Kodak Salon

This years Kodak Salon at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne drew a record number of entries including two of the teaching staff and one of our graduating third year students. Clare Weeks and James Murphy both from the teaching staff and Thomas Hadland each represented Hunter St Fine Arts boldly and well.

James Murphy took out the Kayell Best Inkjet Print category with his image Urban 570 (pictured below)

What are you killing? Installation by Elissa Jane

This installation made from recycled materials depicts a coral reef in the yellow stairwell at Newcastle Art school.  This work forms part of  III - Advanced Diploma of Fine Arts Graduating students exhibition.

Detail of Fragmental - enamel on aluminium by Elizabeth Frances

2nd Year Artist's Luncheon 2012

Cert 3 Students Practicing Ebru

Cert 3 Students practicing Ebru

The Result

Volume Three - Prints & photographs by Diploma of Fine Art students



Top left: woodblock prints by Ellie Kauffman, Top right: Digital print by Christine Bushell,

Bottom left: Digital print by Kelly Barlin, Bottom right: Chine colle etching by Kathryn Taunton

Volume Three displays a wide variety of printmaking and photographic techniques.  Students have pushed these techniques with a strong combination of edgy and psychologically driven work delving into the human condition, while other works explore our fraught relationship with the planet.





III Advanced Diploma opening

Friends of the Newcastle Arts School.
Please come to the opening of III, Advanced Diploma Fine Arts Graduating exhibition. It will also be our last exhibition in the Front Room Gallery.

If you want to support the Newcastle Art School and these graduates, come along and celebrate.

New Video

 

Take a look at our latest video.

We will have all our course offerings for 2013 up real soon.

Museum Practices 2013

Only a few places left for this popular course. Register your interest now!

Newcastle Art School is currently accepting new enquiries for the 2013 Museum Practices course. The 2012 interns have had a successful year that has seen two student volunteers being employed as casual staff members at their internship sites.

Congratulations to Tracey Lang for being employed to work on the digitisation of photography at The Great Lakes Museum. This project is being supported by The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.

Lisa Kirkpatrick was also employed by Maitland Regional Art Gallery and she additionally worked on a successful grant application to tour the Baldessin exhibition during her internship this year.

The 2012 student group has over seen and developed several exhibitions in the Front Room Gallery in 2012.  We have visited many galleries and museums all over the Hunter Region and as far afield as The Nicholsen and Macleay Museums in Sydney University as well as The Biennale of Sydney. 

This course is for those employed as assistants in, or working as volunteers in, an art gallery or museum.
The intent of the course is to provide broad skills, knowledge and understanding of museum and gallery practices to current employees, trainees or potential art workers in skilled technical, or supervisory support positions in museums or galleries.

You will undertake research on collections and objects, develop exhibition designs and displays and participate in public programs and other activities with a gallery or museum.

The delivery is flexible and combines work experience, structured courses, research and projects. The course includes training on site at Regional Galleries and other venues. If you are not already an employee or volunteer of a gallery or museum you will be supported to volunteer at a Regional Gallery or another appropriate site.

For further information contact Linda Swinfield ph 4929 0354 or email linda.swinfield@tafensw.edu.au or Head Teacher Matthew Tome ph 4929 0315 matthew.tome@tafensw.edu.au

or by registering for the course by clicking on the link below

https://www.tafensw.edu.au/howex/courseOfferingDetail.do?Command=offeringDetail&OfferNo=1105150

Volumes I & II Painting & Sculpture by Diploma of Fine Arts students

Volume Two  - Sculpture and painting by Diploma of Fine Art students opens Wednesday 24 October 5:30 pm

Volume I - Painting and sculpture by Diploma of Fine Art students

Lezlie Tilley wins Gosford Art Prize

Renowned painter and teacher at Newcastle Art School, Lezlie Tilley won the Gosford Art Prize.

 

Lezlie exhibits with Brenda May Gallery and their blog has some pics of Lezlie collecting the prize.
http://www.brendamaygallery.com.au/blog/index.php/prize-lezlie-tilley-winner-of-the-2012-gosford-art-prize/

She won the $10,000 prize with her painting Road to Alice – After the Fire. The prize was judged by
 Anthony Bond OAM, Director, Curatorial, Art Gallery of NSW.

Congratulations Lezlie. Well deserved for a dedicated artist and a great teacher.

