The Sketchbook Project - Part 2

My Sketchbook ‘Distant Horizons’ has been received for the Sketchbook Project! 

It has been catalogued into the Brooklyn Art Library and can be found on the shelves with a call number of 225.57-7. 

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The Sketchbook Project - Part 1

Over the Christmas break I created my contribution,’Distant Horizons', to the Sketchbook Project (USA).

In the coming weeks I will progressively post the images of my sketchbook.   

Here’s my Artist Statement for the sketchbook (Note: I was limited to 400 characters):

Using photo transfer and watercolour my sketchbook depicts my local beach and bay - Half Moon Bay situated on Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne, Australia. 

From the early days of European settlement many of Australia’s celebrated sculptors and painters, including  Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Fredrick McCubbin (1886-1907) and later Arthur Boyd were inspired by Half Moon Bay and its coastline.

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airSPACE - Post Office Gallery, Ballarat - Extended

My current exhibition airSPACE, with Emma Stoneman, at the Post Office Gallery, Federation University Australia, Ballarat  (previously University of Ballarat) has been extended to February 15, 2014 

Emma Stoneman and Antonietta Covino-Beehre developed their recent body of work whilst Artists-in-Residence at the Arts Academy, School of Education & Arts, Federation University Australia in 2013. Emma Stoneman predominantly works in photography investigating the poetic forms of human-made structures and exploring allegorical comparisons between the built environment and the function, structure, posture and alignment of the human body - the building blocks of humanity. Emma Stoneman completed a Diploma of Building Design and Technology in 2005 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) in 1999. She has exhibited in Australia, Taiwan and Russia. Her work is held in private and public collections in Australia and internationally Antonietta Covino-Beehre’s cross disciplinary practice includes printmaking, sculpture, drawing and photography. Her recent work explores the 'souvenir', memory and remembrance and ideas surrounding nostalgia, cultural identity and place - ideas strongly inspired by her Italian heritage. Antonietta obtained a Master of Arts in 2002 and has exhibited broadly in Australia and internationally. Antonietta is represented in national, state and regional galleries and in corporate and private collections nationally and internationally.

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The Sketchbook Project

Over the Christmas break I’ve been working on my contribution to the Sketchbook Project (USA).

I'll progressively post the images from my sketchbook ‘Distant Horizons’ over the coming weeks.   

The Sketchbook Project is a global, crowd-sourced art project and interactive traveling exhibition of handmade books. The Project has 3 forms of library, Brooklyn Art Library, Mobile Library, and The Digital Library.

Here’s a little information about the project;

• People who have participated worldwide: 70,637
• Miles the project has travelled: 52,333 miles
• Cities with participants worldwide: 11,575 
• Sketchbooks in the collection: 28,215
• Total sketchbook checkouts: 155,390 
• Books viewed in the digital library: 2,340,678 
• Library cards issued worldwide: 57,231 

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Out & About: Claudia Terstappen - In the Shadow of Change

I managed to attend the opening of Claudia Terstappen’s latest exhibition ‘In the Shadow of Change’ at the Monash Gallery of Art in early November 2013, the exhibition continues through to 19 January 2014.

The exhibition was opened Dr Bob Brown, former Senator and Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens. You can view his opening speech here.

In the shadow of change features almost 100 of Claudia’s striking landscape photographs.

Terstappen’s vast archive of landscape photographs has taken on significant environmental associations. As debates about the politics and impact of land use and climate change continue, Terstappen’s landscapes – from intimately scaled views of forests and riverbeds to grand views of mountains and glaciers – present a truly beautiful account of the landscape photography and its contemporary significance.

As Terstappen states: ‘There is a moral dimension to looking at and photographing landscape today. Landscape photography has tremendous currency. Many of the landscapes in my photographs will have either completely disappeared or drastically changed by now. I firmly believe we need to re-establish our relationship with nature and landscape and photography can help us to achieve this.’

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airSPACE

My current exhibition with Emma Stoneman - airSPACE continues through to February 8 at the Post Office Gallery, Arts Academy, University of Ballarat, corner Sturt & Lydiard Street, Ballarat Vic 3350. 

