GERTRUDE STUDIOS 2012
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Gertrude Contemporary’s 2012 Studio Artists’ exhibition presented a dynamic selection of new work by sixteen of Australia’s most innovative young artists. As an organization that fosters artists in the first fifteen years of their career through studio residencies, exhibitions, touring exhibitions, publications and educational programmes, Gertrude Contemporary offers an environment where risk, experimentation and creativity are encouraged. As such, the annual Gertrude Studio exhibition presents an unparalleled sampling of Australia’s most dynamic contemporary art practice. 

Featuring sixteen artists working across a range of disciplines the Gertrude Studios exhibition seeks to enhance commonalities as well as linking and intersecting what appear to be divergent practices, to reveal shared concerns and associations. 

Veronica Kent presented a new installation work that saw her intimate portraits of an otherworldly family emerge and recede amongst objects and layered fabric. These figures and their accompanying objects seem to speak to each other silently in a private language of symbol and sign. The furtive tendencies of objects were also explored in Ash Kilmartin’s new installation work. Created specifically for the front gallery of Gertrude Contemporary and spanning the entire window, the silk and bronze work filtered daylight as it entered the gallery and recalls both the physical and elusive presence of lingering memory. 

Eliza Dyball’s installation followed the parameters of the gallery, snaking around the walls, negotiating the building, discretely tracking the spatial and relational currents of the exhibition. Dyball challenged our experience of space, while Darren Sylvester drew our attention to the passage of time, foregrounding our own mortality. Sylvester took his recent interest in the neo-mysticism of contemporary beauty products to a new, monumental scale with the creation of a carved totem that greets both the future and the past. With her eye also fixed on the intersection of time, mysticism and science, Hanna Tai presented a new video work made during her then-recent research trip to Jantar Mantar, Jaipur. Here, monumental astronomical instruments constructed in the 16th Century provide the site for Tai’s ongoing exploration of cosmology and astronomy. 

This exhibition also featured new works by Fergus Binns, Trevelyan Clay, George Egerton-Warburton, Christopher Hill, Katie Lee, Laith McGregor, Joshua Petherick, Reko Rennie, Jensen Tjhung, Jake Walker and Paul Yore. 

As part of the annual exhibition Gertrude Contemporary Studio Artists openined their studios to the public for one afternoon only on Saturday 24 November 1 - 4pm. This was an exclusive opportunity to meet the artists and gain an invaluable insight into their practices. 

The Gertrude Studios exhibition was generously supported by Suzi Carp, Gertrude’s Table, Head of the Table, and The Daniel Besen Foundation.

The Studio Artists’ catalogue was designed and generously sponsored by Yanni Florence.

Image:Ash Kilmartin, We searched for a suitable form for all this, we tried to be disciplined and stern, we looked for the courage to eventually be even tedious, 2011. Spotted Gum timber, leather. Installation view; Impossible Objects, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne. Photo: Jake Walker

SLIDE:

Exhibiting in the Gertrude Slide currently is CAKE INDUSTRIES.