Sue Saxon: upcoming artist-in-residence

Sue Saxon's twenty year painting and installation practice has included an eight month field trip across Australia and residencies in Budapest, New York and Paris. She's charted the emotional and physical geographies of memory; drawing on popular culture, philosophical texts and the elemental, symbolic and sensuous qualities of materials such as paprika, salt, flour, tears and eggshells. Sue's critical engagement with her own history and a desire to rupture the status quo combines to infuse her work with multiple layers of metaphor and meaning.

Sue Saxon, Sarah and Hagar, emu eggshells on paper

I am currently engaged in an eggshell mosaic and sculpture project which playfully conflates the conventions and tropes of birdwatching, or “twitching”, with the processes of ordering and stereotyping. I'm gathering visual, scientific and aural information about the habits of the coastal avian community to consider the ways we stereotype the human members of our community. The final two and three dimensional works will depict profiles of beaks and noses, silhouettes and birding paraphernalia. They will reflect on the reasons and consequences of using stereotypes to help order our world. For example, the compulsive repetition of stereotypes can reveal a dominant group’s anxieties and instabilities, as it does its power to control the social world. Stereotypes ‘explain’ real or imaginary differences, contribute to group bonding and enhance the power holder’s self esteem, serving as a tool of border keeping and maintenance of the political, social and economic status quo.

Sue Saxon, Facing the Other II, chicken eggshells on paper

While my project may appear whimsical, it’s armed with serious intent! It continues my interest in the processes of stereotyping and its role in the construction of `Otherness’. During my Gunyah residency I will draw, photograph and record birdlife in the Port Stephens district and assist in developing my project’s themes.

(Sue Saxon, July 2011)

Sue Saxon, Facing the Other I, chicken eggshells on paper

For more information and images of Sue Saxon's artwork please visit www.suesaxon.com

Kurt Sorensen: artist-in-residence June 2011

I have always wanted to create a series of photographs depicting the maritime stories surrounding the area from Newcastle to Port Stephens, and in particular the islands just of the coast. Gunyah offered me the perfect opportunity to begin this work.

Looking out to the water from the Gunyah kitchen, photo by Kath Fries

The house set on the water at North Arm Cove is a wonderful place to visit. My wife and I enjoyed cooking in the spacious kitchen, sitting by the open fire and looking out over the water views. The setting allowed me time to further research the events and areas that I wanted to photograph.  It was so inspiring that the amount of opportunities to create work out weighed the time I was there ten fold.

Gunyah is a wonderful place and I hope it continues to give artists of all disciplines the opportunity to create work in a beautiful, inspiring setting. I certainly hope to be back!

Kurt Sorensen 

artist-in-residence June 2011

To see Kurt Sorensen’s residency proposal please follow this link and for more information and images of his work please see www.kurtsorensen.com

Emily Valentine Bullock: upcoming artist-in-residence

Emily Valentine Bullock is a Sydney based artist, she studied jewelry and object design at Sydney College of the Arts. She has exhibited extensively around Australia and New Zealand as well as in touring group exhibitions overseas. Her work has been collected by the National Library of Australia; Northern Territory Art Gallery; World-of-wearable-art Museum, Nelson NZ; Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui NZ;  and various private collections. 

Emily Valentine Bullock, Kitty Keet, 2011,
feathers and mixed media

Feathers are my paint. Over the last twelve years I have developed my own technique and style using feathers. The source of the feathers is vital to my work and utilises what is available locally. My work shows sympathy with the bird’s previous life and creates a new life form. My ‘Dog Flu’ series continues to develop and I am also making feathered aeroplanes exploring how humans now colonise the skies. 

Emily Valentine Bullock, Pupella i & ii, 2010,
feathers and mixed media

Attitudes to wearing and owning animals and birds parts have changed. Is this just because of fashion, or has society become more caring of animals? I wish to stimulate the viewer with the uncomfortable nature of the feather, to question our callous treatment of animals and birds, and ask how we sub-consciously classify animals – pet or pest, valued or worthless, beautiful or plain - and why.

For more information and images of Emily Valentine Bullock's artwork please visit www.emilyvalentine.com.au

Emily Valentine Bullock, Kingfisher Squadron, 2010,
feathers and mixed media, 13x13x5cm each

Emma Medwell and Vanessa White: upcoming artists-in-residence

Vanessa White, On the other side of Murray's, 2011, animation still

Emma Medwell and Vanessa White have been friends for many years and began exhibiting together six years ago. They enjoy working as mutual sounding boards for each other's practices, sharing knowledge, skills and ideas. During their residency at Gunyah, Medwell and White will be developing individual new projects for their upcoming exhibitions in Wollongong.

Emma Medwell, Nippers Sea Thrones, 2011, Thirroul

Medwell was born in the UK and is now based in the South Coast of NSW. She has studied at UNSW and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art from National Art School NSW. Medwell has had numerous exhibitions in the Illawarra and Sydney, including collaborative projects with Pamela Lee Brenner for Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi and Cottesloe, and Sculpture in the Vineyards Hunter Valley. She is currently working with found natural products including wood, feathers and slate to engage with the interconnection of nature and humanity, exploring the condition of being human, human-nature and how we connection with our natural environment. Medwell implements humor to communicate these ideas by situating human manufactured elements and smothering them in natural products, placing them into the natural environment.

