This is an archived website. See https://art.base.co/organisation/417-mailbox-art-space/ for current information about Mailbox.
8 January – 8 February 2013
Gay bash up!
This Midsumma will see us witness the most anticipated match-up in the history of art. Are you ready? Ladies and gentlemen… Lllllllllllllleeeeets get ready to rrrrrrruuuuuummmmmboooooooooool!!!!! Rat vs Jimwah in the battle of the century! Style against style, brush against can, who will be triumphant?
Part of the 2013 Midsumma Festival – celebrating 25 years.
forevermore
20 November 2012 – 4 January 2013
At the pre-burial “viewing”, the bereaved are often confronted with the sight of their loved one in an artificially beautified state of what appears to be perpetual preservation. Artificial flowers, found in abundance in our cemeteries, ironically appear to be in a similar kind of suspended animation. Many of these plastic gardens are tended with great love and devotion. These flowers however, don’t really blossom into their fullest beauty until they have weathered at the grave for several years.
The flowers in this exhibition are significant, as they are each taken from the graves of people I once knew. Most of the flowers have been at the gravesites for many years and, like the body at the viewing, have now been treated to preserve their current transient state – in perpetuity.
http://sarinalirosi.com.au/
Images-Sarina Lirosi, forevermore, 2012, detail, found flowers, dry florist foam, gloss acrylic glaze.
Aerogramme
20 November 2012 – 3 January 2013
Aerogramme is a continuation of my nostalgic installation project. The installations that comprise this series have included an archival element, often a photograph or text. These archival elements are suggestive of an ideal time and place; one that is just out of reach.
Madeleine Preston is a Sydney based painter who studied art theory at Sydney University and went on to study painting at the National Art School and subsequently completed an MFA at RMIT.
Madeleine Preston, Aerogramme, mixed media (cellophane and coloured tape/vinyl) dimensions variable, 2013.
My art practice is often hard to define as the materials I use vary from project to project. I used to say I never make the same work twice, but that doesn’t really explain what I mean. My work includes oil paintings, installation, three-dimensional pieces, design and new media. Much of my work deals with the past, in particular nostalgic or idealized views of the past.
ROBYN PHELAN
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough – Milestones for Two Centuries of Women Climbers, 2012
An installation of ceramic sculpture.
Hidden in the rare books collection in the State Library of Melbourne is a collection of 800 books on mountaineering. These books primarily record the domination of mountain peaks by males. However the collection also reveals the extraordinary achievement of women climbers since 1808. I Can See For Miles commemorates these women.
Each of the 19 cabinets will be filled with a separate art object creating an overall contour of a mountain.
Artist Practice
My sculptural practice records in clay, observations of art history and culture, experienced through travel, study or in museum collections.
It is my challenge to bring together sculptural forms and pictorial content to create narrative associations, tell stories and raise questions for the viewer.
I am drawn to the qualities inherent in the hand-built vessel. My sculptures are made by the direct and individual mark and pressure of my hand. I exploit the evocative and tangible beauty found in the craft of the ceramics process.
Images L-R: Lucy Walker, American mountaineer, 1871; Louise Shepherd, Australian Climber, 1994; 2012, watercolour on paper.
11 September – 12 October 2012
CURIO
Curio 1, oil on canvas board, 10.5 x 22.5cm.
Stefanie Carnevale’s work explores themes of human existence – birth, growth, emotionality, aspiration, conflict, ageing and mortality. Her work has been exhibited throughout Australia and overseas, including Monash University (Melbourne), Linden Gallery (Melbourne), The State Library of Tasmania (Hobart), and the University of Tasmania’s Plimsoll Gallery (Hobart).
Curio is an exhibition of new oil paintings. The thematic of human existence is reflected in the realistic, still-life aesthetic. This exhibition at Mailbox 141, a series of wooden antique mail boxes, creates a ‘cabinet of curiosities’.
Whichever way is fine
7 August – 7 September 2012
In Whichever way is fine, Camila Galaz explores the premise that aesthetic and painterly space may be used to express states of anxiety experienced by an individual in both the public and private domain. Whichever way is fine incorporates static and moving elements and a restrained use of colour mimetic of government building interiors.
