19 More Than Meets The Eye

ATVP Autumn '08 Show of the Season

More Than Meets The Eye
art and the unseen or more than visual

3 April - 20 April, 2008

Soraya Abidin , Edd Aragon, Gav Barbey, Melanie Boreham, Shane Brazier, Ana Carter, Katrin Chrysaphis, Monica Erosa, Peter Fyfe, Angela Grimsdale, Jeffrey Hamilton, Bettina Hill, Ross MacGregor (Scotland), Flora Mavrommati (Cyprus), Marianne Mc Keon, Barb Moore (Canada), Brendan Penzer, Amy Prcevich, Melissa Ramos & Rhys Turner , Chris Retallack, Tanya Richards, Wendy Shortland, Goran Tomic, and, Mark Wotherspoon.

The ATVP 1^st Birthday Bash! After 20 exhibition periods featuring 38 contemporary art exhibitions and representing over 300 individual exhibiting opportunities for artists near and far, ATVP has reached its 1^st birthday. On Saturday 5^th April the birthday cake came out with the celebration of the year featuring the opening launch of More Than Meets The Eye, the book launch of Re:View - Reflections of ATVP (April 2007 - March 2008) and ATVP's first Human-Art Parade.

More Than Meets The Eye: art and the unseen or the more-than-visual features 24 artists who have responded creatively to the exhibition title. The exhibition has artworks from various mediums including; video, photography, sculpture, installation, painting, drawing, and sound.

ATVP launched its retrospective catalogue, Re:View - Reflections of ATVP (April 2007 - March 2008). The 72 page book is a comprehensive overview of the exhibitions and events at ATVP in its first 12 months of cultural production.

The night also featured a Human-Art Parade. Guests were invited to come dressed as a representation of one of their favourite artworks. Prizes for best dressed and a guessing competition ensued.

Nest
Soraya Abidin
2007/2008
persian wool
60 x 120 x 120 cm

UV Nude 15
Edd Aragon
2008
uv lamp, uv paint on canvas

for what is it that we...
Gav Barbey
2007
dimensions variable
frozen pigments on paper, DVD

Artist Statement:
"When you look at a cloud, you see the cloud as a being, a thing, and then later on when you see the cloud as the rain, you say the cloud is not there; and you describe the cloud as non being, gone... nothing more than a cloud, or if lucky a visual picture or sensation you feel and or smell. Though if we look deeply, we can see the cloud in the rain, the droplet in the puddle, the puddle in the stream, the cloud in the river. And for this it is impossible for a cloud to die, it is the abstract of reality, the ever changing and flow of the organic nature of understanding, the holy connection between emotion, hand, artist, material, canvas, time, viewer, viewing; like the cloud it is all one and that one is emotion.

The cloud can become rain, snow, and ice; though the cloud cannot become nothing; so the notion of 'finish' can not be applied to reality, like 'still life' it is always in constant flow, ever evolving... A great master will have changed over the hundreds of years since painted, the artist within their attempt to capture emotion, light so as the image would move as the natural or un-natural light moved around its hanging place, to capture layers, depth so as to have movement as the viewer moved around the work, and then finally as experts today examine and restore works that have encapsulated everything from sunlight, paraffin light, oil light, pipe smoke, snuff dust, perfumes, flower pollens, sneezes, coughs, champagne, tea stains, dust from maybe all over the planet as it travelled its journeys, cotton dust, linseed oils, finger prints, likes, dislikes, retributions, glories, scheming plots, thieves, dealers, frauds and fanciful delights and so forth, the millions of emotions, sometimes from only a handful of souls that transform that single emotional spark that formed a painting and takes it on a journey much greater than the visual ideal we set upon it within trying to own it, classify it, project it and label it; abstraction is as convoluted an ideal as still life; as is minimalism and any other ism, everything is simply an evolution of the continuum of life; a work does not simply finish, it maybe set free to travel its natural journey and within that hold life to the emotion that made the artist live forever.

The painting is not separate from artist, or viewer and in both we see the other, as painter is viewer and viewer is artist, if only within the emotional realm, and the emotional realm being all that we have, transformation, continualation, because in your mind to finish is to have come from something then to become nothing, from someone to become no-one, death... a painting like the cloud is many things, and if we look closer than the labels we give it we may see everything, or at least what it is that each individual may allow themselves to see without a tainted ideal of what it is they are told they should see. The idea of finish of a painting is an emptiness of our belief in death, and does not fit within the reality of life, the continual transformation of being".

