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gallery 1
Lea Ward
With the advent of hard rubbish removal, the act of lining Australian streets with old appliances and white goods has become a ritualistic celebration. Piling that grassy verge of ‘no mans land’ with washing machines, old mowers, fridges, stoves and other household wares is now a rite of passage for suburban inhabitants. For a short period of time these bulky shapes become part of the colonized landscape.
Mowers is a voyeuristic stare at what we dump, push, heave and shove out onto the street once a year. In with the new and out with the old. Lea Ward’s large scale oil paintings deconstruct this consumerist concept. Each painting explores the surface of this urban detritus.
This macabre concept is depicted as anything but, as lurid pink pastels expose these hard rubbish icons. Ward extrudes their fundamental shapes and contours, concentrating them into thick textures and bold bright colours.
Ward’s discarded appliances assume a new role as they are transformed through the exploration of line and shape. The gallery hums to the sound of The Pink Victor.
Lea Ward is a Melbourne based artist who graduated from the VCA in 2002 and has participated in a number of group exhibitions. This is her first solo exhibition.
Jackie Ralph
Jackie Ralph’s interest in Sumo wrestlers began while she was living in Japan. These large wrestlers with their shifting weight and heavy movements are revered and disliked by Japanese mainstream.
The Sumo culture is strongly connected to the past, but disconnected from the present. Ralph emphasises this disconnection by taking the Sumo wrestler out of context completely. The wrestler is painted in combat alone and without grounding. An excellent draftswoman, Ralph captures the Sumo in frozen moments whilst retaining motion. The figures hover in a groundless space, yet they appear weighted and balanced.
The canvases are painted primarily in blue intensifying the isolated void in which the figures float. Only a few shades separate the figure from the background. As a consequence the Sumo seems to wrestle with the spatial void which is threatening to engulf him.
Jackie Ralph is currently undertaking a Masters Degree at the Victorian College of the Arts. This body of work is a continuation of the her exploration into imbalance, disassociation and dislocation. She has exhibited in Japan and Victoria.
Panayiota Gogos
Prints and Drawings is an eclectic collection of Panayiota Gogos’ recent small scale works. Gogos uses layers of soft, buttery oil pastels, Indian ink, paint and oil sticks to build her images. Her palette consists of neutral colours with flashes of green, blue, yellow and red.
They are an investigation into Melbourne’s urban environment. Referencing universal symbols employed by monks, poets and artists, she has developed her own visual metaphors. Icons of the unglorified streetscape collide with the detritus of its populace. The result is an ethereal and bold investigation into the mind of an urban alchemist. The canvases are quiet and dark. The simplicity of composition and inherent balance of objects elude to the isolated and bleak.
Gogos strives to comprehend the landscape and its inhabitants. The work acknowledges that Melbourne’s urban environment is constantly changing as its inhabitants reassess their axioms and beliefs. Gogos draws together the truisms of previous centuries into the structured truths of today.
Gogos was born and raised in inner Melbourne. She has studied and lived in regional Victoria. Since returning to Melbourne in 2004 she has exhibited her work in group and solo shows. This is her first solo exhibition at red gallery.
opening night drinks
wednesday august 17
6-8pm
exhibition duration: august 16 - september 3