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IT’S ALL ABOUT THE

Art

Black Corian, White Clock-HandsAluminium + Electric Components

A Million TimesHumans Since 1982

2013

The ‘A million times’ is a graphically conceptual, mechanical and engineered based design project. With this kinetic installation, Humans Since 1982 present clocks as objects unleashed from a solely pragmatic existence. Locked in its functionality to show the time, the natural character inherent to an analogue clock with its two arms constantly dancing in slow motion around the center, unveils hidden figurative qualities without denying its primary purpose.The installation here at Ovolo Woolloomooloo is the AMT 128, weighing 86kg at 2.2m wide and 1.2m high, and consists of 128 interconnected clocks.

Level 1 Lobby ACQUIRED PIECE

Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas

NO RECEPTION James Ettelson

2015

James Ettelson’s commissioned painting for Ovolo continues the artist’s ongoing interrogation of contemporary culture, specifically looking at the ways in which we’re becoming increasingly ‘fixated’ on technology. James reacts to an age wherein the upsurge of social media has lead to a widespread voyeurism, as symptomised by virtual communities like Instagram, Tinder and Facebook. An emerging artist who is fast gaining momentum in the Australian art world, James has exhibited throughout Sydney and has been featured in several notable publications, including Monster Children (2015/14), Real Living Magazine (2014), Brace Magazine (2014) and Stab Magazine (2012).

Level 2 Lo Lounge COMMISSIONED PIECE

Ettelson is a master of detail. The artist creates meticulously rendered paintings that straddle the stylistic spheres of Pointillist mark making, painterly Pop aesthetics and cartographic symbolism. Colonised by a tapestry of dashes in a riot of colour, the works are conceptually hinged on an intersection of secularity, urbanity and contemporaneity.

The artist’s new series of large-scale acrylic works extend his ongoing interrogation of contemporary culture, specifically looking at the ways in which we’re becoming increasingly ‘fixated’ on technology. He reacts to an age wherein the upsurge of social media has lead to a widespread voyeurism, as symptomised by virtual communities like Instagram, Tinder and Facebook.The paintings in ‘Fixated’ mark a formal refinement of Ettelson’s meticulous style. Impeccably balanced compositions of clichéd settings, such as lush grassy knolls, sunsets and Sydney Harbour, stage the ‘picture perfect’ imagery that permeates social media – a product of the modern impulse to forcibly construct our own identity. Acknowledging his own complicity in this web of image production and consumption, Ettelson satirises the scenario, using humour in his subjects and titles to poke fun at the inescapability of the digitisation and virtualisation of reality. This is further visualised in the artist’s carefully articulated layering of truncated lines and pools of vibrant colour, which evoke notions of pixelation while conjuring the fast-paced flavour of modern life. In the show, Ettelson will also be debuting a series of patterned timber stumps, which – along with motifs of foliage used in some of the paintings – tacitly encourages us to remedy our fixation with technologically mediated reality by getting out into the real world.

An emerging artist who is fast gaining momentum in the Australian art world, Ettelson has exhibited throughout Sydney and has been featured in several notable publications, including Monster Children (2014), Real Living Magazine (2014), Brace Magazine (2014) and Stab Magazine (2012).

Self Adhesive Holographic Film on Composition Board

Disco Kwilt David McDiarmid

c.1980

David McDiarmid’s art reflects his role in the Gay Liberation movement of the late twentieth century in Sydney and in New York, where he lived and worked from 1977 to 1987. Soon after his arrival, McDiarmid described New York as “like going to school on a very high level; on an art level, a sex level – the two most important things. It was like a playground.” Disco Kwilt is from a series of holographic ‘quilts’ that capture the rich visual fodder of the drug fuelled, sexually charged queer party scene that captivated McDiarmid, particularly that of New York’s legendary early dance club Paradise Garage (1977 87). The ‘baby block’ patterning is a reference to the popular historical quilting technique of American pioneer women, and is a characteristic example of McDiarmid’s knowing manipulation of references to craft practices traditionally associated with women’s home making. The celebratory nature of McDiarmid’s disco quilts captures a sentiment right at end point of gay liberation before the eruption of the AIDS crisis.

Level 2 Lo Lounge

Synthetic Polymer Paint and Ink on Canvas

Dress Me upLara Merrett

2006

Sydney based painter Lara Merrett creates large abstract works that engage with the process of painting and the very nature of paint itself. Alternately described as Gothic, science-fiction and Romantic, Merrett’s works are the outcome of chance, her intuitive approach to colour and the meditative nature of repetitive processes. Merrett’s titles also often suggest a sense of the wit and irony in the personal narratives that contribute to the production of each work.

