What's on at 2 Danks Street

In association with Jilamara Art and Crafts, Melville Island, Aboriginal & Pacific Art presents Tiwi artist and finalist in the 2010 Telstra Art Awards, Timothy Cook.

    "The 'Kulama' Ceremony is performed in the late wet season (March/April) when a ring appears around the moon. Kulama is a traditional initiation for young men which coincides with the harvest of a certain wild yam species. Elders of both sexes sing and dance for three days welcoming the boys into adulthood. The boy is then renamed with his true name."

                                                                              - Jilamara Arts and Crafts

My painting is strongly influenced by the conventions of cinema, which allows me to put together fragments, cuts and dissolves delivering a “movie” in several frames. This is one of the reasons why I work with figures in motion – to create the implication that something has come before and something will happen after the event. Each scene is a fragment of time in the action – a privileged moment in a continuum.

Each image contains the implication of a narrative. This is conveyed by the motion of figures, the way in which they relate and the “noise” of urban colour, surfaces and signage. However, in the end, I want the work to provide a space for contemplation. I aim for a stillness that comes from an arrested moment that is able to continually engage the viewer. My paintings do not reveal themselves quickly; ideally, they are an invitation to bring one’s own experiences to the work and influence its meaning.

I am intrigued by my own vanity as an artist and the motivation that drives me; the narcissism that makes me think I can sell my realised thoughts; the arrogance that holds me to the idea that my thoughts are valuable to the world and the self-importance that my opinions and philosophy are still relevant in this age of consumerism.

Featuring works by artists: ? Dalia Ayalon Sinclair - photography; ?Diane Berner - painting; Dana Dion - painting, drawing; ?Eilat Rabin Rein - sculpture; ? Val Landa - painting. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? A common heritage joined together these five women artists, whose individual journeys and artistic expressions intersected as each explored her own life, desires and challenges, in her unique artistic style and medium. ?In creating this exhibition together, they unified their contributions to one another as much as to Australian art. A common feature in their work is addressing ways in which the contemporary mindset has altered nature and their relationship to it. ?Notable are organic references to nature's influence and the impact or unconscious message nature's presence plays on these individual artist. ?The works from each of the artists inform each other and provide a rich context for the reading and appreciation of their individual perspectives.

Giacomo Costa (1970) lives and works in Florence. He took part in the XIII Quadriennale in Rome (1999) and in the VIII Biennale della Fotografia (1999) in Turin and had a personal exhibition at Photology in London (1999), at Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans (1999) and at Laurence Miller Gallery in New York (2000). He was also invited to the Contemporary Art Center of New Orleans for the "Photography Now" exhibitions (2001) and to the preview of the XIV Quadriennale (2004). In 2005 he had a personal exhibition curated by Sergio Risaliti and Pietro Gaglianò at Quarter Art Production Center in Florence and another one at the Galleria Civica of Contemporary Art of Ciampino in Rome. In 2006 he took part in the X Architecture Biennale of Venice. In October his work have also been shown at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and his work will remain in the permanent collection of the museum. In September 2007 he took part in the C-Photo Exhibition at Phillips De Pury in New York. In 2009 he exhibited in the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Giacomo Costa’s research initially began with the study of photography before moving gradually in a direction that has lost all contact with traditional photography.

Employing sophisticated digital techniques borrowed from the world of cinema the artist reinterprets the collective imagination of the metropolis, generating futuristic urban landscapes and creating unreal cityscapes, spaces with vast perspectives that include spectacular ruins and architectures.

These fantastic, apocalyptic images borrow their aesthetic from science fiction literature and film, suspended between tradition and modernity, real and dreamlike, where architecture takes on a colossal scale. At the same time, so rich in meticulous details, they seem to be the fruit of a contemporary reinterpretation of the most classic topos, that of the ideal city. Pulverised landscapes and lonely structures that inhabit anonymous cities are constant element in his works, a metaphor for the depersonalisation that affects contemporary metropolises whose buildings soar above the human scale.

BRUCE RADKE is highly respected for his skill as a sculptor and for over 20 years he has been creating seamless works. Seductive and sensual, the liquid twists of RADKE's sculptures appeal to our fingertips as well as our eyes. Like music, twirling, turning and coming to rest, they are graceful balances of form and rhythm. RADKE exhibits across Australia and internationally and in recent years he has been a regular participant in Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi.

Perth Galleries presents Eveline Kotai?s first solo exhibition in Sydney at the Depot Gallery. The individual pieces have been carefully selected from a larger body of work produced in recent years, and they vary in media from painted linen & wood, to stitched collages and painted pigment prints. Eveline Kotai?s work has been purchased by the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of WA, and is represented in most major collections in Western Australia. She has been exhibiting regularly for over 30 years, and currently lives and works in Fremantle Western Australia.

Chuck Close has forged a career making paintings based on minute observations of his own head and that of his friends and family. His early paintings, taken directly from photographs, were uncannily 'real'. Progressively he has used a myriad of means to reveal the head through square by square study of the photographic record. He has not limited himself to painting; printmaking has afforded him opportunities to further extend his repertoire.
In this, Chuck Close's first exhibition in Australia, it is these prints that reveal his progress. Woodblocks, lino cuts, pulp paper works and screen prints amaze us with their quality. Some of these prints have 75 colours and some took over a year to realise and some are nearly two metres tall. These are all extraordinary feats of printmaking skill, but they are equally the work of a great artist at home with his subject and always ready to stretch the boundaries.
In this show we see, of course, multiple self portraits, a staple of the artist, but we also see such famous names as Alex Katz, Roy Lichtenstein, Janet Fish and Phillip Glass. It helps when your friends happen to be famous artists too, but Close treats them dispassionately once the final photograph is confirmed. He mines these images over years, leaving some artists forever young. His most recent print of Phillip Glass uses an image taken over two decades ago, which has been seen in many media since then.
Chuck Close is one of the major figures of the contemporary art world and it is exciting to premiere his work in Australia.