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Manningham Art Gallery
MC2 (Manningham City Square)
687 Doncaster Road, Doncaster 3108
Melways ref. 47 F1
www.manningham.vic.gov.au/gallery
Gallery Hours
Tuesday to Saturday, 11.00 am – 5.00 pm
Free admission
SQUARE
2016 Exhibition Calendar
3 February – 20 February
Anne Morel: Nature Connectedness
25 May – 2 July
National Reconciliation Week
Exhibition
French-Australian artist Anne Morel’s first solo
exhibition of her bright and bold textile design work.
2016 sees Manningham Art Gallery celebrate National
Reconciliation Week with an exhibition of work
from Baluk Arts, a not-for-profit organisation owned
and run by Aboriginal artists living and working
in Frankston, the Mornington Peninsula and wider
south-east Melbourne. Baluk (Boonwurrung word
meaning many) artists are from diverse Aboriginal
backgrounds from all over Australia and the
artwork they create reflects themes of identity in a
contemporary cultural context.
Presenting a selection of patterns of stylised
and abstracted intersecting floral forms, Nature
Connectedness celebrates the striking colours and
textures of the Tahitian landscape.
Upon migrating to Melbourne from Tahiti, Morel
was struck by the comparatively subdued tones
of the flora of her new home, as well as by the
different ways in which plants, gardens and naturally
occurring vegetation are incorporated into people’s
everyday lives. Inspired by this, as well as by
personal memories, photographs and her mother’s
shell jewellery, Morel has created a body of work that
is as much a meditation on migration, change and
attachment to place as it is a study of the diversity of
life in the natural world.
Through Baluk Arts, family groups and members of
the stolen generation have reconnected with their
culture and express their histories through strong
artistic practices to support their cultural and creative
well being.
This exhibition will survey a selection of prints, ochre
paintings and sculptural and decorative objects
by a number of Baluk’s artists including Dominic
Brammall-White, Patrice
Mahoney and Lisa Waup.
Image: Dominic Bramall-White, Mount Ainslie (detail), 2015,
etching, jigsaw intaglio woodcut, 160 x 160cm. Courtesy the artist
and Baluk Arts.
Image: Anne Morel, Equality I (detail), 2015, felt and embroidery,
72 x 51cm. Courtesy the artist.
3 February – 20 February
Anthony Williams: Apocalypse Party
Anthony Williams presents a new body of work
evolving from a process of experiment and play.
Working in an intuitive, distracted and unguided
manner, he manipulates materials such as paint and
clay until recognisable forms and images appear. He
then uses the resulting forms as the germ for creating
larger, more considered compositions.
Referencing histories of surrealist automatic drawing
and stream of consciousness writing, Williams’
method is a distinctly introspective one enabling him
to explore ideas and thoughts he is preoccupied with
at any particular moment.
Many of the works in Apocalypse Party reflect on
the prevalence of images of destruction, decay
and warfare in today’s mainstream news media,
television series and films. The exhibition is a
contemplative exploration of how pervasive and also
how desensitising our over-exposure to these images
can be.
Image: Anthony Williams, Bridge through Baghdad, 2015, oil on
linen, 198 x 168cm. Courtesy the artist.
27 July – 3 September
Creative Accounting
Creative Accounting will trace the development of
Australia’s financial and accounting systems and
offer a fascinating insight into the evolution of
banking and financial management practices over
the last 200 years.
The exhibition will unlock a range of intriguing
archival objects as well as often underappreciated
artefacts and cultural material held in regional
collections across Australia. Complemented by
the archival and historical material, the exhibition
will include work by contemporary Australian and
international artists addressing these themes.
An exhibition curated by Holly Williams, in
conjunction with Hawkesbury Regional Gallery and
toured by Museums & Galleries of NSW.
Image: Vintage adding machine (detail), On loan from the
Westpac Archives. Photo: Silversalt.
2 March – 24 March
Ted Secombe: Pursuit of Beauty
21 September – 5 November
Utopia du jour
Ted Secombe is regarded as one of Australia’s
significant ceramic artists and after three decades at
the potter’s wheel he is as excited and challenged by
his work as he was when he began.
