insult to this injury. They are derived from found images selected, admittedly, for no reason deeper than the coincidence of certain words. They are to be read as art — their hand-drawn character tells us this —and political references abound, but their meaning is slippery. The champagne bottle and these works on paper thus comprise political art only insofar as they simulate political art. These works are deliberately polysemic, expressly overdetermined. In this way, they are proposed as a critique of critique, a fatal strategy.

References

Adorno, Theodor W. (1997) Aesthetic Theory, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis

Baudrillard, Jean (1990) Fatal Strategies, Semiotext(e), New York

—— (1996) The System of Objects, Verso, London and New York

Drutt, Matthew (2003) Kazimir Malevich: Suprematism, Guggenheim Museum, New York