Level 2 Lo Lounge

Synthetic Polymer Paint, Oil and Resin on Canvas

Lemniscate Construction 6 Rochelle Haley

2015

Sydney based painter Rochelle Haley is fascinated by the relationship of the body to space, and in her sophisticated abstract works seeks to reflect on ways of seeing and the language of movement. This painting was first shown in an exhibition titled ‘Through Form’ (2015), which drew inspiration from the unpublished drawings of influential twentieth century Hungarian dance artist and theorist, Rudolph Laban. Haley’s paintings reinterpret Laban’s notation system, designed to specifically describe, document and visualise human movement by drawing on research in kinesiology, anatomy and psychology. While at the time Laban’s approach was radical, his work was pioneering and continues to be one of the most influential movement analysis systems to this day. While there is a diagrammatic quality to Haley’s work, these are not simply illustrations of Laban’s notes. Rather, they embody the uniquely transformative potential of movement that Laban helped to convey.

Level 2 Lo Lounge

Synthetic Polymer Paint on Acrylic

Life Insurance No.2Helen Shelley

2011

Helen Shelley’s abstract painting Life Insurance No. 2 is loaded with personal symbolism and references to her primary subject: subverting and mocking her fear of death. Creating what the artist calls “pseudo-spiritual experiences” she deploys a range of painterly special effects to create “faux-enlightenment represented though bands of radiating colour”. Influenced by both the experience of live music performances that feature a light show spectacular and sexual climax, the artist imagines the work, despite their morbid subject, are ultimately optimistic.

Level 2 Lo Lounge

Synthetic Polymer Paint, Felt and Fabric on Paper

PARAMETERS HEADSally Smart

2000

Sally Smart’s highly detailed cut, patched, sewn and quilted figures, comprise what she has called an “iconography of mending”—where the fragmented body becomes a focus for metaphors of identity, particularly feminine identity. Smart aims, through the adoption of various, often fantastical female characters, to provide “clues to the construction of meaning through recognition and memory” and to “weave the feminisation of human history”. In recent years, Smart’s project of analysing women’s social experiences has moved in the direction of labyrinthine installations that have seen her gain critical attention internationally.

Level 2 Lo Lounge

Hide And Seek, Sneak,

Technique Mixed MediaAssemblage

2013

SHOW AND TELLKendal Murray

2007 / 2013

Kendal Murray’s miniature sculptures stage dream-like narratives that are played out by tiny identities with big personalities. Fantasies filled with optimistic expressions of limitless possibilities are enacted in a range of playful and dramatic scenarios that are imbued with social, symbolic and personal meaning. Kendal has had numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally and her work is held in public and private collections Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the UK and New York. The artist has been the recipient of several awards, the most recent being the Beowulf Award in the 2015 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize. She holds an MA (Hons) in Visual Art and currently lectures in Design at the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University.

Level 2 Lo Lounge

Ride, Glide, Collide,

Pride Denied Mixed Media

Assemblage2007

Heckle, Tickle,

Chuckle Mixed MediaAssemblage

2013

Kendal Murray’s miniature sculptures stage dream-like narratives that are played out by small identities with big personalities. Fantasies filled with optimistic expressions of limitless possibilities are enacted in a range of playful and dramatic scenarios that are imbued with social, symbolic and personal meaning.The artist’s new collection of sculptural assemblages explores the ontological currency of toys and the psychological forces that motivate individuals to collect. The works allegorise the experience of play, both the act of pretend play and a remembered experience for the collector. Miniature motifs such as tea cups, spinning tops, toy telephones and timber games are combined with other household objects to represent the duality of toys as both a celebration of youth and rite of passage into adulthood.

‘Show and Tell’ considers the formative link between toys and human identity. Children learn the language of imaginative substitutions through the pretend play taught to them by their parents. Toys become symbolic proxies for other objects, helping to nurse a nascent identity by initiating the child into the world of the adult. In many of the works, Murray examines the psychoanalytic significance of dolls as substitutive ‘alter-egos’, repositories of a child’s hopes and dreams. A loyal, silent companion, the doll teaches a child normative sociocultural codes by emblematically absorbing and translating the world of the adult. Sculptures such as Long Ago, Let it Go and Bloom, Resume, Assume, Costume explore how dolls are not only used to assimilate the child into adulthood, but also how they embody cultural changes to understandings of childhood innocence. In addition to the childhood experience of toys, Murray is fascinated by the psychological impulse in adulthood to collect toys. Mnemonic symbols of times past, toys conjure a collective nostalgia by tapping into that distant time when our identities were being formed. A toy collection thus signals a longing to go back in time, to repossess that beloved trophy of childhood that makes possible a reinvention of self in the present. Featuring miniature scenes contained inside aged bottles embellished with creeping foliage and sprouting trees, Murray’s new works represent this regenerative potential of such collections. Like a living vine winding through the channels of memory, toys transport the collector into a bygone time when the future was brimming with possibilities – possibilities often imagined in play with these cherished objects. This is poetically visualised in the artist’s multiplicity of creative arrangements fusing fantasy scenarios with nostalgic objects inhabited by tiny versions of ourselves.

