REVERIE AT VILLA ALBA: Narrative Space

Updates

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:40:41 -0400

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!

Installation Shots, Narrative Space 2012, Villa Alba Museum

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:36:22 -0400

Installation Shots, Narrative Space 2012, Villa Alba Museum

Installation Shots, Narrative Space 2012, Villa Alba Museum...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:32:11 -0400

Installation Shots, Narrative Space 2012, Villa Alba Museum

Photo credit: Irit Pollak

Installation Shots, Narrative Space 2012, Villa Alba...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:30:07 -0400

Installation Shots, Narrative Space 2012, Villa Alba Museum

Photo credit: Irit Pollak

This is a video of sodacake’s multimedia installation...

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 01:36:39 -0400

This is a video of sodacake’s multimedia installation ETCETERA from the exhibition

Been and Gone

Wed, 30 May 2012 20:04:00 -0400

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:

Wed, 23 May 2012 19:52:00 -0400

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.

View Larger Map

Getting close!

Mon, 21 May 2012 23:53:49 -0400

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'

Mon, 21 May 2012 23:32:03 -0400

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'

Mon, 21 May 2012 23:29:00 -0400

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

Mon, 21 May 2012 03:51:00 -0400

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.

Sarah Parker - website

Artist Profile no. 15: Daryl Prondoso

Sun, 20 May 2012 08:48:03 -0400

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

Daryl Prondoso - website

Artist Profile no. 14: Isobel Parker Philip

Tue, 15 May 2012 20:22:00 -0400

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 19^th 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

Tue, 15 May 2012 20:11:45 -0400

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

Tue, 15 May 2012 20:09:27 -0400

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.

Artist Profile no. 11: Niko Spelbrink

Tue, 15 May 2012 20:07:34 -0400

Artist statement

Texture of Type//Framing Fonts

More craft than art.
Readability, the quality of being read with pleasure and interest, is the responsibility of any author.
However, legibility (which is the quality of being read clearly and quickly) is the result of typography.
Creating legible text takes a good deal of attention, analysis and time but ultimately helps readers save time.
Design does have a function and this focus on practical solutions can create natural beauty.

Biography

Niko Spelbrink studied at Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.
He got an introduction to slow typography as a letterpress compositor.
Co-founding BRS Design in Amsterdam coincided with the lasting technology driven transformation which has occurred in creative industries like publishing, designing objects, buildings and environments.
BRS grew into a leading exponent of the remarkable design scene in the Netherlands.

Throughout his professional practice Niko served as a lecturer in typographic design, the last decades at Monash and RMIT Universities.
In Melbourne he co-founded the Ography Design consultancy.

During the eighties he acted as a boardmember of icograda, the International Council of Graphic Design Associations, and served as its president in 1989-1991 term.

Artist Profile no. 10: Stephen Philip

Tue, 08 May 2012 07:40:00 -0400

Musician Stephen Philip (of The Thought Criminals and Do Re Mi fame) will exhibit his composition Dusting For Prints at the Narrative Space exhibition.

Artist Statement

I know Villa Alba has been many things in it’s life and being a family home is one of them.

I’m simply imaging that at some stage in the history of Villa Alba that a child occupied a room and it had enormous importance to her.

This room was her “safe place”, “happy place”, “fun place” which goes towards defining her.

It’s her special private space/room even if she only spent a short period of time occupying it when compared to the total age of the building.

It’s also goes to “ownership” and our sense of what is, if only for a fleeting moment, thought of as solely ours and no one else’s.

We are all quite transient when it come to fixed dwellings yet I’d like to think (at least for the sake of this piece) that we all leave an impression or a memory in the bricks and mortar which lingers.

I have no idea if I’ll actually achieve this in the final product but Hell it’s fun having a go.

Preserved, deep frozen Memory is at the heart of “Dusting for Prints”.

Time and place memory - all cryo-packed for future delights.

Four sound sources: each projecting sounds and noises

Four sound sources: in and out of sync

Four sound sources: broadcasting - never repeating

Four sound sources: unpredictable

Dusting for Prints

IN LITTLE CRACKS AND LITTLE GAPS

THAT’S WHERE YOU’LL FIND HER

Dusting for Prints

IN FADED TIMBERS CHALKY IN DUST

THAT’S WHERE YOU’LL FIND HER

Artist Profile no. 9: Tobias Richardson

Tue, 08 May 2012 07:26:00 -0400

Artist Statement

The potential of houses to be spaces for the perception and conception of visual arts is very tangible and useful.

I do not know the space, Villa Alba, it is site-unseen … while perhaps it would be more common to know spaces before working in them processes can none-the-less evolve from afar in inverted manners. The artist is a problem solver, the artist resolves spaces and the artist embraces challenges as creative pathways.

