Post Space, Exeter presents Kaloskagathos an exhibition bringing together works by contemporary Australian artists who explore, embrace or challenge classical artistic traditions. Drawing inspiration from renowned works of literature, history, mythology and cultural traditions to explore the themes of feminism, motherhood, domesticity and the goddess, these artists works, in varying ways, embody the power and majesty of female sexuality whilst subverting the classical idea that promoted the supremacy of the male form.

Featuring Jedda Daisy Culley, Louisa Chircop, Belynda Henry, Solomon Kammer, Sophy Reynolds, Mirra Whale and Hayley West and spanning different materials and formats - painting, sculpture, installation, photography and drawing - these artists come together looking at the relics of the enduring preoccupation of art with the human form as well as contemporary art’s ongoing relationship with the classical past.

10 FEBRUARY - 23 MARCH 2024

3 - 22 November 2023

"Just as the the moon needs the sun to reflect light,

I need the moon to cast my shadow.”

'Shadow Sanctuary' by Louisa Chircop invites viewers on an evocative journey into the profound depths of the artist's conceptual realm. Chircop's oeuvre is a contemplative fusion of personal experiences, art history, and the intricate tapestry of psychological phenomena. Within this exhibition, each artwork serves as a portal, unlocking the enigmatic "shadows of the self," as guided by Chircop's subconscious wanderings within her inner sanctum, intimately intertwined with her Maltese Australian heritage.

At its conceptual core, 'The Grotto' emerges as a stage—an ephemeral theater where Chircop's dreamlike landscapes materialize, punctuated by disembodied figurative elements and enigmatic forms. As observers engage with her creations, they are enveloped by a surreal atmosphere, akin to the presence of a mystical crystal ball. This immersive experience beckons the audience to venture deeper, unveiling the treasures unearthed through the artist's intuitive creative process. Here, religion transmutes into a realm of unbridled fantasy and reinvention.

Chircop's artistic inquiry transcends conventional boundaries, daring to explore the intricate facets of the human condition—pain, pleasure, guilt, and shame. Her exploration delves into an innovative interpretation of religious sexuality, an intersection where the sacred and the profane merge to construct a deeply personal tantra. This fusion is a vibrant celebration of the terrestrial, the cosmic, and the spiritual—a form of contemporary self-devotion that venerates the Earth, the universe, and spirituality. Amidst the encompassing corporeal darkness, fragments of illumination emerge, unveiling metamorphosed, reinvented, hybrid, and reborn iterations of the artist herself. This creative rebirth finds its genesis in Chircop's immigrant European lineage, rooted in the resolute traditions of medieval antiquity.

Chircop's artworks rise from the depths of her profound spiritual orientation, each layer a fragment of a greater conceptual tapestry. Together, they construct a stratospheric conceptual landscape, inviting viewers to embark on a cerebral odyssey, unraveling the complexities of the human psyche and the perpetual dance between illumination and obscurity. 'Shadow Sanctuary' is a conceptual and emotional sanctuary where the ineffable and the profound converge in an immersive exploration of self and spirituality.

Photo Credits: Henry Zammit Cordina ‘Zamcor Media’

1 Jul 2023 - 10 Sep 2023

In the arms of unconsciousness: Women, feminism and the surreal, is a cross generational landmark first exhibition featuring the work of 22 significant female Australian artists whose practices explore ideas of the surreal and feminism.

Featuring newly commissioned and recent works, including some which have not yet been seen by Australian audiences, the exhibition includes paintings, ceramics, photography, sculpture, video works, drawings and collage.

Sitting within a renewed global interest in women artists and Surrealism, this ambitious exhibition explores ideas of feminism and the surreal, proposing an intrinsic between the two, particularly in contemporary Australian art practice over the decades.

The artists in this exhibition work with elements of the surreal to explore, disrupt or challenge traditional representations of the female body and provide unique perspectives on personal and political issues which resonate today.

Artists include Del Kathryn Barton, Vivienne Binns, Pat Brassington, Louisa Chircop, Lynda Draper, Freya Jobbins, Deborah Kelly, Madeleine Kelly, Juz Kitson, Honey Long & Prue Stent, Lucy O’Doherty, Jenny Orchard, Jill Orr, Patricia Piccinini, Caroline Rothwell, Julie Rrap, Marikit Santiago, Jelena Telecki, Anne Wallace, Kaylene Whiskey and Amanda Williams.

This page is a work in progress as I’m still uploading my installation shots and details of every work.

