Reverie Projects, in association with the Villa Alba Museum, is devoted to establishing a dialogue between the historic house in Melbourne’s Kew and contemporary art practitioners. This dialogue takes the form of a series of exhibitions in which the house acts as subject and muse.
Updates
We’ve finally uploaded some installation shots of the show. If you visited and have some other images, please send them through as we are still compiling our archive.
We are currently working on a new exhibition for the end of the year. Can’t wait to get back into the house!
Been and Gone
What a wonderful weekend - thank you to everyone that made it out to the Villa Alba Museum over the weekend - we had an absolute ball. We will be posting photographs of the installation process, as well as the exhibition itself for those of you who didn’t manage to get there.
Thank you to all of the artists that contributed - your work was all beautiful - and those people that helped out behind the scenes and made it all possible - Joyce Parker, Jan Tynan, Sue Parker, Scott Lewin and the Villa Alba Committee. We couldn’t have done it without you.
Can’t wait for the next show - watch this space!
Reverie Projects- Sarah Parker // Isobel Parker Philip // Daryl Prondoso
How to get there:
Villa Alba Museum is located at 44 Walmer St. Kew, Melbourne
There is plenty of street parking around the house.
If you are coming via public transport, Buses 200 - 201 - 205 -207 stop at the corner of Studley Park Road and Walmer Street. These buses leave regularly from the city, via Johnston St.
The bus stop for the house is near a sign on the right hand side of the road that says ‘Yarra Bend Park’. When you get off, walk down Walmer St. and you’ll find the house.
Getting close!
The show starts this Friday, with the opening on Saturday 26th May. We’ll be installing from tomorrow… beginning to get very excited - hope to see you all there
Here's our page on 'artwhatson'
Keep an eye out for us in their weekly newsletter about Australian cultural events or download their app for info on the go!
Nice write up on 'Three Thousand'
Thanks to Melbourne online cultural guide Three Thousand for this great shout out!
Click on the title to get the link
Artist Profile no. 16: Sarah Parker
Artist Statement
In 1950 Villa Alba’s murals were painted over, disguising and concealing its history. In 2011, as part of a 25-year conservation effort, the boudoir walls of the house were uncovered to reveal beautiful birds.
The little bird sculptures I have made for Narrative Space are symbols of the human spirit, inspired by the Ba Birds of Ancient Egypt. The bird image has been discovered in countless temples in various cultures around the world.
The bird is often thought to represent the mother and the maternal. My work symbolically engages with this concept.
The sculptures I am exhibiting in Narrative Space pays homage to the young mothers and babies who lost each other through forced adoption in Australia from the 1950’s to the 1970’s. In particular, the young mothers that stayed at the Henry Pride Wing, an annex of The Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, which was once on the grounds of The Villa Alba Museum.
My work is inspired by pre-Christian folklore and feminine imagery from antiquity.
Bio
Sarah has been exhibiting for over twenty-five years internationally and nationally. Her artwork is included in many private collections around the world. Sarah is currently the Director, curator and an exhibiting artist for Reverie Projects at Villa Alba Museum.
Artist Profile no. 15: Daryl Prondoso
Artist Statement
apparitions
every house i’ve ever lived in has been haunted. ‘apparitions’ is a series of portraits of those that once inhabited my home, and still do. their remnants linger like imprints on a page
Artist Profile no. 14: Isobel Parker Philip
Artist Statement
Covered // Kept
Covered // Kept is a photographic narrative, a dialogue between images that is mapped across the pages of a book. It is a dialogue that threads its way beneath the folds of the paper and along the edge of the spine.
Turning the pages we enter into quiet conversations. We share in their secrets.
Each episode is a tale of loss. There is an abandoned house. Lost // forgotten // left behind.
But what remains? What lies there – kept // preserved // untouched – under the cover of the past?
The photographs in this book have been assembled from over a years worth of images. Most of them were taken in Villa Alba, the historic 19th Century mansion in Melbourne’s Kew. As the layers of beige paint are peeled back, exposing the original murals below, we witness an unveiling. What was buried and disguised when the walls were painted over in the 1950s is only now being uncovered.
The images in this book gently explore this unveiling, turning their attention to that which has been lost, forgotten and hidden over time. Some photographs were taken in other houses – in other histories – yet they too speak to the covered and the kept. They tell the same story with different words.
Isobel Parker Philip - website
Artist Profile no. 13: Peter Lyssiotis
Artist Statement
Spaces like houses have several parallel lives that run simultaneously. In Inside/Outside I imagine one life of the house, like a film with a single theme, but with different projectors project at the same time.
So many people and things have passed through Villa Alba. I try to catch on to the historical coattails and use this book to reveal one narrative. The emptiness and absence in the house appeal to me, they give a chance to impose a narrative into the space.
Artist Profile no. 12: Marius Foley
Artist Statement
Colour washes through these rooms. Distressed by being hidden for so long, and now re-emerging into a new era, they are tentative and bold at the same time. I sample the colours on the walls and separate them to establish a new palette.
I’m drawn to the museum as a resource for contemporary designers and artists who see it entirely differently to the way it was seen originally and at each point on its trajectory.
