Shelter object
You'll never look at Weet-Bix the same way again after you see what Lizzie Hall has done with them. In her installation, Shelter Object, she crushes, pulps and mixes the familiar breakfast cereal with glue, before casting it into house brick moulds, some as the convict bricks from NSW and others as the famous Canberra red bricks. The installation is named after the concrete bunker built around reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant to contain the radioactive material that was released after it exploded in 1986. Hall's work is said to prompt re-examination of the Australian identity. "Isolation and containment are pivotal to the construct of our national identity. Do the barriers which are constructed through nationalism and xenophobia protect us from something outside or do they harbour poison within?" she ponders. Shelter Object is on at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Manuka, until Sunday, September 27.
Distant fragility waning
Roger Beale was a senior public servant, but now he's carving out a name for himself as an artist, and for his latest show he joins his close friend, architect and town planner Grahame Crocket. The works in Distant Voices are based on themes of memory and observation. Beale primarily uses pastels to draw "meditations on being an observer of life", including interiors, cityscapes and landscapes – particularly at night and dusk. "I find inspiration in the beauty of everyday life. My artistic aim is to give people pleasure," Beale says. Crocket draws freehand from life, without using photographs. His drawings of buildings and other constructions are said to be remarkable for the understanding of design and their precision. "I look, then draw buildings and structures that attract me and also which might have heritage significance," he says. Both Canberrans have received formal training in drawing and allowed it to inform their practices throughout their lives. Crocket was a former Commonwealth chief architect. It's his first exhibition, but Beale has been exhibiting his work for 30 years.
Canberra artist Eleanor Evans' stop-motion animation, Synthesized Fragility, is influenced by traditional Japanese design concepts and inspired by her travel in Japan. Evans makes paper origami flowers, but uses wire to allow them to be animated. She seeks to invoke a universal idea of beauty, suggesting that flowers are seen as beautiful because they are transient in nature, enhancing their individuality and value.
Paintings by emerging artist Lucy Chetcuti explore the cultural, spiritual and emotional relationships between people and the moon in the aptly titled show Waxing, Waning. Chetcuti's reflective and fluorescent paintings are made with experimental materials, including CDs, sand, pebbles, mirrors, pumice and sandpaper. All shows are at M16 Artspace, Griffith, until Sunday, October 4.
From beach to table
In her first solo exhibition, local artist Alison Jackson presents a collection of functional tableware vessels and cutlery pieces informed by research and prototype experimentation fusing traditional silversmithing handcraft techniques with contemporary industrial processes. Jackson's design philosophy is centred on functional objects – pieces that are designed to be used every day and become a part of your daily ritual. Jackson gives a talk about her practice and work as part of the Art Forum program at the ANU School of Art on Wednesday, September 23, from 1.15pm-2pm in the lecture theatre.
Also showing at Craft ACT is Bodywork: Australian Jewellery 1970-2012, a touring exhibition from the National Gallery of Australia. Bodywork includes the work of 42 Australian jewellers exploring six broad themes: romanticism, interpreting the vernacular, encapsulating nature, technics, social message and sculpture for the body.
Rounding out the exhibitions at Craft ACT are Mariella McKinley's shell-inspired glass sculptures in Shoal. McKinley puts her Italian glass-blowing skills and cutting techniques to work to create pieces instilled with subtle geometry and beautiful colours, evoking coral reefs and beachscapes. All exhibitions are on at the Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre Gallery until Saturday, October 24.
Bright spark
Glass artist Christine Atkins has been announced as the winner of the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society Canberra 2015 Young Arts Award. The $1000 prize is designed to support the development of an artist's practice at the Canberra Glassworks. Atkins will use her's to make a new installation, Lit from within, for her solo exhibition at Pod in The Hamlet, Braddon, in October. She plans to make more than 200 unique glass spheres, covering the walls and floor in a "flowing mass of colour, movement and light". Each work will have a hot, sculpted piece inside, with an LED imbedded within producing light images varying from honeycomb to sweeps of light that traverse the surface.
Botanic art springs back
For more than 1000 years, botanic art has survived the "fashions" in art that come and go and in its most disciplined form is still seen as a useful tool for scientists, the people behind Canberra Botanical say. The annual spring exhibition at Nishi Gallery, NewActon, will coincide with Floriade with more than 80 art works, along with cards and bookmarks. The paintings show "not only botanical accuracy but colourful beauty – the wonders of the plant kingdom are there to behold". The exhibition runs until Monday, October 5, daily from 10am to 4pm.
Another show hoping to attract interest from Floriade visitors is the Queanbeyan Art Society's charity art show in Civic in support of Soldier On. It runs until Saturday, September 26, in tents at City Walk, and features more than 300 art works by artists based in Queanbeyan, the Canberra region, Southern Highlands and the South Coast.
