Benalla Art Gallery will deepen its relationship with arts Project Australia from October 2023.
Benalla Art Gallery Director, Eric Nash, has curated an exhibition Tones of Home, featuring Benalla-based artists Susie Buykx, Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper, to be presented at Arts Project Australia’s Collingwood Yards gallery from 21 October to 25 November 2023.
Tones of Home draws together artists from Arts Project Australia, Melbourne, Benalla, and north Queensland to present works inspired by domestic and urban spaces. The exhibition extends beyond these settings to consider ‘what makes a place, a home?’, touching on notions of family, community, belonging, connection, love, comfort, safety, and personal histories.
Eric Nash said, “the exhibition presented an opportunity to not only work with Arts Project’s incredible artists, but to also increase recognition of our region’s artistic talent amongst Melbourne audiences.”
The exhibition features Arts Project Australia artists Steven Ajzenberg, Miles Howard-Wilks, Chris Mason, Chris O’Brien, Lisa Reid, Anthony Romagnano, Georgia Szmerling and Amani Tia alongside Atong Atem, Susie Buykx, Cooper+Spowart, Erub Arts Torres Strait and Ghost Net Collective, Aishah Kenton and Ron McBurnie.
Chris O’BRIEN
My Nan’s Holiday House 2018 foam, material, wool
12 x 35 x 29 cm
From December, Benalla Art Gallery will reimagine its on-site partnership with Arts Project Australia, with the activation of a new dedicated display space.
“Beginning this Summer, we’ll launch a new seasonal display highlighting the practice of one of Arts Project Australia’s wonderful artists,” Nash said. “The first Arts Project Australia artist featured will be Chris O’Brien, with the new display space to sit alongside the incredibly popular monthly Gallery Shop exhibitions, which have been celebrating artists of our region since January 2022.”
Chris O’Brien is a multi-disciplinary artist who works in painting, printmaking, sculpture, video and artist zines. He is interested in representing domestic dwellings that feature him, his friends and female TV personalities living there. His current work focusses on creating vibrant soft sculpture houses that have humorous titles and narratives. O’Brien has worked at Arts Project since 2002 and presented his first solo in 2007.
Chris O’BRIEN
Number 19 with Chris and Carolyn 2019 foam, material, wool
25 x 14 x 42 cm
