Driven

Driven

Artists are basically driven to create

2 Dogs Art Space Akashi

 Presents

The

Driven

exhibition

by

Western Australian Artists

Opens 13th of January to the 23^rd by appointment

Gallery Opening times1 - 4 pm Saturday and Sunday

on these days 13^th  – 14^th  – 21^st of January, 20^th 1.30 – 4pm

Lynne Norton - Caspar Fairhall -  Diokno Pasalin - Michael Doherty - Shelley Cowper -  Peter Davidson - Cynthia Ellis - Connie Petrillo

 Melissa Nolan McDougal  - Sally Douglas - Ron Nyizstor

Michelle Bourne - Kevin Robertson

John Cullinaine - Duncan Mckay - Ken Wadrop

I don’t know of any other living thing on this planet that is driven to make art wholly without reward other than humans but I might be wrong.

It is true animals can make something called art but is it a natural progression or a pavlovian series of taught tricks like dogs can do for a reward being food or affection from the master?

Whereas humans are a unique species in creating art as it appears to have been a form of communication since early rock drawings in Australia and the cave paintings in Europe, some of these images have meanings that modern societies may never know about but they were obviously important at the time for communicating ideas for the societal memory for the local inhabitants

So now back to the present time and in his exhibition there is on show artists who create art with a diverse range of studio praxis that have one obvious thing in common and that is they appear driven to construct artwork in unity and diversity.

The Driven exhibition produces one of the most interesting outcomes in humanity being how the self - motivated human mind, obsessed to create presents an artwork uniquely different from the next human.

Therefore in viewing this exhibition one hopes the audience can appreciate the determination of the artists in studio praxis with the associated aesthetic outcomes produced, whether they’re to your aesthetic taste does not matter, what matters is the artist’s drive in a range of experimentations that have managed to create a unique artwork.

Dr Peter Davidson

Acknowledgments

Interview with one of Lucian Freud’s children where she talked about what her father said about in art ‘it’s what drives you’ this stayed with me for a long time and unfortunately it was a long time ago and I can’t find site on the internet anymore.

Why Do Humans Make Art

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beastly-behavior/201709/why-do-humans-make-art

Nathan H. Lents, Ph.D., is a Professor of molecular biology at John Jay College, of the City University of New York, where he also serves as the director of the honors program and the Macaulay Honors College. He is the author of Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in Animals and maintains The Human Evolution Blog.

The Autumn Exhibition

The Autumn Exhibition at 2 Dogs Art Space

On show now October the 8^th to 4^th of November

Open Sunday 1-3pm

New Opening times to be advised 

Jennifer Lim

Singapore /Australian

Printmaker (Peranakan)

This current show brings together a diverse group of outstanding artists exhibiting a disparate range of ideas from within their studio praxis. For example, in the above image there is the wood block print by Jennifer Lim who is currently researching her Singaporean Peranakan family history and as much of it has been built over due to the massive development within Singapore over time, there is limited sporadic remains to be seen being Peranankan ceramic tiles in some areas still attached to the  colonial buildings, these designs inspire her woodblock prints.

Ken Wadrop

Western Australian Painter

Imaginary Landscape

(From all the walking) 

Ken Wadrop is an outstanding painter based in South Fremantle, Western Australia who is currently experimenting in Plein Air painting on small rectangular wooden boards, directly observed from the nature on Rottnest Island (a small piece of land nineteen kilometres west from Fremantle). These two paintings above by Wadrop with their scintillating applied paint traces have a vitality and freshness of paint applications that remind one of Camille Corot’s small early Italian paintings.

There are very few painters in Australia that have a command of painting the structure of the coastal landscape that Wadrop has achieved with this series of artworks, he also acknowledges the Aboriginal deaths in custody in this body of work but that will be seen in an installation at the Earlywork Gallery in South Fremantle in the near future.

Melissa Nolan Mc Dougall

Painting/Drawing

Western Australia/New Zealand

Melissa Nolan Mc Dougall  drawings remind one of Francisco Goya's dark etchings but  Goya's art is not dark but a path of illumination, it allows you to observe, make choices often without collective memories to influence the choice, its hardly dark. 

