Now in its seventh year, this exhibition of contemporary artists will showcase and celebrate the work of Benjamin Bannan, Maddy Anderson, Indiana Coole and Darcy Wedd, who are all completing the Master of Fine Art.
Also exhibiting will be two PhD candidates, Kristina Tsoulis-Reay and Julia McInerney.
Indiana Coole’s work Wire Loop includes a series of performative actions, which will take place Thursday 2 February, between 5 pm and 7 pm and Saturday 4 February, 3 pm and 5 pm. The work explores how movement can be integrated within a system of gestures, triggers and responses.
Associate Professor Spiros Panigirakis, Head of the Department of Fine Arts says the higher degree research culture at Monash Fine Art is the most rigorous of its kind in Australia.
We can count several exceptional contemporary artists among our alumni. These include Alicia Frankovich, Frances Barrett, Angela Brennan, Rosslynd Piggot, John Meade, George Egerton-Warburton, David Rosetzky, just to name a few.
“The MFA and PhD exhibition is the culmination of practice-based research that is critical, creative and compelling. We are incredibly proud of our candidates and look forward to encountering their art practices across various public platforms in the years ahead.” he continues.
The exhibition opening event will take place at MADA Gallery on Thursday 2 February between 5 pm and 7 pm. The exhibition will be open from Friday 3 February until Saturday 11 February; from 10 am to 5 pm, Wednesday to Friday and 12 pm to 5pm Saturday at the MADA Gallery (Building D), 900 Dandenong Road, Caulfield East.
About the work
BENJAMIN BANNAN – Perennial blue
Perennial blue conceptualises the ways in which repetition, abstraction, and figure/ground relationships might function within artworks as strategies or affinities used by queer artists across time.
To do so, this project draws on the myth of Narcissus, the work of Leo Bersani and Derek Jarman, and the notion of queer abstraction through the expanded medium of print. Materials such as carbon paper, Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), and the conventional postcard are handled as spatial and temporal practices.
MADDY ANDERSON – The weight of incompleteness isn’t necessarily failure
The weight of incompleteness isn’t necessarily failure investigates the potential of relinquishing control and recontextualising personal histories by surveying the notions of touch, the machine, and memory, and has been informed by my own desire and curiosities that centre on touching objects, engaging with machines, and sharing personal memories. In relinquishing control over final outcomes over the project, ‘failing’ has become an integral (cherished) part of the work and research.
INDIANA COOLE – Wire Loop
Wire Loop investigates an expanded notion of choreography. From mushroom to bicycle, this research brings together two main projects that consider choreography through material practice and performance. The work cycles through different kinds of activity and motion, operating across various temporal rhythms and scales. Wire Loop explores how movement can be integrated within a system – how a gesture might trigger or respond to something else.
DARCY WEDD – Feeble Protests: Models of Emancipation
Workbook, 2023, bound inkjet printed paper.
Accumulation Series, 2022-2023, multiple canvases, dust (aluminium, steel, wood, acrylic, copper, brass, micarta), PVA, clear gum glue, varnish.
Knives & Tools, 2021-23, assorted knives and tools, steel, wood, micarta, acrylic, brass, copper, nickel.
Jewellery, 2022-23, assorted rings, broches, pendants, teeth, silver, brass, copper, bronzil, $5, $10 and $50 dollar notes.
KRISTINA TSOULIS-REAY – Windows for Mirrors*
Windows for mirrors is a beguiling phrase drawn from a children’s novel that has been on heavy rotation in my house recently. Aside from being an appropriate descriptor for the reflective windows in many of the paintings presented, the pull of this image—as the teasing opening for a chapter of narrative text, elaborates the ideas negotiated in my exegesis, Bad Jelly: Painting and Writing Images (named for another children’s story). It invokes the porous, virtual potential of images, and how they might be inhabited and reflected through the liquid process of painting.
JULIA MCINERNEY – Joanna
Untitled, 2023 eight camellias propagated from a bush planted by Ina Higgins in
approximately 1907 dimensions variable
*Exhibited inside MADA Gallery with a different opening time 3–18 February 2023 Wednesday–Friday, 10 am and 5 pm and Saturday, 12 pm and 5 pm.
