"Petrina Hicks: Bleached Gothic" Exhibition (Melbourne, Australia)

  

Petrina Hicks - Bleached Gothic

Petrina Hicks: Bleached Gothic, the first major survey exhibition of celebrated Sydney-based, 47 year old Australian photographer and artist Petrina Hicks, includes more than forty enigmatic and multi-layered photographs spanning a 15-year period, from 2003 to 2019, that traces her evolution from commercial photographer to multi-awarded artist. Opened last September 27, 2019 at the Ian Potter Center: NGV Australia, the exhibition will run until March 29, 2020.

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L-R: Copper and Brass III (2015), Persephone (2015) and Bounty of History (2010)

Hicks has gained a strong reputation for her enigmatic, large-scale, hyper-real and multi-layered photographs that, seen together for the first time, subvert and disrupt the photographic language of advertising and portraiture. She photographs children, animals and young women against simple backgrounds and, to define and hone her distinctive style, frequently returning to the same models and motifs.

Venus (2013)

Through both solo and group shows, Petrina has widely exhibited her work in Australia, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, USA, United Kingdom, Japan, China, Mexico and Brazil. Her work was selected to be exhibited in the 17th International Videobrasil (Brazil, 2011-2012) Volta NY 2015, Pingyao International Photography Festival (China) and Art Platform (LosAngeles, USA). She is represented by Stills Gallery and Helen Gory Galerie.

Deb (2006)

Petrina’s works belong to various public and private collections such as The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Art Gallery (Brisbane), Tweed Regional Gallery (Murwillumbah) and the National Gallery of Victoria. 

Into the Abyss (2011)

She has been awarded various notable prizes and residencies including the Josephine Ulrick Photography Award for Portraiture, 2008 ABN Emerging Artist Award, La Cite Paris Residency through the Art Gallery of New South Wales and an eight month fellowship with Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany.

 

Shenae and Jade (2005)

Often working in reference to animals, a number of her photos capture young women and children alongside chimpanzees, wolves, cats, pigs, snakes and birds.  

Shewolf I (2016)

The human models and animals, set against simple backgrounds, are recurring subjects that portray inspiration from mythology and art history. Her models’ faces are also obscured behind veils, seashells or a thick coating of white hair. 

 

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (2015)

Hicks’ photo The Unbearable Lightness of Being (2015),  a reclining nude cradling an aged and crumbling ceramic vase, is a play on a Classical Greek motif and, in another work Serpentina I, II & III (2015), an albino python coiling around an equally pale arm of Lauren Dawes evokes Biblical notions of purity.

Fertile (2010)

Interested in capturing beauty in the atypical, a number of photographs feature Lauren Dawes, a model and singer with albinism who, for 16 years, has been a long-time muse. Her flawless and ethereal appearance has become one of the most recognizable elements of Hicks's work.

 

Lauren with Sunglasses II (2019)

Also included in the exhibition are five subtly looping short video works that are filmed at high speed, around 1000 frames per second, resulting in slow motion imagery that play with the concept of slow time and creates a sense of menace and unease in the viewer. 

 

Rosemary's Baby (2008)

Coinciding with the exhibition, a large-scale and extensively illustrated monograph, detailing the artist’s work to date and juxtaposing Hick’s work with the poetry of SylviaPlath (which highlights the poetic impulse of Hicks's work), will be published and released by the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV).

 

Melo Melo (2019)

Petrina Hicks: Bleached Gothic: Level 3, Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia. Admission is free. Further information is available from www.ngv.vic.gov.au.

“Olympia: Photographs by Polixeni Papapetrou” Exhibition (Melbourne, Australia)

 

"Olympia - Photographs from Polixeni Papapetrou" Exhibit

“Olympia: Photographs by Polixeni Papapetrou” exhibition, the first major museum retrospective of Australian photographer Polixeni Papapetrou’s (1960–2018) work, was curated in collaboration with the artist’s family.  Opened last September 27, 2019 at the  Ian Potter Center: NGV Australia, the show runs until March 29, 2020.

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The Dreamkeepers (2012) at left and Eden (2016) at right

Polixeni Papapetrou has been the recipient of numerous grants from the Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Victoria.  She is also the recipient of the following awards:

• MAMA Art Foundation National Photography Prize (2016)
• Windsor Art Award (2015)
• Josephine Ulrick and Win Shubert Photography Award (2009)
• Albury Regional Art Gallery National Photographic Award (2003)

Melancholia (2014) - Melancholia (left) and Pathos (right)

Her work has featured in over 50 solo exhibitions, and over 100 group exhibitions in Australia, the United States, Asia and Europe. Survey exhibitions were held at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2013) and the Australian Centre forPhotography, Sydney (2011).  Polixeni Papapetrou has exhibited in major international photography festivals including:

