Exhibition 40

c3 opens its first show for 2012 on Wednesday the 1st of February from 6-8pm
Show runs from the 1st - 19th February

GALLERY 1
FOYER SPACE
COSMIC COLLAPSOR
EMILY BOUR
I am intrigued by the idea of deconstructing experience, particularly in relation to our understanding of the human body and its representation as the ultimate physical and metaphysical boundary. Quantum science especially, is a crucial driver in my work as it pushes us to completely re-question our perspective about the physical make-up of our universe. Similarly, Eastern philosophies, including the Japanese 'Ma' concept of space as fundamentally void, has also influenced my practice quite significantly. 

I aim to encourage a kind of un-learning, a collapsing of order and rationality so that we can let go and concede to an oneiric version of things. The whole installation is re-constituted as one would a fossil, trying to re-piece history into a coherent form, despite the fact there is none. The process and development of the work is a creative exercise that aims to materialise the instinctive understanding of feeling in pure form. 



SPACE A
NEON FOREST
ANNA PARRY, HELEN NODDING & VALENTINA PALONEN
Neon Forest presents a collection of paintings, drawings and sculptures which explore depictions of nature from a distinctly contemporary standpoint. Re-imagining the natural, each of the artists will endeavour to transform their subject into the artificial, the metaphorical, the supernatural, or the microscopic using their own individual creative processes. 




SPACE B
SHE WOULD’VE HAD MY LIPS
JEDDER JONES
Her image is one imagined only through a desire to grasp hold of something, forever enveloped in unreality. A vision existing only in the realm of the Photographic, an alchemic creation offering a glimpse of the Divine. Referencing photographic history and its ties to the paranormal, spirit possessions and the female hysteric. The images existing in paradox; past and present, pain and pleasure, perceived through these material portals we may never enter.



PROJECT ROOM
NEW WORK
PIA MURPHY
For this project I will create an installation of figurative sculptures using ceramic. The idea will to be to blur lines of identity through hybridising forms and changing ideas of function. I hope to open up questions of how we perceive ourselves and how we see outside ourselves in contemporary society.  
Currently living and working in Melbourne my art practice incorporates sculpture, painting and drawing.   
In addition to my solo practice I have recently begun working collaboratively with Rhys Lee.



GALLERY 2
EDMUND THE OLD HOUSE
CHRIS O’BRIEN AND BERNADETTE TRENCH-THIEDEMAN
An immersive installation using illusory devices such as projection, lighting, and visual deception, Edmund the old house will come to life with ghosts, doves in the roof, mould and water dripping. 
Visitors will have the opportunity to inhabit this celebration of decay and history. 
Footage of ghosts will be screened/projected outside the house and in. 
Peepholes in the roof will reveal doves roosting. 
Shadows will creep across the walls; potatoes will grow in the front yard.
The installation will be a time-machine transporting the viewer to the Victorian era, where ‘something happened’ in the front room. Ghosts will flicker across the room, the sounds of doves, bats, rain on the roof and water dripping will be heard. 
Small models of Edmund the house will fly out of the window. Viewers will see the same house they currently inhabit, as they peer out the windows.



GALLERY 3
TETSU AND OTYU
TOMOMI SAKUMA
In this March of 2011, Japan went through the catastrophe. 
My hometown, Fukushima, also had calamity of the tsunami and it’s consequences. 
This event affected me, making me feel totally scared and powerless as I was in Australia and could only watch the news.
Many people lost their family, friends, house, job, food etc… but they didn’t give in at all. 
When I saw them, I remembered my grandparents and with it I remembered some pictures I naively took for them and then I thought they were probably the best pictures I have ever taken.
For some reason, the daily life of my grandparents always aroused my curiosity and every time I captured their life with my camera, I ran to the photo studio to develop my pictures and then wait impatiently until the photos were finished.
My grandparents experienced the Second World War calamity, didn’t have foods and clothing. 
But they never gave their life in. but also they were always strong, cheerful life. The pictures I took were able to capture those virtues and I don’t know if it was because of them, maybe it was because of me, or maybe just the fact that I loved them so much. 
That’s why I couldn’t stop taking pictures of them.
I have taken pictures of them more than 10 years and I would like to take their pictures more, but unfortunately they passed away last year. Their pictures give me inspiration to live happily and cheerful, even in the hard times. Hopefully these pictures can cheer up whoever sees them.



