Byron Bay Echo

Painting Death

"Retrospect Galleries presents a group exhibition exploring the boundaries of religion, death, magic and mystery, featuring works by local Northern Rivers' artists James Guppy, Hilary Herrmann, Michelle Dawson, Anna Nordstrum, Katka Adams, Cornelia Burless, and Alberto Sanchez, Brisbane's Nic Plowman, Jan Van Djirk and Eileen Timbrell, Sydneysiders Andrew Hmnelinsky and Luke Taaffe, Californians Harry the Hat and Kelsey Brookes and Tokyo based Aoife Tamura."

This month we are introducing to the Retrospect fold local artist Emma Gale.

Her work is a rich tapestry of text, colour, pattern and forms.  Her inspiration comes from everywhere; and she uses a particular subject not simply to show its beauty but to tell of its existence. She also uses the surrounding rural landscape to ignite her imagination and creativity daily.

Emma currently has work in the Art Sydney Fair.

 View more of Emma's work

Nikky has been continuing her exploration into water and bathing rituals in some of her new work that is travelling down to Art Sydney. This work is titled '5 baths a day in shades of magenta'.

View more of her work

Again some great monoprints, by the works on paper goddess

In this new series of work, Anna Nordstrom is exploring contemporary Chinese culture through memorabilia  collected while on a visit to Shanghai in 2007.

Cigarette packets have been cut into the shapes of buildings. Photographs have been printed out on tissue paper and  embedded in encoustics. Business cards, tickets and advertising have been placed at random amongst painted Chinese landscapes. Glimpses of Mao propaganda pops its head up here and there - revealing the starting point of each work

The painted imagery are mainly taken from exhibition catalogues of  contemporary Chinese artist Xue Song who in his turn has taken his imagery from Feng Zikai – a modern cartoonist who has made a unique mark in Chinese fine arts history. Feng Zikai's work either borrow from the classics to hint what is in reality, or reveal profoundness in something common and trivial.

Xue Song's work appear to be the spitting image of Feng's original cartoons with the addition of calligraphy, brush painting and memories of colonial Shanghai as well as his signature usage of paper ashes to mark outlines.

Anna Nordstrom borrow her imagery at random from Xue Song's work. One part of a mountain, a river, houses, trees – are pulled from Xue Song's work and placed on Nordstrom's canvas where ever she finds it fitting. The additional painted imagery are copied from advertising or Nordstrom's own photography.

In these works Nordstrom is reflecting on contemporary society where nothing is really 'new' and the notion of openly borrowing from other artists, thinkers and shakers are accepted and even embraced. This concept is not new for Anna Nordstrom who, for the past 10 years has utilized used, found objects in her work to reflect on past ideas, events and actions that are affecting our contemporary society..

Some great small deices inspired by his recent sojourn abroad. These will be framed for Art Sydne. Its titled Fire Hat

One of Seven great works going to Art Sydney

How beautiful is this.. One of her fantastic limited edition prints

This is a show not to be missed

A group exhibition exploring the boundaries of religion, death, magic and mystery

Once a year in Mexico, family and friends come together for Día de Muertos, the Day of the Dead, a vigil to connect the souls of the living with their departed.  
Now, Retrospect Galleries presents The Day of the Dead Exhibition featuring new works exploring religion, death, magic and mystery by more than 20 local and international artists.

Works by local Northern Rivers’ artists James Guppy, Hilary Herrmann, Michelle Dawson, Anna Nordstrum, Cal Mackinnon, Cornelia Burless, and Alberto Sanchez, Brisbane’s Nic Plowman, Jan Van Djirk and Eileen Timbrell, Sydneysiders Andrew Hmnelinsky and Luke Taffe, Californians Harry the Hat and Kelsey Brookes, Tokyo based Aoife Tamura and many more...

Day of the Dead opening
6 to 9pm All Souls Day Sunday November 1
Dress in the style of Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations

Exhibition runs until November 22

 A fantastic new Servil by Michelle going to Sydney

Following the success of our recent event, ‘In Conversation with Doug Bartlett’, Retrospect Galleries is proud to present a second evening of intriguing discussion.

A morbid fascination
6pm Halloween eve, Saturday October 31
Harvest Café, 18 Old Pacific Highway, Newrybar

Join our panel of artists and industry experts to explore themes of art, death, religion and modern ritualism, as they relate to our upcoming show, The Day of the Dead.