This exhibition featuring 22 of Australia’s leading and significant female contemporary artists launched on the 30 June 2023 6pm at Hazelhurst Arts Centre Sydney and is curated by Carrie Kibbler. The exhibition aims to look at the links between feminism and surrealism in Australian art. It is a cross generational survey exhibition that includes loaned existing works and new commissioned works and will be the first large scale landmark exhibition looking solely at women artists and the surreal in Australia. The exhibition proposes that there has been an intrinsic link between feminism and the surreal, particularly in Australia, and this current wave is most notable since 2012 in that it aligns with the fourth wave of feminism.

Artists include: Del Kathryn Barton | Vivienne Binns | Pat Brassington | Louisa Chircop | Lynda Draper | Freya Jobbins | Deborah Kelly | Madeleine Kelly | Juz Kitson | Honey Long & Prue Stent I Lucy O'Doherty | Jenny Orchard I Jill Orr | Patricia Piccinini | Caroline Rothwell | Julie Rrap | Marikit Santiago | Jelena Telecki | Anne Wallace | Kaylene Whiskey | Amanda Williams

MARA#2

Curated by Maria Galea

AT BUREAU INIALA IN PARTNERSHIP WITH IL-LOKAL

Showcasing and celebrating female creatives, the second edition of Mara, brings together artists and creative studios using a variety of mediums and processes to mark their individuality and independent narratives. The Bureau Iniala, together with Marie Gallery 5, has partnered up with il-Lokal to expand on the idea of creativity, integrating design and art in a space dedicated to promoting creative talent to its audience. This showcase features over 13 female artists and two creative studios, highlighting and integrating works that best represent their current practice. The collection is varied through medium and subject matter, where each piece is in many ways in dialogue with one another. The selection process was mainly based on the artists and creatives themselves highlighting which work they feel represents their current creative practice, and the integration of each piece within this showcase was determined by creating a visual balance and representation of each artist.

The Bureau Iniala and Marie Gallery 5 promote the showcase concept within this space to present individual works and artists, creating a platform to connect artists and collaborators with new audiences.

Photo credits: Henry Zammit Cordina ‘Zamcor Media’

This exhibition is an outcome of research produced as artist-in-residence at Carss Park Cottage, awarded by Georges River Council in 2021.

Using the site of Carss Park to reflect on my childhood home across the bay, I used the residency as an opportunity to look into the wake of my past, inspiring me to produce poetic evocations that explore residual experiences through my subconscious, and the mutability of my of my thinking and work process.

Creating from the cottage was an emotional and mentally challenging experience. Every day was a different colour, tone and feeling. Every work a verse. I found myself deeply reflecting, often melancholy, pondering the location from afar, like looking back at a distant island over the wake of a boat. Only this wake trails back to my childhood.

It’s been over twenty years since moving from Sans Souci on the peninsula to Hurstville, then to Jannali, to Sutherland and now at Gymea Bay. Sans Souci (ironically, French words meaning “without worry” or “free and easy”), brings about mixed and complex feelings. Doing the residency helped me reason with things I left behind to re-discover these associations. Each day looking out the window of the cottage, walking the grounds of Carss Park felt as if I was wading in the tide of the past and the present - a live trigger for post traumatic experience and psychological displacement.

Furthermore, the residency not only allowed me to delve into my subconscious and explore the human condition, but it helped me rediscover new notes in my subterranean voice that would otherwise lay dormant somewhere in my inner child. To record my history as a local artist, documenting my movement through time, my autobiography, and weave relevant art historical references, both surreal and existential.

The works before you, are born from the wake. The “wake”, also a play on words in the surrealist tradition, reveals my fascination with the intuitive sifting of my psyche, and the unfurling of my emotional responses to the world around me. I wake from that mysterious place. Every image a psychic montage. Every image a trove of ambiguity and enigma.

My aim: to make visible the intimate and elusive qualities of things from my world in waking.

26 February 2022

Exhibition statement Shoalhaven regional gallery

I fell in love with a tree. As ludicrous as it sounds, this was no ordinary tree. It was a tree within a tree. And as my love for it grew, so did my need to connect with its environment.

This infatuation began in 2018 when I was Artist-in-Residence at Bundanon Trust. I made a subconscious connection to this tree through Arthur Boyd’s painting: ‘Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the tree’ 1966-69. The discovery took me on a journey like Nebuchadnezzar, on a lusting experience to creatively claim everything around me without any acknowledgement of God.

The exhibition illustrates personal and universal evocations exploring power, lust, greed, pleasure, guilt and emotional, spiritual and physical deprivation and highlights my ongoing interest in hybrid dialogues between art history and psychological phenomenons.

Each work on paper is accompanied by a response in clay to further reinforce surreal and existential insights into the artists’ work and creative process.

The works on paper began in 2018-2019 and the ceramic works evolved after and were completed in 2021.

An exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Sydney artist Louisa Chircop at The SHAC gallery Robertson

‘Come shower with me’ invites viewers into the intimate world of Sydney based artist Louisa Chircop. As the title of her exhibition suggests, Chircop not only utilises the idea of the history of women’s activity in the bathroom but also uses the concept of showering to parallel her creative process in an ode to free association and surrealism, similarly the way ideas come to mind in the shower.

Through Chircop’s experience and interest in art history and psychological phenomenons, she explores the human condition creating images that are illicit in nature, rendered with complex meaning and hints of the shadow self. Chance encounters are played out repositioning women in art history whilst simultaneously positioning herself in relation to history, creating a metaphorical allegory about our present time.

Chircop is comfortable as chameleon, every image is a reconstruct of thought drawn from a stream of subconscious detritus into the reservoir of her conscious awakening. She creates with the inquisitive mind of an octopus foraging through its shady garden on the ocean floor. Every work, a token re-cleansing of the body, mind and spirit is an attempt to navigate existential pathways through the world resurrecting the female image from the grave of western art.

These works are just some of the works produced on Residency that I won with NG Art Creative and exhibited in France in the 12th century Eglise St Laurent Eygaliéres for a three week exhibition in April 2019. Attracting large international audiences, the prize aims to discover and celebrate emerging and established creative talents from a variety of disciplines around the world.

The Prize Winners receive a free two-week placement at the NG Art Creative Residency in Eygaliéres, Provence. This includes board and lodging, mentorship and residency-related outings.

The competition is multidisciplinary; It is open to artists, writers, poets, musicians, performers, filmmakers, photographers, academic scholars, and other creatives who seek to enrich their process, embark on imaginative endeavours and immerse themselves in an environment of reflection and creative freedom.

Everyday Madonna curated by Jenny Cheeseman (senior curator) at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, looks at motherhood from a variety of perspectives and societal expectations. The artists question cultural and popular images of mothers, such as the iconic Madonna & Child.

Beyond the societal and cultural expectations of mothers and what is deemed ideal, we find an expanded definition of mothers: real, imperfect, resilient, leaders of resistance and fierce protectors.

Everyday Madonna features works by these artists: Eddie Abd, Linda Brescia, Louisa Chircop, Karla Dickens, Mona Ibrahim, Nicole Monks, Susan O’Doherty, Pamela Rodoreda, Marikit Santiago, Rokeya Sultana.

These are just some of the works that were created on Residency at Bundanon Trust. The Bundanon Trust Artist-in-Residence program is open to arts professionals from Australia and overseas, working in all disciplines. This includes artists, writers, performers, producers, directors, composers, curators and educators. Residencies can be for research and development or for the creation of new work and are highly prized with a limited number of opportunities available per year.

These works form part of ‘Nebuchadnezzar Tree Dreaming’ Series. All works Mixed media on paper 50cm x 40cm

A selection of finalist portrait prize paintings and winning prize works.

These works are current studies that are leading into a new body of work.

This exhibition was part of an invitation residency at PLC Sydney and Bundanon Trust. It resulted with an exhibition at The Adelaide Perry Gallery PLC Sydney. Two works from this exhibition have been acquired in the PLC Adelaide Perry Collection.

This exhibition was by invitation through Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre as a joint initiative with Moran Health Group.

All works Mixed media on Arches, 28cm x 76cm

This exhibition received Critics' Pick in the Sydney Morning Herald for art shows in Sydney by ABC Broadcaster and Art Critic Andrew Frost. It was also previewed in 'The Art Life' by Sharne Wolff.

The Fisher’s Ghost Art Award has been running for over 50 years and awards $30,000 in prize money. The Fishers Ghost Art Award coincides with Campbelltown Annual Festival of Fishers Ghost, held over 10 days the Festival dates back to 1956 and celebrates Australia’s most famous ghost – Frederick Fisher.

The winning entry in the Award’s Open section is acquisitive to the C-A-C permanent collection and is awarded $20,000. In the past it has been awarded to some of Australia’s most respected Contemporary artists including Elisabeth Cummings, Khaled Sabsabi, Justene Williams, David Bromley, Marion Borgelt, Raquel Ormella and Philip Wolfhagen.

This show was represented as part of 'Art Month Sydney' and also featured in 'The Art Life' by Carrie Miller.

This series entitled 'Life Studies' was acquired into The Kedumba Collection of Australian Drawings by Judge Angus Nivison. The Kedumba Collection of Australian Drawings resides at Orange Regional Gallery and frequently tours Australia. It is protected by a Trust and is regarded as one of the most important and significant Collections in Australia.

'The Pity' was a finalist in the Dobell Drawing Prize judged by renowned Australian Artist Aida Tomescu at the Art Gallery of New South Wales Sydney.