18th Street Arts Center

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By ajones, June 8, 2011 12:48 pm

May 2011

Andrew Rogers is a sculptor whose works may be found in many plazas and buildings around the world. He is a leading contemporary artist.

Rogers is the creator of the world’s largest contemporary land art undertaking. Titled “Rhythms of Life,” the project commenced in 1998 and at present comprises 46 massive stone structures (Geoglyphs) across 13 countries in six continents and has involved over 6,700 people.

These Geoglyphs range in size up to 40,000 sq m/430,560 sq ft – and are commanding worldwide attention. They are situated in the Arava Desert – Israel, the Atacama Desert – Chile, the Bolivian Altiplano, Kurunegala – Sri Lanka, Victoria -Australia, the Gobi Desert – China, Akureyri – Iceland, Rajasthan – India, Cappadocia – Turkey, Jomson and Pokhara in Nepal, Spissky and the High Tatras in Slovakia, the Mohave desert in the USA and near the Chyulu Hills in Kenya. Individually and together the Geoglyphs form a unique set of drawings upon the Earth stretching around the globe, connecting people with history and heritage.

Of particular note is the site in Cappadocia, Turkey, where in May 2010 Rogers completed the “Time and Space” geoglyph park. The twelve structures comprise more than 10,500 tons of stone and, in total, the walls measure approximately 4 miles (7 km) in length. The structures that lie furthest apart are separated by a distance of 1.25 miles (2 km).

The title of the project, the “Rhythms of Life” is derived from Rogers’ early bronze sculptures.

Rogers’ works have been presented to leading world figures such as John Howard, Vincent Fox, Efraim Katzir, Richard Butler and Simon Wiesenthal. Andrew Rogers lives in Melbourne Australia and is a full time artist.

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By ajones, September 1, 2010 12:34 pm

September 2010

My proposal for my residencey at the 18th Street Art Centre is to produce a series of paintings and mixed media referencing Edward Ruscha’s photo series “Every buildng on Sunset Strip,”(1965) where he documented the buidings on the left and right side of Sunset Boulevarde. I propose to stage “Every Inhabitant of 18th Street” at the given time of my residency. I would like to research the cultural diversity of the communities of both international and local residents by researching the cultural differences of the performative nature of self-represenation. This will be contextualised through research of Hollywood film characters, superheroes and performers.The resulting work being a series of small scale paintings, photographs and videos exhibited on at least two walls of a gallery where the location of the work corresponds to the dwelling of its subject. The wall in this instance becomes a proscenium arch for the “staging” of life on 18th street in the immediate present.

I am interested within this project taking further my previous work concerning masks, facades where the subjects became ways of psychologically investigating notions of authenticity and personas such as the death mask of Marilyn Monroe. My previous work explored Hollywood nostalgia and b-grade cult horror cinema in relation to a fictional diary ‘Saga Moor’ which was a performative self-portrait where the characters eventual demise as the 50 Foot Woman showed the falibility of fiction and the fraility of the flesh, imagined or real.

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By ajones, May 14, 2010 12:13 pm

David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton’s collaborative practice draws on popular visual culture, art history and cinematic traditions to create works that engage the viewer via optical phenomena, juxtaposition and repetition. Incorporating sculpture, photography, pre-cinematic optical devices and museum inspired displays, their works appropriate iconic snippets of film and video art; re-staging these fragments in new visual contexts in order to observe, break-down and reconfigure familiar narratives.

David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton have been working collaboratively since 2005 and are based in Sydney, Australia. Recent exhibitions include Abandon Normal Devices at FACT, Liverpool, UK and New Acquisitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

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By ajones, March 1, 2010 2:56 pm

March – May, 2010
Mixed Media

Chris Fox combines the architectural and the artistic with his sculptures, interventions, hybrid objects, drawings and models. Skating a fine line between folly and practicality, the various projects devised by Fox draw from their own physical manifestation as sculptures and installations.

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By ajones, November 1, 2009 12:13 pm

November – February, 2009

Sculpture / Installation

Humour is important in the work of Mr. Johnson and tends to pervade all elements of my practice in some form. It acts as a catalyst for breaking down and questioning the status pretensions of Art, the Object and Artist through humiliation and exposure. A suggestive vulnerability is crucial in the work and ones experience of it for the way it can induce and invert empathy and tension.