During the year these wonderfully talented young artists will be resident in the building at various times. Outcomes will include exhibitions, workshops, discussions and an emerging artists’ auction toward the end of the year. The six artists for 2009 are:
Belle Bassin
Belle Bassin recently graduated with a BA in fine art from the VCA in 2007 with a major in drawing. She completed a diploma in Visual Art at RMIT in 2004 and in the past four years has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Melbourne. She was the recipient of the Westspace and George Hicks awards in 2007 and she was awarded a Wallara travelling scholarship during that year. Her work emphasizes the secret, the hidden and the rejected aspects of reality. Her alter like structures and obsessive drawings push toward the infinite, exploring concepts of the fragile state of human existence and the interconnected histories of folk patterning and symbolism. The inspiration behind her work lies in notions of Aliens, mythologies of ancient civilizations and the occult. She will conduct a two intensive at the Courthouse in order to construct a site based installation.
Kate Just
Kate Just is a Melbourne based artist best known for her sculptural knitting practice informed strongly by emotional and autobiographical references. Recent works explore Greek and other mythologies connecting women and nature. Persephone’s descent underground and Daphne’s transformation into a laurel tree, as well as the structures and forms in paintings by Heironymous Bosch have emerged in Just’s latest works which see the body and its transformations metaphorically: reflecting life struggles, awakening sexuality and creativity. Encased in a binding, protective, knitted surface, these surreal bodies posit the constantly changing state of identity and extend an invitation into a tactile, imaginary world. Kate Just holds a Bachelor of Science in Film Making from Boston University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) from the Victorian College of the Arts and is a current Master of Arts (Research) candidate at RMIT University. She has exhibited her work across Australia in galleries such as First Draft in Sydney, Raw Space in Brisbane, and Canberra Contemporary Art Space, as well as a range of artist run and local galleries such as Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, West Space, Conical, TCB, Bus, VCA Gallery and RMIT Project Space. She has been awarded numerous grants and prizes, including being a finalist in the 2007 Ripe: Art & Australia/ANZ Art Emerging Artists Award and the recipient of a 2006 Siemen’s Art Prize and Australian Postgraduate Award. Just has undertaken residencies at Heide Museum of Modern Art in 2007, Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery (NSW), RMIT (Summer Printmaking Residency 2006) and is a current studio artist at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces. She lectures in Painting at the Victorian College of the Arts, and has contributed writing regularly to artists exhibition catalogues and art magazines including Eyeline, Artlink and UN Magazine. Kate will conduct an extended residency that will involve workshops will local participation and a focus on her own practice resulting in an exhibition.
Sohan Ariel Hayes
Sohan Ariel Hayes is an award-winning animator and visual artist who works across media. His early work centred on cathartic exploration of the body through the integration of performance, video and machine. The electrical nature of this work inevitably led him to the computer where he has spent most of his time since attempting to fuse the ideas of ‘PVM (performanceVideoMachine)’. Working from a predominantly digital studio format he has output work for festival poster designs, public art sculptures, computer games, films, realtime and rehearsed projections for theatre and recently still photography. Currently he is directing a team of 5 in the second, and last, production cycle of WILL, a computer-animated short film, now 4 years in the making. He will conduct a two week residency on vJamming/multi-channel projection involving the use of the program DATADRUM an interactive percussion interface to a database of video clips effects via Isadora. The objective will be to develop new video and/or multi-channel projection work based around the concept of ‘inflammation’, an intriguing response of the body activated in defense of a perceived threat that most often triggers healing but also can cause death(as in analphalytic shock). I am interested in researching inflammation both as a micro phenomena located in the body and a macro phenomena situated in human relations.
