Panoramica
David Mitchener
Colour Factory
Opening: Thursday July 1st 6-8pm
Exhibition runs til 31st July 2010

David Mitchener is showing Panoramica, a collection of his stunning mural photographs at the Colour Factory Gallery in July.

All the images in this exhibition are taken with the remarkable Hasselblad X-Pan. This small and very portable camera allows shooting with great spontaneity.  It’s very wide film format and superb optics are portrayed beautifully in the mural prints. The panoramic format allows for his unique concept of landscape photography to be viewed in incredible detail. David shoots using a grainy negative film stock, which in combination with some specialised processing techniques, yields a painterly, organic effect. His interpretation of these destinations is as much about the detail and texture as it is about the broader horizon. This often abstract and unexpected view takes the work into a more experiential, epic realm.

Educated at RMIT in Australia and Brooks Institute of Photography in California, his career has included stints in New York and Denmark, and has taken him on shoots in South America, South East Asia, Japan and New Zealand.

The Colour Factory Gallery’s next exhibition opening is on Tuesday the 30th of March from 6 – 8pm.

Lizzie Hollins
200 Million and Counting
The Colour Factory Gallery

Exhibition runs from March 30-April 30, 2010

200 Million & Counting explores the dynamic of the mass crowd, tourism, consumption, global attraction and narrative there within.

The work is removed from its subjects via distance and by doing so allows the viewer to see within an image the greater narrative and interaction going on within these groupings of people. Abstracted by distance, this ‘birds eye view’ creates intriguing aesthetic patterns.

It’s interesting how monuments, structures, buildings and places of significance in general, can reach such global celebrity status that year round people from far and wide are drawn to them, if only for half an hour, to have a look about, tick an invisible box, get a snap shot and then leave.

Then there are the enthralling items that a large number of people obtain before jet-setting, which are generally considered to aid the hardcore tourist and assist in such box ticking activities. Such as the TEVA or Reef sandal, the fanny-pack or bum bag, the coin-belt, the Legionnaires cap or at extremes, colour coordinated outfits to ensure you don’t loose your significant other.

I’m continually fascinated by the excesses and motivations behind the tourist dollar.

This work was produced in Europe. In contrast to the east, where I have also spent time documenting tourism – observing and trying to understand the way in which economic infrastructure has cleaved to the influx of such a rapidly developing industry – its fascinating to observe and compare the differentiating effects tourism has had economically & culturally.

Allan Kleiman
Colour Factory Gallery
Urban Archaeology- reconstructing the present
Opening Thursday March 4, 6-8pm

Exhibition runs from March 4-20, 2010

Allan, a successful commercial photographer for many years, has recently turned his passion for photography into the pursuit of fine art. This body of work presents the graphic beauty of the everyday, illustrating and recording degrees of urban decoration and decay. Mostly shot in the familiar streets of Melbourne, Allan invites the viewer to imagine and interpret these ‘discoveries’ in the same way that an archaeologist discovers the remains of ancient civilizations and reconstructs what life was like.

As you may remember back in our July eNewsletter, we featured an article on analogue projection printing.

The subject of the article was the challenging creation of a 4.2 x 2.7m hand print of STELLARC’s flayed face for his exhibition ‘Skin’ at Scott Livesey Galleries in August. The work is now on show in Luxembourg at the Casino: Forum D’Art Contemporain (see below).

Images courtesy of Scott Livesey Galleries

A small replica of the image will be featured in the Colour Factory Gallery in January.

The Colour Factory would like to thank everybody for their overwhelming support of its first exhibition by Gerard O’Connor and Marc Wasiak. It was a huge opening night, and we’ve had regular daily attendance streaming through the door. ‘Why Don’t You Take A Picture It Will Last Longer’ comes to a close this Friday November 13, and we strongly encourage anyone who hasn’t seen it yet to check out this incredible show.

As one exhibition closes another opens…‘Sustainable Fusion Reactions’ curated by artist Jill Orr will be opening on Thursday November 19, 6 – 8pm.  This innovative and experimental exhibition by three local artists seeks to link eco-sustainability, Indigenous sustainability and cross- cultural sustainability as different aspects of the same challenge. Japanese artist Utako Shindo, Indigenous artist Bindi Cole and environmental artist Ash Keating join forces to find solutions to sustainability through understanding and education. The exhibition runs from November 19 to December 18. All are welcome!

The curator of this photographic exhibition, Jill Orr, describes the artists works on display:

“Sustainable Fusion Reactions has been initiated by the Art Academy, University of Ballarat and is linked to RMIT and the Avoca Eco-Living Festival.

Solutions to sustainability and climate change will possibly be found
and implemented at the interface between science, art, culture and the
community. This project visualises emerging innovations and ideas
that can be experienced and embodied through art. Understanding
and education is a vital link in the paradigm shift that is necessary to
implement sustainable futures. Sustainable Fusion Reactions seeks to
link eco-sustainability, Indigenous sustainability and cross- cultural
sustainability as different aspects of the same challenge.

The three artists first developed their works in the Ballarat region by
drawing on both colonial, Indigenous and Japanese heritage and linking
this to present ecological imperatives and cultural sustainability”.

Ash Keating: EurEco Revolution
“The new green eureka flag is visual catalyst for a much-needed united environmental revolution, also acting as a symbol of freedom for the environment.

I believe the Eureka Stockade could be seen as an historic blueprint, for the people of Australia today to rise up against our current governments who continue to fail in re-structuring our country in response to the most challenging issue humanity faces, Climate Change.

This project, EurEco Revolution, changes the colour of the Eureka Southern Cross flag from Royal Blue to Bright Green, to act as a visual symbol for the coming together of the broader community to begin to significantly speak out about the issues we continue to face. The flag has been jointly laid upon a stack of railway sleepers by both Val D’Angri who is the restorer of the original eureka flag and myself”.

Ash Keating

Bindi Cole: Disposable Words

“Disposable Words uses rubbish collected from Wathurung country to create a sculptural text installation that spells out Wathaurung words. There is a link between the plastic rubbish that is thrown away daily by commuters along the freeways and the language that was thrown away like rubbish. Right here, where we stand, exists a community of Wathurung people and a history of ancestry that dates back tens of thousands of years. That community had a language and culture all of its own. Through colonisation, much of that knowledge was deemed unimportant.Disposable Words looks at the death of the language through the
revival of it.”

Bindi Cole

Utako Shindo: It Drops, it reflects

“Cultural sustainability may be discussed in the context of discovering one’s own tradition. However, for someone who inhabits the process of globalisation, it may be an issue to name what is your own culture. It seems that it is, in fact, more manageable to discover a root that is deep in the earth yet growing towards unaccountable future. I have entered the journey of discovery through my Japanese heritage and now attempt through my art practice to pursue something universally in common, like water: a linkage of our spirit; it drops, it reflects, our feelings of joy and sadness in living and death. Global Climate Change may shift not only the water level of the planet but the degree of our engagement to our own being. Simultaneously, Globalisation may shift the importance of sustaining culture from what is individual to what is universal”.

Utako Shindo