The Substation is one of Melbourne’s newest and most exciting art spaces and prides itself on bringing innovative contemporary arts to Melbourne’s western suburbs,

and The Substation Gallery has become a focal point for visual art audiences from across Melbourne. Future Now is an annual award exhibition awarded to a selection of Victorian College of the Arts’ School of Art’s Honours students, and we are thrilled to be able to partner with the VCA to deliver Future Now to three centres across regional Victoria in 2014-15. The Substation believes that all Victorians deserve to be able to access the arts, and this touring exhibition will bring some of Melbourne’s most exciting artistic talents to new audiences across the State. Immerse & enjoy!

Jeremy Gaden Director, The Substation

and common concepts into orderly sets and categories. Fictional character types and narrative genres are referenced in his works SWF and Names – the demographic shorthand of the former and the list of monosyllabic male names in the latter appearing equally stereotypical.

Worlds of fiction, narrative and characterisation inform Christina Hayes’s paintings. Recalling theatre production, her scenes are carefully constructed, with costumes and props helping to build drama around the posed subjects. The art of storytelling and its impact on our sense of identity, history and place, is foregrounded in Hayes’s works.

Alex Purchase references literature, theatre, film and virtual reality in her constructed architectural spaces. For Future Now Purchase has constructed Loft, an inaccessible room at The Substation, which is then excavated for the following venues of the exhibition tour. The excavation documents and brings to light elements of the previously hidden interior.

The hidden or inaccessible spaces of buildings become subject material for Sarah Duyshart. Working on-site to navigate architectural boundaries, Duyshart creates kinetic installations of labyrinthine string and pulley systems. Shift Beneath cut through, under and between the gallery spaces, basement and wall cavities of The Substation. In other modes of practice, Duyshart makes field recordings and drawings that refer to the same dynamism and articulation of space.

From its beginnings at The Substation in Newport, Future Now travels to The Artery, a funeral parlour turned gallery in Warrnambool, to the old hospital ICU and morgue buildings at Castlemaine’s Punctum, and the converted butter factory of Cowwarr Art Space in Gippsland: Appropriately reinvented buildings for a shape-shifting exhibition.

Rosemary Forde, Exhibition tour curator

The seven artists in Future Now present diverse individual practices, ranging from painting, architectural construction, sculpture, photography, drawing, installation, to sound and text. Shown first at The Substation, Future Now initially takes shape as a collection of solo projects. As the exhibition travels on to regional art spaces, works are adapted and the show is reconfigured at each venue. Through this process, the conversations between and around the artists’ works have a chance to percolate, connections resonating and revealing over time.

Isabelle Sully’s work in Future Now is designed for this process of unfolding and reconfiguration. Emerging from the memory of a lost artwork, Sully’s sculpture This Time Around is shown turned on its head, leaning or propped up rather than fixed to the wall, in an act of quiet transformation. At times a replica may stand in for the original, or a written piece may accompany the objects, exploring the translation between visual and verbal language.

Distilling research and personal narratives into his work, Daniel Belfield deals with the human systems imposed onto the natural world, such as measures of time and geography. Dateline Isle points to the arbitrary logic of time zones, while the altered maps of Our Meridian inscribe a personal line into the official mapping of the world, conceptually joining two friends across continents.

Kenny Pittock often focuses his observational practice on the everyday sites of social interaction, such as public transport or beaches, highlighting shared experience and personal connections. Pittock’s portraits of the six other Future Now artists are presented alongside Friends (Season Two), a ceramic sculpture of the TV series DVD, emphasising the social group over the individual artist.

Drawing on appropriated imagery and stylistic devices, Dan Petersen creates works that reformat and process information

The School of Art at the Victorian College of the Arts is one of Australia’s oldest. Since its beginnings as the National Gallery school in the nineteenth century

it has attracted talented artists from across Victoria. Likewise, many of our past students have done much of their interesting work in the regional and rural areas of our state. The VCA is a Victorian institution and thanks to generous financial support from the Victorian Government, we are now engaging with regional and rural parts of the state more than ever before.

The Future Now exhibition showcases some of the most exciting work by our honours students from 2013. It has been developed and curated by The Substation, with whom we enjoy an ongoing and fruitful partnership. The exhibition is one of a range of initiatives that the Victorian College of the Arts and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music are rolling out across Victoria in partnership with local communities and arts organisations. These projects foster an important dialogue and exchange between Victorians from across our state and the VCA.

Enjoy the show and I look forward to welcoming you to your VCA at the next opportunity.

Professor Su Baker Director, Victorian College of the Arts

foreword future now

Cover image: Alex Purchase, Loft, 2014

Daniel BelfieldBorn Melbourne, 1992

List of works:

Our Meridian, 2013wood, glass, altered maps

Dateline Isle, 2013digital video

Time Relative to the Sun (6 - 6), 2013LED screen, wood, arduino board

Untitled (Dateline), 2013inkjet print

Sarah DuyshartBorn Melbourne, 1976

List of works:

Shift Beneath, 2014pulleys, string, motor

Dan Peter PetersenBorn Melbourne, 1989

List of works:

SWF, 2014 inkjet print on satin fabric, fans, chain, wood

Names, 2014embroidery on wool

Christina HayesBorn Billings, Montana, 1983; arrived Melbourne, 1986

List of works:

Blood is Thicker than Water, 2013Curses like Chickens Come Home to Roost, 2013Little Red Wing, 2013 Little Sharp Shooter, 2013The Woodcutter, 2013The Daughter, 2014Little Magician, 2014 – all oil on linen

Kenny PittockBorn Melbourne, 1988

List of works:

Friends (Season Two), 2014acrylic on ceramicAlex, 2014Christina, 2014Dan, 2014Daniel, 2014Isabelle, 2014Sarah, 2014– all acrylic on paper

Alex PurchaseBorn Capetown, South Africa, 1985; arrived Melbourne, 1989

List of works:

Loft, 2014constructed room, audio, text

Isabelle Sully Born Melbourne, 1991

List of works:

This Time Around, 2014 recycled and renamed sculpture, turned on its head, plywood, pine, polymer paint

Take Two, 2014 replica of a past artwork, plywood, pine, polymer paint

Take One (or Three), 2014 instructive poster, Perspex

Future Now is a Regional Training & Engagement project of the Faculty of VCA & MCM, funded by the State Government through

Arts Victoria and delivered in partnership with Regional Arts Victoria.

Curator, The Substation: Will Foster

Exhibition tour curator: Rosemary Forde

Interns: Beatriz Salinas

Jack Halls

Installation: Lachlan Petras

Installation photography: Kirsty Milliken

Catalogue design: Atticus Design

Touring venues:

The Artery 224 Timor Street

Warrnambool 3280 fproject.org.au

Punctum 1 Halford Street

Castlemaine 3450 www.punctum.com.au

Cowwarr Art Space 2730 Traralgon Maffra Road

Cowwarr 3857 www.cowwarr.com

Catalogue published by:

The Substation 1 Market Street

Newport VIC 3015 Tel: (03) 9391 1110

www.thesubstation.org.au

© 2014 The Substation, the artists and authors.

PRESEnTED By

SuPPoRTED By

Future now The Substation

13 June – 6 July 2014

Image: Sarah Duyshart, Shift Beneath, 2014

Daniel BelfieldSarah DuyshartChristina Hayes

Dan Peter PetersenKenny PittockAlex PurchaseIsabelle Sully

An annual award exhibition of VCA Honours graduates

presented by The Substation and the VCA visiting

regional Victoria.