Zenith Virago, death celebrant and educator, co-author of The Intimacy of Death and Dying

James Guppy, renowned Byron Bay painter

Nic Plowman, Brisbane based contemporary artist and survivor

Limited tickets available at $60 per person, includes a two-course meal and drink on arrival
Bookings, 02 6680 8825 or info@retrospectgalleries.com

Each month we will bring you a new artist of the month, an exclusive interview with unusual questions. Get to know your favourite artists, get the inside information here deep inside the Retrospect blog! In the month of September we are introducing you to Kareena Zerefos.

Kareena Zerefos is an emerging artist currently based in Sydney, Australia.

Her work evokes a delicate balance between isolation and companionship, as well as yearning and delight in long lost moments of escape to the whimsical world of make believe.
 
With a background in design, graduating from College of Fine Arts in 2005, Kareena works using a variety of media, including pencil, gouache, tea and ink, and often combines traditional drawing with contemporary digital graphic techniques.

Kareena has exhibited in solo shows in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as in numerous group shows across Australia. She also works on commercial illustration projects for the music, fashion and advertising industries.

Right now I am…
enjoying the afternoon sun that is steaming through the window in my studio.

I’m inspired to start a new work when….
I return from travelling, or see a wonderful film… or, most realistically, when I have a deadline!!

I am at my most creative/productive when…
I first get out of bed.  I can spend four to five hours early in the day without stopping for coffee.

I usually start my day by…
walking down to the café with my Italian greyhound, Pelle.

My favourite film of all time is…
probably La Cité Des Enfants Perdus. Well, all Jean-Pierre Jeunet films really, but with costumes designed by Gaultier I do like to watch this one the most.

When I am working I like to listen to…
Bittersweet tunes with guitars and gentle vocals.

It makes me smile when…
it’s the middle of winter, the air is crisp and the sky is blue.

I get angry about…
ignorance and violence.

My three most valued possessions are…                                                                                         my Italian greyhound, old family photos and my collection of vintage tea sets.

The three things in life I could never give up are …
Sunshine, the ocean and sharp 2H pencils!

If I could travel anywhere back and forth in time, I would go …
to the Grand Palais in Paris, and visit the Exposition Universelle of 1900.

My dream dinner party of six would include….
my closest friends.

If it were my party, I would serve…
Peking duck pancakes and pink lemonade.

The craziest thing I have ever done was…
quit my day job so I could become an artist.

The most valuable lesson I have learned in life is…
to just get things started.

If a young person told me they wanted to be like me when they grow up, I would tell them…
that i haven’t grown up.

I wish I had listened when my parents told me…
to stop biting my nails.

If I wasn’t an artist I would like to be….
setting up a country home with a garden full of poppies and taking care of lots of dogs.

I am currently reading….
a post about a cylinder lamp by spartan on a blog called distillate.
The book that changed my life is…
the BFG. It taught me that not all giants were scary and mean.

The art of death and dying

Nothing is more certain in life than death, yet it’s an experience that’s commonly hidden from our everyday reality. A new exhibition brings the mystery out into the light and provides an opportunity to celebrate the loss of our loved ones.

In Mexico, November 1st is celebrated every year as the D a y   o f   t h e   I n n o c e n t s  or the D a y   o f   t h e   L i t t l e   A n g e l s .   N o v e m b e r   2nd   is the better know holiday, the D a y   o f   t h e   D e a d , when large groups of family and friends invade graveyards en masse, to celebrate and commune with their dear departed.
By comparison, western society often makes very little of death, hiding those we have lost away in eternally quiet cemeteries.  Sadness and grief are individual pursuits largely dealt with behind closed doors, or in clinics where grief-ridden family and friends boost already frightening statistics concerning Australia’s depressed population.

Byron Bay personality Zenith Virago is part of a small committed group who are trying to change this aspect of our local culture.  A celebrant of life’s most momentous circumstance, she has for the past 15 years, specialised in the fields of love and marriage, and death and dying.

Since 2007, Virago has organised an annual event, where people come together to honour their dead, in a bid to make death more familiar.  Held in Mullumbimby on the second Sunday in November, it’s a step towards a healthier community that allows people to deal with bereavement.

Art is a really big part of that process she believes and has therefore become a major element of her celebration. The first hour of the event is an opportunity for people to make something as a memento of those that they miss - a prayer flag, clay heart or anything they want, and inscribe it with a message.
Bree Delian from Retrospect Galleries Byron Bay agrees that art plays an important role in bridging the gap between life and ‘the other’.  Concerned that a lot of the ritual surrounding death in other societies is lost in the West, she has decided it’s time for a reminder.  