Exhibition 39

c3 opens its last show for 2011 on Wednesday the 23rd of November from 6-8pm
Show runs from 23rd November - 11th December

GALLERY 1
FOYER SPACE
BALLS TO THE WALL
JORDAN HEAD
Balls to the Wall presents a play between commercial photography and the abject, building associations with photographic references its aim is to be open for investigation.




SPACE A
TROPICALSPASMO:
LETTERS FROM THE ORIENT
OLIVIA HITTMANN
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.



SPACE B
EVERLASTING LOVE
LIA STEELE
Lia Steele’s photographic practice explores themes of youth, aging, beauty, death and the ideal, and explores cultural practices such as documentation of life and the search for paradise on earth.



PROJECT ROOM
EX LIBRIS

SIMON MACEWAN - JON BUTT
JOANNE MOTT - ANITA FOARD
CARLY BOJADZISKI - WTOA
ELEANOR BUTT
People say that real books are on the way out.
While this may or may not be the case, it is impossible to replace the physicality, or the sentimentality we place upon, a beautifully bound hardcover or a dog-eared coffee stained classic. The act of keeping a special book implies a relationship with the object that goes beyond the ideas contained within and becomes associated with the concept of fetish.



GALLERY 2
KAKA
KEVINA-JO SMITH
Our ancestors, the neanderthals, hunted only what they needed to survive and made productive use of what remained. With bone, skin, sinew and plant materials, they created objects of both practical and symbolic worth. This logic seems entirely alien to our contemporary existence, as the sheer abundance of human waste now threatens to eradicate us altogether.
Kevina-Jo Smith’s work emerges from her almost obsessive collection and reuse of waste materials. Plastic bags, string, leather, rope, ribbon, seeds, shells, sticks, grass and plants are knitted, woven, knotted and braided into totems for a new age. Her craftsmanship transforms familiar debris into vivid textural objects that nurture and protect: woven cloaks, fishing nets and sheltering structures.



GALLERY 3
NEW WORK
MICHAEL MILLER
Through processes of gentrification and modernization the centers of Polish towns and cities are becoming increasingly homogenous and not easily identifiable when compared with their western European counterparts.
As the new face of progressive and modern Poland spreads outward from these centers the city fringes and outer urban areas await the redevelopment that has been slow to arrive.  
This work acts as a personal record of my time in the suburbs of Warsaw, Szczecin and Gdansk during the winter of 2011. 
These photographs document the banal urban beauty found at the fringes of Polish cities whilst also examining the subtle evidence of encroaching redevelopment and urban renewal.


Exhibition 38

c3 opens its new show on Wednesday 26th October from 6-8pm
Show runs from 26th October to 13th November


GALLERY 1
FOYER SPACE
CATCH YOU ON THE FLIP SIDE
JESS HOOD
Created for the 2011 Abbotsford Convent Discovery Day
November 13th 12 - 6pm
Catch You on the Flipside centers on a camera obscura looking out on the garden that surrounds c3, with two accompanying works considering the differing temporalities that structure photography. The logic of the work becomes apparent through the temporality of viewing and will come to a completion in an event coinciding with the Abbotsford Convent Discovery Day on Sunday 13th November, 12-6pm. On the day, the public will be invited to have their photograph taken in the garden that forms the subject of the camera obscura. A total of 81 photographic portraits will be made on 35mm slide film, of which each participant will have a print sent out in exchange for their participation.




SPACE A
UNCANNY BEIGNESS
KIRSTEN PERRY
Kirsten has a background in Industrial Design, Fine Art, Gold & Silversmithing and Multimedia and likes to work in a variety of media. Concept development and the physical act of making are her favorite processes. Anthropomorphism and character design are a major part of the work she makes. 
Small-scale production allows me to explore variations of similar concepts and allows me to group them into families to further explore their anthropomorphic qualities. My blog title ‘Repugnant Charm’ could sum up the nature of my work. I am interested in the balance between ugly and attractive. I play with bringing enough beauty to an ugly object or making a beautiful object a little bit ugly. 
I became interested in the power and sentiment carried with jewelry and wished to continue this into larger objects. In 1999 I had cancer and became interested in the healing powers of meditation, spiritual totems and visualization techniques’.



