The Void Embrace
Most of us have had the vertiginous experience of being alone in an unfamiliar country, but we can't all express it through art. Canberra artist Shellaine Godbold can, though. The drawings and sculptures in her new exhibition at ANCA Gallery are a response to her travels in Japan and Taiwan: "Moving back and forth between transparency and opacity these pieces slowly reveal their secrets to viewers. Painstakingly drawing shimmering crystal mountains and figures tangled up in clouds, Shellaine's work deals with the sublime nature of landscape and the body's insignificance within it. By using her own connection with the Australian landscape she investigates foreign territories, love, loss, and all that falls between." The Void Embrace, by Shellaine Godbold, opens June 8 at ANCA Gallery, 1 Rosevear Place, Dickson, and closes June 26.
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Making memories last
In another travel-related show, this time at Suki & Hugh in Bungendore, Julian Laffan has something to say about our yen for bringing home reminders of our travels. "The exhibition presents a series of woodcuts, each hand rendered and hand painted," says the gallery. "Their production defies today's fixation with the instant and the prolific. The process from experience to end creation is intensive and each phase is considered and gradual." The works are small-scale and intricate, bringing you in for a closer look. In the end, you'll feel you've been on a journey, too. Momento, by Julian Laffan, is showing at Suki & Hugh Gallery, 38A Gibraltar Street, Bungendore, until July 31.
Material photography
Two new exhibitions examining the materiality of photography are showing at PhotoAccess in Manuka. In Cihuateotl's Myth, Mexican-born artist Octavio Garcia Alvarado uses an alternative darkroom etching technique to "re-imagine ancient images of Mesoamerican culture…His imagery references Cihuateteo, or Divine Women, the fearsome Aztec goddesses who were believed to be the transformed souls of women who died during childbirth". And in An Endless Horizon, Matthew James explores the traditional photographic image-making process and its ability to "recreate the peripheral experience of panoramic ocean views. An Endless Horizon seeks to breach the divide between viewer, photographer and subject, with particular emphasis on the sharp, never-ending line of the horizon". Cihuateotl's Myth, by Octavio Garcia Alvarado and An Endless Horizon, by Matthew James, are showing at PhotoAccess, Manuka Arts Centre, cnr Manuka Circle and New South Wales Cres, Griffith, until June 19, when the artists will be in conversation at 2pm.
Floating worlds
Two years since featuring in Nancy Sever's grand opening exhibition, Tim Johnson is back with a series of new works that characteristically "embrace the spiritual iconography of a range of cultures", and draw on Aboriginal dot painting, Buddhist, Tibetan and Chinese art. "His painting style is influenced by these sources in both a technical and philosophical way, and by his collaboration with artists from these cultures," says Sever. Floating Worlds, by Tim Johnson, opens Wednesday, June 8 at Nancy Sever Gallery, 4/6 Kennedy Street, Kingston, and closes July 10.
An outsider in Braidwood
Described by many as "outsider" artist, octogenarian Braidwood identity Jack Featherstone has a show opening as part of Braidwood Regional Arts Group's public fundraising event. The exhibition will be of new and older works, including his distinctive works on bark, and most will be for sale. "Every painting is a visual story about one of Jack's many adventures in life, and part of the experience of his art is hearing those stories," says the show's curator. Jack Featherstone's visual art exhibition opens Friday, June 10 at 6.30pm as part of the Braidwood Regionals Arts Group fundraising event, at Braidwood Community Arts Centre Gallery, 45 Wallace Street, Braidwood, NSW.
Somebody's Aunt
Think twice next time you ask someone what they do, especially if you don't particularly care about the answer. Dance group Somebody's Aunt (great name) has been creating work and performing, often in unconventional spaces, in Canberra for more than a decade and "has led the way in making older dancers visible, and saying something meaningful with their choreography". As part of the new Artist's Program at Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres, the group presents a new work, And what do you do?, "with their own mix of dance, theatre, music and humour, as they climb all over this pesky, impertinent question". Somebody's Aunt performs Saturday, June 4, 6pm and Sunday, June 5, 4pm at Ralph Wilson Theatre, Gorman Arts Centre, Batman St, Braddon. Tickets $20/ $15. Book on Eventbrite or tickets at the door.
From Canberra to Turin
An artists' exchange between Canberra and Turin? Why didn't we think of this before? Canberra Contemporary Art Space artist Kirsten Farrell will be the first to take up the offer, switching places with one Enrico Partengo, who will be welcomed with open arms to Canberra. "Kirsten is well known in Canberra for her stunning colourful works that have referenced everything from great works of literature to spam emails," says CCAS. "At the Cittadellarte in Turin, she intends to continue a series of works focusing on the difficulties of making art in uncertain times by using practices of fortune telling, in the land where tarot first appeared." Go Kirsten – we're not jealous at all! Learn more about the exploits of both artists via ccas.com.au.
Ecuador in Bloom
"The Guayacan tree with its flourishing golden colours is grand and majestic in the mountains, full of growing life, transforming and exploding." Sounds nice, doesn't it? Indigenous artist Luis Millingalli, who was born in 1959 "at the foot of a volcano in Cotopaxi, Ecuador", has a new exhibition of works that capture the bold colours, people and landscapes of rural Ecuador. "Every time I see nature getting destroyed by the man's hand it gives me deep sadness to think that in the future the mountains, flowers and rivers will not be here as I have seen them. That is why I paint them," says Millingalli. Ecuador in Bloom, by Luis Millingalli, is showing at Tuggeranong Arts Centre, 137 Reed Street, Greenway, until June 25.