“Although we are confronted by death and violence in the media every day, we have shunted it away in our society,” she comments. “In pagan societies there was a much stronger connection and a much more outward display of death, which was beautiful and beneficial to people.”
“Looking at Mexico’s Day of the Dead, it’s so alien to us that people dress up, go to gravesites, take food for their ancestors, sing them songs, take part in parades and festivities,” she continues.  “But looking at other cultures and how they deal with death and give it purpose, can give life a new purpose too.”

This year, for the first time, Delian is organising an exhibition that gives artists the opportunity to explore the boundaries of religion, death, magic and mystery. Featuring works by more than 20 established and emerging international, national and local artists, she hopes that The Day of the Dead, will give people a glimpse into the realm of mystery, and make us rethink the importance of ritual.

Well known local artist James Guppy is amongst those who have agreed to be in the show, which he says deals with a theme he has been painting for decades.

“Once we have a consciousness of death, we live our whole lives with it,” Guppy comments. “Very early on in my career, one of my earliest works was a painting about the death of my father,” he continues. “These days I often allude to death in my work and sometimes quite explicitly, using symbols such as flowers, in an effort to imbue the mystery of our passing to this “amniotic other place” with a sense of poetic significance.”

Guppy has known Zenith Virago for years and says they are both striving to give death meaning.  “Zenith’s work is about introducing rituals that make it easier for the survivors to find sense in all of this,” he says. “I’m just trying to find meaning for myself, and hopefully that will help others.”

Brisbane artist Nic Plowman, has been practising successfully for years but has largely come to public’s attention since his sellout 2008 Magic Sex Death exhibition.

31 years ago Plowman was born with a congenital heart disease and has spent his whole life in and out of hospitals and on medication. Whilst the concept of death isn’t something that a lot of young people even think about, he says he can’t remember a time when those thoughts weren’t part of his reality.

Magic Sex Death is a collection of searing self-portraits frequently featuring skulls and crows surrounding the artist, as he appears attached to a variety of medical equipment.
“In trying to convey my experience of life and death to the viewer, I’ve realised that the most personal art is sometimes the most universal,” Plowman comments. “I know that one of the people who has bought a lot of my art is an open heart surgeon.  You never know who’s looking at your work and what life experience they’re bringing to it.”

Zenith Virago, James Guppy and Nic Plowman will share their experiences of art, death and modern ritual in a panel discussion to be held on Halloween eve at Harvest Café, Newrybar, Saturday October 31st.  Limited tickets are available at $60 per person, which includes a two-course meal and drink on arrival.

The Day of the Dead exhibition opens 6-9pm on Sunday November 1, until November 22. Other artists include Californian Kelsey Brookes, Tokyo based Aoife Tamura, Sydneysiders Andrew Hmnelinsky and Luke Taaffe, Brisbane’s Jan Van Djirk and Eileen Timbrell, and local Northern Rivers’ artists Anna Nordstrum, Cal Mackinnon, Cornelia Burless, Hilary Herrmann, Michelle Dawson and Alberto Sanchez and many more. See the exhibition gallery

The Far North Coaster online magazine

The art of death and dying

October 21, 2009

PICTURE: Nic Plowman’s Birth of Mortality.

"Nothing is more certain in life than death, yet it’s an experience that’s commonly hidden from our everyday reality.

A new exhibition brings the mystery out into the light and provides an opportunity to celebrate the loss of our loved ones.

In Mexico, November 1st is celebrated every year as the Day of the Innocents or the Day of the Little Angels.

November 2nd is the better-known holiday, the Day of the Dead, when large groups of family and friends invade graveyards en masse, to celebrate and commune with their dear departed.

By comparison, Western society often makes very little of death, hiding those we have lost away in eternally quiet cemeteries.
Sadness and grief are individual pursuits largely dealt with behind closed doors, or in clinics where grief-ridden family and friends boost already frightening statistics concerning Australia’s depressed population.

Byron Bay personality Zenith Virago is part of a small committed group who are trying to change this aspect of our local culture.
A celebrant of life’s most momentous circumstance, she has for the past 15 years specialised in the fields of love and marriage, and death and dying.

Since 2007, Virago has organised an annual event, where people come together to honour their dead, in a bid to make death more familiar.
Held in Mullumbimby on the second Sunday in November, it’s a step towards a healthier community that allows people to deal with bereavement.

