Greyhound: Presentations and discussions on the role and function of the artist’s studio
Speakers
DUCKPOND
KATE GECK
DAVID KEELING
CAROLYN WIGSTON
Convenor
KYLIE JOHNSON
Greyhound: Presentations and discussions on the role and function of the artist’s studio
Date: 15-Nov-2018
Location: Contemporary Art Tasmania
Greyhound: Presentations and discussions on the role and function of the artist’s studio.*
SYMPOSIUM
SPEAKERS: Duckpond, Kate Geck, David Keeling, Carolyn Wigston
CONVENOR: Kylie Johnson
Most artists have a working space, whether its form evokes the traditional atelier model, a hybrid production/ presentation space or a laptop on the kitchen table. The artist studio has a multiplicity of purposes that are as varied as the modes of practices they enable.
Through a series of presentations and a Q&A session Duckpond, Kate Geck, Kylie Johnson, David Keeling and Carolyn Wigston will demonstrate a range of relationships that they each have with the studio.
Questions that might function as useful points of departure:
- Is there a relationship between forms of studio and forms of practice? That is to say, do such things as the physical qualities or institutionalization of space influence the type of artwork that is produced, or is the relationship less stable?
- Artist studios have expanded from being an essentially private space of production to a public orientated site that also accommodates a number of other functions, some of which involve: exhibition, social events, meetings with curators and a place to carry out the day-to-day administrative tasks of practice. Is it possible today, or even necessary, to maintain a sense of the studio as refuge?
- Studio complexes afford opportunity for artists to develop social relationships with other residents. What are the implications of this on practice and how is this different to the conditions and outcomes relating to more discrete studio models?
*I was once told that Greyhounds make the best studio dog – Kylie Johnson.
KATE GECK works with digital and sensory space, considering how technology can skew or amplify affect. She works with acrylic sculpture, code, neon lights, kaleidoscopic projections, textiles and augmented reality. Exhibitions include: Athens Digital Art Festival, NARS NYC, ISEA 2015 (Vancouver), International Centre for Contemporary Art (Singapore), Nextwave, Liquid Architecture, Channels and L’Atelier Kunst (Berlin). Kate has had a number of studio spaces in Australia, Japan and the USA, and currently works between a storage shed and the kitchen table. She lectures in design at Melbourne Polytechnic.
DAVID KEELING is a Hobart based artist who has been Chair of Artbank Australia, Chameleon Contemporary Art Space and Board Member of Arts Tasmania. He shares a studio with his partner Helen Wright in North Hobart and both artists exhibit widely in Tasmania and interstate. David has also been the winner of the Glover Prize, twice.
CAROLYN WIGSTON is an artist who works primarily with geometric abstraction. During the last 18 months she has been developing and fitting out a new art space in Hobart that can facilitate studio work, research and exhibitions alongside a commercial tonsorium. This venture, titled Proofspace opened inMay 2018. Carolyn is interested in using the space to promote aspects of the “Slow Art” movement – creating new dialogues around the conception and the process of art making.
DUCKPOND is a notorious lighting, production and event designer with extensive international experience in London, Berlin, Melbourne and Deloraine. Influenced by the ethos of punk, the absurdists and the situationists in the 1960s, Duckpond brings a keen sense of fun with an air of impending chaos to both working and social situations. He is currently based in Hobart and has instigated the conversion of a modernist era office block in the CBD into a thriving artistic and creative hub. Studio65 currently accommodates 41 individuals and groups in various artistic, musical, design and creative spaces.