blank_space tenth birthday celebration
Thursday 4th April at Oxford Art Factory
from 6.30 til late and continues
Saturday 6th April at blank_space gallery from 11am
To celebrate 10 triumphant years we will be holding an exhibition by many of Australia’s most amazing contemporary artists & musicians plus a few overseas guests too!
All works will be produced on a supplied, hand cut, 45cm across, circular piece of plywood.
There is no theme for the show although we asked the artists that the number 10 be somewhere in the title of the piece.
A live auction of all the work will be held on the 4th of April free in the gallery bar at Oxford Art Factory and all proceeds after costs will go to ‘Doggie Rescue’ charity.
There will also be bands and entertainment on show from blank_space DJ’s, RABRAB & My Sydney Riot bands!
Come and get into some free drinks and amazing art from 6.30PM
The exhibition will then be moved to blank_space gallery and be on show to the public from Saturday 6th - Friday 12th April.
It’s been a blast on Crown St over the last decade, so many great shows, so many great people.
We wouldn’t have survived without artists and friends such as yourselves.
Please share this event and tell your pals.
We hope to see you there :)
Thank you!
Simon & Albert
Simon Lovelace ‘A little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing’
Sat 9th - Fri 15th March
New works on vintage book covers
Gypsy Taylor ‘Playlist’
‘Playlist’ is a series of large-scale paintings, an homage to music and musicians, sex, babes and rock n’ roll.
Each bold piece represents the song of its’ namesake. The lyrics that inspired the imagery in each work are enhanced by Gypsy’s vivacious and instantly recognisable style; deeply embedded in trash culture, pop art and pin-ups.
As a busy working professional Illustrator, Costume and Production Designer, this is a rare week-long exhibition of Gypsy’s original artwork and her second solo exhibition in five years.
Don’t miss the opportunity to acquire some very unique original artwork while it’s still within your budget pal!
Shimon Kato is a creative magician of mystery, and a true multi-faceted artist. Hailing from his native Tokyo, he takes inspiration from all walks of life from traditional art forms to modern and contemporary. On his inaugural trip to Sydney, be one of the few to glimpse of his art.
Shimon, a creative purist at heart, draws true inspiration from diversity in a cross-cultural society from his Italian and Japanese heritage. This exhibition is called A Dragon Rider The Story of Light and he anticipates with excitement to share this with the local art community.
Sherrie Ehrlich Solo Exhibition: 24/7 Surry Hills
blank_space gallery
Sat 24th – Fri 30th November, 2012
If you’re a Surry Hills local or you frequent the area often, there is a good chance will find yourself - real or imagined - in one of Sherrie Ehrlich’s paintings as a part of her exhibition 24/7 Surry Hills.
24/7 Surry Hills is a solo exhibition of new works by Sherrie Ehrlich, being held at blank_space gallery
(374 Crown Street Surry Hills) open to the public Saturday 24th – Friday 30th November.
“24/7 Surry Hills centres around everyday life in Surry Hills – a place where even seemingly banal activities, like going to work, are brightened and energised by the street art, colourful vintage clothing shops and cafes filled with familiar faces,” said artist, Sherrie Ehrlich.
Sherrie has combined loose and dynamic watercolour painting with detailed, precise graphite drawing to create a vivid and intimate depiction of life in Surry Hills.
“In the 24/7 Surry Hills collection, I’ve set out to convey the diversity, connectedness and liveliness that exist in the area. I wanted my paintings to depict different facets of the neighbourhood that trigger off feelings of pride and nostalgia that often come with thoughts and memories of home.”
Sherrie Ehrlich lives, paints and teaches art within the beautiful Blue Mountains.
Her work can also be regularly found on the web at www.sherrieehrlich.com.au or at Gallery Lane Leura (987 Railway Parade, Leura) from 11am Fridays - Sundays, or by appointment.
EXHIBITION DETAILS
24/7 Surry Hills by Sherrie Ehrlich
When: Open to the public 11am-6pm Saturday 24th – Thursday 29th November &
11am-4pm Friday 30th November
Venue: blank_space gallery
Where: 374 Crown St, Surry Hills NSW 2010
Contact: Sherrie Ehrlich m: 0429 158 382 e: Sherrie.ehrlich@yahoo.com.au
Website: www.sherrieehrlich.com.au
From The Hip
A photography exhibition by Simon Hardy
Saturday 6th - Friday 19th October
Shooting from the Hip (stamatic)
In 2001 the digital camera revolutionised photography.
In 2006 the iphone revolutionised the mobile phone.
The combination of these two advances revolutionised point and shoot photography. From capture to post production – the entire process now lay in the palm of your hand.
“ In 2010 I started playing with an app on my iphone called hipstamatic. It wasn’t long before I became hooked on the quirky interface and analogue sensibilities.
The app for me was as much fun as shooting on my polaroid and a lot less conspicuous.
I was carrying my iphone everywhere with me, and pretty soon was photographing anything and everything from my daily life, using the hipstamatic app.”
In this exhibition Simon focuses his iphone on landscapes - both natural and manmade - showing us the beauty in both.
“The freedom and immediacy of being able to interchange lenses and film is the ultimate in photographic instant gratification. Obviously – once you become familiar with the effects of certain lens/film combos – you can aim for a certain look or style, but it’s still so much of a lucky dip. I’m constantly surprised with the myriad of interpretations you can achieve with this app.”