• ‘The European Month of Photography” (Berlin, 2016)
• “Daegu Photo Biennale” (South Korea, 2016)
• “The European Month of Photography” (Athens, 2016)
• “Dong Gang International Photo Festival” (South Korea, 2014)
• “Fotografica Bogota” (Colombia, 2013)
• “Photofestival Noorderlicht” (The Netherlands, 2012)
• “3rd Biennale Photoquai” (Lemusée du quai Branly, Paris, 2011)
• ‘The Month of Photography” (Bratislava, 2010)
• “Pingyao International Photography Festival” (Pingyao, Shanxi, China, 2010)
• “Athens Festival of Photography” (Athens, Greece, 2010)
• “Fotofreo, Fremantle Festival of Photography” (Perth, 2008)
• “Seoul International Photography Festival” (Seoul, 2008)
• “Le Mois de la Photo” (Montreal,  2005)

Games of Consequence (2008)

Polixeni Papapetrou’s work is held in private and institutional collections, including:

• National Gallery ofAustralia (Canberra)
• National Gallery ofVictoria (Melbourne)
• Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney )
• Bendigo Art Gallery (Victoria)
• Geelong Art Gallery (Victoria)
• Monash Gallery of Art (Melbourne)
• Fotomuseo (Bogotá, Colombia)
• Museum of Fine Arts (St.Petersburg, Florida, USA)
• Landstinget (Gävleborg Kulturutveckling, Sweden)
• Wesfarmers Art Collection (Perth)
• BHP Billiton (Melbourne)
• Artbank

My Heart – Still Full of Her (2018)

The exhibit comprises photographs by Papapetrou (1960–2018) who created fantastical worlds featuring her children Olympia Nelson  and Solomon Nelson, and their friends, set against both real and imagined backdrops, reflecting a limitless world of play acting, imagination and storytelling.  The photo series she has made include Elvis Presley fans, Marilyn Monroe impersonators, drag queens, wrestlers, circus performers and bodybuilders and the recreation of photographs by Lewis Carroll using her daughter Olympia as a model.

 

Phantomwise (2002-03)

The photos cover the period from Olympia’s birth (1997) until the artist’s death from breast cancer on April 11, 2018. Daughter Olympia played a particularly important role in the artist’s image making, assuming the complex roles of model and muse, collaborator and champion. 

The exhibit surveys 20 years of Papapetrou’s practice and includes works from her best-known series, as well as lesser-known images. Her photographs explore the relationship between history, contemporary culture, identity, and the construction of childhood and adolescence.

 

The Photographer (The Dreamkeepers, 2012)

The Holiday Makers (The Dreamkeepers, 2012)

In The Dreamkeepers series, from 2011-12, the children dress as adults and wear strange masks to form an unusual family in the scenic countryside.

 

Wild World (Games of Consequence, 2008)

Miles From Nowhere (Games of Consequence, 2008)

The Games of Consequence series, from 2008, explores themes of childhood, nostalgic memories of play and the idea of “stranger danger.”

 

Grief (Melancholia, 2014)

Sorrow (Melancholia, 2014)

The Melancholia series, from 2014, reflects on the impact of Papapetrou’s breast cancer diagnosis. It explores the theme of death, representations of clowns, and the significance of masks in the artist’s work.

 

Ask Me Again When I'm Drunk (It's All  About Me, 2016)

It's All About Me (2016)

The series It’s All About Me, from 2015-16, was created when Olympia was a teenager and navigating the world of social media. It explores popular culture, the sexualization of youth and feminism. Standing in confident poses, Olympia wears a mask while modeling a range of t-shirts with provocative slogans.

 

She Saw Two Girls and a Boy 1966 # 1 (Haunted Country, 2006)

Whroo 1855 (Haunted Country, 2006)

In the series Haunted Country, from 2006, Olympia, Solomon and their friends pose as both real and fictional children in the Australian landscape. The photo She saw two girls and a boy 1966 #1 (2006) was inspired by three Duff children who disappeared from the beach, presumed to be abducted and murdered in 1867. Other images from the series show children lost in the Australian bush during the nineteenth century.

Jack Tar (Phantomwise, 2002)

Chinese Lady (Phantomwise, 2002)

Phantomwise (the title is drawn from a poem by Lewis Carroll) is a series of collaborative portraits of the five year old Olympia, from 2002-2003, in which the use of half-masks, props and costumes (often as simple as a walking stick or a set of kid’s silk Chinese pyjamas) work together to create an artfully staged Victoria photograph

 

The Immigrant (Lost Psyche, 2014)

The Storyteller (Lost Psyche, 2014)

The series Lost Psyche, a suite of ten photographs, brings to life a lost past of once important emblematic and cultural roles that are at the end of their place in the world and now viewed as relics of the past. The Immigrant, for example, portrays a nineteenth-century immigrant (played by Olympia). Papapetrou’s parents came from Greece to Melbourne. 

