Artists

JESSIE LUMB

CLAIRE KROUŽECKÝ

Date: 11-Jul-2014 – 03-Aug-2014

Location: Contemporary Art Tasmania

Unkept brings together the work of Jessie Lumb and Claire Kroužecký, both early career artists whose practices are led by humble beginnings and chance occurrences; a ‘paying attention’ to what is considered commonplace and a responsiveness to everyday sites and materials.

The artists will transform the unnoticed, found, dirty physical elements and materials of the gallery space and its surroundings. Dust, dirt, cracks, manholes, potholes, cobwebs, wind, light and air become the starting points from which the artists work. Lowly, often mundane and ignored materials of everyday life are brought to our attention, elevated to a place of intrigue.

Unkept brings the outside in and takes the inside out. It invites slippage between two points of reference. Works spill out of the gallery and into its surrounds, breaking down hierarchical divisions and treating the two spaces with equal consideration and importance. The divide between ‘inside’ the gallery and ‘outside’ the gallery will become blurred and fragmented, expectations will be thrown into question and opposites collide: public and private, inside and outside, full and empty, clean and dirty, light and dark, real and imagined.

The gallery is a site for the presentation and exhibition of art, but in this case, art will be created from the very fabric and materiality of the space. It is a gentle transformation: from the unseen to the seen, from the ‘unkept’ to the kept. It is an exploration and conversation that continues beyond the confines of the gallery space or the exhibition catalogue. The gallery becomes a place not only for art to be presented, but also a place from which art can be made.

Galleries are considered to be artificial, man-made spaces, usually white cubes that are free from dirt, marks and any kind of visual distraction. There is nothing natural about the gallery space; it is a focused space, sometimes intimidating to enter. The ideal white cube attempts to remove from the gallery all signs of time, history and identity. However, this exhibition seeks to grasp at what little signs of the ‘unkept’ that might still be lingering in the space. Drawing out the unseen, covered up and dirty elements of the gallery space, the artists will transform these materials into moments of curiosity and beauty.

Jessie Lumb is a South Australian artist working in the field of Sculpture and Installation. An obsessive observer of the little details we encounter in our everyday lives, her practice highlights the unnoticed details that make up our world. Her small scale, site-specific interventions attempt to provoke in the viewer a greater understanding and experience of ‘where we are’, transforming the mundane into something wondrous and beautiful.

A first class Honours graduate of the School of Art, Architecture and Design (UniSA), Jessie was selected for Hatched 2010 National Graduate Exhibition at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. She has exhibited in many of Adelaide’s artist run spaces; at San Diego State University, where she undertook a study exchange; at SASA Gallery (UniSA); and in solo shows at Fontanelle, in the Project Space at the Contemporary Art Centre South Australia, at FELTspace, and Trocadero Artspace, Melbourne. In 2010 she participated in a six-week artist residency at the Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China, resulting in the creation of temporary public artworks. From 2011-2012 she spent a year as an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development working with the Arts Council of Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Jessie was a Co-Director of FELTspace from 2010-11 and is currently a Co-Director of Tarpspace Mobile ARI.
http://plasticineandthumbtacks.wordpress.com

Claire Kroužecký’s art practice operates across a range of disciplines including painting, installation, performance and video. Her work frames ordinary situations, seeking to reveal a moment of extra-ordinary clarity or poetry. Often this is related to chance atmospheric and phenomenological encounters.

Claire completed a Bachelor in Fine Art at the University of Western Australia, going on to receive First Class Honours at the Tasmanian School of Art, where in 2013 she completed a Masters Degree by Research. Claire has held solo exhibitions at Blindside ARI, Melbourne, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart and Free Range Gallery, Perth. She has also participated in a number of group exhibitions, most notably at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Sawtooth ARI, Launceston, and Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. In 2012 she was commissioned to produce a limited edition work for the album of Australian experimental jazz group, Motion.

Collaboration plays a pivotal role in Claire’s practice. Her cross-disciplinary team of four was recently selected by FELTspace, Adelaide to produce a new Tasmanian publication, Nuclei, as part of nationwide The Writing Project. She also worked with Raef Sawford for the 2012 Queenstown Heritage and Arts Festival, and maintains an ongoing collaboration with Laura Hindmarsh and Anna Cocks as part of Inter Collective.

http://clairekrouzecky.wordpress.com

Opens: 11 July 2014

Exhibition: 12 July – 3 August 2014

Artist talk: Saturday 12 July, 2pm