Week 45/2024: More art and architecture

Week of 4 November 2024

Last week was about art, and this week was about more art and architecture as well.

Art and architecture

Art

After seeing two art exhibitions last week, this week I decided to top it with five.

It wasn’t deliberate. I was just in the right place at the right time.

Artists with Conviction

On Thursday I went to the Artists with Conviction exhibition at the Long Gallery. This is the Department of Justice’s annual exhibition of art made by people who are in prison or who are serving community corrections orders, as well as works by staff in these services.

The theme for 2024 was Behind These Eyes, which “invites you to explore the profound and personal stories” of the contributing artists.

In previous years the exhibition has been in the Mawson Pavilion, where the work has been very crowded. This year in the Long Gallery, there’s more space to display the work, which gives us a better opportunity to view the pieces and to reflect on their messages.

There were many wonderful works here and I recognised some of the names from last year’s exhibition.

This pair of paintings, ‘Behind These Eyes’ by Jeremy R really stood out in the gallery :

We all have hidden qualities that are there—you just need to look closely to find them!

A painting of a large blue eyes, with words such as 'friendly', 'kind' 'caring' radiating from the pupil out into the iris
Jeremy R: Behind These Eyes. Look for words like ‘friendly’, ‘resilient’, ‘caring’, ‘open-minded’, compassionate’.

And the companion piece of the same title:

A painting of a large blue eyes, with words such as 'failure', 'entitlement', 'jealousy' radiating from the pupil out into the iris
Jeremy R: Behind These Eyes. Look for ‘failure’, ‘entitlement’, ‘fear’, ‘judgement’, ‘shame’ . . .

We all have qualities that we are ashamed of and we often try to hide them . . . but if we look hard enough, they will be there somewhere.

‘My Mind’s Eye’ by Keith L. I liked because I see the same thing.

A painting of coloured horizontal stripes in purples, blues and browns
Keith L: My Mind’s Eye

When I look at the sun and shut my eyes, I always see an array of colours that permeate my eyelids. I have always in my mind thought out a storyline to them, it seems to me, one of those things that will always have a forever answer. Herein is the title and here is a painting that represents it.

And I really loved Alex’s ‘The Story and My Path’, which Alex explains “are the 2 side of my personality – the creative dreamer and the analytical scientist.”

A long folded sheet of paper with a handwritten story sits on a white table. In front of this is some tangled wire
Alex R: My Story My Path

The story is on one side and the creation on the other.

It begins, “I am a 31 year old male with multiple neurodivergences. Being in jail is an experience in self realisation. I am finding ten million realities inside my own head, each one valid and powerful. So now I lay here with fifteen months to go, finally ready to find out who I really am.”

Hand drawn art works on a long folded sheet of paper standing on a white table in a room with other art pieces on the wall. In front of the concertina is some wire and a small black box
Alex R: My Story My Path

And it ends, “I am a 32 year old man with multiple neurodivergences. In the short time since I started this story, I have grown significantly. The ten million realities have focused down to one. My purpose. I am excited to see how the rest of my life unfolds.”

I felt really engaged with these works. I think this is a wonderful exhibition because it gives an insight into the thoughts and minds of people who I might never meet, and a glimpse into their human-ness.

Hatching

Nolan Gallery is next door, so I went in to see Elizabeth Barsham’s new exhibition, Hatching.

I told Betty Nolan I was there for ‘Chickens in a Taxi‘, which is just the coolest painting, because chickens. We had a conversation about how Elizabeth’s studio is an old chicken shed, which she had told me about on her Facebook post a few days earlier.

I love it!

Broken Home

On Friday, slightly thwarted by the bus strike, I headed out to the Moonah Arts Centre after work. I went to see the exhibition Broken Home by Donna Bergshoeff, who is an art teacher at Kramstable’s school.

A description of a photographic exhibition called 'Broken Home' held in front of a photograph of an abandoned, derelict home interior
Donna Bergshoeff: He put his arm around me sticky and hot

The text above reads:

Broken Home examines concepts of territory and identity in connection to domestic spaces.

It explores the relationship between these spaces and the effect they have on our evolution of self.

This body of work and the stories that it tells draw parallels between personal archaeology and the subjective way people create a “home”.

