University Gallery Archive

STEEL LIFE

16/9/2019

MURRAY MCKEAN
24 September - 19 October

Please join Chancellor Paul Jeans for the exhibition launch at the University Gallery
Tuesday 24 September from 6:30pm

Murray McKean's Steel Life presents a collection of striking photographs that document the closure of the Newcastle steelworks, following on from Harold Cazneaux (1878 – 1953) and David Moore's (1927 – 2003) vivid documentation of the site in decades prior. At the turn of the century, Murray McKean’s photographs showed the site post closure in a state of ruin. Detritus from the steelworks is sprawled across the landscape in a kind of wreckage that documents the monumental scale and emotion of that time in Newcastle's history. The residual materials, and the evidence of absent workers, and workers as they clear the site, will remain tangible for many. Using the texture of the abandoned architecture of the site, Murray has preserved this period of our city's history with a series of poignant images that offer critical commentary on our collective memory twenty years on.

image: Steel Life number 14, 2001, silver gelatine prints shot on 6 x 7 mm 100 iso film using Mamiya RB 67 camera. Image courtesy of Murray McKean

BY THE GOOD GRACE

27/8/2019

VICKI HAMILTON
28 August - 14 September 2019

Please join the artist for the exhibition launch at the University Gallery
Saturday 31 August from 2:30pm

This PhD research is an investigation into the human-dog relationship, tracing the threads of understanding through philosophy and ancient ideas, to contemporary issues. The manipulation of both behaviours and the styles of dogs have been made by, and for, the benefit of humans over many centuries. The results of these societal ideas and values have also been reflected throughout the canon of art history, where artists have represented the status of these domesticated animals in the fashion of their time.

By the Good Grace explores the love, hate and indifference shown towards domesticated dogs historically. The broader aim of this research is to challenge people’s perceptions around the capacity of dogs to suffer when ill-treated, often as a result of dogs being purchased for fashion or illegal activities, rather than a deeper relationship.

IMAGE ABOVE: Vicki Hamilton, Fifi - Dogs Bodies 2019, porcelain, brocade fabric, mixed media, dimensions variable

Oh what a night! Newcastle Music Festival events a huge success!

15/8/2019

The University Gallery was thrilled to partner once again with the Newcastle Music Festival this year for two incredible nights at the gallery celebrating music and art, with sold out crowds.

This August the Music Festival launched at the University Gallery alongside the launch of the Erasure exhibition on 6 August, with fantastic jazz performances from Jacob Neale and Jarrod Gibson, responding to to the theme of erasure in the works of artists Mazie Turner, Dan Nelson, Annemarie Murland, and Katrina Holden. Check out the fantastic images of the night here. Courtesy of the NMF.
The follow up event Flamenco! was held on 13 August with wonderful performances by Bandaluzia featuring ARIA nominated guitarist Damian Wright. What an incredible night of Spanish music, dance and art! See the images of the night here. Courtesy of the NMF.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to the success of these events, including staff at the Newcastle Music Festival and the University Gallery, the incredible performers and artists, and of course, everyone who attended!
Erasure continues until 23 August at the University Gallery. Don't miss this beautiful exhibition!

ERASURE

9/7/2019

MAZIE TURNER | DAN NELSON | ANNEMARIE MURLAND | KATRINA HOLDEN

17 July - 24 August 2019

Please join us for the opening and performances Tuesday 6 August from 7:30pm.
Pianist Jacob Neale and bassist Jarrod Gibson will play Jazz in response to the artist’s work and the theme of erasure.

Erasure is never simply a matter of making things disappear: there is always a remainder that comes about in the aftermath, some mark on the surface from which a word or image or note has been removed. Whether crossed out, written-over or rubbed away, the forsaken item has a habit of returning, like a spectre: if only in the marks that assume its place and assert its passing.

IMAGE ABOVE: Dan Nelson, Fire path 2019, oil on canvas

Please join us for the follow up event and performances Tuesday 13 August from 7:30pm.
Sangria, paella and Flamenco! with Bandaluzia featuring ARIA nominated guitarist Damian Wright, for exceptional Spanish music and dance.

IMAGE ABOVE: Mazie Turner, Out of Darkness - Violet Cloud 2009, oil on belgian linen,
152.5 x 183 cm
Donated by the artist to the University of Newcastle Collection through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program

During the 1960s, a growing number of artists and writers in different locations around the world and largely unaware of one another, adopted the process of erasure and effacement. In New York, Doris Cross started painting over dictionary pages; Tom Phillips in London began to partially obliterate pages from an obscure Victorian novel; the Austrian concrete poet, Gerhard Rühm used India ink to largely obliterate a newspaper and in Belgium in 1968, Marcel Broodthaers crossed out selected words in a painting that resembled a blackboard.