Peter Pilven was so kind to provide the following essay to accompany our catalogue for the exhibition.

airSPACE

Antonietta Covino Beehre & Emma Stoneman 

The Arts Academy, University of Ballarat (UB) has run a very successful Artist in Residence (AIR) program for last eight years. airSPACE is the culmination of recent residencies for Emma Stoneman and Antonietta Covino-Beehre.

The AIR program is an essential and integral element in the fabric of the Visual Arts program and contributes in a practical and vicarious manner to the lifelong learning of students.

Although Stoneman and Covino-Beehre both have links to UB [Stoneman as an graduate and Covino-Beehre as a current sessional lecturer] it was their respective professionalism that inspired senior staff to invite the artists to participate in the AIR program. Students this year have had the privileged opportunity to quietly observe and absorb the conceptual and applied methodology of both artists as they formulated and produced works for a number of exhibitions during their tenure. Stoneman exhibited in the Ballarat Foto Biennale and Covino-Beehre has had a work acquired by the National Gallery of Australia via the prestigious Silk Cut Foundation Collection Award.

While Stoneman and Covino-Beehre have extensive experience in printmaking, both artists have deviated and meandered across a number of artistic media disciplines including installation, sculpture and photography. Their healthy and exciting cross-disciplinary approach has been keenly acknowledged by observant students. Juggling and time managing the complexities of family, paid employment and an intensive art practice is increasingly the lot of the contemporary artist - a reality shared by both artists and one which has been successfully accomplished as the work in airSPACE will attest.

On one level there may not appear to be any congruence of aesthetic or conceptual concerns shared by the artists, however with a closer, more considered examination, a range of similarities will present themselves to the astute viewer - a fact not lost on the artists themselves. The human condition with all its frailties, intricacies and anxieties afford a wellspring of stimuli and parallel concerns for both Stoneman and Covino-Beehre.

A spinal injury incurred by Stoneman in her formative years and the continuing management of this has long provided the kernel of an ongoing investigation into the relationship between the organic human skeletal framework and the exacting certitude of man-made architecture. Throughout history, architects, artists and designers have derived inspiration from the human body. The Bauhaus Building - Prellerhaus in Dessau, Germany and designed by architect Walter Gropius in 1926, is but one example of Stoneman developing photographic imagery and creative sustenance from a broad range of sources.

Over the course of this residency, x-ray and MRI imagery (sourced from Stoneman’s personal medical records) has also provided explorations into postural alignment and anatomical structure not dissimilar to the built environment.

Humans have always erected, constructed and fabricated gravity defying structures for spiritual, domestic and a range of other activities. Buildings can be seen as analogous to vessels for human activity and the boy as a receptacle for the human spirit  and consciousness. Entomology also supplies a point of reference. On a micro level, the delicate veins that support the diaphanous cladding of a dragonfly’s wing are replicated on a macro level in contemporary architecture by the use of steel sub structures and light weight weather resistant casings. Entomology, architecture and the human condition may seem at odds with each other and paradoxical but Stoneman’s photographic images are essentially that, steeped in visual contradiction, metaphor and analogy. The work exudes a brittle, delicate, poetic sensibility that is contrary to its source but enhanced by formal aesthetic considerations such as colour, tone and composition. 

The use of the grid and repetition are also employed extensively by Covino-Beehre for many of the works in this exhibition. Drawing on her Italian heritage, memory, nostalgia and respect for the antiquated object have fuelled the core inspiration or the conceptual and visual element of the prints. Covino-Beehre has recycled many of the traditional embroidery and tapestry designs dating from the 16th Century that were reproduced by her mother. These designs have been skilfully interwoven with iconic Australian and personal imagery. This imagery is highly reverent of the past but also acknowledges the global position of contemporary art in the digital era. 

The physical materiality of the art work produced is an equal imperative to Covino-Beehre. Relief printing on plywood timber panels provides a connection to her cultural background as well as a poignant nostalgic reminder of fading memory and myth. The children’s novel The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883), by the Italian writer Carlo Collodi, supplies visual and metaphoric references for Covino-Beehre. Pinocchio has been widely acknowledged as an iconic character of contemporary culture and one of the most reimagined characters in the pantheon of children’s literature. Included in this exhibition is a striking mono-chromatic image of Pinocchio’s head which is shown layered behind a lace inspired grid matrix. This juxtaposition of the character with the hand crafted overlay signifies the paradoxical human foibles that Pinocchio possesses.