Murray has had numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally and her work is held in public and private collections Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, New Zea-land, the UK and New York. The artist has been the recipient of several awards, the most recent being the Beowulf Award in the 2015 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize. She holds an MA (Hons) in Visual Art and currently lectures in Design at the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, University of Western Sydney.

Synthetic Polymer Paint on Canvas

Malpa Wiru (Good Friends) Tiger Yaltangki

2015

Tiger Yaltangki grew up in Indulkana community located in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in the far north east of South Australia, approximately four hundred kilometres from Alice Springs. He has worked at the local art centre, Iwantja Arts, for many years. His works are characterised by bold colours and forms and they combine elements of fantasy alongside interpretations of his Anangu culture and understanding of his country. Contemporary stories and life in his community often feature in his paintings including memories of family holidays, the music of AC/DC and Hank Williams as well as science fiction films and television shows.

Level 2 Glam-a-rama

Untitled # 26Neon Light,

Real Touch Phalaenopsis Orchid

Untitled # 27LED Light,

Real Touch Phalaenopsis Orchid

the world is weary of me, and I am weary of itAnna McMahon

2015

“In his seminar from March 16, 1977, French philosopher Roland Barthes describes his dossier on flowers. One of the main points Barthes makes is that flowers ‘go without saying’, that they are accepted for what they are without question of what they represent. It is for this understanding that Barthes expresses the need for a dossier of enquiry – that things that are easily accepted are often the things which need to be looked at closely. No one questions the presence of flowers, the gift of flowers, the consolation of flowers – their presence is never thought odd, or unreasonable. They have no use, no set symbol, yet represent many ideas and ideals which contemporary society seeks to enable.

In my works Untitled # 26 and Untitled # 27 from the series the world is weary of me, and I am weary of it, I present to the audience 2 arrangements that question the symbolism of flowers within contemporary society. In this specific location, I want to greet the hotel guest with the overtly sexy real touch phalaenopsis orchid positioned in a moment of heroic glory in the presence of overwhelming pure white light. The orchid, make out of latex, presents a smooth, forever lasting representation of this flower which questions the enduring, but often fake ideals of society. These works explore issues of sexual polarity; success and failure, and ultimately life and death.”

LEVEL 3 & LEvel 4 Corridor ACQUIRED PIECE

Anna McMahon is an artist and curator.She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) at Sydney College of the Arts (USYD) in 2010, a Master of Art Curatorship at The University of Sydney in 2011 and a Master of Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts (USYD) in 2015. She is a 2015/2016 Co-Director at Firstdraft Gallery Sydney. Her practice is grounded in photo-sculptural explorations surrounding the term professional dilettante. Of-fering personally and culturally loaded arrangements, McMahon is interested in how banal objects can be imbued with meaning. McMahon also collaborates with fellow artist Kate Beckingham as OK YEAH COOL GREAT. She has shown na-tionally and internationally in solo, group and curatorial projects in various galler-ies including, Open Source Gallery (NY), Raygun (QLD), Gaffa (NSW), Metro Arts (QLD) and Verge Gallery (NSW). As OK YEAH COOL GREAT, she was part of the 2014 SafARI Live program.

Neon Lights

IF at first you don’t succeedHannah Cutts

2014

Hannah Cutts is a designer, poet and artist based on the northern New South Wales coast who has a penchant for finding value and humour in the discarded. Cutts has always collected and in the production of her work draws from her rich hoardings of linoleum, deer antlers, bicycle seats, fishing buoys and found text among other things. With this bold and sexy neon sign, Cutts whimsically responds to the old adage ‘If At First You Don’t Succeed’, with a wry take on the accidental and intentional innuendo found in the multi-farious sources of every day life.

Level 4 Corridor

Inkjet Prints on Hahnemühle Paper

Aluminium Panelling & Empty Shop Front Simon Del Favero

2015

A graduate of Design and Architecture, Simon Del Favero’s photographic practice reflects this background. The images of the Sydney based artist begin with found objects or spaces that are then abstracted with shadow and colour. This series, first presented in an exhibition titled ‘Liminal’, sought to explore photography beyond mere documentation. Del Favero’s images depict real world environments – as noted in their titles – yet through digital ‘chiaroscuro’ and manipulation, they appear ambiguous, triggering a shift of perception that reveals a space beyond the image.