Open for ART Business

No doubt many of you know of the NSW Government's decision to stop funding Art at TAFE. Clearly we are fighting this decision and there many groups of concerned students, citizens, art patrons all letting the Government know what a mistake they are making.

But you should know that WE ARE NOT CLOSING.

Teaching staff and Hunter TAFE management are working hard to look at alternative funding for courses both for continuing students and new students.

If anyone tries to tell you that Newcastle Art School is closing then tell them otherwise.

Celebrating the TAFE/High School collaboration

It's the final week for TVET Fine Arts and Digital Imaging students this coming week. Three terms are never enough for the creative energy these High School students bring the Hunter st Creative Industries campus.

Below are some examples of the excellent work created by these students throughout the course of the last thirty weeks.

Reg Russom Memorial Drawing Prize Winner announed

The Reg Russom Memorial Drawing Prize invites artists from the Lower Hunter region under the age of 31 to submit drawings of the hhuman figure.  The prestigious acquisitive prize, which was first awarded in 1955 honours artist and teacher Reg Russom.

 

 John Moroney's delicate pastel life drawing is the winner of this year's prize.

 

Ryan Williams' work was highly commended

Photobooth Photomedia Excursion

The Photobooth is alive and well and right on our doorstep here in Newcastle... shop 20 Market Square in the Hunter Street Mall to be precise. 

The delightful Paula Birch, Creative Director of Strip Of A Lifetime Photobooth and Service Station, was our guide during our visit where students were able to look, see and experience the Photobooth in all it's wondrous glory.

I think I speak for us all when I say we shall be returning. It is somewhat addictive!

some of the class from Diploma and Advanced Diploma in the Booth

Karama - Collect together: Contemporary Indigenous Art & Design

Karama - Collect together: Contemporary Indigenous Art & Design is an exhibition of works by traditional and contemporary indigenous artists and designers from the Hunter Valley to the Mid North coast. It includes artists from the Awabakal, Worimi, Biripi, Wonarrua nations and beyond.

This exhibition, curated by students enrolled in Newcastle Art School’s Museum Practices Course, provides an opportunity for artists from different tribal backgrounds, who are working across a broad range of media to collect together and showcase the diversity of indigenous art & design across the region.

Karama, from an Awabakal word meaning ‘a collecting together’ combines an exciting and inspiring collection of diverse media and art styles by the many indigenous artists living and working in Awabakal country; the Hunter Valley and as far away as the Great Lakes.

The exhibition will showcase work by both established and emerging Indigenous artists. These include contemporary artist and Yarnteen CEO Saretta Fielding; artists from the Gangga Marrang group based at Taree area including Rex Winston, Joan McDonald and Nicole Duncan; Award winning Naidoc Artist of the Year (2008) Les Elvin; Recipient of the Cessnock City Council Arts Scholarship 2012 and Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery intern Tara Standing; the works of Aaron Weights and Philip Sweeney from Cessnock Correctional Centre; and, emerging artist and student Grace Edwards.


 

Maggie's Prize

Congratulations to Maggie Hensel-Brown who won the Brenda Coulton Art Prize at Maitland Regional Art Gallery. Maggie gets to put on a solo exhibition of her work at the Regional Gallery in a month's time!

The entrants, most of whom were Newcastle Art School students and graduates and Newcastle Uni students, included Kelly Barlin, Ashlee Bucholtz,  Anna Buxton Soldal, Kelsey Fletcher, Thomas Hadland, Jean-Louis Kocher, Jesse Neale, Eleanore Plummer, Alexandra Robinson, Sarah Maree Stein, Laura Taylor.

http://www.maitlandmercury.com.au/story/203262/packed-maitland-gallery-for-art-prize/?cs=171
                                                        

Workshop Week 2012

Oh Oh it is Workshop Week again.. remember the Donkeys?

Well here is a little from the activity of 6th through 10th August. This will be on show in the Front Room Gallery in a few weeks. Look out for the wooden Holden.

My workshop was with basic Electronics and sound converted into some form of interactive art. Lots of soldering and buzzing.



The oscillators are small integrated circuits that are controlled with resisters and capacitors. In this case the drawing is a resister and the skateboard has a weight sensor on it. We also built small amplifiers (1/2 watt) to pump up the volume.