SPACE B
MANCANZA / ARRESTING THE INEVITABILITY OF ITS CHANGE
ANITA BELIA
Mancanza deals with the themes of human absence and presence and its traces. In this work I enquire into the ephemeral side of human existence. Questioning how we fix memory to arrest the inevitability of its change and erasure of time. I investigate how the visual can reignite the memory; through the use of photography printed on the translucent skin like materiality of acetate and the impermanence of tape.

Boltanski speaks of the photograph as leaving behind an image that is no longer there – human subject that is now absent.1 The elusive trace of human presence.

1. Eccher, Danilo. Christian Boltanski. Milano, Charta, 1997. P105



PROJECT ROOM
STICKS & CONES
BIRGIT JORDAN
Sticks & Cones is an exploration of random and accidental mark making and an investigation of natural features within the line. Elements of nature such as tree branches, moving air or the surfaces of natural objects have been utilized to create marks forming the basis of images that depict fictitious scenes.
Whilst fictitious, the scenes are fragmented recordings of real life observations, memories or remnant feelings of natural elements in urban and non-urban environments.




GALLERY 2
TIME FRAME
c3 PROJECTS + PLOT MEDIA
Created for the 2011 Abbotsford Convent Discovery Day
November 13th 12 - 6pm
When you get the chance to go somewhere no one else can go – somewhere strange, old and sacred – there’s a gentle rush in your chest, the thrill of exploring what’s going to be around the next corner. The concealed and abandoned rooms of the Convent elicit this effect.
The public has never been granted access to these spaces so, upon entering the rooms, one immediately conjures thoughts of the ghosts of young orphans or spectres in black and white habits floating down hallways. 
Despite the sense of complete physical abandonment, the layers, stains and grime that remain on all surfaces of these buildings provide a wider narrative to the hidden world that once was. To find meaning in these rooms you have to look closely.
This project was commissioned by c3 as part of an ongoing documentation of the Abbotsford Convent site and will become part of an annually created collection of works.



GALLERY 3
SUKI AND THE PAPERFOLD
VANESSA VAN HOUTEN
SUKI and the paperfold explores the intricacies of the social influence of the artist’s immediate and extended family on her character by way of a series of single frame photographed tableaux vivants. 
These ‘living pictures’ are directly contrasted with photographed objects from Van Houten’s past; these objects or ‘artefacts’ evoke a memory of a person from her family.

Born in California, raised in the Bahamas and Germany and now settled in Melbourne, Van Houten is a migrant who, consciously informed by her experiences, seeks to explore identity, displacement and how her story relates to other migrants and their communities. Her project is motivated by a deeply personal relationship to the subject matter of loss of cultural orientation, networks and the basic ability to communicate daily in your first language. 


EXHIBITION 37

c3 opens its new show on Wednesday 28th September from 6-8pm
Show runs from 28th September to 16th October

FOYER SPACE
BOO HOO
JEMILA MACEWAN
Boo Hoo is the Bogeyman, a Frankenstein, a human creation, an enemy and a friend.
This is Jemila’s most recent sculptural work in an ongoing investigation into the cyclical relationship of fear and the imagination. Imagination is a facilitator for fear; fear is a facilitator for imagination; Art mediates the encounter with fear to reveal the human condition.  



SPACE A
RECALLING TERRITORY
RICHARD DENNY
I learned geography the same way I learned the alphabet and how to count. I turned the subject into figures and faces in order to remember. “2” became a swan, “C” became an ear and hence “India” became a duck paying his bus fare.



SPACE B
DETRIMENTAL EVENTS ARE GOING TO BE SOMEWHAT PROBLEMATIC DUE TO THE NATURE OF ‘EXHIBITING’
TRISTAN DA ROZA
Seek the site
Enter the through an opening:
Representation may be indeterminable due to conflicting agendas on the site, please bring this matter to attention.
Some ‘deceiving’ surfaces may produce occasional moments of inauthenticity and structural form may corrupt the façade.
An assessment of the surface value of objects and environments generally promotes ambience. The exhibition + space probably will sensationalize and conversely decode ambience.
Disordered and messy sites provide a contrast to smooth and regulated spaces, the intentional misuse of space and materials could allow for a comprehension of constructive and destructive associations. 
An accumulation of accidental surface marks usually translates into: duration = time + activity 
Ruins provide a suitable backdrop for spectacular action.
Detrimental events are going to be somewhat problematic due to the nature of ‘exhibiting’



PROJECT ROOM
SUDDEN FLUSHES OF UNCONSCIOUS MATERIAL
LUCY JAMES
Born from encyclopedias, nature manuals and history books, this work explores collage as thought process, through paper scraps, cut images and refined compositions. This work aims to question the basis of ideas and where they come from, using the notion of strange beasts and bizarre situations, and the way these fantasies develop unconsciously in our minds.