Gav Barbey 24.3.2008

Baring my Truth
Melanie Boreham
2007
pencil, thread, wool, fabric and acrylic on cotton
40x 50 cm

Princess
Melanie Boreham
2007
pencil, thread, wool, fabric and acrylic on cotton
50x 60 cm

Artist Statement:
I'm interested in how particular materials have the potential to engage with an audience beyond a primary aesthetic level. The figure is a recurrent theme in my work, as I find that its portrayal communicates powerfully. In Baring my Truth and Princess, the female subjects have an air of secrecy as they endeavour to disguise their true identity from other humans; as we so often do. However through the intensity of their gaze, it is almost as though they desire a response.

The Artist
Artist: Kodak DC280 ZOOM.
Operator: Shane Brazier
(Evans Lookout #1)
photo print
32" x 48"

The Artist (Victoria Falls #2)
Shane Brazier
photo print
32" x 48"

The Artist (Govetts Leap #2)
Shane Brazier
photo print
32" x 48"

Artist Statement:
The Artist was born off the manufacturing line of a Japanese Kodak factory sometime in the late 1990's, and since then has worked as a travel camera, but after many rough miles around the world and harsh treatment from the operator, the camera colour coding system of the Artist started to malfunction bring a new 2.0 mega-pixel vision of the subjects being photographed.

In the age, where artists have come in contact with so many differing forms of technology to make or enhance their works. It is no surprise that, this technology would one day wish to express itself.

To show how the camera perceives and processes the world, how hard it has worked, maybe even to show its emotions and how it feels as the power flows throw across circuits boards.

Artist Statement:
7 compositions introduce form to sound

Artist Statement:
S-He Astrological Oracle is an artistic divinity tool. I developed the cards by combining images of my own sculpture Universal High Priestess (representing Earth or body) digitally layered with images of my abstract paintings (representing planetary or celestial influences). I have studied the science of Astrology and had an interest in it since childhood. I have developed the 90 cards into sets of 3. The number 1 set is planets and zodiac signs. The number 2 & 3 sets are works in progress and will relate to planetary aspects , Goddess asteroids and Goddesses. I currently use the number 1 set in readings that I interpret in combination with Astrology charts. The cards are names S-He as a holistic reference to male/female or inner/outer energy.

The S-He Oracle is not intended as a fortune telling tool - as its purpose is to provide insight into one's character and current circumstances, with outcomes created and determined by choices made.

It is said that divination at its highest elevation takes on the possibility of a transcendent self-knowledge. Since ancient times art and divination worked hand in hand and the science of Astrology has been used for insight and direction.

Views
Monica Erosa
2008
acrylics and oil
61 x 121 x 2 cm

Artist Statement:
I am delighted to have my work in this exhibition that to me is about inner expression, awareness and expansion of consciousness. People will resonate according to their own journey and personal growth.

Looking at seeing through
Peter Fyfe
2008
acrylic, impasto, broken glass, a key, brass wire, and a sea shell on canvas
51cm x 51 cm x 9cm
not for sale

Artist Statement:
It started as a broken glass I couldn't throw away.

It spent a while trying to be about the idea of wholeness and fragmentation, only to emerge as something about how I see ideas, about how easy it is to see and gild their edges, about how challenging it is to let go of that gilt and its opaque tangibility, and about how we can, with a little grace, see though ideas and allow them to change our perspective of the world.

And, all the while, it can still be viewed as a broken glass I couldn't throw away.

Artist Statement:
I am interested in the natural processes of the universe, and in particular, the role played by chance in those processes, and how it can also be used in a related way as a generative mechanism in art.

I discovered a process in which chance is a major participant and co-creator of the artwork. This artwork is a collaboration with nature; gravity, the sun and time, all play a part in the work's construction. The results are ambiguous and open-ended, and the process of chance continues in the viewers’ minds, as they strive to interpret what they see.

Lament
Jeffrey Hamilton
1995
variety of mouth-blown and machine made glasses, some vitreous painting, all constructed in a lead matrix (traditional stained glass technique)
112cm x 112cm

Artist Statement:
Stained glass is sculpture, on 2x counts: it is constructed, (primarily) forming a membrane between the outside and inside of a building, albeit a decorative one, and it speaks to the interior space by virtue of the light passing thru it, and landing on the walls, floor or ceiling. This unavoidably affects the ambience of that space, emphasising shapes and features in unexpected ways, modulating the mood.

