Nite Art: Alchemy & Small Sculpture
July 2013
One of the central galleries along the Nite Art route is Flinders Lane Gallery. Approaching its twenty-fifth anniversary, Flinders Lane Gallery has operated from its same inner city location since 1989. Widely reputed for its active support of emerging and mid-career contemporary artists alongside Indigenous Australian artists, FLG presents work ranging from painterly abstraction, high fi guration and sculpture, through to new media work exploring architectural and spatial concerns.
Featuring during Nite Art on July 24 (6pm till late) will be the work of painter Claire Bridge with her exhibition Alchemy. Bridge uses neo-classical techniques to produce her fi nely crafted figurative paintings. This new exhibition investigates transitions – from stillness to movement, through changes of psychological states, across the boundaries of inner and outer worlds, and between one form of being to another.
“Here I am exploring the liminal, the space between,” Bridge has said of her current exhibition. “These fi gures are not passive or inert – they are innately potent. There is a state of transition from the old to the new – the space between, the void in which the magic happens. It is physicality and spirituality, the sacred and profane, the transcendent and sensuous, form and formlessness, the dream and the reality.
“There is something about floating and suspension that appeals to my imagination. This resistance of gravity. Clouds float. Memories float. Experience floats. These figures float. There are unfathomable depths to our knowing. Light reveals, gives form, presence and substance, texture and colour yet we are mostly empty space.”
In support of Bridge’s exhibition FLG be presenting Field of Dreams, a one-off event to be held for Nite Art. Visitors are invited to write down a dream, wish or desire, or an imagining of something they wish transformed or something they’d like to create in their life and in the world. These dreams, like offerings, will be placed by the person into their choice of a vessel fi lled with coloured water, dissolving immediately. The coloured water will then be applied to a large paper surface which will become the fi eld of dreams. The same evening Claire Bridge will also hold an artist’s talk at 8pm to discuss her practice.
Also on during Nite Art will be Small Sculpture, an exhibition featuring new works by three of the Gallery’s sculptors – Jon Eiseman, Dan Wollmering and Damien Elderfield. Jon Eiseman’s whimsical and poetic figurative sculpture, cast in bronze, extends beyond the physical to encompass notions of time, spirituality and emotion. Senior lecturer in Sculpture at Monash University, Dr Dan Wollmering will present new bronze works that continue his formalist interest in materiality. Damien Elderfi eld, a recent fi nalist in the 2012 McClelland Sculpture Survey & Award, will diverge from his impeccably designed steel and basalt forms with new works created in ABS plastic using 3D printing techniques. During Nite Art, the artists will be present with demonstrations of various tools and techniques used in their practice.
FLG will also present live music and winter warmers.
Flinders Lane Gallery, 137 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, will participate in Nite Art on Wednesday July 24 from 6pm til late. More info on (03) 9654 3332.
flg.com.au
Nite Art 2013
Nite Art is a new event format and platform for Melbourne’s art gallery scene. For the first time on one night, Melbournians can experience simultaneous gallery openings and artwalks across 21 well-known, cutting edge and experiential galleries and artist run spaces in the CBD and North Melbourne. Over 56 artists will present in a range of mediums, including photography, installation, painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, mixed media and new media.
The four precincts participating in Nite Art are: Guildford Lane & Elizabeth Street – Utopian Slumps, Screen Space, Beam Contemporary and Outre Gallery; Upper Bourke Street – including Gallery Funaki, West Space, TCB, Sarah Scout and Neon Parc; North Melbourne – Purgatory Art Space, Gallerysmith, Langford 120, Dark Horse Experiment and Rubicom; and finally Flinders Lane, featuring the Nicholas Building, Blindside, Daine Singer, Flinders Lane Gallery, Leslie Kehoe Gallery, Chapter House Lane, Edmund Pearce and Stephen MacLaughlan Gallery.
To celebrate the premiere of Nite Art, UBER, the smartphone app that connects you directly to a professional chauffeur, will be available on the night to help navigate city precincts. Free rides will be available with people encouraged to ride in groups and share rides between galleries. Refer to the Nite Art website for conditions.
Melbourne’s inaugural Nite Art: Wednesday, July 24, from 6pm – 11pm.
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