The work is also a metaphor for the journey from childhood (a time in which we openly switch between characters, identities and roles) to adulthood. Bringing together painted scenic backdrops, paper masks and costumes, with the children as actors, the work reflects upon the persistence of some historical conditions and the disappearance of others.

 

Olympia as Alice Dreaming by the Riverbank (Dreamchild, 2003)

Olympia as Beatrice Hatch Before White Cliffs (Dreamchild, 2003)

In the series Dreamchild, Papapetrou explores different aspects of childhood and the child’s imagination through the roles, archetypes and performances as acted out by her six-year old daughter, Olympia. Her photographs rework the theatricality and vivid tableaux style of Lewis Carroll’s images of  Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and other child subjects such as Xie Kitchin and Irene McDonald who participated in costume dramas before his camera.

 

Blinded (Eden, 2016)

Heart (Eden, 2016)

In the series Eden, the language of flowers is used to explore life itself with girls in the photographs are adorned with floral arrangements to reflect on their metamorphosis from child to adolescent and adolescent to adult, and a oneness with the world, fertility and the cycles of life. The girls are enclosed in a floral embrace that symbolize their unity and acceptance of this miraculous thing we call life.

 

I Once Was (My Heart, Still Full of Her, 2018)

Muse (My Heart, Still Full of Her, 2018)

My Heart, Still Full of Her is a suite of somber yet luminous silkscreen portrait photographs, with their glowing halo of gold and silver, of the artist and her daughter Olympia. Here, mother and daughter are almost interchangeable revealing their profoundly intimate relationship.

 

The Witch's House (Fairy Tales, 2003)

Fairy Tales, from 2004 – 2014, traces the genre of the fairy tale from the mid-19th century to now. Focusing on well-known fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Hanseland Gretel and The Little Mermaid, it provides re-interpretations of classic fairy tales for a contemporary context.

 

The Harvesters (Between Worlds, 2009)

The Loners (Between Worlds, 2009)

Between Worlds, from 2009-2012, is an enigmatic animal mask series which refers to the nature of late childhood – the cusp between innocent babyhood and the adult world.

 

Prize Thimble (Wonderland, 2004)

The series Wonderland recreates scenes from Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), specifically the illustrations created by John Tenniel (1820-1914) for the first editions of the book. The photographs are staged and do not involve computer manipulation. Olympia, in the role of Alice, is situated against a painted canvas that sweeps from wall to floor.

 

Pepper Soup (Wonderland, 2004)

Olympia: Photographs by Polixeni Papapetrou: Level 3, The Ian Potter Center: NGV Australia, FederationSquare, Melbourne. Admission is free. Further information is available from the NGV website: NGV.MELBOURNE.

"Roger Kemp: Visionary Modernist" Exhibit (Melbourne, Australia)

 

"Roger Kemp - Visionary Modernist" Exhibit

The Roger Kemp: Visionary Modernist Exhibit, developed in close association with the estate of the artist who died on September 14, 1987, is the first major exhibition to chart the development of unique and enigmatic Australian artist Francis Roderick "Roger" Kemp’s extraordinary career as one of Australia’s great innovators in the field of abstract art.  Opened at the Ian Potter Center: NGV Australia last August 22, 2019, the exhibition runs until March 15, 2020. 

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Abstract expressionism art on display

Kemp is best known for his four large-scale tapestries that hang in the National Gallery of Victoria’s Great Hall which are among the Gallery’s most identifiable pieces of art.  Recognized as one of the great inventors in abstract art, Kemp strove “to make visible the invisible.”

 

The exhibition, the most comprehensive retrospective of this acclaimed artist’s work (comprising paintings, prints and sketches), features several never before publicly exhibited works.  Exploring the artist’s extraordinary career, it reveals an artist whose concerns go beyond the physical world. This exhibition presents a timely and comprehensive review of these and other dynamic abstract works from the artist’s career.’

It begins with his earliest paintings of symbolic landscapes and angular dancing figures then continues through his work of the 1950s (where the human form is transfigured and becomes part of an abstract structure) and on to his later works (highly resolved paintings of the 1960s, 70s and 80s where the geometric structure heightens the symbolic richness contained within) which reveal an artist whose concerns go beyond the physical world.

 

The interest of this unique and enigmatic artist was not in the overriding traditions of figurative and landscape art, nor the prevailing trends in non-objective art, but rather something much deeper and more metaphysical.   His works from this period are charged with great emotional energy and are the pinnacle of an artistic and spiritual journey.

 

Ascension (1960-65, synthetic polymer paint on composition board)

Coinciding with the exhibition, the National Gallery of Victoria is publishing a comprehensive monograph which features the artist’s work and new scholarship from Australian experts.

 

Flight in Space I (ca. 1960–1965, enamel paint on composition board)

Roger Kemp: Visionary Modernist: Level 3, The Ian Potter Center: NGV Australia, FederationSquare, Melbourne. Admission is free. Further information is available from the NGV website: NGV.MELBOURNE.