Milton Ulladulla Times

Thanks to Ron Aggs for including a feature on the Murray-Burgess hands in a recent article in the Milton Ulladulla Times. This work has been accepted for Sculpture at Killalea, Shell Harbour.

"GARDEN POP-UP: These 80 hands took several months to make, the artists' response to the global refugee crisis and what they regard as Australia’s inhumane off-shore detention centres. Photo: Ken Banks"

"GARDEN POP-UP: These 80 hands took several months to make, the artists' response to the global refugee crisis and what they regard as Australia’s inhumane off-shore detention centres. Photo: Ken Banks"

Murray & Burgess - homesweethome

Ro Murray and Mandy Burgess in collaboration for the installation:

homesweethome

Opening drinks Saturday 2 July 2-4pm
Closing drinks Sunday 10 July 2-4pm

2-10 July: Thursday to Sunday 11am-4pm
Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Pidcock Street, Camperdown

 

1 in every 122 people in the world are displaced (2014 UNHCR Report)

There were 367 children in immigration detention seeking asylum in Australia as of April 2016(Asylum Seeker Resource Centre)

 “The shrinking of imaginative identification which allows such things as shared humanity to be forgotten always begins at home” (Robinson 2012, 31) (Imagining…P16)

Home is a ‘spatial imaginary’ to which we attach feelings of both refuge and danger. It includes in its meaning an idea of where we can safely settle and daydream, but also an idea of exclusion. It encompasses the gamut of what it means to be human. Our exhibition homesweethome looks at the notion of home in the light of global displacement and the local detention of refugees and asks us to look at our human responses to crisis.

At Chrissie Cotter Gallery -  Entry space: we are all strangers, 2016, wire, hessian, plaster, dimensions variable Main space: home, 2015-16, plywood, wood, canvas, paint, stain, wire, dimensions variable.

Bush Tucker Doesn't Use Plastic

This installation in Sculpture on the Greens is a reminder of how much non-biodegradable plastic we purchase every day. The work uses 5 months of saved plastic containers from my breakfast blue berries and yoghurt, found poly piping and cable spools.

On view at Mercure Kooindah Waters Wyong until 22 May

Residency BigCi - Bilpin, NSW

I was lucky to have a four week art residency at Bilpin international ground for Creative initiatives (BigCi). Directors sculptor Rae Bolotin and conservationist Yuri Bolotin purpose built the new eco shed to make art with roller doors, double height space and steel walls for magnetic fittings for hanging drawings. My time there coincided with Dublin artist Mairead  O’hEocha and documentary film maker  Vanessa Macedo. I had the space to start several projects.

Work started in preparation for “homesweethome,” an exhibition with fellow NAS grad Mandy Burgess at Chrissie Cotter Gallery Pidcock Street, Camperdownin June 29-July 10 2016. I drew international and local visitors to BigCi onto plywood.

Eastern Europe

A trip to Prague, Vienna, London and Budapest was inspiring to get a different view point to Sydney, looking at architecture and art.

A train trip out of Prague to a UNESCO town Kutna Hora to see the Sedlec Ossuary. This was a memento mori from an abolished cemetery. This mausoleum had a surprising continuity with the Alexander McQueen fashion exhibition in V&A London, with a room of bones. 

This contrast of opposites Unexpectedly to hear a Gershwin Concert and see the mosaic dome and surrounds in the Spanish Synagogue in Prague. 

Out of Prague, Litomerice a small town with large square with a painting and print exhibition by Hodonsky in old deconsecrated Jesuit Church. Nearby the Terezin Monument at the Nazi transfer station.

Vienna Biennale had reflective tank of black dyed water “Rose of Nothingness ” 2015 by Belu –Simion Fainaru, similar in effect (but not meaning)to the sump oil installation at Saatchi Gallery in London “20:50” 1987 by Richard Wilson, epic illusion; and at the House of Terror, Budapest under the military tank.

Above - Marc Quinn "Toxic Sublime" at White Cube, London

While in London I had the opportunity to visit galleries with fellow National Art School graduate Laura Jeanes-Ellenberger. Great to have a local guide to crisscross London to see galleries I hadn’t seen and share thoughts.