MEDIA  RELEASE   For  immediate  release  –  28  August  2014     Fragile  Environments:  Three  sensitive  and  insightful  perspectives  on  the  environment       EXHIBITION  DATES:     TIME:     LAUNCH  EVENT:  

 

11  –  28  September   12.00  –  5.00pm,  Wednesday  -­‐  Sunday   Thursday  11  September  6pm  

Ice  Floes  and  Growlers  

Kerry  McInnis  &  Mike  MacGregor   Mike  MacGregor  and  Kerry  McInnis  travelled  to  the  Antarctic  Peninsula  on  a  ship,  leaving  Tierra  del  Fuego,  Argentina,  crossing   Drake’s  Passage  in  November  2012.  The  ship  crossed  1100km,  destined  for  the  northwest  peninsula.  There,  with  the  use  of   zodiac  craft,  snowshoes  and  sea  kayaks,  they  explored  craggy  shores  of  black  granite  and  frazil  ice.  The  landforms  were  unfamiliar   and  threatening  –  stark  and  magnificent.     The  exhibition  includes  plein  air  sketches  made  on  site  as  well  as  studio  paintings  and  sculptures  that  have  been  distilled  from  the   research  material  gathered  during  the  trip.  The  mystery  and  grandeur  of  the  southernmost  continent  will  remain  as  a  vague  and   elusive  idea  to  most.  By  presenting  their  interpretations  of  Antarctica,  MacGregor  and  McInnis  hope  to  enrich  the  public’s  visual   understanding  of  this  wondrous  place.   McInnis’  paintings  represent  the  very  specific  and  defined  geography  in  a  universal  and  unbounded  language  of  landscape  –  at   once  compelling  and  unsettling.  “I  am  hoping  to  transcend  ‘place’,  changing  identifiable  icons  of  the  Antarctic  peninsula  –  the   glaciers  and  ice  rock  masses  –  into  encrustations  of  medium  and  pigment  that  might  strike  the  viewer  as  a  ‘sensibility’,  revisited.”   Although  MacGregor  generally  works  in  steel  and  bronze,  white  Chillagoe  marble  was  thought  to  be  the  best  material  to   communicate  his  poetic  impressions.  “Still  waters,  black  and  deep,  inverted  snowscapes  glide  and  ripple.  Subtle  and  astonishing,   delicate  and  harsh  a  place  without  scale  and  yet  vast.  A  frail  and  frightening  land  that  defies  measure.  A  land  crumbling  at  the   edges  and  alight  from  within  slides  imperceptibly  on  rocky  bearings.  Where  humans  leave  their  unsubtle  trace.”    

A  lightness  of  Being  

Ngaio  Fitzpatrick   Ngaio  Fitzpatrick’s  work  with  video,  photography  and  industrial  glass  juxtaposes  brutality  and  fragility,  to  create  poetic  imagery   that  expresses  my  concern  with  the  increasingly  destructive  impact  of  human  activity  on  the  natural  environment.     By  filming  the  release  and  shattering  of  massive  sheets  of  redundant  toughened  industrial  glass,  placed  in  industrial  or  natural   locations,  she  explores  human  relationships  with  the  environment.     The  sheet  of  glass  represents  the  human  interface  with  the  natural  world.  The  tough  yet  fragile  membrane  protects  humans  from   the  forces  of  nature  but  not  protecting  nature  from  the  forces  of  humanity.  When  glass  is  shattered,  it  shifts  radically  from  a  state   of  entropy  to  an  explosion  of  destructive  force  and  energy.  The  work  explores  the  terrible  beauty  and  power  of  shattering  glass,  a   meeting  point  of  image  and  sound,  speaking  of  the  pressing  need  for  change.    

In  Translation   Curator:  Ellen  V  Wignell     Kelly  Hayes,  Jemima  Parker,  Yasmin  Masri   From  the  urban  environment  to  the  flowers  growing  in  the  wind,  In  Translation  explores  the  local  landscape  of  Canberra  in  order   to  speak  and  translate  the  nuances  of  the  region.  Utilising  fine  drawing  techniques,  splatters  of  paint  and  remembered  colours  to   recreate  the  essence  of  our  landscape,  Kelly  Hayes,  Jemima  Parker  and  Yasmin  Masri’s  translations  are  personal,  and  speak  of   places  that  have  captured  them.     In  Translation  is  the  first  exhibition  presented  by  M16  Artspace  through  the  Emerging  Exhibition  Prize  (EEP!),  which  was  awarded   to  curator  Ellen  V  Wignell.  “The  everyday  landscape  around  us,  is  often  unobserved,  overlooked  and  forgotten.  Through  different   uses  of  pattern,  Hayes,  Masri  and  Parker  have  translated  our  local  landscape  into  something  to  be  explored,  beheld  and   remembered,”  says  Wignell.     Hayes  documents  her  experience  of  the  landscape  and  uses  the  local  flora  to  understand  the  relationship  to  the  world  around  us,   while  searching  for  a  sense  of  place  and  belonging.  Parker  sees  the  world  through  a  hyper-­‐real  kalidescope,  where  the  mundane   pattern  of  concrete  is  repeated  to  present  delicate  dots.  While  Masri  has  used  a  rich  and  distinctive  colour  palette  to  represent   places  around  Canberra.   All  artists  are  available  for  interviews  and  photographs.              Please  Contact  Emily  Casey,  Exhibitions  and  Promotions  Coordinator,   62959438