Erasure was just one of a number of methods used by Conceptual artists in the 1960s, and was frequently employed to break with tradition and instigate new forms of art making that appeared to be detached from the artist’s own hand. But perhaps the most famous artwork featuring the act of erasure is Robert Rauschenberg’s work, ‘Erased De Kooning Drawing’, 1953. Since then, many artists have reprised Rauschenberg’s influential act of erasure, imbuing it with different meanings, created primarily through the question of what is being erased, as well as the circumstances under which such a cancellation is performed. Erasure is an exhibition of four women artists who have used and continue to interrogate this strategy in their work.

IMAGE ABOVE: Annemarie Murland, Erasure 2# 2019, mixed media

IMAGE ABOVE: Katrina Holden, Kinship 2019, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 51 cm

RESPONSE exhibition on now @ Hunter Region Botanic Gardens

27/6/2019

‘Response’ is a collaboration between the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens and the University of Newcastle’s staff, students and alumni from creative arts in which they respond to the natural environment of the HRBG. The exhibition creates an evocative space for creative freedom in concert with a respectful engagement with the sub-tropical rainforest area in the gardens and provides a new interpretation for visitors.

Sculpture has long held a dialogue with spaces – architectural and natural. ‘Response’ offers participating artists the opportunity to embed an artwork in an important regional environment. The artists chosen for this project have all worked with sculptural form as a non-invasive practice that respects the landscape in which it is sited. The works are placed without machinery, or other interventions that may harm the environment. Many of these works are of an ephemeral nature, with an intended gentle deterioration of the work over the duration of the exhibition.

Artists include Stela Brix, Andy Devine, Megan McCarthy, Michael Garth, Louisa Magrics, Brett McMahon, Kris Smith, Braddon Snape, Andrew Styan, Peter Tilley, Annika Thurbon, and Gavin Vitullo.
Response is a partnership between the University Gallery at the University of Newcastle and the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens, and runs from 22 June until 4 August 2019 at the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens.
Hunter Region Botanic Gardens
2100 Pacific Highway
Heatherbrae 2324
W www.huntergardens.org.au
OPENS 9 - 4 PM DAILY

School of Creative Industries | Honours 2019 Bachelor of Fine Art

11/6/2019

SCHOOL OF CREATIVE INDUSTRIES
BACHELOR OF FINE ART HONOURS 2019
12 June to 6 July 2019
Join artists Michelle Wellham and Lolita Manukian for the exhibition launch at the University Gallery
Friday 14 June from 6pm
Guest Speaker: Laureate Professor Roger Smith

SCATTERED
LOLITA MANUKIAN
The Armenian Genocide in 1915 forever changed Armenian history and the landscape of migration in the twentieth century. 104 years later issues of displacement and trauma still bind Armenians from all over the world through a thread of collective memory and the eternal quest for identity and belonging. Scattered is an installation that explores Armenian symbolism to tell a narrative of journey and diversity whilst portraying the universal struggle of acknowledging the past.

ABOVE IMAGE: Lolita Manukian, Scattered 2019 (detail), white earthenware paper clay

FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING
MICHELLE WELLHAM
Through a series of figurative ceramic sculptures, Michelle Wellham's research considers that violence of a domestic nature is closely connected with the way that gender is constructed and performed. It uses theatrical tableaux to contrast tropes of masculinity with feminine forms presented as subordinate in order to present a non-verbal testimony of abusive experience.

ABOVE IMAGE: Michelle Wellham, Figuratively Speaking 2019 (detail), mixed media

Kathryn Jeanes PhD Exhibition launches this week

25/4/2019

Opening this week at the University Gallery is Biloela: afore and beyond by Kathryn Jeanes.

Uncovering the repressed history of three nineteenth century public schools for “wayward” working class girls, Biloela: afore and beyond has developed out of research by University of Newcastle PhD candidate Kathryn Jeanes into local histories and institutionalised abuse. Through this installation, Jeanes makes public her research into the incarceration of abandoned girls at Newcastle Military Barracks, Biloela on Cockatoo Island and the Parramatta Industrial School for Girls. Motivated by the fact that there are no visual records or photographs of the girls, she has created her own archival works that attest to their traumatic experiences. By bringing to light this particular gap in Australian history, the exhibition exposes the brutality of these institutions.

Please join us for the exhibition opening at The University Gallery Friday 26 April from 2pm. Exhibition until 18 May.

