ARTIST VIDEOS
Featuring behind the scenes footage of Arts Project Australia artists in conversation with some of Australia's leading artists and arts professionals.
WATCH & LISTEN: ARTIST INSIGHTS
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Why We Love Annual Gala
🔊 Listen to this In this video, Arts Project Australia artists talk about their favourite parts of Arts Project Australia's Annual Gala. Each year, Arts Project Australia hosts an Annual Gala presenting artworks from their 150 studio artists. Not only featuring great art, Annual Gala is a community event, with artists gathering with family and friends to enjoy the exhibition and celebrate the year with live music and food. While usually held at the Northcote-based gallery, the 2020 event turns virtual following a year of highly successful online exhibition programming and artists participating in Satellite Arts, a remote studio program. "The Virtual Gala celebrates the resilience and talent of the Arts Project artists who have continued to develop their practice and create artworks at during most of 2020," says APA Executive Director Sue Roff. Produced by Siân Darling, the live stream event features special moments with APA artists, words from Arts Project director Sue Roff and curator Sim Luttin, and performances and guest appearances from Australian artists Paul Kelly, Moira Finucane, Claire Hooper, Trent Walter, Mama Alto, Maude Davey, Paul Cordeiro, Piera Dennerstein, Jazida and Rachel Lewindon. Audiences can access the live stream on Facebook and YouTube from 3pm Saturday 28 November 2020 (register here). An online auction and exhibition also form part of the Virtual Gala from Friday 20 November with 100% of sales paid to artists. The exhibition presents 200 artworks by 150 artists on Arts Project Australia's website, with each of these pieces offered for sale at a silent auction hosted by Leonard Joel. Reserves range between $5 and $4000 with bids closing at 6 pm Tuesday 1 December 2020. Here is what some Arts Project artists love about Annual Gala: “My favourite thing about Annual Gala is that I get to display ones of my works.” Monica Lazzari | at APA since 2006 “Meeting lots of people.” Chris Mason | at APA since 1997 “Just meeting new friends.” Nick Capaldo | at APA since 2004 “I don’t have a favourite. The artwork.” Bronwyn Hack | at APA since 2011 “ It’s a good chance to exhibit. It makes you feel really proud. It's an acknowledgment for your hard earned work.” – Mark Smith | at APA since 2007 “ I can sell stuff.” – Chris O’Brien | at APA since 2002 “ I like seeing everybody’s artwork and dressing up sorta fancy-like, seeing all my friends and being happy when they sell their work, and food!” Eden Menta | at APA since 2013
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What is it like being an artist at Arts Project Australia?
In this video, Arts Project Australia artists speak on some highlights of studio life. Almost half a century ago, Arts Project Australia became the first full-time art studio in Australia for artists living with an intellectual disability. Since, the studio has flourished a supportive atmosphere, both for artistic practice and interpersonal connection. “There’s a lot of love and laughter in the studio,” says Arts Project Australia director Sue Roff. “It’s very personal, you get to know the artists very well. It’s very intimate. There’s not a lot of turnover of artists, so the relationships are long term.” Pre-COVID, artists practised in the studio six days a week, working in painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics, digital photography, digital imaging, animation, 3D sculpture and professional practice. Over the last eight months, the studio turned virtual with many joining the Satellite Arts Program, which is currently continuing alongside a gradual return to the studio (due to low case numbers of the virus in Melbourne). With over 150 artists exploring their creative voice, the studio has unmatchable energy. Here is what the artists have to say on practicing in the Arts Project Australia studio: “It’s a contained, very, very controlled form of chaos.” - Mark Smith | at APA since 2007 “I like it.” - Chris O’Brien | at APA since 2002 “I’ve been an artist for a long time.” Samantha Ashdown | at APA since 2000 “I’ve been coming here since the 14th of July 1997.” Chris Mason | at APA since 1997 “We all have different journeys, but we all have something in common. We have good materials!” Monica Lazzari | at APA since 2006 “It feels good. I’ve made a lot of friends.” Nick Capaldo | at APA since 2004 “You can be yourself. You can do art and make friends, and you always feel welcome.” Eden Menta | at APA since 2013
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Bronwyn Hack: Printmaking at home with Heather Shimmen for FEM-aFFINITY
Printmaking at home with Heather Shimmen for FEM-aFFINITY. Artist Heather Shimmen takes viewers through step-by-step printmaking activities while discussing her work with Bronwyn Hack in the exhibition FEM-aFFINITY. Curated by contemporary artist and academic Catherine Bell, FEM-aFFINITY brings together female artists from Arts Project and wider Victoria whose work share an affinity of subject and process. By situating female Arts Project studio artists alongside other female contemporary artists, the exhibition seeks to uncover shared perspectives and variations on female identity. FEM-aFFINITY is a NETS Victoria and Arts Project Australia and is touring regionally and nationally throughout 2020 and 2021, next appearing at Horsham Regional Art Gallery from 10 November 2020 until 17 January 2021. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body, as well as receiving development assistance from NETS Victoria’s Exhibition Development Fund, supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria. Bronwyn Hack Not titled 2018 ink on paper 24.5 x 32.5 cm BRHA18-0002
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Wendy Dawson: In the studio with Helga Groves for FEM-aFFINITY
This video features artist Helga Groves discussing her work and collaboration with artist Wendy Dawson in regards to the exhibition FEM-aFFINITY. Curated by contemporary artist and academic Catherine Bell, FEM-aFFINITY brings together female artists from Arts Project and wider Victoria whose work share an affinity of subject and process. By situating female Arts Project studio artists alongside other female contemporary artists, the exhibition seeks to uncover shared perspectives and variations on female identity. FEM-aFFINITY is a NETS Victoria and Arts Project Australia and is touring regionally and nationally throughout 2020 and 2021, next appearing at Horsham Regional Art Gallery from 10 November 2020 until 17 January 2021. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body, as well as receiving development assistance from NETS Victoria’s Exhibition Development Fund, supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria. Image | Wendy Dawson, Not titled, 2019, metallic acrylic paint pen on black paper, 30 x 42 cm
