The End Of Twenty By Thirty

Until September 31.

Julian Smith

JULIAN SMITH, 'An Indefensible Curiosity', Gouache and Acrylic on Paper, 2009.

What are the machinations that enable a deferment of empathy? What is it that allows one person's grief or distress to be offered as entertainment when doing so to another is unthinkable? Is the accepted disdain and ridicule of a celebrity's breakdown the start of a slippery slope towards a general and lasting desensitisation to the pain of any person?

These are the questions that brought about the work An Indefensible Curiosity at TwentyByThirty Gallery.

Julian Smith is a Melbourne-based artist with an upcoming solo exhibition at C3 Contemporary Art Space in Abbotsford from September 1, 2010.

Until August 31.

Coming Soon: The End of TwentyByThirty

Coming Later: Charles O'Loughlin

Darcey Arnold

DARCEY ARNOLD, Indigo-Child, Citrine, Rhinestone, Plastic, Wood, 2010

The ascendancy of the eye, a universal symbol shared by primordial and contemporary science, pseudo-science, art and religion. The disembodied eye, speculative and observational, the unblinking eye of the fixed gaze, forever opened window to the soul, “this me-that is, the soul by which I am what I am-is completely distinct from the body: and is even easier to know than is the body”.

Arnold’s work reflects on the analysis of the maternal, as the ground for subjectivity. Society considers mothering as an extension of growth, but it is clear that pregnancy and motherhood is not a useful archetype for maternity at all. This marks the split between nature and culture, intellect and body.

The eye imagery of the work is loaded with symbols of orifices, eggs, testicles, the sun, sperm, and breasts. The eye retains the "time-honoured function of the penetrating gaze, able to pierce appearances to 'see' essences beneath”. A displaced, stagnant or disembodied eye is most common in Arnold’s practice, a symbol for the origin of subjectivity. Her work retains a disembodied stillness, which takes from its Surrealist tradition in the iconic action of sadistically terminating vision. Through hyper-real mediation of materials it locates itself within the supernatural environments of science fiction, as her work often seduces the viewer into an uncanny environment, the seduction of horror, seen here in the seduction of the resplendent red chakra adorning the alien Indigo-Child.

Her forms are organic yet mutilated; the surfaces are plastic and glossy; rhinestones luminous and shimmering; synthetic skin white and glowing.

Until July 31

Coming soon: Julian Smith

Coming later: Cougar Flashy

Simon Pericich

SIMON PERICICH. 'PIXSELLS', .gif promo for youtube video 4;57min, 2010.

(CLICK HERE FOR A LINK TO THIS VID ON YOUTUBE)

In 2009 a third of all websites on the Internet were of a porn content. Porn is basically responsible for every advance in communication technologies through its constant demand and the creative freedoms allowed by its revenue. Today 89$ is spent on porn every second- that works out at around $28 billion every year.*

Simon Pericichs' hysterical, dark brand of makeshift art production is concerned with the terrifying awareness that humanity and its current actions are irrationally selfish and detrimental. Traversing large- scale installation, video and image his dystopias are often nihilistically humorous, acting like an epitaph and harbinger for a future that seems out of the control of its population. Sometimes stemming from the autobiographical, sometimes from the stance of a detached trend consumer, Simons’ practice forms transitory bonds between audience members and acts as an invitation or platform to participate. Simon tends to recycle found or commonplace materials and techniques to create obsessive topical products that point toward a dark future.
*(from the book; SEX, BOMBS AND BURGERS. Peter Nowak)

Until June 30.

Coming Soon: Darcey Arnold

Coming Later: Julien Smith

Al Ouchtomsky

AL OUCHTOMSKY,'Growls Garden', paper, card, foam core and hot glue, 2010.

Alexander Ouchtomsky’s work is formed by the collection and recombination of found images and objects. He finds the construction and composition of his work an instinctual process. The act of hunting for hard rubbish and digging for picture books informs the work's adventurous and journey like qualities.

The work presents potential ideas of an imagined universe. Hybrid creatures and imagined primitive beings are reincarnated through dissecting and stitching together existing earthly specimens. Within these fictional environments the work reflects on the evolutionary adaptation of the inhabitants. Questions are raised about the found objects previous origins and how they reflect on both the imagined and existing environmental contexts. Alexander Ouchtomsky is currently hanging out and playing Nintendo.

