IMAGING THE MIND
SABINA D'ANTONIO PHIL DIMITROFF
WILLIAM FERGUSON ANTHONY GRASMANIS
CRAIG HARRISON BOB MESSAGE
CHRISTOPHER SHELTON
23 November 2017 - 27 January 2018 *
(* from 22 December 2017 to 27 January 2018 the exhibition will be open by appointment only)
SABINA D'ANTONIO
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Having always been creative in art and photography, Sabina d'Anotinio specialises in abstract art because it allows her more artistic freedom and creativity. Sabina enjoys an array of mediums, where she can share her love for texture, colours, and typography. The numbers which you will see throughout her work are inspired from Sabina's vast manufacturing background, and come naturally throughout her art. Sabina for the last few years has had successful solo and joint art exhibitions in the US, and successfully entered local and metropolitan art shows throughout Victoria, Australia. Sabina now mostly sells her work online and through Galleries, giving her the time to explore with her camera, be inspired, create, and enjoy her garden and wildlife.
Self taught, Sabina has nurtured her independence and artistic freedom and creates spontaneously from within: expressing a feeling, a memory or an impression. Her abstract works are well-known and collected nationally and internationally. Sabina's inspiration for her art generates from her passion of photography. Sometimes it is from what she has captured, and others it is just from the journey of looking. The raw beauty Mother Nature creates over time, the pattern of peeling paint, the vibrant hue of orange from rust, the different shades of green which grow around a slow leak, the texture and look of aged wood, and the amazing colours that have changed hands over time. All creating an inspiring palette for this artist to express into her artwork for you to enjoy. (Statement courtesy of the artist and www.abstractsbysabina.com/) |
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PHIL DIMITROFF
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Art runs in Phil Dimitroff’s veins: his father was an accomplished artist, and his mother worked professionally as tracer of technical drawings. Dimitroff studied fine art at the Prahran College of Advanced Education, and undertook numerous study tours of the UK, Mexico, USA, and South East Asia. He has exhibited regularly in Melbourne and Adelaide from the middle of the 1990s, and his works have been acquired by notable corporate and private collections in Australia, Japan, UK, and USA.
The artist says about this current body of work: "These pen and ink drawings represent imaginary and fantasy themes that seem to pop into my head when drawing and painting. I love the idea of B&W photos with all its shades and tones so my drawings are a representation of that in ink and some colour." |
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WILLIAM FERGUSON
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William Ferguson career as a professional artist and educator spans more than sixty years. He studied—and then taught—fine art at the RMIT. He has held solo exhibitions regularly since the early 1960s throughout Australia, most notably with the Argus, Stuart Gerstman, Distelfink, Realities, and Flinders Lane galleries in Melbourne; Barry Stern and Holdsworth galleries in Sydney; BMG in Adelaide and Solander Gallery in Canberra. During the 1990s, Ferguson also held several solo exhibitions in Germany. His works have been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, the Parliament House, numerous tertiary institutions, as well as notable corporate and private collections in Australia and abroad.
The artist says about his current body of work: "Painting for me celebrates the Australian Landscape and early culture, providing a spiritual stimuli within which I am concerned with interpreting values in subjective expressions – the inner life or spirit - rather than describing facts. In my paintings, I wish to project a profound aura of silence, optimism, surprise, joy and above all a deep love that reflects the mystery and spiritual resonances linked with my past personal interaction with the First People and their land." |
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ANTHONY GRASMANIS
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We are pleased to present a new body of work by Anthony Grasmanis, who premiered a selection of his sculptures at our gallery to great acclaim in 2015.
In this series of new works, Grasmanis employed “white" as the principal structural element, as a reversal of the norm of colour applied to a white surface. Layered transparent colour and the positive / negative interplay suggest 3D from a 2D medium. The works are notable for a total absence of pure black. |
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CRAIG HARRISON
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The professional career of Dr Craig Harrison (PhD, RMIT) spans more than forty years. He has held solo exhibitions regularly since the middle of the 1970s and his works were included in important curated exhibitions at the La Trobe University, Australian Catholic University, and the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery. He was among the finalists in a number of prestigious awards and prizes, most recently the Dobell Prize for Drawing (2010, NSW), and the Rick Amor Prize for Drawing (2016, Ballarat). His works reside in a number of tertiary institutions and notable corporate and private collection in Australia and abroad. Dr Harrison is also a respected educator, who had taught fine art at the Deakin Univerity, MLC, and ACU between 1975 and 2004.
Regarding his current artistic practice, he wrote: “My continuing exhibition work illustrates my interest in colour and form as expressed though the distinctly different picture styles of abstraction, both geometric and biomorphic, and also subsequently in figuration. These stylistic and formal concerns are put to the service of a range of themes drawn from either the urban or the rural environment. Three main themes predominate: the grid-like patterns formed by city layouts; masks and the unpredictable and potentially contentious interaction between figures in any assembled group; and finally, the landscape and its power to resonate emotionally with the viewer. These directions are ultimately driven by intuition and the stories close to what I consider as key to visual art picture-making. For the current exhibition these concepts are fashioned primarily through notions of abstraction and juxtaposition of colour.” |
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BOB MESSAGE
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Paintings by Bob Message focus upon diverse and often remote regions of inland Australia including the Kimberley, Lake Eyre, the Flinders Ranges, the North-West Corner of NSW, Far North Queensland and Central Australia. The paintings bear witness to the dramatic evidence of environmental change that has occurred within this ancient continent over millions of years. They depict in simple and fundamental terms the strong complimentary tones, weathered organic shapes and rugged textural surfaces associated with the remote inland.
A variety of mediums is employed including acrylic and oil paints, natural and other pigments and found materials to create a very personal emotive response to the unique but threatened beauty and grandeur of this continent. The exhibition builds upon and extends the styles and techniques displayed by the artist in previous solo and group exhibitions as well as publications over a number of years. Complete artist's statement and bio can be downloaded here: 
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CHRISTOPHER SHELTON
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Christopher Shelton has always painted since growing up on a dairy farm in the country. He went to Art School, Melbourne University, and became a Secondary College Arts and Technology teacher. This was followed by a five-year term of Lecturing in Teaching Methodology to under-graduate art teachers. He went back to the classroom in 1982 to just teach and aspire to run the best art department in the state of Victoria. Since 1989 he has created and produced 13 large one man exhibitions that loosely follow his creed. Art = Life. When not wrestling with the political foibles and complexities of those who think they know what is best for all of us, he returns to the sweet, colourful and curvaceous things we all need: food, flowers and those underlying female forms within the landscapes he grew up in. His most recent exhibition marks a major directional change as to what constitutes the life within his art.
Shelton notes regarding his current artistic practice: "From years of producing works which equate to ART = LIFE. I have reversed the process thus enabling the spectator to form their own conclusion of how they see their life, maybe through my visual expression. I have often been amazed what people interpret to be the message in my previous figurative, landscape and political paintings. This time the viewer can completely form their own conclusion as to what they are seeing. Don’t get me wrong these visual compositions of artistic elements are saying something but not necessarily what others are seeing. Robert Motherwell the noted Abstract Expressionist took a long time to seep into my artistic practice. But now his “automatism” has happily finally taken over. That does not mean I will stop turning out the occasional political statement. Brett Whiteley always impressed me with his risk taking within his works. A controversial figure study in a shower setting was such an example. A fully developed surface is splashed with a stream of “shower water” that risks enveloping the existing image. He cuts the edge with a bit of rag then steps back to view the result of this energetic conclusion to his painting. It was a risk! Now it is my turn to take that level of risk." |
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