Primavera 2003

Exhibition of Young Australian Artists

17 September - 30 November 2003

Primavera: Exhibition of Young Australian Artists is an annual MCA exhibition which showcases the work of Australian artists 35 years of age and under. Primavera 2003 responds to the theme of new media technologies. Curated by Julianne Pierce, Director of the Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT), it explores a range of concerns through screen and projection-based media, as well as digital photographs, sculpture, installation and sound.

Eight bodies of work were included in Primavera 2003, by six individual artists and two collaborative groups: Daniel Crooks (VIC), Alex Davies (NSW), Adam Donovan (QLD), Shaun Gladwell (NSW), Stephen Honegger & Anthony Hunt (VIC), Jonathan Jones (NSW), the Kingpins (NSW) and Mari Velonaki (NSW).

An additional, external element by Cicada (Kirsten Bradley and Nick Ritar, VIC) complemented the Museum’s exhibition and extended Primavera’s presence into the centre of Sydney. Cicada premiered a site-specific work as part of “Art & About”, presented by the City of Sydney and AMP.

PRIMAVERA 2003 ARTISTS
Driven by an interest in the manipulation of time and space, Daniel Crooks presented the latest instalment in his ongoing Time Slice project which combines multi-channel video presentations and a series of long, thin, print works to express powerful senses of the city. Crooks’ innovative video works have received a host of awards in Australia and overseas, and have been exhibited at numerous international film festivals, including the Palau de la Virreina in Barcelona.

Incorporating sound and image production, Alex Davies presented Filter Feeder, an installation in which textures, dynamics and motions of sound and video are controlled by a goldfish: Carassius auratus. The movement of the fish swimming through its electromagnetic water-world created a turbulent symphony of sound and visual imagery within the MCA gallery space.

Brisbane-based artist Adam Donovan’s interactive work, Heterodyning Cage, combines visual art with the highly specialised field of acoustics, an area he has been researching since 1996. In an attempt to influence the way people perceive their auditory environment, Heterodyning Cage incorporates cameras that track the movement of gallery visitors, surrounding them with sound and projected imagery as they move though his space.

Sydney-based artist Shaun Gladwell is interested in the perception of images and ideas between different cultural and historical zones. Gladwell is a champion freestyle skateboarder, and his large-scale video projection taken from his Kickflipping Flâneur series, depicts a skateboarder travelling through the city streets, performing tricks to a soundtrack of classical music. Displayed in slow-motion, the highly choreographed and balletic performance emphasises the grace and fluidity of skateboarding.

Melbourne artists Stephen Honegger and Anthony Hunt have both participated in a wide range of individual, collaborative and curated exhibitions and projects in Australia and overseas. Honegger and Hunt’s collaborative installation, Container, is based around the format of a video game. Set inside a full-scale replica of a shipping container, gallery visitors can experience the unsettling feeling of being hunted as they view a projected video, created with 3D modelling software, depicting a sinister event filmed within the gallery space.

Indigenous artist Jonathan Jones works with light and shadow, creating interlocking pools of overlapping light to represent the spirit of, and connections between, individuals. Jones created a new interactive work for Primavera 2003 based on Sydney’s night lights. Over-head sensors pick up the movement of the gallery audience, causing some lights to blink while others fade and brighten creating a map of light.

The work of artists’ collective and drag-kings, The Kingpins, flips between live performance, gallery-based<

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