pingpong by Clare Peake and Tanya Schultz

Sympathy and the Sea by David Turley

Install shots with Clare Peake and Tanya Schultz for their collaborative project pingpong

WELCOME to the December exhibition of Alda’s Gallery and Project Space. Alda’s opened in October 2009 as a Gallery and Project Space to support the work of unrepresented artists in self directed solo or curated group shows and collaborative projects. Located within Alda’s Bar and Café the Gallery and Project Space aims to support contemporary art practices that are experimental and innovative in nature, providing meaningful opportunities to artists whilst bringing enriching experiences to new audiences, identifying Alda’s as a hub of creative activity in Perth City.

pingpong

Tinkering with everyday materials and employing a DIY sensibility, Tanya Schultz and Clare Peake are working collaboratively for the first time. Their sculptural observations created from a process of exchange, are informed by ideas of exploration, invention and the infinite potential of materials.

CLARE PEAKE completed her Bachelor of Arts at Curtin University in 2006. Since graduating she has contributed to several significant curated group shows and has completed residencies both locally and interstate, most recently in 2008 at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA). Peake has also been involved in several artist run initiatives, including palmcourt, and the newly founded contemporary arts newspaper tête-à-tête (TAT), for which she also writes.

TANYA SCHULTZ graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Edith Cowan University in 2003 and has participated in significant curated shows such as An Ever Expanding Universe at PICA and New Works, New Faces at Perth Galleries. Schultz’s work is held by Edith Cowan University and King Edward Memorial Hospital Art Collection. In 2008 Schultz received the Qantas Foundation Encouragement of Contemporary Art Award as a part of her ongoing collaboration with artist Nicole Andrijevic known as Pip & Pop whom have exhibited nationally and internationally.

SYMPATHY AND THE SEA

David Turley’s practice explores the re-presentation of found objects and materials, questioning ideas of belief, existence and mortality. Working with materials of personal and social histories, Turley creates constructions and installations, which act as personal and cultural anthropological memorials. Sympathy and the Sea is a series of new works examining ideas of existence and personal unrest as suggested through classic tales of the sea and their metaphorical depictions of life.

DAVID TURLEY graduated from RMIT in 2009 with a Masters in Art in Public Space after gaining a Bachelor of Arts from Edith Cowan University in 2004. Turley continues to exhibit consistently throughout Australia and recently held a solo show at First Site Gallery in Melbourne. Turley also completed a residency at the Bathurst Regional Gallery in NSW in 2008. Alongside his solo practice he has collaborated on performance/installation works for the past ten years with Korin Gath as d&k being awarded residencies nationally and internationally including an Australia Council studio residency in Tokyo, 2006. For more information please visitwww.davidturley.com

Alda's Inaugural Exhibition - Artist Profiles

LAURA ADEL JOHNSON graduated from Curtin University of Technology in 2004 completing a BA Art. Johnson has since exhibited her work locally and interstate, and most recently held a solo show at Chalk Horse Gallery in Sydney. Johnsons’ work has been curated into significant group shows such as Linden 1968 at Linden Contemporary Art Gallery Melbourne, Drawn Out at PICA in 2005 and was included in New Works, New Faces at Perth Galleries in 2005. In 2008 Johnson interned with New York artist Mickalene Thomas after completing a residency at the Bemis Centre for Contemporary Art in Nebraska. It was during this residency that Johnson started working with fairy lights inspired by gaudy Christmas decorations.

As multimedia artist I use unconventional materials to make drawings that describe or comment on the current social/political environment. My most recent series of works utilize fairy lights to create large scale illustrative portraits that seductively spill down the walls and floors tracing the hypnotic gaze of the subject.

RIZZY graduated from Central TAFE with an Advanced Diploma in Sculpture in 2007 and has since exhibited widely in Perth and was included in Hatched 2008 at PICA, as well as TAFE Survey at the Bunbury Regional Art Gallery. Rizzy continues to work collaboratively with artists initiating artist-run projects throughout Perth.

I am a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice incorporates installation, photography, performance, print and sculpture. Through my work I explore the decadent trappings of femininity and society’s expectations of women are examined using materials that reference the female experience and body.

CAROL WELLS has lived and worked in New York for over 25 years and has divided her time between Australia and the States since 1990. Wells completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Parsons School of Design in New York and has worked extensively as an artistic director in film and television, as well as graphic design while simultaneously maintaining her studio practice. Wells’ 25 years of creating sets and props for film and television has influenced her practice significantly, working between paint, print and wall sculptures using recycled packaging.

These sculpture and prints works are part of an ongoing series begun in 2004 concerning the luxury of detritus, weaving together the formal visual language of the artificial and organic into an abstract landscape of shape, colour and light. “Disparate influences co-exist happily in Carol’s work, without asking to be inserted into a tight hierarchy…Clouds of cones are sometimes dark and stern — rigorous echoes of modern living, or white and pink — a ballerina in a music box turning lightly on a single whimsical point. Musical, repetitive, obsessive, reprised, interdependent, the clouds inspire their own shadows on walls.” Josephine Wilson - From her essay “Tweaking the clouds” 2009

Alda's Gallery and Project Space Opens in Perth October 2009

The Alda’s Gallery and Project Space is a unique exhibition space available for unrepresented emerging and established Australian artists. Comprised of a window project space and a loft style floor boarded gallery, the venue is designed to deliver self directed solo or curated group shows. Selection into the program is based on the strength of the application, suitability of the project for the physical space and the resolution of the ideas underpinning the artist’s practice.

The inaugural exhibition opened on October 31^st this year and with a provocative and engaging ensemble of sculpture, installation, drawing, painting, light and multimedia. Local artists Carol Wells, Laura Adel Johnson and Rizzy followed by an exciting program of local and interstate talent.

Exhibitions Manager Lizzie Delfs says “What’s great about the space is that it combines an elegant crisp setting much like a commercial gallery, in a high profile location, but will operate with the soul of an artist run space. There’s nothing else like it in Perth“.

The establishment of a gallery and project space within Alda's Bar and Café will expose participating artists to a new targeted audience – the clientele of Alda's, made up of a mix of professionals in business and design who work in close proximity of the café and those who venture into the city for after work dinner and drinks. With limited exhibition spaces in Perth Alda's Gallery and Project Space provides local artists with an opportunity to publicly present self directed projects.

Delfs continues “With many art spaces in the city and Northbridge being squeezed out due to rising rents and redevelopment, Alda's Gallery and Project Space represents what is needed in Perth if it desires the cultural invigoration - that is more commercial businesses putting resources into the cultural sector in a way that creates meaningful opportunities for artists, as well as enriching experiences for audiences.”

For more information, including proposal guidelines and print quality images please contact Exhibitions Manager Lizzie Delfs on 0418 156 705 or email aldasgalleryandprojectspace@gmail.com