Camila Galaz is a visual artist working in Melbourne, Australia. Her work explores the reflexivity of anxiety between individuals and the spaces they inhabit through drawing, sculpture and installation. In 2011 she presented two solo exhibitions, An Ideal Half, at Hand Held Gallery and that’s not really an option, at RMIT Artspaces, both in Melbourne. She is currently studying Fine Art (Honours) at RMIT University.
How to make a meadow
3 July – 3 August 2012
Shall I tell you a story?
The meadow in a quiet winter, so cold, bristling with grass stalks, criss-crossed by relentless ants and purposeful joggers, looped with tattered spiderwebs and lined with roosting birds, the meadow dreams about the spring.
And as September draws closer and the skies clear, the dandelions begin.
A lone yellow star, then a radiant constellation. Weeks pass and new grass grows greenly and long. Each golden face follows the sunlight across the day. Downy balls of seeds appear, dancing on hollow stems. Time is held in these dandelions. To follow these flowers is to retrace the flight paths of bees and butterflies. Their scattered growth echoes the wanderings of children and warm afternoon winds. These patterns reflect a 16th century observation by Renaissance botanist Paracelsus, who recognised that the world is ‘a text, legible to all who will read without the divisive bifocals of language.’
Sarina Noordhuis makes drawings that map seasonal changes in the landscape. A graduate of the National Art School in Sydney, she is currently undertaking postgraduate research at the Australian National University. Her practice includes drawing, printmaking and painting.
Sarina Noordhuis is a current PhD candidate at the Australian National University.
Images L-R: HG 01.09.11; HG 12.09.11; HG 14.09.11, 2011, stickers, paper, each 42 x 30cm.
Merryn J Trevethan
downgrade ignites global sell off…
“The skyscrapers were beautiful. They did not seem like mere corporate shells. They were monuments to the arrogant yet philanthropic spirit of America.” Patti Smith, Just Kids.
These new works are borne out of weeks spent in and around New York, absorbing the city’s visual overload and pulsating energy. In the month before the Occupy Wall St movement, I spent my days exploring a city full of contradictions. The press was full of “the end is nigh” talk of a double dip recession, euro zone debt crisis, ratings downgrades and stocks prices tumbling; while on the ground the lights were still shining bright. No lessons appeared to have been learned…it was business as usual. The works reflect the natural habitats of what came to be known as the “one percenters”- Wall St, Times Square and the wealthy Upper East and West Side areas surrounding The Met, The Guggenheim, and The Plaza Hotel. Wandering the canyons of New York City figure-ground relationships became blurred and it became increasing difficult to decipher what was up and what was down; what is “real” and what is just a facade, the negative from the positive. The New York I found is chrystilised in these small works. What I found felt like a seemingly infinite cycle of madness on endless repeat.
BETTINA HAMILTON
Chrestomathy
24 April – 25 May
Chrestomathy is a series of composite digital images made up of heroic and majestic landscape photographs and staged portraits from the early 20th century.
Much of the history of photography has been made up of images that serve as a trophy or treasure – something to bring back from where you’ve been, and as evidence of what you have done. The effect that the availability of free and personal digital images on the Internet has had on this practice is profound.
I have always been of the mind that others’ pictures are far more interesting than those I could take myself.
Bettina Hamilton’s practice utilises video installation, photography, appropriation and seriality to explore illusionism and realism, repression and desire.
Hamilton is a current Masters of Fine Art candidate at Monash University.
Lizzy Sampson
Innovation Project (Face Value)
20 March – 20 April 2012
Innovation Project (Face Value) is an investigative exercise that stems from the opposition of two bank notes – the Zimbabwean One Hundred Trillion Dollar note and the Indian zero rupee note.
Through a range of scenarios, the artist aims to open up dialogue that acts as an alternative discussion surrounding matters of the economy. The notion of face value is explored through a series of found objects, collages, digital imagery, and sculptures.
Lizzy’s practice responds to the social and political conditions of her time. Her work reflects on the social structures we accept and live by as best practice in the Australia and the West.
Lizzy is a current Masters of Fine Art candidate at RMIT University.
http://lizzysampsonart.weebly.com
Metal Detection
Video Still, 2011
Courtesy of the Artist
