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| Andy Devine, Conversations in Landscape, 2011, installation view |
Our Gunyah residency will provide a welcome change of environment, an opportunity for time outside routine and a chance to focus on creating art as a priority, rather than finding time for art between work, family and other commitments. Like many artists, we are working towards negotiating that delicate balance and maintaining our practices.
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| Caelli Jo Brooker, Marked Difference, 2012 monotype, ink, oil, acrylic, crayon, thread, paper, card and chenille sticks |
Caelli Jo Brooker and Andy Devine previously shared a studio during their postgraduate study, and have since worked together on many projects as gallery committee members, curators and exhibition participants. They see their Gunyah residency as a unique chance to maintain these artistic connections and recreate their supportive studio atmosphere for generating ideas, discussion and critique.
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| Caelli Jo Brooker, Warm Serrata, 2010, monotype and oil on paper |
Although Caelli and Andy have quite different practices, their work finds an overlap in portraying elements of landscape; whether literal or symbolic, internal or external, natural or industrial.
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| Andy Devine, Fool's Gold #1, 2012, acrylic on board |
“The Gunyah residency will give me a chance to work in a very different environment to the one I’m used to, and give me a great platform to plein-air paint the coastal areas. These works produced during the Gunyah residency would be used as visual research for a travelling exhibition at Maitland Regional Art Gallery in 2013, exploring the nocturnal relationship between the evening sky, landscape and possible human traces of historical activities."
(Andy Devine)
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| Caelli Jo Brooker, The Cave: A Dialogue, 2009/10, (detail view) Artist's book: monotype, acrylic, ink, oil, wax and crayon |
“My time at Gunyah will renew my studio focus. Keen to leave the laptop at home, I'll explore fundamental forms of mark-making through drawing. These works will form research for a group exhibition, also at Maitland Regional Art Gallery in 2013, that navigates the significance of bird related imagery in contemporary art.”
(Caelli Jo Brooker)
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| Caelli Jo Brooker |
Caelli Jo Brooker is an artist, designer, teacher and postgraduate student from Maitland, NSW, undertaking research exploring materiality, hapticity and mark-making in the digital age. She teaches design in the Faculty of Creative Industries at Hunter TAFE and works as a casual academic at the University of Newcastle. Caelli has also worked as a gallery director, arts administrator and curator. She came to art and design through printmaking, and her practice engages with line and gesture as visual language and the deconstruction of figurative elements into organic abstraction. Caelli's areas of speciality are mark-making, monotypes and artists’ books.
For more information on Caelli's practice go to www.caellijobrooker.com
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| Andy Devine |
Andy Devine was born in Middlesbrough, England and he studied at the Cleveland College of Art & Design in the UK, then furthered his art practice at Newcastle Art School after relocating to Australia. Here he gained an Advanced Diploma in Fine Art and several academic achievement awards. Recently he completed his Masters of Philosophy in Fine Art at the University of Newcastle, where he previously gained a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours 1st Class), the Faculty Medal and University Medal. Andy has continued to exhibit extensively, in solo and group shows at artist-run, commercial, and regional galleries.
For more information on Andy's practice go to www.andydevine.com.au
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| Andy Devine, Mass #1, 2012, acrylic on canvas |
