We are excited to show for the first time at Spring 1883 this September, presenting new work by Alexandra Standen and Simon Degroot.
Alexandra Standen's work explores our relationships to both physical and emotional spaces. Her work focuses on the subjective, cultural and ideological meanings of material objects, examining the way objects and their relationships act as metaphors for human behaviour.
Her practice also speaks to the process of making work in ceramic and a sense of unease that comes with engaging with a medium that holds a functional quality yet has a connotation of being fragile or precarious in nature. Standen is the recipient of the prestigious Cite Internationale des Arts Residency in Paris, which she will undertake in January 2019. Winner of the Sidney Myer Award for Ceramics, Shepparton Art Museum 2012, Standen is a recent finalist in awards including the Churchie National Emerging Art Prize, Gold Coast Ceramic Award and the Wynne Prize. She has undertaken residencies in Geneva, Tel Aviv and at the Harley Foundation in the United Kingdom.
Simon Degroot engages specific images from visual culture in order to reimagine these forms in abstract painting. He uses strategies of disassembly and reassembly to explore how abstract shapes from art history and the built environment can be translated into painting considering how abstraction can be used to build and compose new work while simultaneously acknowledging existing and past structures.
Degroot was awarded his PhD from Griffith University in 2018. He has been awarded the Moreton Bay Art Award twice, in 2018 and 2015. Recent institutional exhibitions include Micro Histories, Museum of Brisbane, 2019 and Cut Together, Bundaberg Regional Gallery, 2018. Degroot's large scale mural commissions include Rediscover, Remember, Collect, Collins St Centre, Perth; Building, Pattern, Form, The The Barracks and Queensland Rail, Brisbane; William Jolly Bridge Artwork Projection, Brisbane; Sunshine Coast University Hospital, Queensland.