It’s surely true that any idea of utopia is fleeting or
ever adapting, no? Any one idea is no more timeless
than the daily specials on a café menu. Well, maybe
not that fleeting…
Secombe’s pieces are meticulously crafted, simple
and elegant in form. His dynamic and complex glazed
surfaces have seen him develop an international
reputation for distinctive style and expertise in
crystalline glazes.
But utopian dreams are necessarily reflections upon
the time they were dreamt. They are reflections upon
the successes and failures of the present world, its
myriad social customs, its people’s needs and desires
and their technological sophistication.
In recent years, Secombe has eschewed the
perfectionism he pursued in his earlier work,
experimenting with glazes that produce more
unpredictable finishes and surfaces and belie the
artist’s obsession with the natural world whilst
maintaining the idiosyncratic and undeniable beauty
that marks his work.
Utopia du jour is an exhibition of some very
contemporary dreams of perfection and promise. The
exhibition comprises works by contemporary artists
that present either idyllic images of the Australian
landscape or more complex, problematic, but
ultimately forward looking and hopeful imaginings of
the future. It encompasses romanticised landscapes,
ideas for future homes and cities, prescient
reflections on the history of migration and postcolonial criticisms of Australia’s history.
Charting this progression, Pursuit of Beauty will present
recent ceramic pieces alongside works from throughout
his career, now in various private collections. The
exhibition will also present a number of new sculptural
works that reveal further
depth to his practice.
It is an exhibition both about how we visualize hopes
for a better world and a chance to meditate on the
relevance of utopian thinking today.
Image: Ted Secombe, Beaded Vessel, 2015, porcelain, satin matte
crystalline glaze, 34 x 29 x 29cm. Photo: Adrienne Gilligan.
Courtesy the artist and Skepsi Gallery.
Image: Elizabeth Liddle, Cornucopia Australis, 2011, digital
photograph on cotton rag paper, 80 x 60cm. Manningham Art
Collection. Courtesy the artist.
6 April – 14 May
Awesome Achievers: Stories from
Australians of the Year
An inspiring array of talent, passion and achievement
– with many examples of triumph over adversity – is
celebrated in this exhibition.
This exhibition showcases a selection of Australian of
the Year recipients from diverse fields of endeavour.
It aims to bring to life the underlying complex
and shifting notions of national identity that are
exemplified or challenged in the portrait of each
person. The portraits were made at different stages
in the sitters’ lives, encompassing a range of artistic
media and a diversity of styles, capturing unique
and often emotionally powerful aspects of these
distinctive individuals.
This exhibition is supported by the National
Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program,
an Australian Government program aiming to
improve access to the
national collections for
all Australians.
Image: Lorrie Graham, Mandawuy Yunupingu (detail), 1991, gelatin
silver photograph. Collection: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra.
23 November – 17 December
Art Studios Project
Students and tutors of the Manningham Art Studios
join forces to present a stunning display of works
created throughout the year.
This annual exhibition of student work reflects the
great and varied talents of amateur artists of all
ages within Manningham. It presents the results of
engaging group projects alongside works that reveal
the insightful, enchanting visions of individual
artists. The exhibition helps ensure Manningham has
a vibrant community arts scene and is a fitting finale
to the year’s exhibition program.
Manningham Art Studios is a community based arts
centre offering a variety of courses, workshops and
activities in a range of media, including ceramics,
painting and drawing, music and dance.
For more information about the Studios, please visit
www.manningham.vic.gov.au/artstudios
Image: Detail of adult pottery group project Pears in Black and
White (ceramic and glazes) from Exhibition ON, Nov-Dec 2015.
Front Image: Dean Smith, Pine Forest, 2015, fine white stoneware,
metallic glaze, fused enamel, 49 x 30 x 10cm. Manningham Art
Collection. Winner of the 2015 Manningham Victorian Ceramic Art
Award. ©Courtesy the artist and Alcaston Gallery