This is the 1st in a trilogy of exhibitions under the shooting from the hip moniker.
Meticulously chosen pre-loved garments and objects are lovingly reworked and reinvented so that every piece is a true ‘one-off’.
Supplementing these recycled garments are carefully sourced shoes, handbags, artifacts & artworks.
french tryst Peter Endersbee & Jo Wing
Scenes from Paris & Provence
Saturday 14th - Friday 20th July
Opening drinks 3-5pm Saturday 14th July
8-BIT A rad exhibition for geeks by Fitz Fitzpatrick
Opening drinks 4-6pm Saturday 7th July
Exhibition runs from Saturday 7th July - Friday 13th July 11am-6pm
Simon Degroot Maintain Pleasure Personally
Opening drinks 4-6pm Saturday 30th June
Exhibition runs Saturday 30th June- Friday 6th July 11am - 6pm
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Thralldom
Danni Zuvela
Controlled explosions of colour are the dominant characteristic of Simon Degroot’s paintings. Hard, flat brights and day-glo neons dazzle, but there is no hiding behind this richness; beneath the immediate sensuality of Degroot’s surfaces seethes a complex social encounter. Placed alongside, or, more often, partially buried beneath an array of hard-edged squares and ragged gestural swipes are recognisable images, culled from centuries of human visual culture - the cornucopic abundance of Dutch still lifes, Sesame Street’s Big Bird and a child’s toy truck all make an appearance on the painter’s canvas stage. Re-presented in printers’ halftone, these images are abstracted from their ‘realistic’ contexts, and so Degroot’s paintings achieve a detente between abstract techniques at either end of the spectrum: both ‘pure’ geometric forms, and images uncoupled from the demands of verisimilitude are synthesised in these works.
In this layering of the abstracted with the abstract, Degroot establishes a dialogue between the known and the ineffable. There is a breaking down of things into their component parts: the square and the pixel. The choice of squares for each individual canvas imposes a discipline across their otherwise unruly relations, while the squares within each canvas appear both as foreground interventions effacing their subjects (the low-res skin-toned pixelation which partly obscures Big Bird in Copia Avis), and as blown-up symbols of photographic representation, in the enlarged half-tone of Constructed Landscape. Degroot seems to be saying, by all means take pleasure in this vibrant, unabashed colour, but remember what it’s made of. Skin tones can be reduced to a series of pink, brown and greenish hues, any offset photograph is a combination of cyan, magenta, yellow and black dots, and our daily screen life is regulated by ordered arrays of red, green and blue. In the imposition of these layers, Degroot’s overpainting refuses our illusion, but it is the insistence of the basic units - the building blocks of visuality, as reshuffled elements, that draw the analogy between colour space, and public space.
For despite the lushness of the coloured surfaces and techniques which thwart pictorial representation, the paintings inevitably seem to suggest colour space is highly rigid; our spectrum of perceived colours has a distinct limit, just as the rest of our human existence is subject to other, less easily perceptible limits. If Big Bird is a symbol of the colonisation of our collective subconscious by entertainment industries, and if the shallow perspective and fundamental unreality of the Dutch still lifes is a continuing reminder of the conceits of privilege and constraints of class, then their reappropriation in Degroot’s paintings imply that the analogy between colour space and visual space is ongoing in the interpenetrated public and private spheres of 21st century life.
Moreover, though those regimes that order and control human consciousness persist, they need not be obeyed willingly or wholeheartedly. Degroot seems to suggest sensuality and play are weapons against boredom and conformity, not just in the quotation of children’s toys, or the iconicity of Copia Avis, with all the associations of abundance and indulgence that title triggers, but via colour itself. The insistent repetition of a distinctly intimate, warm pinkish flesh tone, as well as a coloured smear suggestive of melted chocolate or human stool in Maintain Pleasure Personally, hints at a transgressively carnal, or possibly pre-adult sphere, preceding the development of sober social norms such as shame, duty and moderation. By incorporating neon hues in works such as Festoon With Orange, the limits of the colour spectrum are similarly exceeded. These works seem to suggest the challenge to resist the regulation of ordering forces is open to all of us, provided we are prepared for a little excess.
New Paintings by Nick Olsen
Opening drinks 4-6pm Saturday 23rd June
Exhibition runs Saturday 23rd - Friday 29th July 11am - 6pm
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My Name is Nick Olsen and I am a Brisbane based painter. My current work is based on painting and drawing completed during The Royal Overseas League Travelling Scholarship which I was awarded in 2011. This included a six week residency in London and Arbroath, Scotland. In the UK I became focused on the formal gardens and parks which have over the centuries become important reflections of British colonial history. Plant specimens from across the globe adorn these parks and are blended with native species to create incredible formal landscapes . Within these spaces are many sculptures and statues which look on silently, celebrating past glories. Amongst all of this are the people who indulge in this open, natural spaces. When the sun came out so too did the people. They relaxed, played and interacted. On closer inspection I realized that these were the citizens of the globe, people from widely varying ethnic backgrounds all blending together in these public spaces. Once again I was reminded of the colonial influences of the UK .
I have always been interested in landscape painting and the relationships that develop between humans, the built environment and our ‘natural’ landscapes (eg – parks). The residency which I completed during the autumn of 2011 has given me a new direction to explore these themes further.
Please look up www.nickolsen.com to see a current and past archive of my work.
