Rag-and-Bone Twilight Mitchell Donaldson (QLD)

Joy follows like a shadow

Jessie Lumb (SA)

2015

Confetti swept into the shadows

Once experienced, grief is like a dark presence that hangs around, unwelcomed, for the rest of our days. At times it overwhelms us and takes over completely but for the most part it sits in our periphery, barely there, seen from the corner of our eyes as we attempt to get on with living.

Over the years I’ve learnt not to ignore this darkness but to pay attention to it, acknowledge its presence and embrace it in a great big bear hug. This engagement helps me to heal and eventually, without fail, I find that the joy returns to my life, like a shadow that has never really left.

Just as the pain is always there, so is the happiness.

This work represents the finely tuned dance between these two states of being.

Colour and Transition Simon Gregory (TAS) Invigorated by a ongoing fascination with abstraction and geometry, particularly the formal elements of line, plane, colour and form, combined with a curiosity since childhood for the myriad aspects of the built environment and the man-made world. These aspects of life have captured my imagination, with all the possible permutations and proved to be an endless source of inspiration. Aided by the qualities of the Tasmanian sky affording a different light, this curiosity has developed into a long standing personal enquiry that has become the focus of my art practice, depicting ideas of real space and the spaces of the imagination.

A S P A CE A SPACE is a curatorial project looking at how viewers engage with spaces, how curators engage with space and how the perimeters of an exhibition continue to be challenged through new technology.

Initiated in 2014, A SPACE continues at Sawtooth ARI in June aiming to invigoriate the space and challenge the conventions of the gallery and it’s artistic program. Featuring a small installation (of found and personal objects), the focal point of the exhibition is what happens within the space, not necessarily the installation. The installation acts as an anchor for the project to suggest that it is physical and being realised at Sawtooth.

The installation changes and grows throughout the month as new objects are added and removed, changed and relocated within the space. These changes are dependent on what is occurring within the space and how the viewer is expected to interact with it.

The @Sawtooth space at Sawtooth ARI will be engaged throughout the month of June by presenting pop up events. Through a series of events, markets, competitions and mini-exhibitions, the project aims to invigorate the space, engage with the community and continue to evaluate how a viewer engages within a space in a contemporary setting.

Cinema One: Memory Carpet

Ashley Bird (TAS)

At the centre of a small eastern suburb of Melbourne in the 1980’s, a faded neon sign and flashing white blubs transform an ugly red brick cube shaped building into a glitzy palace of excitement and expectation. Stepping inside you’re out of the late winter chill and into a warm and comforting yet noisy space, filled with the gentle chattering’s of moviegoers ascending the brightly carpeted stairs, the scent of fresh popcorn growing stronger with every step. The disrupted bold diamond shaped orange, red and yellow pattern on the stairs is now free to spread to every edge of the cinema foyer washing up into the darkness of the two cinemas like a tacky hard wearing ocean. You sit with nervous pleasure for the lights to dim and the feature to begin. Ninety minutes latter your back on the street, trying to come terms with reality, your mind swimming with the cinematic gift the theatre had given you. In the years that followed you see beautiful stories and magical worlds on the same screen, your feet resting on that distinctive orange, red and yellow diamond patterned carpet. A surface connected to not just the films on the screen but a deep recollection of a time in my personal history.

Cinema One: Memory Carpets focuses on the concept of personal memory specifically linked to the experience of cinemas and movie theatres. The total experience of cinema and the worlds on the big screen we escape to within their darkened theatres are powerful sites of memory that far outlast the short time we give ourselves to immersive narrative window they provide.

The sites for these reminiscences are the movie theatres themselves where these memories are born and held. This body of work attempts to stand in for the dedication I feel for these personal and fragile moments experienced alone in the theatre that are embedded in these spaces that only have meaning in a cinema context.

(Outside) Star Wars/Fight Club

motorised mechanical flipbook

1. Before Sunrise 1995 mechanical flipbook, frames of Forest Hill Chase carpet

2. Pulp Fiction 1994 mechanical flipbook, frames of Cinema Nova carpet

3. There Will Be Blood 2007 mechanical flipbook, frames of Rivoli Theatre carpet

4. Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind 2004 mechanical flipbook, frames of Como Centre carpet

5. Hamlet 1996 mechanical flipbook, frames of Astor Theatre (foyer carpet)

6. Back to the Future I , I I & I I I 2015 mechanical flipbook, frames of Astor Theatre (theatre carpet)

7. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 1989 mechanical flipbook, frames of Croydon Cinema Carpet

8. Casino Royale 2006 mechanical flipbook, frames of Chirnside Park (red carpet)

9. The Dark Knight 2008 mechanical flipbook, frames of Chirnside Park (blue carpet)