For three weeks in October this year, Sydney’s Salerno Gallery will light up with colour. 10 girls. 10 colours. is a vibrant exploration of the subjective implications of ten randomly assigned colours. The artists will navigate diverse themes, from sensory perception and memory to cultural contexts and history. The resulting work will be thoughtful, vivid and provocative. All of the work will be available for purchase.

SPONSOR

Ben Frost, Sydney’s most cherished paste-up artist, is unleashing a new exhibit down under for the first time in three years; and I’m very excited. Lost in the Supermarket, a reference to The Clash song, sees Frost cleverly lampooning our advertising obsessed society by boldly juxtaposing brands, identities and social demands. Catch it at Redfern’s Boutwell Draper Gallery from November 26 through to December 17.

Self taught Sydney-based artist Chrysler De Castro Esma takes a hands on approach the rendering of his artwork and makes use of soft pastels and coloured pencils, taking inspiration from the bustling urban environment that surrounds him.

Exploding cupcakes, violent shark attacks, volcanoes, flying men and the pastel coloured remains of a café latte have all been depicted by emerging Sydney artist Tony Curran, who describes his works as experimental neo-paintings. Sitting somewhere undefined between sculpture, installation and conventional painting, Curran distills images onto layers of acetate or resin before physically reconstructing them into a completed work. It’s a precarious process, with the alignment of each layer crucial in the making of the image and the acetate layers easy to steal, an unhappy discovery made at his first solo show.

He has also toyed with visual perception and optical illusion in his works, painting portraits in red and green and supplying galleries with hand crafted 3-D viewing glasses. Currently locked out of his Sydney studio (due to carelessness not expulsion), he is concentrating on his curating his second show, for arts based club night The Wall at World Bar in Kings Cross, Sydney, to be launched as part of the Worlds Collide Australia Day celebration on January 25.

A nerd at heart, Curran is a keen consumer of both scientific and artistic journals, so committed to his craft that he admits to eating blueberries to improve his visual strength. Having been exhibited in artist run spaces, commercial galleries and museums in Australia and overseas, starting work as a curator and arts writer, Curran is eager to contribute to a greater arts dialogue. He is currently developing ‘Realperspectives‘, which he hopes will become a funded research body that showcases and supports the divergent works and worldviews of other creators.

We asked Australian designer and illustrator, Jane Abma, to tell us about an artist whose work she really admires right now. This is what she had to say: ‘While wandering the streets of the inner West of Sydney, I stumbled across one of the most original street artists I have encountered in some time. Local artist Will Coles glues his intriguing concrete installations of mobile phones, TV remotes and TVs along alleys and pathways in a way that one has to look closely to discover them. I appreciate his works not necessarily because of the message he may or may not be trying to communicate, but simply because they provoke one to take more notice of the little things that often go completely under the radar’

SPONSOR

Australian illustrator Moofus is just 11 years old. As he says, ‘my mum and dad won’t let me leave school to get a proper job, so I draw lots of pictures’. This limited edition print of Sydney’s Coogee Beach is printed on Epson heavyweight matt paper with archival inks and is just US$20 through the Lost At E Minor store.

Post Mortem is an investigation into the realms of an artist’s pysche, carefully extracted and poured onto canvas. From the feverish portraits of James Jirat Patradoon, to the Art Deco stylings of William Loeng, to the sinister images created by Akina, Post Mortem is evidence of some of the most exciting emerging artists who are carving out their own unique identity both here and abroad. Artists include Akina, James Jirat Patradoon, William Loeng, Bei Badgirl, Leigh Rigozzi, Nanami Cowdroy and Plump Oyster. It runs at Sydney’s Kinokuniya Gallery between August 28th and September 9th.

The work of Australian artist David Capra is exhibited until June 27th at Sydney’s Gaffa Gallery, featuring a ‘market stall of spirit-finger gloves, anointed toothpaste, glory boxes, steaks and hand-made coasters’. Of his work, he says: ‘My work is a result of exploring Outsider art and contemporary craft practices. It will take the form of a market store. Making the work was like taking steps towards working more intrinsically, working against creative sensibilities I had developed, resulting in objects that are more of a direct and honest response to the world.

Kareena Zerefos is having her first solo show in Sydney at the MTV Gallery opening Tuesday June 3. The exhibition will bring a collection of her recent illustrative work capturing themes of ‘isolation and escapism, through the depiction of children and their imagination’. Works will include twenty five framed pieces in pencil, biro, gouache, ink and letraset on archival paper, as well as a series of pencil sketches on pianola scrolls. The exhibition runs until June 10.

SPONSOR