Unitl June 1.

Ramona Lola Angelico

Ramona Lola Angelico, "Sinkhole', Mixed Media, 2010

We have reached a turning point in history, and the beginning of a new era. The tensions and dreams of progress and the realities of emerging disaster are now plainly apparent. The system of progress we once clung to has collapsed; it is thoroughly ‘ruptured’ from within and riddled with contradictions. We are now navigating a discontinuous and uncertain world.

Ramona Lola Angelico is an artist whose work in sculpture, installation, collage and video, explores ideologies of survivalism, apocalypse and neo-spiritualism. Ramona’s work often reveals a dual preoccupation with annihilation and salvation, suggesting the clarity these states might potentially provoke, whilst reflecting on humankind’s awe-inspiring resourcefulness, inclination for destruction, and precarious relationship to nature.

For Twenty by Thirty Ramona has constructed a miniature model of a sinkhole. A sinkhole is a natural depression or hole in the surface topography. Sinkholes can form gradually or suddenly. They are often human-induced and have been correlated to land-use practices such as construction, and development. The manipulation of scale, means that the sinkhole exists in a world where time is arrested; it’s stillness emphasizes the activity outside of it’s borders, the scale of the sinkhole has the capacity to create transcendent time, allowing us a transcendent godlike vision.

Until April 30.

Coming Soon: Al Ouchtomsky

Kate Rohde

Kate Rohde, Tiny Geology, polyester resin & glitter 2010

Kate Rohde’s recent sculptures and installations utilise an extensive range of craft and hardware materials including silicone, expanding foam, fake fur, various resins and rice paper. With these she creates a collection of zoological, botanical and geological specimens.

Tiny Geology shares Kate's fascination with the notion that natural history museum displays must appear inviting, almost artful, functioning to inspire the viewer's appetitie for sensation, rather than representing a naturalistic setting.

Her work at Twentybythirty gallery incorporates numerous imitation crystals made from cast polyester resin, suggesting that inside the walls of a city a mysterious colony of crystals flourishes.

Until March 31

Coming Soon: Ramona Angelico

Coming Later: Al Ouchtomsky

Brendan Huntley

BRENDAN HUNTLEY,"One of the Gang", Glazed Ceramic, 2010.

"Huntley’s work makes me think that things really are as simple or as complex as you make them. Look around. Some things don’t need to be explained. Perhaps everything is already here, right in front of you."
Olivia Radonich.

Until Feb 28.

Coming Soon: Kate Rohde
Coming Later: Ramona Angelico

Sergei Ignatievsky & Wanda Gillespie

Sergei Ignatievsky & Wanda Gillespie, The Book Of Levitation, 2010.

In the second collaboration between artists Sergei Ignatievsky and Wanda Gillespie, the artists reveal a levitating book. ‘The book of Levitation,’ will literally float in space for a month in the world’s smallest gallery. The authoritative gothic font alludes to something pious, while the mysterious nature of its levitation suggests an otherworldliness.

Sergei Ignatievsky is a Melbourne based artist interested in kinetic sculpture, illusion, and the humorous in art. His background as an electrician has led him to creating kinetic art works.

Wanda Gillespie is a Melbourne based artist interested in materializing the immaterial through quirky or wondrous means. Fiction or prose often plays an important role in grounding her works. Wanda recently finished a Masters of Fine Art by Research at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Until February 1.

Coming Soon: Brendan Huntley
Coming Later: Kate Rhode

Belle Bassin

BELLE BASSIN, Balancing The Tides, Digital Drawing, 2009.

Peeling away the layers

Vomiting in the pool

I heard them in the garden

Breathing out in all directions

Then snapping back into one

Belinda Bassin’s art practice peers into the secret, hidden and rejected aspects of reality. Her drawing based practice also takes the form of video, sculpture and collage with an emphasis on me ditative repetition. Drawing from alternative historical cannons her works explores creation theories, alien races, conspiracies and the occult.

Until December 31.

Coming Soon: Wanda Gillespie
Coming Later: Brendan Huntley

Julia deVille

JULIA DEVILLE, Funerary Urn, Jarrah, Sterling SIlver, Bronze, Black Garnet, 2009

"...but who knows the fate of his bones, or how often he is to be buried? Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whether they are to be scattered?"