Similarly McDougall's drawings give the audience the chance to engage in objects that have a kind of taboo placed upon like the skull as it appears to be often associated with darkness. But here McDougall brings an observed sobriety allowing the audience to see the beauty in the living and the dead.

Sally Douglas

Water Colourist

Western Australian

Sally Douglas must be one of the best watercolorists in Australia she is outstanding, her research into organic forms around her house in the northern coastal suburbs of Perth is mesmerizing as two of the artworks in this show stand testament too!

Ron Nyisztor

Painter

Western Australia

Ron Nyisztor runs Nyisztor Studios Melville a major art space in Perth Western Australia, he is also one of the more prominent painters within that community, his passion and commitment to art praxis not only for himself but for the community is exemplary.  

Wiild Swans Art Group and Friends 19th of August to the 2 September 2017

This current exhibition will have variable opening times due to the extreme heat in the Kansai Area, as the art space has no electricity or water we apologise for any inconvenience but if you're  in the Akashi and see the door open please drop in and view the show.

Chelle Bourne top left, Lynne Norton on right and

 Shelly Cowper bottom left 

Melissa Nolan McDougall

Michaeal Doherty

John Cullinane

Cynthia Ellis

.

Gutai meets Western Australia a Friendship - Coming in May at 2 Dogs Art Space - Akashi

Sadaharu Horio's New Year Ram at Peter Davidson's Western Australian Landscapes at the Horikawa Gallery in Kobe 2015

Hyogo Prefecture and Western Australia are sister states and for some time now artists from each region have been performing, exhibiting and engaging each other and this appears to be ongoing.

It doesn't matter whether Gutai and Western Australian artists view each others aesthetic ideas at a distance, either from Perth or Kobe in Japan. What is important from these aforementioned encounters between the artists is there appears to be a growing spirit of collaboration.

2006 Sadaharu Horio' performance at a Gallery in China Town and talking with Tomoko Yamada many thanks for Tomoko for her generous translation

The origins of the relationship between Gutai and Western Australia most likely go back to 2006 with a meeting between myself  with Tomoko Yamada (who translated the discussion) at Sadaharu Horio’s performance in a China Town Gallery in Kobe, (as Horio is a original Gutai member). 

Tomoko Yamada knew of Horio because of his canteen installation at the local Kobe shipyards that they both worked in, so she struck up a conversation with him, that was my introduction to Gutai, before that he had never heard of them but it now appears to have become something special  to Western Australians. 

Chiyu Uemae at Gallery Shimada 2006

The next introduction was to another Gutai member was Chiyu Uemae at a major exhibition of his at Gallery Shimada and Uemae's painting was important to him, especially his surface qualities and on the same night Horio was doing a performance, so it was a very rich introductio for him to see such first class artists and there artworks/performances in one night.

A Piece of Horio's performance at Gallery Shimada October 2006

The performance consisted of many sheets of A4 paper been place in rows on the ground floor and then being painted from the floor above the gallery through Horio dipping the elastic material with ball or sock at the bottom  into paint and bouncing it onto the paper (as Davidson remembers)

In 2012 Diokno Pasilin, Martine Heine, Monique Tippett, Pippa Tandy, David Bromfield, Patrizia Tonello Janis Nedela and  Peter Davidson this was a well received exhibition and it was when Horio meet Martin Heine two very good performance artists. 

Horio and Martin got on well even with the language translation difficulties so much so that a performance was organised for both of them at Atelier 21 (above invite) which was a highly successful night. Horio in conversation he told me that Martin was a world class performance artist.

The successful performance night between Horio and Martin can be seen on these links:

http://www.martin-heine.com/Art_Performance-folder/Japan%20Horio%20html/19%20horio%20&%20martin.html

You tube 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJk_e-fIclw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKl4dbVfRAA&spfreload=5

Martin Heine and Tomoko Yamada putting Pippa Tandy's photographs up at Gallery Horikawa Kobe 2012

David Bromfield and Martin Heine discussing the hanging of the artwork at Gallery Horikawa Kobe 2012

ATARIMAENOKOTO「BASHO TO KODOMO」 あたりまえのこと「場所と子供」

Osaka

adding coloured traces to Horio's performance

The ongoing engagement between Horio and the Western Australia's has continued through small and large galleries as evidenced in the above visit to Cynthia Ellis's solo exhibition and below with his works in the very successful  Harmony and Peace exhibition at Gallery Opera Labo Nishi Ku Kobe.

