Work in Gallery on Sturt, Ballarat

I have some work in Gallery on Sturt/Accent Framing, 421 Sturt St, Ballarat (next to L'Espresso Café).

Gallery on Sturt's website: http://galleryonsturt.com.au/

The Flanagan Art Prize Exhibition in Ballarat

I have a work, Ghosts of the Anthropocene, in the Flanagan Art Prize Exhibition held at St Patrick's College, Ballarat.

Exhibition dates: Sat August 24 and Sun August 25, and Sat August 31 and Sun September 1, 11am - 4pm on these days.
Location: St Patricks College, 1451 Sturt Street, Ballarat. The exhibition is in the OCA Pavilion, to the rear of the main buildings.

Extraordinary exhibition of Australian botanical art

(I am interested in this because I live in Ballarat and am involved with the gallery.)

The Art Gallery of Ballarat has mounted an extraordinary exhibition of Australian botanical illustration, the most comprehensive ever in Australia. There are over 400 works, going back as far as William Dampier's vist to the West Australian coast in 1699, and forward to contemporary work. I found particularly interesting a sequence of works by Celia Rosser showing the stages of a drawing from the initial field sketch of a Banksia (Banksia aculeata) right through to the completed work. The delicate drawings of microscopic details of mosses by Lauren Black are also very attractive. As the exhibition points out, certainly from the mid 19th century women artists played a very important role in botanical illustration, firstly as amateurs, then as professionals.

The English and French exploratory voyages at the end of the 18th century led to Australian plants being cultivated in England and elsewhere in Europe. I was startled to see an account of the Gymea Lily (which grows wild around Sydney) in the botanical gardens of St Petersburg. Eventually the Australian colonies became well-established enough to have their own scientific establishments and produce their own botanical prints, and here Ferdinand von Mueller, scientist and first Director of the Melbourne Botanical Gardens, led the way in promoting botanical illustration. The exhibition has works representing all of the stages of interest in Australian plants, and also shows how the various techniques used for reproducing the images changed over time.

In conjunction with the exhibition there is a lavishly illustrated book with six substantial essays.

The exhibition and the book have been prepared by the Art Gallery of Ballarat, and the majority of the works come from the Gallery's own collection - altogether a remarkable achievement.

Where: Art Gallery of Ballarat, 40 Lydiard Street (North), Ballarat.
When: Until December 2, 2012.
Hours: 9am - 5pm every day.
Price: Full $12, concession $8, members of the Art Gallery of Ballarat Association have free entry.

(Entry to the permanent collection of the Gallery is free.)

Red Brick Group Show, Ballarat

The Red Brick Gallery and Emporium in Ballarat is holding a group show, with lots of people involved. I have put in two prints from my Shaping Evolution series. The Gallery is run by two energetic artists, Steph Wallace and Marcia King, and has shown a lot of work by local artists/craftspeople.

Where: Red Brick Gallery, 218A Skipton St, Ballarat VIC 3350. (Near the corner with South St.)
Tel: 0402 416 097.
Opening: Friday February 3rd, 6.00-8.00pm.
Exhibition dates: February 3rd – February 16th, 2012.
Gallery hours: Tues – Sun, 10am – 5pm.
Info: www.http://redbrickgallery.com.au/.

"Art Sparks" Creative Gathering, Ballarat

This is an initiative by Amy Tsilemanis to bring together people interested in the arts in Ballarat. The next gathering is on Tuesday 31st of January at Linda Franklin's South Street Art Studio.There will be a vegetarian feast, and then five artists, including me, will be performing or showing work. They range over music, storytelling and visual art; I will play a couple of my abstract videos. A good chance to meet and talk with people. The five featured artists are Al Wunder, Yasmin Cole, Gordon Monro, Anne Langdon and Janette Wotherspoon.

Where: South Street Art Studio, 410 South Street, Ballarat VIC 3350. (This is the old church on the corner with Errard St.)
Tel: 0438 826 500.
When: Tuesday 31st of January 201, 6.30 - 9.30pm.
Cost: Suggested: gold coin donation.
Info: On Facebook - search for "Art Sparks in Ballarat" and "South Street Art Studio".

Video in Ballarat Art Gallery "Project Window"

My video Dissonant Particles is scheduled for the "Project Window" of the Art Gallery of Ballarat, in January 2012. The Project Window is a projection window, part of the front of the Gallery on Lydiard Street, and the projections run in the evenings.  The Project Window opened in 2011 and has shown works by some high-profile people, including Daniel Crooks and Jill Orr.

Where: Ballarat Art Gallery, 40 Lydiard St (North), Ballarat VIC 3350. Tel: 03 5320 5858.
When: 5th - 27th January 2012.
Info: http://www.balgal.com/ and http://www.gommog.com/video/diss_part_video.html.

St Patrick's College Ballarat Art Prize

My work Tree Circle has been selected for the St Patrick's College Ballarat Art Prize.