Claire Connell
Claire was the recipient of the inaugural CYAC Art Prize in 2007 that was held during the staging of the production ‘Second City: A View of Geelong’. Her work evokes the pastoral themes of the Australian landscape tradition and her prize winning painting ‘Geelong’ was directly inspired by Eugene von Guerard’s famous work ‘A View of Geelong’ that resides in the Geelong Art Gallery. During the residency she will concentrate on improving her painting technique. “As a young child I was encouraged by my parents to paint, draw and be as creative as I could. Once I began schooling I actively sort to select as many creative subjects as I could. These included not only studies into the fine arts but also music, drama and creative writing. However my true passion was painting and drawing. I was lucky enough to finish my secondary education with a bang when I won the local Saint Joseph’s College art price which supplied me with a number of formal art classes at the Gordon Institute. There I true began to explore the wider reals of fine arts. Once I had completed the holiday course I enrolled in a double degree at Deakin University, majoring in fine arts and biology. Many commented on the peculiar combination I had chosen, however I knew that the diversity of my skills and passions were what made me truly whole as a person. During my undergraduate degree I took time off to travel to Europe. There I saw delicate frescos, early Christian artworks, intricate Celtic texts, architecture from a plethora of eras and many breathtaking sculptures. I was greatly inspired and returned to Australia to complete my degree, begin a diploma in education and continue my studies into art with a private local artist. I have always considered our world to be a truly astonishing ‘living work of art’. It is a perfect sculpture under continuous construction. For this reason when I paint I attempt to capture the beauty I see. My paintings are vibrant and intense in colour and tone, however my style is realistic or often a surrealist realism that depict the world at its best. I am attempting to capture the drama or emotion that the world seems to show me. I know now, as an adult, that not all people find our world as beautiful as I do, however my painting are an attempt to show others how I see the world. Further more due to my interest in biological studies which incorporate an understanding of all living things I have developed a keen interest in painting nature. This generally draws my focus to environment and landscape setting. However I also like to paint the people how inhabit my world and so family and friend often end up the subjects in my paintings”.
Jenna Ramando
Jenna held her first exhibition on the Lemon wall at the Courthouse during 2008. She completed her secondary studies at Sacred Heart College Geelong where she studied the art fields, Studio Arts, Graphic Design and Multimedia. After successfully completing her VCE she began her Bachelor of Visual Arts – Graphic Design/Multimedia at the University of Ballarat where she is now in her final year. In her course, she also studies photography, printmaking and contemporary imaging. As well as completing her degree, Jenna also works as a graphic designer at Moo Media Australia to gain more experience in her art field. Jenna has a strong interest in photography and the different effects that can be created to get a message across or an interesting image. One of her main influences in photography is Juliet Taylor, a commercial photographer who uses all of her works as a true representation of herself. She is true to her work and always persists with her unique ideas contrary to the opinion of others. Other strong influences are photographers Nadav Kander and Steven Meisel who Jenna sees as breaking new ground in contemporary photography. Jenna is inspired by each individual’s identity, emotions, interests and ideas ands hopes to capture this in her works. Jenna intends to create images that connect and speak to its audience through a series of close up portraits and portraits in their individual environment.
Chris Onley
Chris has always had a strong passion for the Visual Arts. In 2005/2006 I travelled around Europe, enjoying the diverse range of arts and cultures, before returning to Australia and devoting myself to becoming a professional Artist. I currently enjoy working and experimenting with a wide range of media and techniques, using non traditional formats such as bed sheets, bathroom tile-boards and found objects as well as the more traditional, canvas stretched frames and paper. I work with many mediums, focusing mainly on oil and acrylic paint, but also including oil stick, charcoal, soft chalk pastel, spray paint, ink, lino-cut and wood-block prints, acetate and copper-plate etchings and various other drawing materials. I have recently become interested in sculpture, working mainly with Marquette sized, white Raku clay. I have also designed numerous tribal and character tattoos for friends and colleagues. I don’t believe my work to have one particular style although most of my pieces tend to have surrealistic elements. I have been compared by my lecturers, teachers and peers to Artists such as Francis Bacon, James Gleeson, Brian Doar, H.R. Giger, Salvador Dali and Ralph Steadman.