Sophie Toupein at the Front Room Gallery

TAFE Graduates Exhibition at PODspace

Currently on show at PODspace gallery nine artists respond to the theme, Fetish.

The exhibition opened on Thursday 19 July and runs until Saturday the 4th of August and features several TAFE graduates, Sally Dooner, Sarah Jones, Gina McDonald, Eleanor Jane Robinson, Daniel Smith, Rose Turner and TAFE Photomedia Teacher Clare Weeks.

Rose Turner's work at POD space

The nine artists who accepted the challenge of responding to the theme of Fetish have explored its many permutations in very different ways, resulting in an exciting range of works including sculpture, printmaking, photography, painting and fibre art.

Portrait Prize

The Newcastle Art School Photography department is on show right now with two of our lecturers currently in exhibitions. James Murphy has a portrait hanging in the Maitland Regional Art Gallery as part of the 1233 Portrait Prize. James received a Highly Commended for his entry. The finalists will be on show at Maitland through August.

An exhibition at Podspace Gallery has another of our lecturers, Clare Weeks, as well as several of our recent graduates. The show titled 'Fetish' is curated by Art School graduate Eleanor Jane Robinson and features several other talented artists.

Maquette show Melbourne

Jo O'Toole has been invited to exhibit in This is a Maquette at the MarsGallery in Melbourne.

Her work 'Brainstorm' pictured here will be on show from the 8 Aug - 2 Sep 2012.

This great opportunity has come from her showing her work in Lorne and generally getting her work out there.
Well done, Jo.

Sophie Toupein - Whatever will happen will happen

Sophie Toupein's exhbition of paintings "Whatever will happen will happen' opens tonight in the Front Room Gallery.

Sophie is the recipient of the Ford Grant, sponsored by Chris and Helen Ford, which supported her to complete work for this exhibition after graduating from the Advanced Diploma in Fine Art. Her work will also be showcased at the Damien Minton Gallery in Sydney in the near future.

The painings use transparent and translucen, light filled layers of colour. They are abstractions that have hints of forms brought out by marks or fluid gestures, teasing at something through veils of colour.

The exhibition is open 11-5 Tuesday to Friday and 12-4 on Saturday until the 3rd August.

Winter School

We are running a Winter School, 9th -12th July. Courses include Life Painting, Printmaking, T-Shirt Design and Fashion Illustration. Download a brochure from here and the links should take you to the course registration. Otherwise enter the course number into www.tafensw.edu.au or call Donna on 49290351.

Artifacts Aired: Objects from the personal collections of Newcastle Art School staff

Artifacts Aired explores the objects that staff of Newcastle Art School, and members of the Newcastle art community collect and the stories behind those objects.

The items contributed vary greatly in value, age, origin and medium, although the link they share is that of the personal significance to the collector.

Whether it be a direct relation to the artist's practice or professional career, a link to a colleague or friend from the past, a treasured family heirloom or an interest completely outside of the collector's professional life, the objects on display are all worthy to be deemed collectable, and we are lucky to have so many of these hidden treasures in one space.

As well as the oppportunity to peek briefly into the personal lives of our exhibiting artists and teachers, the avid collector can pick up some tips on where to source additions to their own collections.

Drawing for Print

Drawing for Print at Newcastle Art School's Front Room Gallery features the work of artists Chris O'Doherty AKA Reg Mombassa, Matthew Martin, Simon Letch, Dallas Bray, Michael Bell, and Bruce Petty. 

The exhibition explores the ways that artists produce work for commercial and industrial purposes including the use of artwork for print journalism, textiles, and government information campaigns. The exhibition runs until 1 June

Lezlie Tilley's A Poetry of Infinite Possibilities

Connection.  It can be structural, sexual, or spiritual.  It binds, it relates, it creates familiarity. Connection is the basis of life, of science, of nature. These vast structures of design are all around us, all of the time, yet we cannot always see them.

Following on from methodology created in her series, An A-less Novel, Lezlie Tilley expands this concept of exposure to literature.  In her current work, each set of six panels demonstrates her process.  Beginning with a loved and tattered book of Robert Burn’s poetry given to her by her grandmother, Tilley has selected the 28-stanza poem, Hallowe’en. Each canto is explored and represented by six panels. The first shows a stanza of the poem in its pure state. In panel two punctures in the paper signify the location of each vowel.  Panel three demonstrates what the poem would be like without its essential vowels. The fourth is a complex design created by connecting the points where the vowels used to be.  The fifth and sixth panels are the antithesis of each other; one a graphite ‘shadow’ of the design, the other its negation. Each panel is an exploration, each a work of beauty and grace.