Emma Medwell, Nippers Sea Thrones, 2011,  Thirroul

Vanessa White’s art practice is multidisciplinary, investigative and experimental. She completed under-graduate studies at Victoria College of the Arts, Melbourne and graduated with a Masters in Visual Art from Sydney University in 2010. White has exhibited in Sydney and Melbourne, most recently at Firstdraft Depot Project Space, Woolloomooloo NSW and Firstdraft Gallery, Surry Hills NSW.  White was a 2010 artist-in-residence at Hill End. Through drawing, painting, animation and performance White creates life size animations, exploring physical interactions with a two-dimensional world drawn from life and her physical play and reciprocal action with it. The result is a new visual language that connects with the viewers’ own expression and experience of the body, giving voice to and acknowledging the importance of bodily experience.

For more information and images of Vanessa White's artwork please visit www.vanessawhite.me

Vanessa White, An action the precise nature of which is often unspecified, 2011
Video one of two channel video installation

Britta Stenmanns: upcoming artist-in-residence

Britta Stenmanns was born in Germany and now lives in the Southern Highlands, New South Wales. She studied graphic-design in Duesseldorf, woodcarving in Bavaria and painting at the School of Fine Arts in Bremen. Stenmanns’ artistic practice has taken her to London, Madrid, Deya Spain and Mexico City where she completed postgraduate studies at the Academia San Carlos. Stenmanns has held eight solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group exhibitions in Germany, Spain, Mexico, France, Poland, Belgium and Australia. Her work is represented in various private and public collections in Spain (George Sheridan Collection and La Resedencia), Poland (City of Glogow), Germany (City of Bremen), Australia (ANU) and USA.

Derived from sketches painted on site, my present body of work, ‘In between’, is based on a set of dynamic gestures using strong, emotive, contrasting colours and abstracted shapes to produce spaces suggestive of a garden.  My woodcarvings have their own integral narratives that I sometimes collage into my paintings. There is a dialogue between my works that aims to open a space of emotional reflection.

For more information about Britta Stenmanns' practice please visit www.brittastenmanns.com.au

Britta Stenmanns, FOBITU, 2007, installation, Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi

Kurt Sorensen: upcoming artist-in-residence

Kurt Sorensen is a photographic artist based in Sydney, NSW. He has been a finalist in the Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award, Fisher's Ghost Art Prize and the John Fries Memorial Prize. Sorensen exhibits nationally, most recently at Queensland Centre for Photography and At the Vanishing Point Sydney. Later this year he will be artist-in-residence at Hill End, courtesy Bathurst Regional Gallery. 

Kurt Sorensen, Port Jackson #2, 2010, photograph

Sorensen's artwork captures ordinary places with a wide focus area and the absence of human figures. By utilising the natural or available light, shade and vivid colour sources he creates scenes with a great air of expectation, which are filled with uncertainty, intensity and an atmosphere of emotional potentiality. Sorensen follows a strict and somewhat traditional photographic process; printing directly from negatives or digitally printing from high resolution scans without digital enhancement.

Kurt Sorensen, Port Jackson #3, 2010, photography

Currently my photographic work takes its inspiration from Colonial history and its relationship to the Australian landscape. I am particularly interested in the effect that landscape can have on human endeavour, specifically the misplaced confidence that Europeans have had in their ability to tame a wild and unfamiliar landscape such as Australia’s. This over confidence often influenced human behaviour towards feats of bold achievement or utter tragedy. 

I recently completed a series of photographs that depicted the wreck of the Dunbar on the cliffs at the entrance to Port Jackson (near the Gap) in 1857, this is still the worst peacetime disaster in Australia's maritime history. The events that surrounded the wreck are shrouded in misplaced confidence, the worst combination of conditions and a hint of the unexplained. The sole survivor was Able Seaman James Johnson. He survived by being washed up onto a cliff ledge by the heavy seas. He was not discovered until 2 days after the wreck as his cries for help were drowned out by the crashing waves. James Johnson went on to become the lighthouse keeper at Newcastle. On the afternoon of the 12th of July, 1866 the steam ship Cawarra with 61 souls aboard wrecked north of Newcastle harbour. Johnson, the only survivor of the Dunbar, was on duty at the lighthouse and remarkably helped to  save the Cawarra's only survivor Frederick Hedges. Hedges was found clutching a copy of the Book of Devotions and carrying on his person a baby's caul. It was believed that seaman carrying these items would never be lost at sea. 

This story would form the basis of a new photographic series that I will work on during my residency at Gunyah, focusing on the area in and around Newcastle and Port Stephens. My new series will also tie in with my larger ambition to publish a book photographically chronicling a selection of events from colonial maritime history.

(Kurt Sorensen, April 2011)

Kurt Sorensen, Port Jackson #4, 2010, photograph

For more information and images of Kurt Sorensen's work please visit 
www.kurtsorensen.com

The space of a studio

"The studio, whether it be in a physical room or lodged in the mind and imagination, is a space to pause and think, a generative space that does not run counter to the world at large, but is positioned at a certain distance and remove from it. It provides a way for an artist to create ... moving beyond gut reaction to a headspace that is more contemplative and insightful." 
(Christopher Y. Lew, 2011)

North Arm Cove, Port Stephens