GROUP EXHIBITION

This presentation is the first major exhibition surveying the work of APA artists in an Australian museum, highlighting 13 vital contemporary practices that have emerged from this self-described ‘boisterous hive of creativity’ over the past five decades.

The term ‘imaginaries’ is commonly used to describe realms of pure invention or flights of fancy, but it can also refer to more everyday creative activity: how we perceive, shape and make sense of ourselves and the world around us.

This open-ended conception is one that accords with the ethos of APA where ‘art is not taught, but rather the innate creative direction of each artist is nurtured to elicit works of personal meaning and style’. In this spirit, Intimate Imaginaries brings together bodies of work by a range of artists who each express a compelling, richly inventive and deeply felt worldview.

By turns ingenious, irreverent, poignant and joyful, many featured works convey the artist’s personal perspectives on everyday environments, interactions and phenomena.

From the autobiographical to the observational, the works of artists such as Lisa Reid, Anthony Romagnano, Cathy Staughton and Terry Williams, reveal the multiple ways in which we can be intimately and imaginatively entangled with each other and with places and things in the world. Other artists, such as Fulli Andrinopoulos, Wendy Dawson and Julian Martin employ abstract shapes, vivid colour and highly tactile forms of mark-making to evoke emotive, intangible and interior states of being. While the exhibiting artists utilise a range of media and processes in their works—including painting, drawing, ceramics, soft sculpture and video—they all share a distinctive handmade aesthetic.

Bringing together early and recent works alongside several new commissions, Intimate Imaginaries includes: Samraing Chea’s highly detailed drawings that depict humorous observations and wry social commentary on daily life; Alan Constable’s hand-modelled, wet-finish colour glazed ceramic cameras; Bronwyn Hack’s carefully crafted fabric models of human anatomy; Julian Martin’s refined abstract pastel compositions distilled from found imagery; Chris O’Brien’s sculptures, videos and zines which convey mischievous personal narratives on suburban life; Lisa Reid’s meticulous and lovingly-rendered ceramics and works on paper evoking familial memories; Cathy Staughton’s colourful paintings of Luna Park that interweave autobiography and fantastical dream imagery; and Terry Williams’s hand-stitched, improvisational renditions of everyday objects. Participating artists: Fulli Andrinopoulos, Samraing Chea, Alan Constable, Wendy Dawson, Bronwyn Hack, Julian Martin, Chris O’Brien, Anthony Romagnano, Lisa Reid, Mark Smith, Cathy Staughton, Georgia Szmerling and Terry Williams.

I__ntimate Imaginaries is presented by TarraWarra Museum of Art in partnership with Arts Project Australia. About Arts Project Australia: Arts Project Australia is a gallery and studio that supports artists with intellectual disabilities, promotes their work and advocates for their inclusion in contemporary art practice. For 50 years, the organisation has been recognised and celebrated for the quality of the work produced by the artists in their studio which is exhibited in their gallery and around the world and represented in multiple public and private collections.