Funerary Urns have been used by many civilisations to collect a person's ashes after cremation. Sir Thomas Browne, in his 1658 work 'Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial' poetically uses the funerary urn to discuss man's struggle with mortality, the changes wrought with time and eternity, and the uncertainty of his fate and fame in this world and the next, to produce a funerary meditation tinged with melancholia.

Julia deVille's funerary objects, as well as her taxidermy, are a celebration of life and a preservation of something beautiful. DeVille's work deals with the process of mourning, and the communication between life and the afterlife.

Until November 31

Coming Soon: Bell Bassin
Coming Later: Wanda Gillespie

Tai Snaith

TAI SNAITH,Who’s the Boss?, Mixed Media, 2009

Presently in Japan there is a whole spate of adds kicking around with Tommy Lee Jones’ wrinkly tanned face looking old and withered and sad next to a rainbow can of coffee called ‘Boss’. Think Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, only older, more tired and more disillusioned.

This coffee is only available from vending machines usually on the way to or home from working for ‘the man.’ The complex messages in this product and its advertising is a constant source of entertainment for me. First of all, its’ logo is an old man smoking a pipe placed over a bright shiny girlish rainbow and secondly Suntory has now somewhat inappropriately chosen the ugly mug of Tommy Lee for its proud new mascot. Deliciously odd.

One can’t help but deduce that the coffee is the Boss.

One thing I have learnt about Japan and subsequently about advertising and commercial culture in general is that the subject matter does not always have to make logical sense to communicate an idea. These surreal clashes are everywhere you look. This tiny dream machine diorama I have made for 20x 30 explores some of the visual reality clashes that I have noted in Japan during my stay; the old living alongside the new, handmade objects by machines, animals treated as humans and fake nature masquerading as ecology.

Until October 31.

Coming Soon: Julia DeVille

Coming Later: Belle Bassin

Reiko Miyazawa

REIKO MIYAZAWA, Testtubes 1-6, mixed media, dimensions variable, 2006-09

"Testtubes 1-6": A series. An ongoing sequence of meanings. Documenting and connecting work that was, into what it is now, to what it may suggest. A collection informed by sight, insight, free reflection and association. A multi-layered and sensorial compulsion to glean information and meaning from daily life. Panning for Gold in the debris of life.

I've always been a gatherer, of many things.

Form, colour, texture; organic and manmade.

Laying them silent, for a while dormant, back in my studio, my experimental lab. Listening for the right moment to put things together; allowing materials to play off one another, the play of interactions: forms and suggestions. I know to sit back and wait; reflect. Do they reflect? Have I captured the threads from then to now? These are points, in the collecting sequence. These are questions.

Until September 31

Coming soon: Tai Snaith
Coming later: Julia DeVille

Nicole Breedon

NICOLE BREEDON, Frozen In Time, Acrylic ice cube tray, epoxy resin, glass, dimensions variable, 2009

Frozen in Time is a simple yet interesting paradox. The concept of "frozen time is enacted continually in science fiction, and occasionally comedy, the protagonist often playing out trite and predictable fantasies, which have no doubt been contemplated many times throughout history. Frozen in time is a rather banal manifestation of the nature of time, contradicting the persistent laws of physics. The ice will remain, solid, for all eternity.

Nicole Breedon is a Melbourne based artist who employs painting, carpentry and video among others, to explore the esoteric nature of our cosmos and the human psyche, such as the mind, the origins of the universe and creation, the future, time and space. Her work examines mankind's infinitesimal position within the orders of magnitude, in contrast to the profundity of the human experience.

Until September 1.

Coming Soon: Reiko Miyazawa
Coming Later: Tai Snaith

Steve Bishop

STEVE BISHOP, Meanwhile...., Digital vidoe loop (5:05), 2008

Twentybythirty Gallery is proud to present Toronto born, London based artist Steve Bishop for his first Australian exhibition in July. Bishop has exhibited light installations, sculpture, photography and video throughout Europe, US and Russia, often inviting us to re-examine familiar objects and situations.

Steve Bishop’s Meanwhile is intentionally frustrating. An exploration of the ‘establishing shot’ – television series speak for the image of the outside of Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment block, or the steps of Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment – Meanwhile grounds (and grinds) the audience into the streets of New York, but never provides the familiar faces behind the apartment windows that we are yearning to see.