My practice primarily involves the broad interpretation of built environments and physical spaces. Spaces on which to lay biographical and fictional content set against the physical and formal qualities of buildings and their history. These spaces, as Sarah states in the Villa Alba project’s title, are narrative spaces.

For Narrative Space I have selected different past works to travel to Melbourne. Sheets as ghost, tin paintings of ideal buildings, universal power points and black like drawings, all these speak to my distant knowledge of Villa Alba.

Biography

Tobias RICHARDSON born 1968, Sydney, New South Wales; currently lives in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales

Tobias Richardson built a career as a young artist in Sydney during the 1990s before moving to the Northern Territory in 1997 to take up a teaching post in Utopia in the Central Desert. He went on to teach in Maningrida, Arnhem Land, before moving to Darwin in 2006 where he lectured in studio practice at Charles Darwin University and worked at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory whilst maintaining an active professional practice. He recently returned to New South Wales, where is currently making art full time.

Richardson holds a Diploma of Art, East Sydney Technical College (1987), Bachelor of Fine Arts, San Francisco Art Institute (1991), Diploma of Education, University of Sydney (1993), Certificate IV Conservation Lands Management, Charles Darwin University (2003) and Masters by Research, Charles Darwin University (2011). He has been the recipient of several residencies including the Asia Link residency at Galeri Petronas in Kuala Lumpur (2007) and the Cite Internationale des Arts residency in Paris (2008, 2010). Richardson has exhibited regularly in Australia since graduating from art school in the late 80s and his work has been included in group shows internationally in Indonesia, Malaysia, Germany and the USA. In 2007 his work was selected for Cross Currents: Focus on Australian Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art and most recently in early 2012, a substantial survey of his sculpture, painting and drawing were shown at RAFT Artspace, Alice Springs. Richardson’s work is represented in public collections nationally, including the National Gallery of Victoria and Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.

Artist Profile no. 8: Heidi Yardley

Sun, 06 May 2012 01:18:00 -0400

Artist Statement

In my practice I transform found imagery into paintings and drawings of familiar yet complicated scenes and portraits. The artworks often play on nostalgia, memory and personal and cultural histories, exploring emotions such as desire and loss. The narratives within the work are often unresolved, requiring the viewer’s personal recognition. Associations and contradictions are at play creating the sense of a memory difficult to recall or the fragmented still of a film.

Biography

Heidi Yardley was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1975. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art majoring in painting in 1995 at Monash University and Honours in Drawing at RMIT in 1999. Since 1998 Yardley has held ten solo exhibitions and has exhibited extensively in group exhibitions throughout Australia. She has been a finalist in a number of high profile competitions including The Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship (2000, 2002, 2004), The Hutchins School Art Prize (2000), The Mosman Art Prize (2001), The Doug Moran National Portrait Prize (2009, 2011) and The City of Albany Art Prize (2010). Yardley has been invited to exhibit in significant group exhibitions including Neo-Goth: Back in Black at The University of Queensland Art Museum (2008), Post Chrysalis at Sullivan and Strumpf (2008), The University of Queensland National Artists Self-Portrait Prize and the inaugural NOTFAIR- a satellite Art Fair held in Melbourne (2010). In 2011 Yardley was awarded an Ian Potter Cultural Trust grant as well as the Dame Joan Sutherland Fund to undertake a two-month residency in New York. Yardley’s work has been acquired extensively by private Collectors in Australia and overseas and has also been acquired by major institutions including The University of Queensland Art Museum, The BHP Billiton Collection, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery and The Methodist Ladies’ College Collection. Yardley is represented by Jan Murphy Gallery in Brisbane and Scott Livesey Galleries in Melbourne.

Heidi Yardley - website

Artist Profile no. 7: Irit Pollak

Sun, 06 May 2012 01:15:00 -0400

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Phantoms of Sydney

As intricate frescoes emerge from beneath thick coats of beige paint Villa Alba is slowly being restored to its former grandeur. I am intrigued by this process and see a parallel in the way that cities form layers over time. Buildings are constructed, broken down and then built on top of again. Every now and then we get a glimpse of what once lay beneath.

In my body of work entitled Phantoms of Sydney I am figuratively peeling back the paint to reveal an almost unrecognizable Sydney. My investigation is divided into People and Place. I have photocopied a selection of archival photographs from Mitchell Library of Sydney suburbs and people dating from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. Each photocopy has been affected by hand in a way that breathes life back into it. I used various techniques that ranged from freezing, scratching and cutting to illuminating and puncturing. Each photocopy was affected according my guttural response to it. This process has resulted in a series of images that emanate a spectral quality to suggest the resurrection of Sydney’s forgotten past.

Phantoms of Sydney imparts that the unfamiliar is perpetually bound with the familiar.

Irit Pollak - website