Tilley is a visionary who allows us to view what exists all around us—the essential structures that escape our naked eye. Her concept and implementation exposes shapes created by positive and negative spaces above, below, and within these vast poetic connections.

Vast connections they are—A Poetry of Infinite Possibilities.

Laura Wilson

Braddon Snape and Josh White/ Media Release

Page | 1 Media Release for immediate release ABSENCE Is an exhibition of new work by internationally recognised Artists Braddon Snape and Joshua White The compelling thing about great art is that it asks questions...it doesn’t profess to have the answers. Snape has recently returned from a residency at the International Sculpture Festa in Seoul, Korea where he produced a large scale Public Artwork and has now returned to create a new body of work intimate in scale, whilst White has been invited to exhibit at Utrecht University, Netherlands in June. Now, they are about to hit Sydney for their latest exhibition opening on Thursday
JOSHUA WHITE , 31st May until 12th June 2012 at Kaleidoscope Gallery. is only twenty five years old yet has contributed to over fifteen solo and group exhibitions in Newcastle, Melbourne and Sydney. He will also exhibit internationally at The University of Utrecht, Netherlands June this year. White has created portrait paintings of musicians in the midst of playing their instruments and has paired the paintings with individual soundscapes. "Music is the universal language. I observed that if I separated the visual and audio aspects of a musician performing it would highlight their primordial origins. Visually I have removed the apparatus in which aids them in creating sound to focus on their animalistic facial expressions. The audio element creates another aspect that reveals the similarities between music and primal sounds. Combining these two sensory components comments on the simple fact that even within the most intellectual and complex of tasks like playing an instrument, basic human instinct is where it is all derived from. This body of work intents to remind us of our primordial origins." Braddon Snape
Tiny bronze figures stand in isolation, or, in apathetic groups on white terrazzo tableaux, and each perform their role as individual components or players within an austere existential theatre, that is, as Snape suggests, a performance of selected moments played out in one’s psyche. is known for his large scale, minimalist abstract works in Sculpture by the Sea and for Public Commissions in Australia and Internationally such as his recent residency in Korea. Snape has now turned the tables on us, and ironically in this exhibition (with the title of Absence) he has now introduced the figure into his silent, minimal spaces. "In a time when answers for almost anything are readily available, at any time, at a ‘click’, artists provide respite. I won’t give you the answers. It is that which is not stated or depicted in these works that consolidates the content. It is the mystery, the unknown, the unanswerable that invigorates the scholar.
It is the absence of a complete narrative that is the strength of these works…….the unknown….…the unexplained…….the questions posed.......the space to muse." Joshua White Phone: 0422 138 136
Email:josh.white15@hotmail.com Braddon Snape Phone: 0417 492 655
Email: braddonsnape@bigpond.com ### Page | 2

Emerging Art Prize Winners

Congratulations to our students who went so well in the Newcastle Emerging Art Prize at the Newcastle Community Art Space.

Overall Winner David Kurzydlo, Winner Photo media - Thomas Hadland, Winner Painting -David Kurzydlo, Winners Works on Paper - Elric Ringstad and Sarah Stein

Highly Commended: Nicola Bolton, Penny Warner Smith, Shelley Cornish, Kathyryn Taunton, Ben Kenning, Sarah Cockroft, Penny Dunstan, Bree Saunders,Rachel Ireland.

I think only one or two names amoungst the winners and commended were not currently at or recently at Newcastle Art School! Well done to you all.

Steel & string: Installations by Advanced Diploma sculpture students

The work of five final year sculpture students is on display at the the Front Room Gallery until April 19.  The exhibition is of large scale installations that relate to and play with the gallery's spaces and architecture.  It includes a vast entanglemement of string, a giant ribbon, tea cup, and a high relief wall work.  The artists featured are Elyssa Jane, Joanna O'Toole, Maggie Hensel Brown, Callan Beaty and Adelaide King.

Chinese Artists visit

Two artists in the Two Generations exhibition at the University of Newcastle gave a talk and demonstration at the Newcastle Art School yesterday.