The accumulation of collage material builds a fantasy world shown in a disjointed narrative, setting parameters for an alternate reality, which is displaced from our own but bears similarity in its elements.


GALLERY 2 + 3
FAMILIAR UNFAMILIAR
ROSALIND ATKINS, REBECCA ATKINSON, G. W. BOT, ROB BROWN, DARREN BRYANT, SUSANNA CASTLEDEN, JAZMINA CININAS, CHRIS DE ROSA, DIANNE FOGWELL, DAVID FRAZER, LIAM GARSTANG, FRANCK GOHIER, REW HANKS, HARRY HUMMERSTON, LOCUST JONES, KAYLENE KELLY, MICHAEL KEMPSON, BARBIE KJAR, DEBORAH KLEIN, JULIAN LAFFAN, BRUCE LATIMER, REBECCA MAYO, RON MCBURNIE, LORELEI MEDCALF, ARONE MEEKS, JANET PARKER-SMITH, TRAVIS PATERSON, GRAEME PEEBLES, JASON PHU, BEN RAK, THERESE RITCHIE, DAVID ROSENGRAVE, JULIE RYDER, OLGA SANKEY, MICHAEL SCHLITZ, JAKOB SCHMITT, ANNELISE SCOTT, HEATHER SHIMMEN, GLEN SKIEN. STEPHEN SPURRIER, NEALE STRATFORD, SCOTT TREVELYAN, PAUL UHLMANN, KATIE WEST AND DEBORAH WILLIAMS.
A touring exhibition of prints by 45 Australian artists celebrating the 45th anniversary of the Print Council of Australia
The Print Council of Australia is proud to present this exhibition of prints showcasing a range of individual approaches to printmaking practice by selected artists from around the country. The prints are all new works especially created for Familiar Unfamiliar and offer an insight into the extraordinarily varied nature of print media, utilised in remarkably inventive ways by contemporary artists.


EXHIBITION NUMBER 36

c3 Opens its new show on Wednesday 31st August at 6-8pm
Show runs from 31st August - 18th September

GALLERY 1


FOYER SPACE

OF INVISIBLE THEM

ELEANOR BUTT

Constructed of photographic collages, Eleanor Butt's recent works are reflective of both internal and external landscapes.

The rocky terrains and dark cavernous spaces are fleshy, the underground forms are wet and ambiguous.



SPACE A

NATURE PRINT!

ANN CUNNINGHAM

‘The pattern and texture of plants hold a particular fascination for me. The process of observing closely, drawing and producing multiple images through a variety of print media is seductive.

I am currently exploring nature printing: how nature prints itself using garden plants and seaweed’.




SPACE B

NEED TO SEEM TO GLIMPSE

AMBER WALLIS – PAUL PHILIPSON – ROSS TAYLOR – WARWICK BAKER – LISA YOUNG

Five artists exploring themes of silence, the sublime, and nature & the body in modern times.


'Now thou has finished thine appointed task here below, stern Mind, and gentle playful sun has streamed into the last evening storm on thy breast and filled the storm with roses and gold.

The globe and all earthly things from which the fleeting worlds are formed were much too small and light for thee.

For thou wast searching for something higher than life behind life, not thine own self, no mortal or immortal being but Eternal, the Alpha, the God-the appearance of the things of this world below, both evil and the good, was so indifferent to thee. Now thou are resting in the real world of being, death has taken from thy dark heart the whole sultry cloud of life and the eternal Light stands uncovered, the Light thou hast sought so long; and thou, one of its rays, dwellest once again in the fire.'

Jean Paul from Titan



PROJECT ROOM

SUN IN THE SKY, YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL

TAI SNAITH

Sun in the sky, you know how I feel is all of the yellow drawings Tai has ever made. Previously un-exhibited, these works have all been made over the past 5 or so years, usually during breaks and in between other shows or projects. They are made when she is in a certain mood, seeming to come from a place that is private, quiet and almost meditative. They are drawings made for the pure joy of drawing. Throughout history, the colour yellow has been associated with many things; cowardice, caution, crime, friendship. In Tai’s world, yellow is a warm place where procrastinating, playing and wasting time is A-OK and she would love you to come visit.