Art is a really big part of that process, she believes, and has therefore become a major element of her celebration.

The first hour of the event is an opportunity for people to make something as a memento of those that they miss – a prayer flag, clay heart or anything they want, and inscribe it with a message.

Bree Delian from Retrospect Galleries Byron Bay agrees that art plays an important role in bridging the gap between life and ‘the other’.
Concerned that a lot of the ritual surrounding death in other societies is lost in the West, she has decided it’s time for a reminder.
“Although we are confronted by death and violence in the media every day, we have shunted it away in our society,” she comments.

“In pagan societies there was a much stronger connection and a much more outward display of death, which was beautiful and beneficial to people.”

“Looking at Mexico’s Day of the Dead, it’s so alien to us that people dress up, go to gravesites, take food for their ancestors, sing them songs, take part in parades and festivities.

“But looking at other cultures and how they deal with death and give it purpose, can give life a new purpose too.”

This year, for the first time, Delian is organising an exhibition that gives artists the opportunity to explore the boundaries of religion, death, magic and mystery.

Featuring works by more than 20 established and emerging international, national and local artists, she hopes that The Day of the Dead will give people a glimpse into the realm of mystery, and make us rethink the importance of ritual.

Well-known local artist James Guppy is amongst those who have agreed to be in the show, which he says deals with a theme he has been painting for decades.

“Once we have a consciousness of death, we live our whole lives with it,” Guppy said.

“Very early on in my career, one of my earliest works was a painting about the death of my father.

“These days I often allude to death in my work and sometimes quite explicitly, using symbols such as flowers, in an effort to imbue the mystery of our passing to this ‘amniotic other place’ with a sense of poetic significance.”

Guppy has known Zenith Virago for years and says they are both striving to give death meaning.
“Zenith’s work is about introducing rituals that make it easier for the survivors to find sense in all of this,” he says. “I’m just trying to find meaning for myself, and hopefully that will help others.”

Brisbane artist Nic Plowman has been practising successfully for years but has largely come to public’s attention since his sellout 2008 Magic Sex Death exhibition.

31 years ago Plowman was born with a congenital heart disease and has spent his whole life in and out of hospitals and on medication.

Whilst the concept of death isn’t something that a lot of young people even think about, he says he can’t remember a time when those thoughts weren’t part of his reality.

Magic Sex Death is a collection of searing self-portraits in which skeletal figures and symbols such as crows frequently appear, surrounding the artist, as he appears attached to a variety of medical equipment.

“In trying to convey my experience of life and death to the viewer, I’ve realised that the most personal art is sometimes the most universal,” Plowman said.

“I know that one of the people who has bought a lot of my art is an open-heart surgeon. You never know who’s looking at your work and what life experience they’re bringing to it.”

Zenith Virago, James Guppy and Nic Plowman will share their experiences of art, death and modern ritual in a panel discussion to be held on Halloween eve at Harvest Café, Newrybar, Saturday, October 31st.

Limited tickets are available at $60 per person, which includes a two-course meal and drink on arrival. Bookings at Retrospect Galleries, Byron Bay, 6680 8825.

The Day of the Dead exhibition opens 6pm-9pm on Sunday November 1, until November 22.

It features works by local Northern Rivers’ artists James Guppy, Hilary Herrmann, Michelle Dawson, Christine Wilcox, Katka Adams, Stephen Phibbs, Anna Nordstrom, Cornelia Burless, Craig Martin, Alberto Sanchez and Cornelius Delaney, Brisbane’s Nic Plowman, Jan Van Djirk and Aileen Timbrell, Sydneysiders Andrew Hmnelinsky and Luke Taffe, Californians Harry the Hat and Kelsey Brookes, Tokyo based Aoife Tamura.

Dress in the style of Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations and join the artists for an evening of art, wine and live music with Mexico Lindo.

More information, www.retrospectgalleries.com"

You can read the article here...

We are very excited to come to Art Sydney this year. The exhibition opens from October 22nd-24th and we are proud to showcase some of our most exciting artists. We will be at stand F11 and we would love to see you come and visit us. We do have some day passes and 10 VIP passes to the opening night to give away. If you would like to come please send us an email to admin@retrospectgalleries.com and express interest in the giveaway tickets. It's first in best dressed. We hope to see all our fantastic Sydney clients there...

Dave Bowers recently painted a brand new Fender Guitar to help promote the White Album concerts and Fender has made it into the leading item on their home page!

Read his essay on the piece or see more photos >

View more of Dave Bower's work