Exhibitions

Everyday Fear

Cherine Fahd

16 May – 9 June

Transit Gallery

Opening Reception Thursday May 16, 6-8pm

Image: Everyday Fear (Melbourne Substation version) 2013 Chjerine Fahd

Everyday Fear generates a public/private encounter by presenting the fears of anonymous people as text portraits. Over a hundred people from Australia and overseas filled out a survey of what they fear. Many of those who participated were from Melbourne. The project hopes to engage the train commuters who as they pass by The Substation billboards unexpectedly encounter the private fears of other Melbournians.

16 May – 9 June 2013

Opening Reception Thursday May 16, 6-8pm

Exhibiting Artists:

Matthew Benjamin

Klara Fletcher

Jedder Jones

Annabelle Kingston

Georgie Mattingley

Virginia Overell

Hannah Raisin

an annual award exhibition of VCA honours graduates presented by The Substation and the VCA visiting regional Victoria in 2013/14

Future Now, an annual award exhibition of Victorian College of the Arts honours graduates is now in its second year. These artists have stood on common ground, but found their own territory. Working across diverse media such as video, installation, sculpture, photography and performance, this eclectic selection goes hand in hand with The Substation’s topography, giving context to the first point of exposure before the exhibition goes on tour to several regional Victoria locations in 2013/14.

Dealing with the aesthetics of consumption, Matthew Benjamin’sinstallations use consumer objects and the language of packaging and display to look at the design of exclusivity, power and class. Conversation Pit (2013), to be shown for the first time in Future Now, is a homage to the interior design trend of the 60s and 70s, the sunken lounge.

Klara Fletcher’s practice embodies process and the language of drawing. She works with materials that reference traditional techniques by way of preservation. Materials vary from delicate fabrics such as silk, to industrial materials such as recycled wood and cement.

The work of Jedder Jones explores analogue black and white photography; a medium of the past used to abstract the present.  Untitled is part of an ongoing body of work which embodies ‘[s]oulscapes, capturing and containing beauty and desire within the silver of the photographic.’

Sourcing from every avenue of her day; somewhere between walking the streets and surfing online Annabelle Kingston’s multi-disciplinary work is influenced by her interest in creating or re-creating magical moments in history via found text, found photographs, her own and others’ memories.

Georgie Mattingley’s video works question the limits of people’s values as they ask the viewer to consider the ablity of collaborative art practice to forge new visual spectacles. Her belief in art as a social language has led her into peculiar collaborations with local slaughter men, vetinary surgeons, rag-pickers and street beggars.

Virginia Overell’s layered and alchemical installations ‘gesture outwards to larger systems, flows and economies’ Her installation Explaining roads, a town, a distant lake (2012) comprises a plethora of elements—muslin, cotton, wood, white wash, copper sulphate, sea water, seaweed and sand—arranged in response to the architecture of The Substation gallery space.

Using photography, video, installation and performance, the work of Hannah Raisin ‘engages situated bodily actions as a way to examine and interrupt projected cultural ideals.’ The video installation Blowhole (2013) will play with our ablity to interprate what is animalistic and what is human expression.

This is the nature of the beast that is Future Now 2013.

EXHIBITION 2 MAY - 9 JUNE 2013

The Gathering

Catherine Bell

Opening reception: Thursday 16 May, 6-8pm

The Gathering represents the passing of a yearlong artist residency by artist Catherine Bell at Caritas Christi Hospice in Kew established by St Vincent’s Hospital. The Gathering is an exhibition of Catherine’s prints, petal and sculptural oasis works, as well as presenting a communal artwork in which Caritas Christi Hospice palliative care patients contributed handmade paper flowers. Here the artist and participants document the rituals and ceremonies of death and mourning. The Gathering explores emblems of mortality and corporeality.

Mountains of Mourne 2, Catherine Bell (2012-13)

THE SUBSTATION INVITES PROPOSALS FOR THE TRANSIT GALLERY 2013 EXHIBITION PROGRAM

The Substation Gallery invites exhibition applications from artists and curators for the Transit Gallery, an exterior site of six 2.4 metre Billboards located along the train line side of the building. The Transit gallery is viewed by over 700 pedestrians on foot per week and up to 50,000 metro and regional commuters per day.

Exhibitions are selected by the Substation visual arts staff and the Visual Arts Advisory Committee (Ruth Bain, Kate Daw, Tully Moore) In the tradition of ‘reclaimed’ industrial spaces, The Substation encourages artists to inhabit and extend on the unique industrial spaces of the building and create immersive experiences for our audience. We value risk-taking and ambitious ideas and do encourage applicants to visit the site when developing their proposals.

The Substation encourages applications from established and emerging contemporary practitioners working in all areas of the visual arts including but not limited to painting, drawing, audio visual, new media, inter-arts, performance, installation and sculpture.

Deadline for Transit Gallery (Billboards): 5pm, June 7th 2013

Transit Gallery Application Download

Notification: within 3 weeks of deadline or receipt of proposal

Image: Cherine Fhad, Everyday Fear 2013

Image: Drew Pettifer, Billboard Installation as part of Blue & Pink Phenomenon, Transit Gallery.

Birds eye view of The Substation.