School of Art Alumni Exhibition

Lan Nguyen-hoan, Carbon Filter, 2011 cardboard, paper, 29 x 11 x 15cm

In the quiet hall of the ANU Art School Gallery hangs an extraordinary alumni exhibition.

The exhibition features more than 15 works of art, including sculpture, but there is still a sense of expansive space as you enter the room.

The space doesn’t isolate the pieces either. They engage with each other as if they would be talking in hushed tones, whispering about the relationships of each piece with another across disciplines and across the gallery space.

The exhibition is titled but mostly air and has been curated by Jason Smith, Director of Heidi Museum of Modern Art, an alumnus of the School of Art.

“The title came to me when I was sifting through the many artists that had been shortlisted for this exhibition,” he said.

“I was looking for a unifying thread. I kept thinking about air and lightness, and my own experience of Canberra.”

Smith was a student at the School of Art in the 1980s and part of his Canberra experience was being taught by Rosalie Gascoigne, a huge presence in the Canberra art scene at the time, and the first female artist to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale (1982).

“She made a work in the mid-1990s called ‘but mostly air’, and I thought this exhibition would be not only a homage to her but also to the way in which she taught us to see the Canberra landscape – the air and lightness of touch.”

The works in this year’s exhibition include Stephanie Radok’s drawings of plant life onto vinyl records which defy gravity up one wall of the gallery. The records stand next to Wendy Teakel’s sculpture formed out of fence palings and smoke which looks as if it has burnt a space in the wall.

The exhibition brings together nine different disciplines, and apart from their alignment to the theme, all the works demonstrate a defining characteristic of an ANU Art School graduate: sophistication.

“Each of these works has a sophisticated approach to materials and sophisticated approach to practice,” says Smith.

Smith maintains that the exhibition is not a trip in sentimentality; rather, curating this exhibition acknowledges the continuation of his life after graduating from the School of Art.

“Having grown up at art school, having been able to liberate my imagination and my spirit at art school and to have learnt the great value and role of the visual arts in our world, what this school did for me has basically conditioned everything I’ve ever done since.

“Art School changed me as a human being. It brought me to a stronger sense of myself.

“It was a great honour to be asked to come and participate in this way.”

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The artists exhibiting in but mostly air:

  • Ken & Julia Yonetani – Ceramics
  • Blanche Tilden – Glass and Gold and Silversmithing
  • Cinnamon Lee – Gold and Silversmithing
  • Lan Nguyen-hoan – Gold and Silversmithing
  • Kirstie Rea – Glass
  • April Surgent – Glass
  • Noel Skrzypczak  - Painting
  • Waratah Lahy – Painting
  • Lee Grant – Photography
  • Marion Drew – Photography
  • Richard  Blackwell – Printmedia and Drawing
  • Wendy Teakel  – Sculpture
  • Amy Kerr-Menz – Textiles
  • Ola Robertson – Textiles
  • Alex Kosmas – Sculpture
  • Stephanie Radok  – Printmedia and Drawing
  • David Jensz – Sculpture
  • Henry Pilcher – Furniture
  • Jon Goulder – Furniture