 Lu Peng and Hang Chunhui presented their work and demonstrated some traditional Chinese painting methods to students. Lu Peng teaches tradition Chinese ink painting in Beijing as well as making and teaching contemporary art. Hang Chunhui is a younger artists whose work in also featured in the Two Generations exhibition, which was curated by Brian Wallace and Catherine Croll from the Red Gate Gallery in Beijing.


Lu Peng demonstrating traditional Chinese Ink Painting at Newcastle Art School



New Still Life | Student exhibition

New Still Life is a selection of work fresh from the studio of stage 2 Diploma Fine Arts students. It encompassed all our mediums and centred on a general theme of contemporary still life.
The result showed all the rawness and richness of committed and playful work at this stage. Well done students.

Hothouse | staff exhibition

The Staff Exhibition 'Hothouse' has been and gone. However we did have a rreview in the Newcastle Herald and staff gave some interesting floor talks. Carolyn Mackay, Peter Lankas, John Turier, Ruth Chapman, John Morris, Mazie Turner, Braddon Snape, Andy Devine, Michelle Brodie, Linda Swinfield, Jo O’Toole, Matthew Tome and Vera Zulumovski all gave lunchtime talks to groups about their work.

A slice of the view of Hothouse at the Front Room Gallery.

Two Generations – 20 Years of Chinese Contemporary Art

Two Generations – 20 Years of Chinese Contemporary Art
Touring Exhibition and Cultural Exchange Project 2012
Australian audiences are in for a visual treat following the announcement that the iconic Red Gate Gallery in Beijing will be staging a national tour featuring some of China’s best contemporary artists as a part of 'Experience China - The Year of Chinese Culture in Australia’.

Established in 1991 by Australian, Brian Wallace Red Gate Gallery is China's oldest and most respected contemporary art gallery. Since opening its doors at Dongbianmen Ming Dynasty Watchtower, Red Gate has been recognised as a pioneer, engaged in the promotion of the Chinese contemporary art scene internationally.

'Two Generations' features the work of 11 senior Red Gate Gallery artists who have each nominated a young emerging artist they admire for inclusion in the exhibition. The works of the two generations of artists are being shown side by side to celebrate the achievement of one generation and to herald the promise of the next. This eclectic and meaningful exhibition will showcase a diverse range and medium of works reflecting the dynamic and ever-evolving art scene to include paintings, works on paper, photography, sculpture and installation.

Sponsored by Art Monthly, Newcastle University, CAL Cultural Fund, Cultural Partnerships Australia, DFAT, Experience China (Ministry of Culture),Centre for International Cultural Exchange (China), City of Sydney - Chinese New Year Festival .

In conjunction with the touring exhibition we plan to bring 'Two Generations' artists to attend the exhibition openings and participate in public forums and ‘Artists Residencies’ being planned by our partner organisations and educational institutions during the exhibition period.

With the assistance of the Copyright Agency Limited we will host a number of young Chinese curators to work alongside Catherine Croll in managing each exhibition. The curators will be introduced to gallery directors and established, emerging and Indigenous Australia artists with a view to having them hold exhibitions and residencies by Australian artists in China in the future.

Two Generations - The Venues

· Chinese New Year – Sydney Town Hall January 18 to 29
· Manning Regional Art Gallery, Taree – February 4 to 26
· Art Month (Sydney) – Damien Minton Gallery - March 12 to 26
· University of Newcastle Gallery – March 30 to April 20
· Linton and Kay Gallery (Perth) – June 15 to July 6
· Melbourne International Fine Art (MiFA) July 15 – August 8

Two Generations - The Artists

Senior exhibition artists: Chen Qingqing, Guan Wei, Li Gang, Liu Qinghe, Lu Peng, Su Xinping, Tan Ping, Wang Lifeng, Wang Yuping, Zheng Xuewu and Zhou Jirong.

Nominated emerging artists: Song Ying, Zhu Yu, He Zubin, Hang Chunhui, Zhu Peihong, Chen Chen, Xie Fujin, Chen Ke, Li Xiang, Kong Liang.

In addition to this we have included the next generation of Red Gate Artists - Chen Yufei, Han Qing, Jiang Weitao, Liu Dao, Shi Zhongying, Xie Guoping and Zhou Jun. All of whom have been recipients of the 3 month Red Gate Gallery Chinese Artist Residency, a philanthropic program designed to allow artists from provincial areas to experience the vibrant Beijing art scene.