Streets ahead
There's still time to see a show charting the rise of Australia's street artists to the global art stage including Canberra's own ELK, aka Luke Cornish. Bricks to Canvas at Aarwun Gallery features eight young artists who started out working in streets and laneways of our capital cities and are now making a name for themselves worldwide, thanks to a growing network of art fairs, a new digital art market, and a surge of interest from China. As well as Cornish, the show has work from Reko Rennie, Anthony Lister, Mark Whalen, Vexta, Ghost Patrol, Sean Whelan, and Jackson Slattery. Bricks to Canvas closes on Saturday, August 29 at Aarwun Gallery, Gold Creek. Visit aarwungallery.com for more information.
Different skin
There will be a chance to experience the National Portrait Gallery's exhibition Bare: Degrees of Undress in a different way when roving performers from the Canberra Youth Theatre take over the gallery space for SKIN. The performance installation was created in response to the exhibition and aims to examine "the gradual exposure of the human being, literally and metaphorically" over four hours. SKIN will be staged continuously restart at the top of each hour between 11am to 3pm on August 27 to 30. No bookings are needed and like Bare, the show is free at the National Portrait Gallery.
Written on the wall
Themes of "underrepresented or unspoken narratives" were used as the basis for written works produced to inspire sculptures, photographic works, painting and prints from visual artists in a collaborative show at the M16 Artspace. It's the second time Wordsmith has been staged to explore the common ground between the two differing mediums. The exhibition opens at 6pm on Thursday, August 27 with a performance from local spoken word artist and 2013 Australian Poetry Slam Champion CJ Bowerbird. Other writers involved are Farz Edraki, Tasnim Hossain, Yolande Norris, Claire Capel-Stanley and Sarah St Vincent Welch. Visual artists include Kate Barker, Julie Bradley, Shan Crosbie, Kristin Firth, Ian Robertson and Bernie Slater. Samia Goudie has taken on both roles, responding visually to Yolande Norris' written contribution and producing written work of her own. While the two mediums of writing and visual art have essential differences, curator Sarah Norris says they both have the capacity to engage their audiences through narrative. "This commonality has allowed the ideas taken up by the writer to be further examined and elaborated by the visual artist, and hopefully further thought through and interpreted by the exhibitions audience," she says. Wordsmith runs from August 27 to September 13 at M16 Artspace, Griffith. Also opening at M16 is a portrait show of mostly oil paintings from members of the Canberra Art Workshop. It's called Portrait Making: How and Why and is in Art Studio A until Sunday, August 30.
Clearwater revival
If Bondi can do it why not Queanbeyan? The banks of the Queanbeyan River will again be given an artistic makeover when it's dotted with sculptures for the second Clearwater Sculpture Prize from October 16 to 18. Artists of all levels have until Friday, August 28 to enter with a chance to win $7500 of prizes including the major award of $5000, encouragement award and people's choice worth $1000 and $500 for the children's choice award. The inaugural prize in 2014 attracted 25 sculptures inspired by the river and surrounds. Collaborative works from community groups, schools and other groups are encouraged. For further information contact Georgina Perri on 6285 6170 or email culturalservices@qcc.nsw.gov.au. Entry forms are available from qcc.nsw.gov.au, the Queanbeyan City Library or The Q.
At a loss
The relationship between identity and the spaces used to define it will be explored in PhotoAccess' latest show featuring the works of US artist Evan Baden, Aimee Fitzgerald from Sydney, and Dean Butters, Elly Freer and Emily Jackett from Melbourne. In At a Loss, The artists explore gender, geography, culture, memory, relationships and the self through the prism of "accelerating technologies, and changing world views". Baden's work reflecting on the rise of the selfie with his recreations of intimate images he finds online has attracted attention recently. Fitzgerald's portraits explore the tension between painting and photography as representational mediums. Jackett explores identity through the difference and repetition of memory in her works. Freer uses the film Picnic at Hanging Rock as an entry point to create gothic imagery engaging with ideas around a woman's place within the male environment. Butters uses the minimalist landscape of the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, to engage with notions of value, privilege and success. At A Loss opens at 6pm on Thursday, August 27 until Sunday, September 20 at PhotoAccess Huw Davies Gallery, Griffith. More information atphotoaccess.org.au.
Making the shortlist
Two Canberra artists, Cathy Laudenbachand Carolyn Young, have been named as finalists for the $25,000 Bowness Photography Prize. The two were among 47 selected from close to 700 photographers. The winner will be announced at Monash Gallery, Melbourne on October 1. Photographic artist Bill Henson is one of three judges for the 2015 award.