Drawing on the work of Rosalind Krauss, the well-known American art critic and theorist, Covino-Beehre argues that using a grid makes it possible for artists to deal with the surface and depth simultaneously. This permits a focus on the materiality of objects and speaks to the pure essence of the work while at the same time implying a connection to ideas of spirit and “Being.”

This notion of “spirit and being” offers a galvanising linkage between Stoneman and Covino-Beehre and their art. Through the shared experience of the Artist in Residency Program they have developed a strong personal bond and friendship, one built upon professional commitment and mutual respect.

The Arts Academy, staff and students are indeed fortunate to have shared in this journey and the resultant exhibition airSPACE.

Peter Pilven

November 2013

Emma Stoneman was born in Creswick, Victoria. She completed her undergraduate studies in Visual Arts (Printmaking) at the University of Ballarat and honours degree at RMIT University, Melbourne. After working within the photographic industry for numerous years, she returned to study Building Design following a growing interest in architecture and increasing use of architectural imagery and elements in her work. Currently employed in the field of architecture, her work informs, influences and shapes her art practice. Emma has regularly exhibited both within the orthodox gallery, non-traditional commercial and public venues as well as created site-specific works for outdoor civic spaces.

Antonietta Covino-Beehre was born in Avelino, Italy and arrived in Australia with her parents at a young age. Covino-Beehre obtained her Master of Arts in 2002. Her imagery is inspired by Italian history and folklore and its juxtaposition within her multi-cultural family life in Melbourne. Her works incorporate multiple disciplines including: printmaking,sculpture, drawing and photography. Possessing a technical fascination for printmaking, she attended a month long workshop in July 2008 at Tamarind Institute, at the University of New Mexico. Covino-Beehre won the prestigious Fremantle - Print Award in 2003 with her ‘Studio D’una Citta’; a work incorporating etching, cyanotype, woodcut, and lithograph printmaking processes.Additionally, in 2004 she exhibited in Genoa, Italy at the Art Di Ritorno Genova European City of Culture. Her work is represented in national, state and regional art galleries and in corporate and private collections in Australia.

airSPACE

Emma Stoneman & Antonietta Covino-Beehre

Wed 11 Dec 2013 - Sat 8 Feb 2014

Acknowledgements:

Artists: Antonietta Covino-Beehre & Emma Stoneman

Curator: Shelley Hinton

Author: Peter Pilven

Published 2013

© Post Office Gallery, University of Ballarat

All images © Antonietta Covino-Beehre & Emma Stoneman

ISBN: 978-1-876851-79-8

The artists would like to express their gratitude o the university of Ballarat, especially to Jennifer Jones-O’Neill, Peter Pilven, Carole Wilson and Jimmy Pasakos for their never ending enthusiasm, guidance and laughter.

A kind thank you to Shelley for her helpful curatorial guidance.

Antonietta would also like to extend a special thank you to Ngaire, Emma, Lou, Deanne, Melissa and Lesley - her souvenir collecting allies.

Post Office Gallery 

Arts Academy

University of Ballarat

cnr Sturt & Lydiard St 

Ballarat Vic 3350

PO Box 745

Ballarat Victoria 3353

Wed-Sat: 1-4pm 

Mon/Tue by appointment

Telephone: +61 3 5327 8615 

Facsimile: +61 3 5327 8601 

Email: pogallery@ballarat.edu.au

Website: www.ballarat.edu.au/pogallery

Happy Holidays

Hi All, I’ve returned to my desk after a short break for both Christmas and New Years.

I will post regularly to catch-up on what has been happening in my little part of world.

There is plenty to share with you;  

• The opening of my show with Emma Stoneman - airSPACE, currently on at the Post Office Gallery, Federation University (University of Ballarat) until February 8.
• A new side project which I’ll share details with you soon. 
• My contribution to the Sketchbook Project, I’ll post images of my sketchbook over the coming weeks.
• Attending a talk by Hazel Dooney.
• Attending a number of shows in December.

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