Geraldine Berkemeier and Garry Shinfield
collaborations and other works on paper
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| Sink or swim 1 |
In 2005 the artists received a grant from the Visual Arts/Crafts Board of the Australia Council for their project to research specific maritime sites at the north and west borders of Australia. The west coast was the earliest point of contact for European voyages, whereas northern Australia provided the bridge for indigenous migration and more recently one of the last coastal frontiers and a major destination for refugees.
Investigation of archaeological material provided the context for their new work. Historical references, inherent in this work, resonates with contemporary issues that include attitudes to migration, reconciliation and colonisation.
It is ironic that the crew and passengers of Batavia had no intention of landing on the seemingly uncivilised world,Terra Australis. Almost 400 years later Australia is deemed a place of refuge but with tightly controlled boarder barriers. Recent journeys of the “boat people” to our northern shores are the antithesis of the Batavia’s journey.
Of particular interest to Shinfield and Berkemeier, as artists, are presentations of the boat. It can symbolize the last vestige of an abandoned culture or the altered states of voyagers. Its configuration reflects the condition of travellers and passage undertaken. Researching and visually representing the boat can reveal aspects of the circumstances of the traveller.
Gold Coast Secondary Schools Student Art Exhibition at
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Gold Coast City Art Gallery has been hosting the annual Energies exhibition for over 20 years. This exhibition is organised by a commendable committee of Gold Coast High School art teachers. All High Schools on the Gold Coast are invited to participate by selecting their most outstanding senior students to exhibit one or two works in the gallery. An important feature of the exhibition is that the works are labelled without identifying which school the student comes from. There are no prizes awarded and the main aim of the exhibition is that all of these students’ creativity and skill is valued in a non-competitive way.
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| Wayde Owen - Under the cover of darthness |
As a follow-up to the Whiteley exhibition, we present two Brett Whiteley Travelling Scholarship winners, Gold Coast local Wayde Owen and Sydney-based Alan Jones. Jones won the $25,000 award in 2004 and Owen in 2005 - after only six months of his first Fine Art course at the Southbank Institute of Technology in Brisbane.
In this body of work Alan Jones uses a contemporary approach to documenting his family heritage as he explores the history and circumstances of his forefather’s arrival in Australia in the late eighteenth century. Using new technologies, painting techniques and taxidermy, Wayde Owen’s conceptual installations examine the ever-changing relationship between human and other.