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MARK SMITH & DELL STEWART IN CONVERSATION
From March–June 2020, Mark Smith undertook a residency at the ATW where he was joined by 2014 Artist in Residence Dell Stewart. Mark and Dell came together in artistic collaboration to create an artwork especially for the Tamworth Textile Triennial Tension 2020. The resulting Love mobile was created in the spirit of learning and working together, and celebrating the complications and tensions implicit in any relationship. The work tour Australia with the Tamworth Textile Triennial Tension 2020 over the next three years. Love mobile uses soft hand-stitched forms, oversized stuffed letters and sculptural fabric elements linked through a complex web of handmade ropes to represent connections, networks and relationships. Smith and Stewart were interested in the motif of the heart as a metaphor for the vast range of possibilities for showing love, from the sentimental to the unfathomably complex. The work takes the form of an oversized mobile; continually moving and changing, it embodies the role of chance in encounters, understandings and the formation of connections between people. Love mobile was created during the Melbourne COVID-19 lockdown, and the collaboration took place online and in person. The work is a tribute to the vital support and care shown through the mundane daily acts of love, including those heightened by the pandemic: eye contact, conversation, sending a message, liking an image. This process gave Smith and Stewart an appreciation of connection and of being present, building on shared experiences and listening carefully for stronger relationships, to people and the community. Working across painting, ceramics, mixed media, video and soft sculpture, Mark Smith’s primarily figurative works are concerned with how the physicality of the body relates to human nature and the human condition. Smith considers the body a nonnegotiable starting point for existence, using the primitive vessel to explore the truly distinctive characteristics of being human. Within this framework Smith addresses the experiences and complexities of the individual and of humanity as a whole, as well as examining the ‘language’ of a subtle movement or position. Working purely from feeling or emotion rather than a model or image, Smith’s works possess an intrinsic nature or indispensable quality that imbues them with a deep sense of character. Smith has been attending the Arts Project Australia studio since 2007, and had his first solo exhibition Words Are… at Jarmbi Gallery Upstairs, Upwey, Victoria. He has exhibited in multiple group exhibitions at Spring 1883, Robin Gibson Gallery, No Vacancy Gallery, c3 Contemporary and The Substation. Dell Stewart was an ATW artist in residence in 2014 - you can read about her practice here. Video produced by Australian Tapestry Workshop in collaboration with Tamworth Textile Triennial Tension 2020.
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Artist Profile: David Hurlston on Alan Constable
This artist profile dives into Alan Constable, whose ceramic cameras have seen international acclaim for their tactile, poetic resonances. The video features David Hurlston, Senior Curator of Australian Art at the National Gallery of Victoria, talking through Constable’s highly idiosyncratic practice and why he believes Constable is one of the most important contemporary artists working today. Alan Constable (born 1956) has worked in the Arts Project studio since 1991 and has held solo shows at Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane; Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney; South Willard, Los Angeles; and Stills Gallery, Sydney. He has collections in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and The Museum of Everything, London. Constable is represented by Darren Knight, Sydney; DUTTON, New York; and Arts Project Australia, Melbourne. To find out more about Alan’s practice and to view artworks, head here. This Alan Constable artist profile has been made possible by the generous support of The Jack Brockhoff Foundation.
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Artist Profile: Glenn Barkley on Chris Mason
With a practice spanning sculpture, drawing and painting, Chris Mason’s practice is primarily known for his representations of voluptuous women, as well as his penchant for reptilian life. In this video curator and artist Glenn Barkley talks through the “fleshy quality” of Mason’s ceramic women, noting Mason’s historical referents and talking through the highly unique ways Mason captures a subject that’s been long-represented in art: the female human body. Mason has worked in the Arts Project Australia studio since 1997 and has held solo exhibitions at Darren Knight Gallery and Arts Project Australia, alongside showing in numerous group exhibitions including Spring1883, The Hotel Windsor, Melbourne, 2018; The Public Body, Artspace, Sydney, 2017; Summer on the blue seat, West Space, Melbourne, 2016; and Outsiderism, Fleisher Ollman Gallery, Philapelphia, USA. Collections include the National Gallery of Australia, State Library of Victoria and National Gallery of Victoria. This video has been made possible by the generous support of The Jack Brockhoff Foundation.
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Artist Profile: Anthony Fitzpatrick on Bronwyn Hack
Bronwyn Hack is a painter, printmaker, ceramicist and textile artist. She has an intense and fervent art practice resulting in poignant work that looks at the human body and human bones, thoughtfully reinterpreting these forms into intriguing objects and paintings. In addition, Hack frequently displays her penchant for depicting dogs, both wild and domestic. In this video Anthony Fitzpatrick, Curator at TarraWarra Museum of Art, discusses how he came to know Hack’s work, the experience of curating Hack’s ‘body pieces’ for the 2017 exhibition Faraway, so close, and why he finds Hack’s art practice to be both important and poignant. Bronwyn Hack has worked in the studio at Arts Project Australia since 2011. In 2016 she held a solo exhibition at Arts Project Australia entitled Be Careful Now, and in 2017 she was a finalist in the Darebin Art Prize. In 2018 Hack participated the Artist in Residence Program at Australian Tapestry Workshop. This video has been made possible by the generous support of The Jack Brockhoff Foundation and Siân Darling.
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