Gallery Opera Labo

Presents

Harmony and Peace exhibition

by artists from

Japan and Western Australia

Masters Japan

Unknown sumi e wall hanging early 18^th Centaury

Ando Hiroshigie 1853 Woodblock Print, title; Famous Places in the Sixty add Provinces - Shimofusa Choishi no Hama (beach of Choshi)*

Masters Australia

Frank Norton (1916 -1983) Marine artist/official war artist*

Mac Betts (1932 – 2010) Landscape artist*

Martin Heine (1957 – 2014) Western Australian/ German*

 

Contemporary

Artists

Japan

Chiyu Uemae*

Ryoko Kumakura*

Sadaharu Horio

Shu TakaHashi*

  

The Wild Swans Art Group

Western Australia

Caspar Fairhall

Chelle Bourne

Cynthia Ellis

Connie Petrillo

Diokno Pasilan

Duncan Mckay

John Cullinane

Kevin Robertson

Lynne Norton

Michael Doherty

Peter Davidson

link to the Wild Swans Art Group from Western Australia

http://thewildswanartsgroup.blogspot.jp/

To Tomoko many thanks to them and how they've generously give there time to make these unique exhibitions over the last decade to come to fruition. Without Tomoko the translation of complex ideas may never have been communicated so well and my friends for helping me find Horio's performances around Kobe and Kyoto otherwise one may have never arrived.

Also to the many Gallerist/ Curators  who have generously given there advise it has been appreciated. 

The Next Exhibition

Yujo - A Friendship
 Gutai meets Western Australian Artists 
at 
2 Dogs Art Space Akashi 
May 2017 
exact dates to be announced

Gutai artists

Chiyu Uemae

Sadaharu Horio

http://web.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/gutai/data/manifesto.html

The Wild Swans Art Group 
from 
Western Australia

Caspar Fairhall

Chelle Bourne

Cynthia Ellis

Connie Petrillo

Diokno Pasilan

Duncan Mckay

John Cullinane

Kevin Robertson

Lynne Norton

Michael Doherty

Peter Davidson

other artists from 

Hyogo Prefecture and Western Australia (Sister States) that will be on exhibit 

Western Australia 

Ron Nyisztor

Shelly Cowper

 Melissa McDougall
Pippa Tandy 

Five women artists from Western Australia

Title: Night Passage

Artist: Shelly Cowper

Etching on Paper

Gwen John's art, in its quietude and its subtle colour relationships, stands in contrast to her brother's far more vivid and assertive work. Though she was once overshadowed by her popular brother, critical opinion now tends to view Gwen as the more talented of the two.^[42] Augustus himself had predicted this reversal, saying "In 50 years' time I will be known as the brother of Gwen John

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwen_John

I have always liked the English Artist Gwen Johns a stunning painter and the aforementioned quotes for me is true but now there is another group of women moving out of their comfort zone and now exhibiting in Japan  (like Gwen Johns went to Paris) and risk in life and art is necessary its seems to learn and create. 

Audience 2 Dogs Art Space

Currently on show at 2 Dogs Art Space, Akashi - Japan there are five Western Australian Women Artists being Pippa Tandy Fine Art Photographer, Chelle Bourne painter,  Connie Petrillo artist/ curator,  Shelley Cowper printmaker, Lynne Norton painter/printmaker, Cynthia Ellis Painter. 

This current exhibition by these aforementioned artists from Western Australia reveals a strong commitment to praxis to theory, these images are not just decorative but resonate a passion that only comes from a long and sustained period in studio work that resolves particular ideas that they have discovered within there chosen motifs. 

Getting the artworks ready

For example, for Shelley Cowper its the sailing she did around Australia in a yacht and being on night watch, for Connie Petrillo it is the relationship between the female and societal memories, Chelle Bourne it's the historical relationship of the delicate needle work designs and textures that her grandmother used to do, Pippa Tandy lives and breathes with her camera, its now an extension of her being and she shoots motifs almost spontaneously, Cynthia Ellis its about paint and Lynne Norton's prints  are from her observations  at opera, akin to Degas.

 Many thanks to the artists for participating all the way from Western Australia