I keep hearing about how galleries are closing; but new galleries are opening too and some rippers like China Heights just keep doing what they do and keep doing it well. So lets kick off with my first visit to
Cement Fondu (CF) (website coming soon) CF opened on the 10th of this month with a beautifully curated group show
SUBURBIA. This is a colourful show of installations, photography, ceramics, drawings and mixed media work on, you guessed it suburbia. Only the selection of artists and their own visions of suburbia while remaining somewhat familiar, will certainly shift your perception of what is suburbia, and how it is for some who are for whatever reason on the
periphery. Pictured directly below is my portrait of Caroline Garcia - post Live Performance & floor talk at CF with House #7 by Garry Trinh as a background.
The post performance floor talk was actually really illuminating as to immigration and integration into Australian suburban society. It was during this talk that I realised that Garry Trinh's "Houses" represented a shuttering of suburban society to those new people moving in around them. I mean maybe it should have been obvious (but then I'm a white anglo Aussie) and the context of the show made this very clear! That said, the installation has a lot of whimsy bright colour and is an overwhelmingly enjoyable experience and I can't wait to see more shows from Cement Fondu!
I've know of
Disorder Gallery for a while now but have only just made it to two my first shows there. On NOW, the beautiful new show from Catherine Hourihan - dance inspired images with a contrast of youth and age, beautiful images and really lovely matte prints - you need to seem them on the walls, not on some glossy glowing screen!
China Heights - Even after all these years attending an opening at CH still feels like like being part of some underground yet very cool art society. I'm not sure if that's because it seems way off peoples radar or they just can't handle the coolness factor! That said I think (not unlike the recently closed Black Eye) many of their artists seem to come from commercial design and advertising backgrounds - like Andy Warhol & Willem de Kooning did - but in Sydney that still seems to be a bit of a no-no to the art establishment. I enjoyed seeing
"they used to call me" Rad Dan by Daniel R. Watkins on Friday night, the work reminding me a little of 1960's British Pop artist Richard Hamilton. CH have the slightly unusual practice of Friday openings followed by Sat/Sun only viewings so check the
website first if you want to see the work.
Phillippa Griffin and Sam Ramsden's
The New Standard Gallery has been up and running for a little over a year now (I think). The Current show Brad Teodoruk,
PROOF IS AN IDOL is a show that feels very much, one from a stable of artists coming from Sydney's strong art school traditions and I perhaps felt more my age at this opening than I do at CH! Lovely skilled painting, don't be fooled by the painting out and naive approach to form - it's anything but that..
And if you like the pictures on this blog; you can view them larger on my Street Fashion Sydney
Facebook page here - and don't forget to Follow too - all of these shots without the review appeared there first.
https://www.facebook.com/StreetFashionSydney/
http://cementfondu.org/
https://www.disordergallery.com/
https://chinaheights.com/
http://www.thenewstandardgallery.com/
Telling Stories in Pictures all over..
Kent Johnson, Sydney, Australia.
0433 796 863