Alternating between various camera-angles to focus on various recognizable sites in New York City, the video moves soundlessly from non-descript shots of the city’s skyline to uncomfortably close frames of particular apartment’s windows. The sense of frustration is aligned, in one sense, with that of a voyeur, creepily hanging out outside Serena Van Der Woodsen’s apartment block from morning until night, zooming in right up to the glass of the apartment window in a manner too predatory even for Gossip Girl.

At first glance, Meanwhile…seems a far cry from Steve Bishop’s other works, such as the mystical Behold a Pale Horse (2007), which extends and merges motifs from movie studio logos, such as Universal’s glowing earth and the beacon of light emanating from the hand of the Columbia Picture lady. The dream-like sequence gives the audience a fuller and thus more satisfying visual experience than the effect of the original advertising material. By contrast, the Meanwhile…delays the moment of satisfaction by forever ‘setting up’ the audiences’ recognition of Manhattan, but never delivering the comfort of narrative that we have learnt, over many years, to expect.

It could be said that the function of both of Bishop’s videos is to deliver the exact opposite of what it is that the viewer expects. This dissonance draws forth, after the initial confusion, a criticality of the power of contemporary media. For this consumer at least, it is sad that any image of the Manhattan skyline will forever by framed by the title of Mad About You.

Anusha Kenny, 2009.

Until July 31.

Coming Soon: Nicole Breedon

Coming Later: Tai Snaith

Andre Piguet

ANDRE PIGUET, Helstar 89, Digital video,3.35min loop, 2009.

Taking a singular experience of the once gaudy and excessive 1989 performance of Texan black metal band Helstar and transforming it into and endless cyclic experience; a kind of hyper-present – an endless now - one that uses the disintegration of information to descend into a sublime, melancholic chaos.

Andre Piguet has exhibited throughout Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne and is a finalist in upcoming 2009 Metro5 Awards. He currently spends long nights chasing the weird echo and processes a silken head of downy fur.

Until June 31.

Coming Soon: Steve Bishop
Coming Later: Nicole Breedon

Marc Martin

MARC MARTIN, 'Slug Russian', 2009.

Marc Martin is an illustrator and graphic designer based in Melbourne, Australia, working under the name Small & Quiet (www.smallandquiet.com). Currently he likes to draw slugs.

He has contributed and designed for various projects including design work for the Emerging Writers Festival (2009, 2008), Next Wave Festival –Dance Program (2008), This Is Not Art Festival (2008), and The Melbourne Underground Film Festival (2007). He has also designed and illustrated for numerous arts and literary organisations, including Harvest Magazine, Voiceworks Magazine, Wordplay collective and And Collective. He has also self-published his own book, titled 'A Forest'

Until May 31

Coming Soon: Andre Piguet
Coming Later: Steve Bishop

Andre Liew

ANDRE LIEW, The Lost Face Of Momby (iseeyoubaby)

Synthetic wig, epoxy resin, mirror, 2009

The character of Mombi was developed for the 1985 movie “Return to Oz”, one of two characters from L. Frank Baums series of Oz novels. Mombi is best known for keeping the severed heads of 30 young women animated in a room of glass cabinets, stored in waiting to be interchanged with her own mood accordingly.
‘The lost face of Momby’(Iseeyoubaby)' is featureless and impenetrable, only the back of a head can be seen and that only as a protrusion of hair, the front of the sculpture pressed up against a mirror, forming a sealed circle of coalesced orbs.
Previously the use of hair in Andre Liew's work has been detached from the realm of fashion and retail and more to do with the idea of accumulation over time; but Andre was happy to see this shift, by placing in the bowels of the Collins street retail strip 'The Lost Face Of Momby (iseeyoubaby)'. Unlike other displays of the body in the area, the work turns its back on the street and presses itself into the building, duplicating and generating an internal compression, leaking a crystalline jism.

Andre Liew is a Melbourne based artist that has exhibited nationally and internationally.
Until April 31

Coming Soon: Marc Martin

Al Stark

AL STARK, "No-Fi, Hyper Consumption",

Beer bottle, paper bag and gold acrylic, 2009

Beer bottle and bag, drawn, painted and scratched…. art product? Life-style residue?.... am not sure myself. Would like to think this type of work I’ve been making from the waste of my consumptive habits was more like killing time for a desperate mind and void finance…. a kind of re-constructed and re-cycled series of anti-products scratched into the big wall of my own apathy, all loaded with desperate integrity and really “real”. man… That’s what id like to think…. what I wouldn’t like to think, is that of a series of conceived, cutesy art career products with bonus interesting idea, desperately pushing an intellectual authenticity that probably wont transcend the object and image as an end in itself. If I am asked to comment on what I make, (which can be good and fun) these are some thoughts on what I would and wouldn’t like to think.

