[GALLERY ONE]
October 11th – 28th, 2017

DEEP SURFACE

UTAKO SHINDO / VIRGINIA OVERELL /
DAVID THOMAS / ADRIEN ALLEN
Curated by ADRIEN ALLEN

Five Walls Projects is pleased to present ‘Deep Surface’, a group show curated by Adrien Allen and proudly supported by Five Walls Projects as part of its sponsored curated series.

“One’s ability to grow a hard shell around oneself, like a snail, against which sensations tap their beaks in vain.”1


If a surface is understood as a skin that encloses, one can imagine a type of carapace forming, a crust that holds within it a closed individuality, not merging with other bodies or with the world. Yet, our experience of surface can be more participatory, being led by our intention and response, potentially opening our material and psychological exchange with the world. The exhibition ‘Deep Surface’ playfully questions the belief that an ontological enquiry, or search for meaning, is parodied by a fascination with surface. Our encounters with surface need not rest in the hermetic or the superficial, rather we can sense surface as permeable and in continual formation with us and through us. Deep Surface does not assertively accept or resist our culture of easily consumed surfaces, instead it imagines the poetry inherent to a horizontal depth.

1 Virginia Woolf, The Waves, First published by Hogarth Press, 1931.

Click here to download the catalogue DEEP SURFACE 

About the artists:

Born in Tokyo in 1980, Utako Shindo is an artist, who works between Australia and Japan, and employs a range of mediums including drawing, photography and video, to create installation work. She is interested in the poetics of (un)translatability, and semantic and material translation/transformation. Her work intends to prompt audiences’ poetic experiences by paying attention and giving form to subtle and nuanced understandings through variant transfer (reflect/project/trace) processes. Utako completed her Ph.D. at the Centre for Ideas, VCA&MCM, the University of Melbourne in 2017. Her recent solo shows include: ‘?????????????? – That is, like a brief moment to be filled (Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne), ‘?? – MOKUDOKU’ (HAGI ART, Tokyo), ‘Pensé en ir de alguna manera – Somehow, I thought I’d go’ (Museo Taller Erasto Cortés, Puebla).

Virginia Overell is a Melbourne based artist who graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Art: Honours (Sculpture & Spatial Practice) in 2012. Recent solo exhibitions include: Flat Affect, Gertrude Contemporary Studio 3, 2017; An End to all this Water, Westspace, 2017; The Depth of the Problem, Punk Cafe, 2016. Recent group exhibitions include: 4th/5th Melbourne Artist Facilitated Biennale, TarraWarra Museum of Art, 2016; FABRiK, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, 2016; Atrophy Amphitheatre, NGVA, 2015, 124,908, Tbilisi Triennial, Georgia, 2015; Held in a half globe, as if by cupped hands, Vaerelset, Copenhagen, 2015.

David Thomas was born in Belfast, N. Ireland. He lives and works in Melbourne. He holds a Ph.D. from RMIT University, where he is a Professor of Art. His work explores the contemplative functions of painting, photopainting and installation in the contemporary world, in particular how new iterations of the monochrome tradition can address issues of the perception of time and space.
Recent exhibitions include: Colouring Impermanence: the Conditions of Change,(Survey), Design Hub. RMIT University. Impermanences (Changing), Plimsoll Gallery, University of Tasmania Hobart. When A Still Painting Shows Us That We Are Moving. Tristian Koenig, Melbourne Australia. Westfarbe, Museum Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Impermanences. Minus Space, NYC. USA. Impermanent Durations: On Painting and Time. Beth Harland, Ian Woo and David Thomas. ICA. LaSalle, Singapore. BHAC, Melbourne, Australia. Lancaster University. UK. Call of the Avant Garde. Constructivism and Australian Art, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne. Selected public collections: National Gallery of Victoria, Australian National Gallery, RMIT University, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, , Auckland Art Gallery, NZ, , Kunstmuseum Ahlen, Germany. Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany.
His work is represented by Tristian Koenig Gallery, Melbourne, Australia and Minus Space NYC. USA
www.davidthomasartist.com.au

Adrien Allen is a Melbourne based artist and curator who founded and directed Conical, beginning in 2001 as an artist run initiative and since evolving into its final form as a curator-led project space. Adrien worked specifically within the context of Conical as a form of evolving practice, incorporating both practitioner and curatorial roles. With an aesthetic focussed on spatial, temporal and conceptual movements, Adrien’s curatorial practice explored the efficacy of site-specific installation in the age of the image. In 2013 Adrien finalised the Conical project enabling him to redevelop an independent painting practice. Solo shows include: Recovery Painting, Five Walls Projects, 2016, Doordoor, Westspace, 2002, Medium Density, Conical, 2002, Group shows include: Bracket Creep, Conical, 2007, Combined Operations/Joint Operations, Conical, 2004, Projects One, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, VCA, Melbourne. He completed his MFA at VCA in 2000 researching context and autonomy in late Modernism.
www.conical.org.au

[click on the thumbnails for larger images]. All images by Christian Cappurro.