Level 4 Corridor

Type C Photographs

Untitled John Tsiavis

2013

John Tsiavis is a commercial portrait photographer based in Los Angeles and Melbourne, whose work often blends the aesthetics of portraiture, art and fashion. His portraits are in the collection of Canberra’s National Portrait Gallery, and he has been shortlisted in several prestigious photography prizes. This series, commissioned by Artbank for the inaugural issue of ‘Sturgeon’ magazine (2013), form a photo essay about Tsiavis’s traversal through Melbourne city. His compositions feature grey urban environments – depicting roads and concrete walls – balancing formal qualities of light and shade. Empty scenes are animated with choreographed bodies captured mid air in arrangements that have been described as a “micro flash mob”. These figures act as interventions within the stark city architecture.

Level 4 Corridor

Pigment Print, Pencil and Photo Collage on Paper

I’ll Get Some Ham and SalamiMartin Smith

2014

Martin Smith is a highly regarded Brisbane based artist who engages with autobiography and memory. Smith has become known for his distinctive approach, meticulously hand cutting text into the glossy surfaces of his photographs to form stories that augment the meanings evoked by the imagery. Commissioned by Artbank specifically for the Playhouse foyer, I’ll Get Some Ham and Salami continues the artist’s fascination with exploring the multifarious narratives that make up each individual, and the realisation that others will only ever know fragments of this whole. This commission is the second in a series of new works commissioned by Artbank to highlight the strength of contemporary Queensland photo media artists.

Level 4 Corridor

Wood, Reflective Glass, Mirror, Blown Glass and Fluorescent Lights

Transitions Jason Sims

2010

In the ‘Transition’ series, Adelaide born artist Jason Sims explores the space between reality and illusion. Known for his sculptural constructions and installations with light, mirrors and glass, Sims explores the visual impact and conceptual richnesss of working with reflection and optics. Influenced by the words of French existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre: “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself”.�Sims notes that with these three materials, “I’m able to reflect a real space upon itself, creating an illusion of depth, and suggesting that the actions we take in the present ultimately determine our future.”

Level 4 Corridor

Type C Photographs

UntiTledNarelle Autio

2012

Adelaide based Narelle Autio has been working as a professional documentary photographer and photo media artist since the early 1990s. Water is a recurring subject and this photograph comes from a series, which captured the serene beauty and magical atmosphere beneath the surface of waterholes the artist found while travelling through Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Whereas previous works have focused on the invigorating qualities of the Australian coast, these inland bodies of water seem more akin to alien landscapes. Autio is also well known for her collaborations with partner and fellow photographer Trent Parke.

Level 4 Corridor

Digital Type C Photograph

Northwest from Shinjuku, Tokyo Matthew Sleeth

2005/2007

Melbourne born artist Matthew Sleeth lives and works between his home town and New York. He has become known for a practice that crosses disciplines, from photography and artist books, to his more experimental works such as a self generating sculptural installation that “‘builds’ itself by way of a 3D printer.” There is a cinematic quality to this photographic diptych, and Sleeth describes it as “a formal exercise about perspective and focus.” The images depict two versions of the night cityscape of Shinjuku, Tokyo, completed during Sleeth’s residency at the Australia Council’s Tokyo Studio. Looking northwest to the horizon, one image captures a broad view of the metropolis while the companion image features a close up segment, which is out of focus in the other view.

Level 4 Corridor

Criss-Cross James Lieutenant x Kate Vassallo

2015

James Lieutenant and Kate Vassallo are a Sydney-based collaborative artist duo. They have worked together since 2012, creating large-scale wall paintings. These abstract paintings are site-responsive, visual investigations into the architectural spaces that house them. The artists engage the visual history of wall painting in art, while planting it firmly in a contemporary context. By working together, they attempt to erase traces of the ‘artist’s hand’, making work neither would attempt individually. Optics, chaos, illusion, graphics, design, abstraction, process, pattern-making, chance, failure and temporality come together in the making and viewing of their work. The historic site of Ovolo Woolloomooloo offered highly unique architecture to respond to. Vassallo and Lieutenant have used lines to visually connect ‘architectural points’ together, like corners, beams or pipes. This formed the foundation of the work, a chaotic ‘criss-cross’ of intersecting lines, then used as shapes to paint.

Level 5 Corridor

Acrylic

COMMISSIONED PIECE

Australian Surf Life Saving

Six Budgerigars

(Melopsittacus undulatus)

In-room

Women & man dressed up & wearing hats for Races

Florence

In-room

Hunters On MoundGuglielmo Micheli1889

Ceramic Flying Mallard Wall Ducks

In-room

Fish Out Of Water

SUSHI

In-room

The SwingJean-Honoré Fragonard1767

Inventive

Australia Postage stamp

In-room

In-room