The Australia Council for the Arts has supported four emerging artists to make new work for Primavera 2014, which opened last week at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney.
Australia Council Director Visual Arts Julie Lomax said the four young artists – Ben Denham, Hossein Ghaemi, Emily Hunt and Marian Tubbs – had submitted innovative and creative proposals and she was looking forward to seeing the finished product at the exhibition.
“The Australia Council is proud to support young artists to create new work and participate in events like Primavera, which has become an important platform to gain exposure and recognition in the visual arts scene,” said Ms Lomax.
“The Australia Council is about supporting the life of the artist and we have supported many in previous years to exhibit at Primavera. A number of these artists have gone on to become respected contributors to the Australian visual arts, including Eric Bridgeman, Michaela Gleave and Hiromi Tango.”
“It is particularly exciting to see Mikala Dwyer, who featured in the inaugural Primavera in 1992, chosen as curator of this year’s exhibition. The Australia Council recognised her talent more than 20 years ago when she received her first grant and we have continued to support her work, as recently as this year.”
Primavera Curator Mikala Dwyer said she travelled extensively throughout Australia to curate this year’s exhibition and viewed the work of many brilliant young artists.
“When I think through the work of the artists I’ve selected for Primavera all sorts of ideas, interest and associations pop up, including surrealism, robotics, queer fertility, ritual, time, witchcraft, science, alchemy, dreaming and telepathy,” said Ms Dwyer.
For Primavera 2014 Ben Denham has created a new friction-based control system for a tri-axis motorised drawing machine, which includes a custom laser system. The laser will burn marks onto paper and provide a precise translation of time into line.
Hossein Ghaemi’s practice involves painting, installation and costumed choral performance work. As a Persian artist he is also interested in how the voice can represent spiritual acts and rituals. For the exhibition he has directed three video installations of choral performance works, with the assistance of a cinematographer and video editor.
Emily Hunt’s work focuses on her interest in the grotesque and the history and aesthetics of German Renaissance print-making and social caricature. For the exhibition she has used two mediums – ceramics on deep mirrored shelving winding through the gallery and collaged watercolours in mirror box frames to create two-sided Janus heads to be viewed in 360 degrees.
Marian Tubbs has expanded on her practice of material poetics that address living in late capitalism. She has created a sprawling installation of digital collages and functionless objects that result from industrial metal and plastic processes pushed experimentally beyond limits. The work will question: what is a thing of industry and what is a thing of art?
Primavera is an annual exhibition for Australian artists aged 35 and under. It was founded in 1992 by Dr Edward Jackson AM and Mrs Cynthia Jackson AM and their family in memory of their daughter Belinda, a talented jeweller who died aged 29.
Primavera 2014 runs until 30 November at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. For more information, visit: www.mca.com.au for details.
Image: Hossein Ghaemi Give in/Upgrade/The New Problem (64), 2012, ceramic, acrylic, enamel – image courtesy the artist and the Commercial Gallery, Sydney