The effects will change according to weather patterns, the time of day, the season of the year, and will be affected by the texture of the surfaces upon which the light falls.

(Image: Bettina Hill - Cause and A Fact 1-5)

Artist Statement:
Cause and A Fact is the captured after life of live light bulbs. In this work I have used the objects to refer to the now past light event (the live or working light bulb), showing the origins of the light in the dead light bulbs and the actual light that was exposed on to and captured by the photographic paper. This resulting photogram is a new visualisation of the light providing a new view of the original light source.

Artist Statement:
Real life can often be stranger than fiction. This piece is selected from a body of work entitled Imagined Narratives. Here, combinations of images taken from everyday life hint at stories that might exist outside the picture plane. One might ask - why are these images linked? What is happening or has just happened to the subjects within the picture? These visual juxtapositions challenge the viewer to construct their own narrative; to bring their own story to an image that is more than meets the eye.

Artist Statement:
Noticing and recording repetitions in every day moments/life is more than meets the eye. The use of repetitions by the imagination, works as a bridging between the archetypal structures of the unconscious mind with the contemporary needs of the human psyche.

Universal unity is perceived invisibly by the human senses as fragmented therefore the three dimensions understood by the bodily senses are an illusion.

We recognize and reproduce analogies because the information exists beyond our vision.

Gemini
Marianne McKeon
2008
gouache, pencil, crayon and marker on Fabriano paper

Artist Statement:
Constellations for my loved ones - Gemini is part of a series of works that celebrate the sexy physical perfection of 50's poster art, while paying homage to my friends who I see weekly for 'girls night'. The constellations are a giggling reference to the ways we find our path in to the future. Ironically, unlike poster art, the process of creating Gemini is far from instantaneous. The process involves the application of different mediums in a quite specific order, contrasting contemporary techniques of washes, textures and solid elements. Images and text are reversed in Photoshop before being transferred outdoors.

(Images: Barb Moore - Remembering Kindergarten)

Artist Statement:
Remembering Kindergarten consists of an enlarged scan of my Kindergarten report card, including all content therein. The information is intact, including biographical information, comments, dates and drawings. It is displayed in its entirety with each page mounted individually, presented in chronological order. As a document, this piece provides proof of my identity and artistic development that at that age of five was already preparing me for the rest of my life. As an artwork, this simple relatable object provides a conceptual entryway; it is honest, clairvoyant yet symbolic, simple yet critical.

Mind with Six Sense
Chris Retallack
plastics and latex
100 x 100 x 100 cm

Artist Statement:
The mind is considered our largest sex organ that requires a sixth sense that pursues and seeks what is more than meets the eye.

Dubiously Wholesome
Tanya Richards
2008
interactive DVD

Artist Statement:
Dubiously Wholesome is a post graduate research project I have undertaken as part of a Doctorate in creative Arts. This project originally started from a desire to create a series of door-to-door exhibitions where the viewer's homes replaced the gallery space. However the thematic content overtook this original premise, to become the focus of Dubiously Wholesome.

The theoretical framework changed and developed throughput the duration of the project. This occurred through the research informing my art making and then in turn, my art making influencing the direction of my research.

The conceptual frame work, developed from exploring the tension between conformity and the individuality (2005), to the construction of the everyday individual (2005-2006) to finally the construction of a gendered individual (2006-2007).

This focus on the process pf gendering the self was not only realised through a hybridisation of aerial acrobatics and video art, but this method of art making began to inform the research itself. In fact, the first aerial works acted as a turning point in the project, directing it toward issues of gender identity.

Mirror Mirror
Wendy Shortland
2007
oil on canvas
122 x 41 cm

Artist Statement:
This painting addresses the divide between abstraction and realism and the ambiguity that can sometimes engender. Although the image appears to be entirely abstract, it is in fact totally realistic. It is a realistic representation of the scene reflected in a distorted mirror at Luna Park.

(Images: Mark Wotherspoon - TV within TV without)

TV within TV without
Mark Wotherspoon
2008
cast tv lead crystal
15 x 45 cm

Artist Statement:
This is a maquette created for a large scale version of the same subject. The workis conceptually based in the proliferation of the television in our daily lives. In particular, the TV as a babysitter - and how that affects the human in this early stage of life, This work shows a child gazing into the sky, using his imagination, the thoughts of the child are left open ended, and limitless.