LIGHTSCAPES / 21 February to 18 June 2017 at Knox Place and the RMIT Building 2 Lightwell
Each year INTERSECT showcases a selection of exceptional work from the School of Art's most recent graduating students in the Lightscapes. Located in the busy thoroughfare of Knox Lane at Melbourne Central, Highlights provides these artists a pathway to exhibit immediately after graduation.
Eva Collins was born in Poland, and immigrated to Australia in 1958 with her family. In her writing and photographic practice she is interested in capturing evocative images that seeks out a sense of discovery that can be found when we look beyond the obvious. Eva holds a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Psychology and Philosophy from Melbourne University and a Bachelor of Fine Art from RMIT University. She has exhibited at Monash Gallery of Art, Gallery 101, Edmund Pearce, Obscura and Trocadero Art Space. Her work is held in private collections, the National Portrait Gallery of Australia, the Italian Cultural Institute, the City of Yarra, and the City of Port Phillip Council Chambers.
Eva Collins’ work explores situations of contrast, discord and unusual configurations. For Eva, a photograph is a still-life representation of a life lived. She is interested in freezing these fleeting situations, reflecting on life’s enigma and provide her audience with a sense of surprise and discovery in order to further understand the essence of things. Her work Howl, alludes to long summer holidays she spent with other children in a distant Polish village. Her minders were suspicious of strange looking people, whom they regarded as evil, and scared the children with tales of wolves lurking in nearby woods. At night the howls of the wolves could be heard through the darkness. Howl aims to extract a sense of naivety and fragility, intimidation and conquest of fear. By employing mime and symbolic sound effects she conveys primal messages in her work.
Nicola Gunn is an award-winning writer, director, performer and designer, who combines text, choreography and visual art to make contemporary performance work in response to a self-generated impulse to tell a story or explore a form. She finds parallels between personal experiences and larger social realities, using subversive humour to explore the fragility of the human condition. She has received critical acclaim for a genre of sophisticated performance, has toured to New Zealand, North America, Europe and throughout Australia, and has collaborated with local and international artists. Most recently she created Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster, winner of two Green Room Awards and Helpmann Award nominated; Mermermer with choreographer Jo Lloyd for Chunky Move;The Interpreters for Site is Set at Alliance Francaise performed in French, English, Auslan and Bunwurrong; and published her first comic book with Michael Fikaris, Instruction Manual for Lonely Mountains. Nicola was artist in residence with Kaldor Public Art Projects under the mentorship of Marina Abramovic in 2015; has dramaturged dance works by Luke George and Jo Lloyd; and has received commissions from Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, Chunky Move, Field Theory and Performing Lines/Mobile States. Nicola is the recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts Creative Australia Fellowship, a Churchill Fellowship and a 3-month Paris Cité Residency. She holds a Master of Arts (Art in Public Space) from RMIT.
I wanted to make some money from art so I got some kids, made them dress up in stuff I found at home or got from a place that sells manufacturing off-cuts, took a photo and then made postcards which I sold back to their parents.
Nia Johnson is a recent graduate of RMIT University’s Fine Art Honours program. She works with video and material in making spatial installations that deal with and are dependent on architectural, personal, and spatial problems of sites.
This site has formed out of wasted space that has gathered like the dust and plastic bags sucked down from the air above it. I will put my wasted time in this wasted space and forget that it has dimensions. I begin by gathering the dead mosquitoes on the sills of the viewing platform. Piling them up I think of how this gap between buildings formed and about the dirt that will build up here over the three months I have been given; I think of chaos as a plethora of orders. Greg hopes that the windows will be cleaned and I secretly hope for the opposite.
Yasmin Nebenfuhr is an Australian photographic artist based in Melbourne. Having recently graduated from RMIT’s Fine Art program, Yasmin’s practice incorporates digital and analogue techniques to present her abstract landscapes. Her work details an immediate and personal response to portrayals of the female body and the Australian landscape. Yasmin has exhibited photographic work in solo and group shows since 2011 and was a finalist in the 2016 Australian Contemporary Art Award.
Fruit Flower Myself Inside Out examines female identity in relation to the natural world. Within this work the landscape is utilised as a conceptual analogy for the fertile, the feminine and the maternal. The bodily forms presented contemplate an internal and emotional landscape whilst also discussing the body as a physical landscape. Exploring self-portraiture and distorting imagery, the work investigates the connection between ‘femininity’ and ‘mother nature’ including questioning their reputed relationship.Inverting these notions through a feminist lens, Fruit Flower Myself Inside Out dissects contemporary and historical societal distortions of the female body.
Alex Quinlan’s practice is an amalgamation of print discourse, photographic principles and installation based disciplinaries. Her work is powered by the universal elements of wind and light and the overlooked and forgotten nature that is conducive to both elements. Quinlan’s artistic process is informed by the romantic lens she filters the most simple natural occurrences through.
Light as Light’s Trace is photographic exploration into light and photographic chemistry. Depicted in the image is a 5 metre long piece of muslin cloth, drenched and coated in the light sensitive exposure chemical Cyanotype. Essentially this an image of a large scale abstract photograph being manipulated by light. When the light hits the Cyanotype coated muslin, the tones of pink, purples and beiges come about. After the exposure, the cloth is rinsed of this chemical and then the colours change again into hues of greys and blues. Light as Light’s Trace questions how we as individuals interact and acknowledge the simplicity of light as an atmospheric portrayal.
Jude Worters is a New Zealander who has been living in Melbourne since 1988. After returning to study to complete her education as a mature age studentWorters went on to teach art at the Centre for Adult Education. She has recently completed a Masters degree in Fine Art at RMIT. Her art practice has been largely Collage based whilst more current projects have explored sculpture and photography. Her work often explores personal themes related to memory and family history as well as extending to a broader interest in social history and the plight of our endangered flora and fauna.
The work stigma explores the social and psychological implications of imposed difference and otherness. Different forms of social stigma are a fact of daily life for many. An inability to accept and embrace difference is on the rise. An ever-increasing factor of contemporary life, stigma has many guises. This work addresses the psychological burden placed on the individual who faces discrimination, is victimised and treated as ‘other’.