Where: St Patrick's College Ballarat, Old Collegians Pavilion. (Entry from Wanliss St.)
When: September 7 to September 11 2011.
Gala launch: Wednesday September 7th at 7pm. Entry by ticket from the College.

More information here (go to "Community" and then "Flanagan Art Prize").

"Orbit" at Space 22

I have a piece in the "Orbit" group exhibition at Space 22 in Ballarat.

Space 22 is the only artist-run space in Ballarat. It is celebrating its first anniversary with a group "30 x 30 (x 30) cm" exhibition: works have to fit into a 30 cm square or a 30 cm cube.

Where: Space 22, 22 Main Road, Ballarat.
Opening: Saturday January 22nd, 3-5pm.
Exhibition dates: January 20 to February 6, 2011.
Gallery hours: Thu-Sun 12 noon - 5pm.

"Showcase" at Gallery on Sturt

The Gallery on Sturt at 421 Sturt St, Ballarat, Victoria has an exhibition called "Showcase", for artists associated with the gallery. I have one piece in the show, a digital print titled Darwinian Field 1. My association with the gallery is that they also have a fine art printing service, and Andrew Tweedie there made the prints for my exhibition in Arthur Gallery earlier in 2010.

The exhibition runs throughout December.
Opening hours: Monday - Friday 9am - 5:30pm, Saturday 10am - 4pm.

For more information see http://www.accentframing.com.au/gallery/exhibitions.asp.

"Tempus Fugit" group exhibition

I have a piece in the "Tempus Fugit" group exhibition at Space 22 in Ballarat.

Where: Space 22, 22 Main Road, Ballarat.
Opening: Saturday July 3rd, 3-5pm.
Exhibition dates: July 22 to August 8, 2010.
Gallery hours: Thu-Sun 12 noon - 5pm.

New exhibition "Difference Engine" in Ballarat

I have an exhibition in Ballarat in May, showing work under the title "Difference Engine". The works consist of small patterns that have been evolved in the computer to be different from one another. They are mostly digital prints, but the computer program that carries out the evolutionary process will be there as well.

• Venue: Arthur Gallery, 35 Mair St, Ballarat (a very short walk from Ballarat station)
• Exhibition dates: 6th May to 29th May 2010
• Opening: Saturday 8th May, 5pm - 7pm
• Gallery hours: Thursday to Saturday 10am - 3pm or by appointment

Also I will be giving an artist talk at Arthur Gallery at 2pm on Saturday 29th May.

St Patrick's College Art Exhibition

I recently entered my piece Exiguous Cubes in the St Patrick's College Art Exhibition, Ballarat. This was the first time I have entered a general art competition of this sort, and it was also the first public outing for Exiguous Cubes as a whole. To my surprise (I wasn't told in advance) I won the University of Ballarat Emerging Artist Prize. The main prize, the Flanagan Award, was won by Carole Wilson's collage work Survey Vessel 2. The judge was Gordon Morrison, Director of the Art Gallery of Ballarat.

Most of the 84 works on display were two-dimensional: largely paintings, drawings or mixed media; there were some photographs and some 2D works involving digital manipulation. There were a number of sculptures and ceramic works. Mine was the only computer-based work, and there were no video pieces, though video works were mentioned in the call for entries. I'm not yet familiar enough with the scene to recognise a lot of the artists' names, but there seemed to be some people with fairly high profiles there, winners of Australia Council residencies and the like.

As a visual artist I am "emerging" according to the conditions of the exhibition. Since I started so late in visual art I am grateful to the organisers for not setting an age limit. Once I heard an artist talk entitled "Have I emerged yet?", but it will be a little while before I have to worry about that.

"Ab Initio" exhibition in Ballarat

I will be having an exhibition entitled "Ab Initio" as part of the Ballarat Foto Bienniale Fringe exhibition program. It is of digital prints related to my installation Cloud Drum, and generated from scratch in my computer. So they are not photographs at all, but they have been accepted for the Fringe.

My exhibition

Exhibition: Friday 4th September to Monday 5th October
Opening: Friday 4th September, 5.30pm.
Location: Radmac Gallery, 104 Armstrong Street (North), Ballarat VIC 3350.
Gallery hours: Mon-Fri 8.30am-5.30pm, Sat 9am-12 noon.
Radmac Gallery (which is also an art supply shop) is venue 26 on the map here. The gallery is a short walk from Ballarat railway station. Scrolling the map down will show, among other things, more than a dozen vineyards in the area.

The Ballarat Foto Bienniale

The Foto Bienniale, which runs throughout September, promises to be huge, with a Core of over 20 invited exhibitions, a considerably greater number of Fringe exhibitions, and various seminars and artist talks. The exhibitors include overseas and interstate people together with locals. Most events and exhibitions are free; they are mostly in Ballarat, but some are in Daylesford and other towns. Details at http://www.ballaratfoto.org.