Scoop

Graffiti Lounge

Graffiti turns private into public: it places an individual’s expression onto a privately-owned space to display to the community their contest of space. Graffiti is a reaction against the visual occupation of public space by companies’ and individual’s use of advertising billboards and Brutalist architecture; graffiti is a direct action in the contest of ownership of public space. 

With each exhibition, the white walls of a gallery are ‘tagged’ by a succession of artists’ works. However, rather than a contest of space between artist and gallery, it is a collaboration to contest the visual space of our culture. Gallery and artists work together to present and represent their ideal supremacy over the visual pollution that invades our everyday. Like graffiti, the exhibition is transient and fluid, with each one applied over the last, jostling for space and asserting ownership: graffiti and exhibitions grow in palimpsest.

Though serious in its challenge, the curation of this exhibition lounges; Gisborne in the height of summer is ground-zero for sauntering, and Graffiti Lounge reclines with a relaxed, confident attitude. It is not a clean, formal show, as it instigates a variety of aesthetics that reflect the chaotic nature of graffiti. Evan Woodruffe and Kimberley Annan have approached it with the method of graffiti crews, producing works separately and collaboratively, and inviting artists to join them in a show that contests the ownership of our visual space. Welcome to the Graffiti Lounge.

GRAFFITI LOUNGE ARTISTS:
Evan Woodruffe
Kim Annan
George Hajian
Sue Dickson
Virginia Leonard
Richard Darbyshire
Teresa Lane
Eloise Cato
Glen Hayward

CREDITS:
Film: Damon Meade
Photography by Tom Teutenberg @2TEN
Music: Melon Twister
PAULNACHE Productions © 2015

PAULNACHE presents Peter Adsett at The Melbourne Art Fair

Room with a View @MAF, IMG X Tom Teutenberg

Peter Adsett in conjunction with PAULNACHE, Gisborne (NZ) presents…

PETER ADSETT
ROOM WITH A VIEW
PAULNACHE, Stand E125, Ground floor
Melbourne Art Fair, 13 - 17 August, 2014, Royal Exhibition Building, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Melbourne, Australia

Shouldn’t there be more artists today who could make us look at painting in terms of its co-operation with the surrounding architecture?

The view offered in this room is not the contemplative distance that we require when we behold figurative work.  These abstract paintings are without the perspectival trajectories that focus the eye on central point. And they don’t ‘stay’ inside their frames.  Instead, the elements of the painting closely interact with the wall – and in fact, with all the architectural elements.  

The MAF gallery walls have been treated in such a way as to make this idea inescapable.  Torn wallpaper speaks to collage elements in the work, while holes and raw linen acknowledge the wall behind.  Black paint does what it has to in working against shadow and depth.  Layers of material peel away to expose undersides and reverses.  All the works, walls included, are in an ongoing process of exposure. 

Peter Adsett has challenged our perception in confusing the ground of painting.  Wall, linen, paper and paint all compete to be identified as ground or figure.  In the end we conclude that the only ground is the one where we stand.  So the perspective we attain is actually one we are inside.

Mary Alice Lee

ROOM WITH A VIEW: A CONVERSATION BETWEEN ARTIST PETER ADSETT, ARCHITECT SAM KEBBELL AND ART HISTORIAN MARY ALICE LEE
SATURDAY 16 AUGUST 11AM | ART, TALKS AND WALKS
Melbourne Art Fair ticket holders.
In 2009, NZ-born, Melbourne based painter Peter Adsett collaborated with NZ architect Sam Kebbell to build ‘Humbug’ studio/house, creating a “dialogue between painting and architecture.” This is the direction currently being explored in Adsett’s site specific installation and works exhibited at the Fair.
Royal Exhibition Building, Stand E125

ARTIST STUDIO AND PRIVATE COLLECTION TOUR: PAULNACHE PRESENTS PETER ADSETT'S HUMBUG
SUNDAY 17 AUGUST | 9:30AM -12:30PM
Collector Pass holders only. Login to RSVP.
Join this private collection and artist studio tour of Humbug House, a collaboration between Peter Adsett (artist), Sam Kebbell (Kebbell Daish Architects) and Mary Alice Lee (art historian/ writer), and discover how architecture and painting create a dialogue to something extraordinary.

Read Matt Ward's review in Australian Design Review

Biography

Born in Gisborne, New Zealand, in 1959, Peter Adsett has lived and worked in Australia since 1982, developing his painting practice. He exhibits regularly in both countries, and has had shows overseas in New York and Boston. 

His academic credentials include an MFA from the Northern Territory University, and a PhD from Australian National University. In 2001 he was awarded a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and enjoyed residencies in the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York, and the McDowell Colony in New Hampshire. Adsett’s work is held in institutions and museums in Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Adsett has devoted twenty years now to an investigation of abstraction, and like such iconic figures as Richard Serra and Robert Ryman, he proves the enterprise to be one of great, untapped potential. One could even view Adsett’s art as a critique of abstract painting from the early 20th century to today, a task that became further complicated when he confronted the art of Indigenous Australians - what many believe is the most powerful painting produced today.

In 2000 he completed a series of large-scale acrylic paintings in collaboration with the Gija artist, Rusty Peters. The resulting exhibition of fourteen works (seven each), titled Two Laws, One Big Spirit travelled around Australia and New Zealand.