Image: Kathryn Jeanes, Bilolea: afore and beyond 2019, concertina artist book, dimensions variable

FROM THE MUDBRICK HOUSE

11/3/2019

DINO CONSALVO & LOTTIE CONSALVO
From the Mudbrick House

Opening date Saturday 23 March from 3PM

Exhibition dates 20 March - 20 April 2019

A father/daughter exhibition curated by Gillean Shaw and Ahn Wells

This is the first time ‘the Consalvos’ have exhibited together and, as a consequence, they have spent significant time reviewing each other’s artworks. This process has elicited much debate and intense review to select works they feel have the most innate resonance to their relationship, and their own–and each other’s–practice. This process was undertaken over many months and the result is in part retrospective and in part a collaborative exhibition. It has been a journey for both and has forged a special bond as artist to artist, rather than the familial relationship of father and daughter. While both artists are on independent trajectories within their careers, this exhibition comments on family dynamics, the family home, and shared time and space, and how these elements have influenced each artists’ approach to making.

Ahn Wells
curator

TOP IMAGE: Lottie Consalvo in silence 2017, acrylic on board, 180x366cm
BOTTOM IMAGE: Dino Consalvo The Jack Painting 1980, mixed media on board, 120x180cm

Yearning to Yarn: Artefact in Research

21/2/2019

SIMON MUNRO
Yearning to Yarn: Artefact in Research

Exhibition dates November 2018 - May 2019

The ‘Yearning to Yarn: Artefact in Research’ exhibition at the University Gallery Museum (the Senta Taft-Hendry Museum), is an extension of a 2017 Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education Excellence (CEEHE) funded project, ‘Yearning to Yarn: Using Aboriginal ways of knowing to support clinical placement experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health professional students’.

The exhibition features a creative display of research materials—drawing on the practice of artefact making into the process of capturing and analysing the qualitative research data—and Munro’s own beautifully crafted artefacts. As a key
element of the research output for this project, the exhibition is documented, and forms part of the final research report.

Image detail credits: Simon Munro, Giba (grindingstone) with stone and brass pestles 2018, River rock and brass

First exhibition of 2019 at the University Gallery

20/1/2019

Greg Fuller | Jason Hicklin | Tracy Hill
Common Ground Pacific

Exhibition dates 13 February to 9 March 2019
Check out our Facebook event for the Exhibition and Opening Launch details

image detail credits: Top: Tracy Hill Architectural grass 2017, intaglio on somerset; Bottom left: Greg Fuller, 2018, screenprint; Bottom middle: Jason Hicklin Burwood Beach 2017-2018, etching; Bottom right: Tracy Hill, Standing Ash 2017, intaglio on somerset.

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STEEL LIFE

BY THE GOOD GRACE

Oh what a night! Newcastle Music Festival events a huge success!

ERASURE

MAZIE TURNER | DAN NELSON | ANNEMARIE MURLAND | KATRINA HOLDEN

17 July - 24 August 2019

Please join us for the opening and performances Tuesday 6 August from 7:30pm.
Pianist Jacob Neale and bassist Jarrod Gibson will play Jazz in response to the artist’s work and the theme of erasure.

RESPONSE exhibition on now @ Hunter Region Botanic Gardens

School of Creative Industries | Honours 2019 Bachelor of Fine Art

Kathryn Jeanes PhD Exhibition launches this week

FROM THE MUDBRICK HOUSE

DINO CONSALVO & LOTTIE CONSALVO
From the Mudbrick House

Yearning to Yarn: Artefact in Research

SIMON MUNRO
Yearning to Yarn: Artefact in Research

First exhibition of 2019 at the University Gallery

Greg Fuller | Jason Hicklin | Tracy Hill
Common Ground Pacific

Archives

Join the conversation

MAZIE TURNER | DAN NELSON | ANNEMARIE MURLAND | KATRINA HOLDEN17 July - 24 August 2019 Please join us for the opening and performances Tuesday 6 August from 7:30pm. Pianist Jacob Neale and bassist Jarrod Gibson will play Jazz in response to the artist’s work and the theme of erasure.

DINO CONSALVO & LOTTIE CONSALVO​From the Mudbrick House

SIMON MUNROYearning to Yarn: Artefact in Research

Greg Fuller | Jason Hicklin | Tracy HillCommon Ground Pacific

Archives

MAZIE TURNER | DAN NELSON | ANNEMARIE MURLAND | KATRINA HOLDEN

17 July - 24 August 2019

Please join us for the opening and performances Tuesday 6 August from 7:30pm.
Pianist Jacob Neale and bassist Jarrod Gibson will play Jazz in response to the artist’s work and the theme of erasure.

DINO CONSALVO & LOTTIE CONSALVO
From the Mudbrick House

SIMON MUNRO
Yearning to Yarn: Artefact in Research

Greg Fuller | Jason Hicklin | Tracy Hill
Common Ground Pacific