The Armory Show, 2006

Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is excited to be attending The Armory Show in New York, March 9 - 13, 2006. We will be presenting new works by Dale Frank, Jacqueline Fraser, Bill Henson, Patricia Piccinini, Michael Parekowhai and Anne Zahalka.

DALE FRANK

Dale Frank paints without a brush, using a controlled pouring method that exploits the expressive potential of polymer-based varnish. Bright greens, reds and blue bleed into each other against a yellow background revealing extraordinary macro and micro cosmoses. The works are neither illustrative nor narrative based but part of the artist’s response to a memory or place. Frank shows us how to take pleasure and find solace in art, how painting itself – in its literal, non-representational formations – may still be a point of thoughtful departure.

In 1983, he was included in the exhibition Panorama della post - critica: critica ed arte at the Museo Palazzo Lanfranchi in Pisa along with Thomas Lawson and Anselm Kiefer (curated by Helena Kontova). In 1984 he was included in the Aperto section of the Venice Biennale. Returning to Australia, in 1990 he was included in the 8th Biennale of Sydney (curated by Rene Block). A major solo retrospective of his work was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 2000. His paintings are held in every major public collection in Australia and in numerous private and corporate collections in Australia, Europe and the U.S..

JACQUELINE FRASER

Jacqueline Fraser collages photographs with an eclectic mix of French haute couture, including faux fur, wigs and silk taffeta. Fraser uses long quotes laced with violence as titles for these works, drawing attention to the materialism and artificiality of high culture. For Armory the works have been framed within their own shallow black display case, further emphasizing the exhibitive purpose and emotional emptiness of high fashion.

Jacqueline Fraser has exhibited widely internationally in a career that spans more than two decades. In 2004 she was shortlisted for two major art prizes, Artes Mundi in Cardif (one of 10 international artists) and the Walter's Prize in Auckland (one of 4 New Zealand artists). In 2001-2 Fraser had a solo exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and in 2001 she represented New Zealand in their inaugural presentation at the Venice Biennale - the full installation of which has recently been acquired by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Also in 2001, Fraser was selected for the Yokohama Triennale. Fraser’s work is held in every major public collection in New Zealand, the National Gallery of Australia as well as numerous private and corporate collections around the world.

BILL HENSON

‘One needs infinitely distant sentences that one barely understands, as a mainstay over the millennia’.
Elias Canetti 1985

“The work might begin with a fleeting impression from first-hand experience or in a piece of music I am always drawn back to, or perhaps in a paragraph of writing I cannot forget – and then it takes its own course. I become like a participant in some larger process I happen to be fascinated by. It seems inevitable that at those times, when one is most involved in the work, one is also most detached. The momentum of things becomes self-sustaining.” Bill Henson

Bill Henson is one of Australia’s most distinguished photographic artists. He has exhibited extensively both locally and internationally over a period that spans three decades. In 1995 Henson represented Australia at the Venice Biennale. In 2005 a comprehensive survey of his work was held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Victoria. His work is to be found in every major public collection in Australia and many overseas collections including the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
In mid-2006 Bill Henson will be part of the ‘Twilight’ exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Two major monographs; Mnemosyne (2006) and Lux Et Nox (2002) have been published by Scalo.

PATRICIA PICCININI

Patricia Piccinini’s drawing and digital animation present a potential vision of our future in the age of genetic technology. In Piccinini’s drawing a young child is snuggled up asleep with an unfamiliar creature. The animal has some of the features of a mole or a wombat but is still not like anything we’ve ever seen before. In this way Piccinini’s creatures stay rooted in the possibilities of real animals. The creatures are almost too easy to accept. Piccinini creates an empathetic connection between her subject and the viewer. Both the foreign creature and the child have a nurturing and familial connection that is common to all living things. The affection that both the child and the creature evoke from the viewer suggests the need for a system of ethics that accommodates engineered creatures and the bi-products of new technologies.

Patricia Piccinini represented Australia at the 50th Venice Biennale, in 2003, with a group of biomorphic sculptures titled, We are Family. Piccinini has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne and the National Gallery of Victoria. She exhibited in the 2002 Biennale of Sydney, the 2002 Liverpool Biennale (UK) and the 2001 Berlin Biennale. Her work is held by most public collections in Australia as well as numerous private and corporate collections in Australia, Europe and the U.S.

Patricia Piccinini is the invited Artist of the Year for Art Tapei in 2006.

MICHAEL PAREKOWHAI

Prominent indigenous New Zealand artist, Michael Parekowhai, has created, Song of the Frog, a fibreglass sculpture of a ballerina. The sight and surprise of finding this small, feminine figure alone and exposed on the floor provokes empathy and concern. We hope she’s ok and approach her cautiously. This human portrait has faltered in our expectation. In the dancehall-like space of the gallery, the ballerina - epitomy of grace, deportment and control – is not performing. Her eyes are closed, oblivious to us. The Song of the Frog - title of this work - charges the gallery space with quietness, heightening our awareness of our own presence.

Michael Parekowhai has been exhibiting since the early 1990s. His Kapa Haka sculptures, (fibreglass security guards), were first shown in the group exhibition, Paradise Now?, at the Asia Society in New York in 2004. Also in 2004, Parekowhai exhibited a major new work at the Gwanju Biennale in Korea. Other major group exhibitions include Asia Pacific Triennale (2006), 1st Auckland Triennial (2004), The World may be fantastic - Biennale of Sydney (2002), Asia Pacific Triennial, Brisbane (1999), Cultural Safety at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (1996), The World Over, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1996); Localities of Desire, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (1994). An important solo exhibition of Parekowhai’s work, Ten Guitars, was held at the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh in 2001. His work also appears in numerous private and public collections internationally.

ANNE ZAHALKA

Anne Zahalka’s new photo-works explore the diorama as a mode of display within the museological frame and as a ‘fixed’ illusion to time and place. She transcribes the set-like space of the diorama taken in the American Natural History Museum, New York onto a two dimensional photographic surface with such depth and clarity that we are seduced into believing these scenes are real. Disrupting these seamless illusions however, are montaged photographic elements taken from the fields of wildlife, landscape and nature photography. She raises a number of questions in relation to the representation of place, primitive and indigenous cultures and the study of wildlife within the scientific/anthropological realm of natural history. The presentation of these ‘dead’ objects is brought to life through their powerful illusion to the real and through the photographic interventions of the contemporary and living world injected into these pictorial frames.

Anne Zahalka has been exhibiting her photographs in internationally for over twenty years. Exhibitions of her two Leisureland series – Leisureland and Leisureland regional -- have both toured extensively within Australia. Recent international group exhibitions include Supernatural Artificialis (2004) at the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo and Photographica Australis toured in Asia (2003) and at the Sala del Canal de Isabel II in Madrid (2002) toured by the Australian Centre for Photography. In 2003 Zahalka completed a major public art commission for Sydney Airport called, Welcome to Sydney. Her works are held in most major public collections in Australia as well as numerous private and corporate collections in Australia and overseas.