Adelaide | melbourne press

With International travel becoming compromised by health and safety travesties, it’s time for a road trip. The last days of Summer, Adelaide Fringe, is an ideal destination. If you have time, take the scenic ocean route, otherwise head inland via the flat farmlands, it may be a rather dull journey but there are a couple of gems on the way, including the regional Art Galleries, a pink lake and a puppet shop.

Ballarat

Ballarat’s Art Gallery hosts 11,000 works exploring themes such as Country, Place, Home & Disruption.

Top: ‘A Love Story’ by Emanuel Phillips Fox 1903 & ‘A Football Game’ Russell Drysdale 1945

Bendigo

Established Australian Artist, a Gunditjmara /Yorta man, Josh Muir explores the inner navigation of being an original people within a post Colonial culture. He is an insider and a spectator from both perspectives that would create a quandary, unique to the artists role. It also allows him to quantify insightful concepts.

Salt Lake

The naturally pink lake is a stella stop on the way and a great place for a walk and picnic. The calm rose lake and it’s white shores create a surreal environment and a nice place to unwind and contemplate.

Puppet shop

Expect the unexpected. After a series of townships that offer the traveller mere basics; bad coffee, fried food and petrol we stumble across the Kaniva Puppet shop! Creative entrepreneurs, find niches and see beyond limitations. The shop and its mini theatre has enhanced the local schools creative agenda.

Fringe Festival

Arriving at ‘The Garden of Unearthly Delights’, in Adelaide for the final week of Fringe Festival.

Comedy in the gardens

The village of semi permanent structures creates a small comic world where audience and actor share the space. Reminiscent of pre-industrial fairs with contemporary flair the buildings are as fascinating as the shows. Cafe/Bars populate under the trees as we sit with a glass of wine and enjoy the last days of summer.

COVID-19’s sinister destruction awaits, like a show in the wings; ending such festivals for a time and half a time.

Art is language and in many countries pictures are a part of dialogue. The inviting interiors of Cue, De Souza, Hughes and Selleck examine the priorities of pretext and invite interactive, participation. The exhibition moves away from traditional painting and allows a multi-media vioce.

Let’s meet the ART

GEORGINA CUE

Living Room, 2016

The Living room, sets an exotic stage for a classical diva in what appears like an ancient setting. The bold artwork seems to have a Cubist influence with an early Century twist. Both powerful and beautiful, the photographic work ,an inkjet on rag-paper, is a central work in the exhibition.

REBECCA SELLECK

Lapin Plague, 2016

This is an engaging installation, on many levels, firstly it invites you into it. It is a homely domestic scene with what appears to be, occupied by small rabbits. On closer examination the (heated) rabbit skins have no heads, therefore they are not alive. ‘Outside of the cage’, it would appear that the rabbits and humans are enjoying a shared space and when you touch the skins they are robust and warm, but they are not.

KEG DE SOUZA

Interior

We built this city

This impressive structure is made from salvaged tents and plaid laundry bags. Within the interior is a communal area with milk crates to sit on and books on the history of the Tent Embassy in Canberra. Coming off the main ‘room’ are an array of small tent rooms. It is the perfect Festival space, providing your guests have house manners, better than a Tipi because there are rooms, however a tad flammable.

The concept of tribe and tent and engaging in the environment as opposed to destroying it, is an old age concept, in Western Culture according to the old testament, the Christian/ Jewish God lived in a tent.

The added beauty whist in the tent is listening to the haunting sound of traditional Fado singers, from the outside film by Jacobus Capon that examines memories of a home gone. The Australian factor is that we came as refugees, yet our memories resonate. Are we adapting or are we all in a state of diaspora.

JACOBUS CAPONE

Forgiving night for day.

Multiple films projected onto the Art Gallery wall are of lone characters watching the dawn above the rooftops of Lisbon, Portugal. Capone examines the state of nostalgia. It is an absorbing work, visually engaging as the sound-scape floods the skies above the sleeping town.

NATALYA HUGHES

All of Your Women and Some of Mine, 2016

An interior space with a strong Mattise influence, using decorative abstract contrasts in colour and pattern, appearing like a digital construct..

TONY ALBERT

Exotica (Mid Century Modern)

Albert’s political comment on the state of our country as an ashtray, is in dire contrast of the pristine land that was taken from its previous owners.

‘Albert has developed a universal language that seeks to rewrite historical mistruths and injustice.’

SARAH CONTOS

The Long Kiss Goodbye

‘The winning work of art is titled Sarah Contos Presents: The Long Kiss Goodbye and brings together personal remnants of Contos’ practice from the last four years’. Contos was awarded $100,000 for this mixed medium collaged ‘quilt’.

April Forward