I remembered reading a piece about Donna in the paper a few weeks ago, which said the exhibition “finds the forgotten moments in our domestic histories and narrates them through the photographic lens”. The images of old abandoned homes are displayed alongside pictures of discarded objects, such as kitchen utensils and kids’ toys, which Donna photographed in the studio.

I found it fascinating and inspiring, and I absolutely loved these works.

Tasmanian Women’s Art Prize

I wasn’t expecting to find two other exhibitions in the same space, but here they were. More arty goodness to look at!

First, the Tasmanian Women’s Art Prize exhibition.

There were some amazing pieces here, and I particularly liked the winner of the People’s Choice award by Fran Reeve.

A round, textured artwork of an ageing woman's face. She looks unhappy.
Fran Reeve: Long Sustaining, The Crone

This is a piece called ‘Long Sustaining, The Crone’.

She holds the moment in her fingers, she considers it. ‘It will pass’, she decides, and places it back where it belongs, in a memory.
The intention of this soft sculptural piece is to recognise and celebrate the aged women as well as the strength and wisdom that they hold.

It seemed relevant to my current stage of life.

Tasmanian Art Teachers Association

And then an exhibition of Tasmanian Art Teachers, which is a touring exhibition that allows teachers to share their own artwork and their own creativity.

These were amazing pieces too and, not for the first time, I found myself wishing I could go back to college to study art.

This one by Helen Spencer, called ‘Vermin’, was great.

A square painting predominantly blue, which is a close-in view of the hull of a large ship in the water
Helen Spencer: Vermin

Helen says

The cruise ships coming into the dock at Hunter Street epitomise the great gluttony of our era (of which I am every bit as guilty). They embody privilege and entitlement. They pollute. Apparently New Zealand turns back ships we accept into our precious timtumili minanya/River Derwent. Apparently we have a two-cruise-ship limit as if that’s a serious attempt at mitigating harm. Apparently the Tasmanian tourism industry has mixed feelings about them.

The first cruise ship of Hobart’s ‘season’ arrived last week, so I felt this was a really timely and thoughtful piece.

Architecture

This weekend was Open House Hobart weekend, which I’ll write more about on my photoblog in coming weeks.

Lil Sis and I had a fabulous weekend, which kicked off with Tim Ross’s Architecture is Ace talk on Friday night.

Two screens above a stage with a slide that reads "Architecture is Ace" in white text on a black background. A man is sitting behind a lectern at the bottom right
Architecture is Ace!

We spent Saturday touring buildings and Sunday volunteering at one of the properties. After having such as great time volunteering at Open House Richmond earlier in the year, we were keen to repeat the experience.

We hung out at a cool 1980s flat in Mount Stuart learning about cork floor tiles and twin tub washing machines.

A small living room with a brown brick wall. There is one seater chair and a two-seater couch in timber with brown/red cushions, A wooden coffee table and a mat with squares sits on a cork tile floor. There are paintings on the wall The back wall is pained white and there are wooden cupboard doors to the left of the room
Back to the 80s

Week 45 summary

Habit tracker

  • 15 minutes exercise sequence in the morning (7 days): 6/7
  • Hip exercises from the physio (5 days): 5/5
  • Go outside before 8 am (7 days): 7/7
  • 2 walks or bike rides or a combination (6 days): 7/6
  • Long walk (1 day): 0 (I substituted 2 bike rides for one walk—see above. It counts because I said so.)
  • Walk 8,000 steps (7 days): 7/7
  • Evening exercise sequence (7 days): 6/7
  • 9.00 shutdown (5 days): 5/5

What was the best thing about this week?

So many things! Art and Open House Hobart, obviously. But since I’ve written about them already, I’ll say the other best thing a very brief photowalk before I went to my acting class on Wednesday.

Sunrays are emitting from big fluffy clouds that are partly in shadow. The sky is blue. The top of a building is in silhouette at the bottom of the picture
Cool clouds on my evening photowalk

What did I notice this week?

A man-shaped cloud (of smoke?)

A large black cloud over the river that looks a bit like a person reaching out with one arm
Things I see in the sky

What did I learn this week?

If you want to stop Google Chrome returning an “AI overview” as the first thing in a search, you can type in ‘udm=14’ at the end of your search term.

Or maybe choose a different browser . . .

What am I reading?

The script of the play I’m learning for my acting class.

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