In 2009, Adsett built a house/studio in southern Victoria that was the fruit of another collaboration, this time with a New Zealand architect, Sam Kebbell. The innovative and much admired building (now housing Adsett and his family) is regarded as a “dialogue between painting and architecture.” 

This is the direction currently being explored in the works for the 2014 Melbourne Art Fair. Whilst he would maintain that his paintings always “take on the wall”, Adsett’s recent work engages with this proposition explicitly. Furthermore, in Room with a View the viewer will discover a degree of wit and humour, latent in much of his earlier work, but now coming to the fore with zest.

View an advanced preview of the exhibition online or request a list of works by clicking HERE.

Tickets to the Vernissage and day tickets can still be purchased HERE. 

Catalogues will be accessible to those attending the fair, however copies may be requested following the event. Please contact the Gallery for further information. 

We look forward to seeing you all at the Melbourne Art Fair. 

2014 London Biennale Pollination in Las Vegas

Jevijoe Vitug's 'VIVAYLAN' and Anothony Bondi's 'Iron Curtain'. Photograph: JK Russ

Jevijoe Vitug's 'VIVAYLAN' and Anothony Bondi's 'Iron Curtain'. Photograph: JK Russ

The London Biennale project was founded in 1998 by David Medalla, a Filipino conceptual artist based in London, who assigns the theme for each year’s biennale. The event aims to challenge and transform the notion of the art world ‘biennale’ as a large state or corporate-sponsored event with artists selected by curators based on their geographical location, citizenship, nationality, race and ethnicity by throwing open borders and encouraging a more intimate and community-based dialogue between the artists and audiences. Over the years, the London Biennale has expanded with simultaneous satellite events taking place in Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Berlin, New York, Boston and Las Vegas.

At this year’s London Biennale Pollination in Las Vegas, attendees literallyget lost in art. The multi-artist constructed exhibition, emerging as a satellite event from the London Biennale, features the theme “Maps, Mazes and Mysteries” writes Eleni Parashos for vrated.com.

Amongst those involved are Matthew Couper, JK Russ and Jevijoe Vitug. Couper, a New Zealand native and local [Las Vegas] artist, curated the London Biennale Pollination in Las Vegas with fellow artist and writer Vitug. He says the theme, although developed as an international concept by London Biennale creator David Medalla, has deep roots in Las Vegas.

“Vegas changes often, to the point where a map becomes useless after a few months,” Couper said. “It’s a city that operates as a changing structure and generates a lot of mystery for the people who come here. It’s an easy place to get lost.” 

http://www.londonbiennale2014.tk

Peter Adsett at The Melbourne Art Fair

Adsett, Gisborne, 2013. IMG X Tom Teutenberg

Born in Gisborne, New Zealand, in 1959, Peter Adsett has lived and worked in Australia since 1981, developing his painting practice.  He exhibits regularly in both countries, and has had shows overseas in New York and Boston. 

His academic credentials include an MFA from the Northern Territory University, and a PhD from Australian National University.  In 2001 he was awarded a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and enjoyed residencies in the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York, and the McDowell Colony in New Hampshire. Adsett’s work is held in institutions and museums in Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Adsett has devoted twenty years now to an investigation of abstraction, and like such iconic figures as Richard Serra and Robert Ryman, he proves the enterprise to be one of great, untapped potential.  One could even view Adsett’s art as a critique of abstract painting from the early 20th century to today, a task that became further complicated when he confronted the art of Indigenous Australians - what many believe is the most powerful painting produced today.

On 2000 he completed a series of large-scale acrylic paintings in collaboration with the Gija artist, Rusty Peters.  The resulting exhibition of fourteen works (seven each), titled Two Laws, One Big Spirit travelled around Australia and New Zealand.

In 2009, Adsett built a house/studio in southern Victoria that was the fruit of another collaboration, this time with a New Zealand architect, Sam Kebbell.  The innovative and much admired building (now housing Adsett and his family) is regarded as a “dialogue between painting and architecture.”  

This is the direction currently being explored in the works for the 2014 Melbourne Art Fair. Whilst he would maintain that his paintings always “take on the wall”, Adsett’s recent work engages with this proposition explicitly.  Furthermore, in 'Room with a View' the viewer will discover a degree of wit and humour, latent in much of his earlier work, but now coming to the fore with zest.


Mary Alice Lee

Peter Adsett is represented by Gisborne dealer Paul Nache. 

The Cultural Currency of Matthew Couper

Matthew Couper, Limbo of the Journeyman, 2013, Oil on canvas, 358mm x 161cm, Private Collection USA

Matthew Couper, Limbo of the Journeyman, 2013, Oil on canvas, 358mm x 161cm, Private Collection USA

Matthew Couper's 2014 solo 'Limbo Of The Journeyman' centers around a large oil painting on loose canvas of the same title, painted in the artist’s Las Vegas studio. It continues Couper’s interest in developing art as a ‘cultural currency’ while showing autobiographical features of his life in the USA and his ongoing dialogue and relationship to anachronistic art practices. Couper’s association with the notion of a journeyman (the artistic development between an apprentice and a master) is brought to the fore, singling out his context, journey – both physically and intellectually – and the trials and tribulations of his career path since immigrating to the USA in 2010.