Until March 31

Coming Soon: Andre Liew

Coming Later: Marc Martin

Roh Singh

ROH SINGH, Guttural Side Step, acrylic, chrome ball-chain, 2009.

Courtesy Dianne Tanzer Gallery.

Roh Singh's Guttural Side Step is a figurative sculpture drawn from the re-working of his studio materials. Starting with a previous sculpture, he has subtracted form by carving it back, adding new material elements to unveil a new life of a work. This process seeks to intercept and side step, arriving at an intuitive and completely other result.
Until February 28.

Coming Soon: Al Stark
Coming Later: Andre Liew

Jesse Hogan

JESSE HOGAN, Compression Theory, 100 Vending Machine Bouncy Balls, 2009

Jesse Hogan uses the language of science along side an intuitive vocabulary of abstract forms to reveal an alchemical cosmos – one where scientific reality is at odds with the reality of the unseen, where plastic and artificial matter is transformed into magical artifacts of consciousness and vision. Hogan dabbles with the occult, bogus magic, pseudo science, shamanism and alchemy. Investigating how abstract form takes hold in the mind, and it’s links between the visible and the invisible, a theory known as ‘critical paranoia’.

Compression Theory explores the values of boundless energy and potentiality. Each ball resembles, with its surreal, op, abstract and psychedelic patterns our memories of 20th century art movements compressed together side by side.

Jesse Hogan is an Australian born artist, who currently resides and works in Sydney and Melbourne.
Until January 31.

Coming Soon: Roh Singh
Coming Later: Al Stark

Heather Lighton

HEATHER LIGHTON, Vagina Shrine, Fimo, Diamante and Flowers, 2008

Heather Lighton pays homage to all the 'lost vagina's that have been under the knife'. Inspired by a recently aired labioplasty documentary Heather both celebrates and mourns what femininity has become in contemporary culture today.
Until January 1 2009

Coming Soon: Jesse Hogan
Coming Later: Roh Singh

Daniel Price

DANIEL PRICE,You’ve always been searching for something (distressed head), Graphite on paper, 6x6cm, 2008

Daniel Price's work explores contemporary culture’s thirst for consumable media by slowing down the process of drawing, representing a kind of antithesis to urgency. The drawings attempt to compress a stretch of time into one static moment, examining themes of mortality and transience present in the everyday.

Daniel Price is a Melbourne based artist. He completed a BFA in drawing at RMIT in 2004 and has exhibited at Bus Gallery, Imp, and most recently Block Projects. His work is held in private collections in both Melbourne and Sydney.

Coming Soon: Heather Lighton
Coming Later: Jesse Hogan

Christo Crocker

CHRISTO CROCKER, My Future's To Come, Video Still, 2008

My future's to come. My future's to come and to infinity... Holding your breath won't make the end come any quicker but it will give you a head spin. Camouflage text and clean cut card spruces up the joint for what can only simply be described as a still, moving video portrait of a convulsing young lad. Make sure you watch it to the end.

Christo Crocker is a Melbourne based artist, who's work explores instances of climax and anti-climax. His video and photography work aims to suspend the height of a moment.
Until October 30.

Coming soon: Daniel Price
Coming later: Heather Lighton

Ghostpatrol and Cat-Rabbit

GHOSTPATROL & CAT RABBIT, Hidden Owl Fortress, Mixed Media, 2008.

Lighting a small camp fire inside a hollowed out owl. Dress code is simple; your 8-bit fantasy. Crammed in behind glass, unable to breathe, a taxidermy clean-up. The owl communicates through electro-magnetic pulses. Press your eyelashes close to the glass to read and decode the special message, as part of this complete breakfast.

Cat-Rabbit and Ghostpatrol share the unremitting task of making fantasy reality, so that we all may bask in their imaginings. Their gilded childhood memories are woven into objects that offer us feelings of peace and reminiscence.
Until November 30th.


Coming soon: Christo Crocker
Coming later: Daniel Price