HUW DAVIES GALLERY 22 July–8 August
 

 

Each year we select graduates from the Canberra Institute of Technology and the ANU School of Art for PhotoAccess emerging artist residencies. The intention is to assist those artists, mostly young and with limited exhibition experience, to develop and present new work in HUW DAVIES GALLERY exhibitions. The residency projects can involve mentoring, courses, access to facilities and equipment and, towards the end of each residency, exhibition opportunities in solo or group shows. The exhibitions are assisted by funding under the ACT component of the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy.

From the 2009 CIT graduating year we offered Jamila Toderas and Holly Treadway residencies and, unusually, both accepted. Holly’s exhibition 'sticks and stones' is showing alongside Jamila’s in the first emerging artists exhibition by CIT graduates for some years. We hope others will follow their lead. Jamila and Holly are showing new work made specifically for these exhibitions.

Jamila Toderas has an unusual, dark vision. Her graduating show work was a series of dramatic self portraits suggesting fear and alienation. The 'In my nightmares' work takes those emotions further, moving into areas most feared by young people and their parents alike: the fear of harm from madness, societal pressures, familiar seen (killer clowns?) and unseen demons, and self abuse. Toderas and her characters sleep in fear, wake in fear, lose themselves in fearful, alienating rooms and landscapes, and they bleed. Toderas’ work, as she says in her Artist Statement, ‘… shows the depths of darkness hidden in my eccentric soul’.

These are carefully staged images, continuing Toderas’ early interest in creating the subjects for her work including, in particular, costumed family pets. Bonnie is an early example. A close examination of the images in this exhibition, Lost and Circus bloodshed, for example, shows how far she has travelled from the days of dressing Bonnie as a cheerful clown. Her imagination and command of craft mark Jamila Toderas as a young artist of great promise.

PhotoAccess is proud to have helped bring Jamila Toderas’ work to a wider Canberra audience through a 2010 emerging artist residency and her 'In my nightmares' exhibition in the HUW DAVIES GALLERY at the Manuka Arts Centre.

David Chalker

Catalogue

HUW DAVIES GALLERY 22 July–8 August
 

 

Each year we select graduates from the Canberra Institute of Technology and the ANU School of Art for PhotoAccess emerging artist residencies. The intention is to assist those artists, mostly young and with limited exhibition experience, to develop and present new work in HUW DAVIES GALLERY exhibitions. The residency projects can involve mentoring, courses, access to facilities and equipment and, towards the end of each residency, exhibition opportunities in solo or group shows. The exhibitions are assisted by funding under the ACT component of the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy.

From the 2009 CIT graduating year we offered Holly Treadway and Jamila Toderas residencies and, unusually, both accepted. Jamila’s exhibition, 'In my nightmares', is showing alongside Holly’s in the first emerging artists exhibition by CIT graduates for some years. We hope others will follow their lead. Holly and Jamila are showing new work made specifically for these exhibitions.

Holly Treadaway works as a freelance photographer in the ACT and Southern Highlands. She spent three years at The Canberra Times as a photojournalist and had responsibility for photography in other publications, including The Canberra Chronicle, The Queanbeyan Age, The Canberra Centre Magazine, See Canberra Magazine, and Summer in the City Magazine.

Earlier this year Holly embarked on a personal photographic journey through Laos and Vietnam. Her first solo exhibition Watching You Watching Me is currently showing at Café Yala, Reid CIT campus.

Holly Treadaway’s 'sticks and stones' is autobiographical, with its roots in the memory of her early years. It is a physical and emotional revisiting of the places and feelings she experienced growing up on the land at Burra, out of Canberra.

Using a model to suggest a reflective, idyllic adolescence, Holly recreates the atmosphere and quiet joy of a life which was at times resented but now, reconsidered, approaches perfection. The calm of this young Holly Treadaway does seem in conflict with the rambunctious life she recounts in her Artist Statement, but it is the big memories that ultimately matter and the taunts and isolation she sometimes experienced now take a lowly position in her evaluation of her early life.

PhotoAccess is proud to have helped bring this story by Holly Treadaway, an exciting young artist, to a wider Canberra audience through the 2010 emerging artist residency and her 'sticks and stones' exhibition in the HUW DAVIES GALLERY at the Manuka Arts Centre.

David Chalker

Catalogue

This limited edition print portfolio is 16 images donated by artists associated with PhotoAccess as board members, board advisors, staff, course tutors and exhibiting members to commemorate the PhotoAccess 25th Anniversary in September 2009.

Macquarie Editions has printed the portfolio with UltraChrome HDR pigment inks on 310 gsm Canson Infinity BFK Rives 100% rag in a numbered edition of 25, with one artist’s proof. The first 10 sets are for sale as boxed sets. Images numbered 11 to 20/25 are for sale individually. Proceeds from the sale of the edition will help PhotoAccess continue its work providing community access to the photo based arts through exhibitions, courses and special projects.

The portfolio is:

Kerry Baylor, Breach (2007)
Stephen Best, Kosciusko I (c. 1980)
Tim Brook, Rijeka Crnojevića (2007)
Bob Burne, Still life with criminal (2008)
Joe Cali, The web (2008)
David Chalker, Surf club (2007)
Denise Ferris, Looking from the George Peterson Room (2009)
Lauren Hewitt, From the hill she could see (2009)
Kate Luke, Phoenix (2009)
Belinda Pratten, The Surfer (1994)
Barbie Robinson, February bird (2006)
Jocelyn Rosen, Abstract bust (2009)
Lorna Sim, Stormy afternoon (2007)
Tony Stewart, Sargasso Christ—What happened? (2008)
Sonia Turner, Portrait through the window (2008)
Ed Whalan, Gallus gallus domesticus (2009)

The portfolio would not have been possible without our supporters.

Macquarie Editions

Stephen Best is a PhotoAccess member, master digital printmaker and owner of Macquarie Editions. His first solo exhibition, Coast, was shown in the HUW DAVIES GALLERY in 2007. Stephen has printed a significant number of exhibition images for PhotoAccess members and other artists around Australia and is renowned for the quality of his work.

Abell’s Kopi Tiam Restaurant at Manuka

Lorna Sim is a partner in Abell’s Kopi Tiam restaurant and a long-standing member of PhotoAccess. She and Abell Ong have supported and shown photography in the restaurant for many years and are very pleased to be associated with PhotoAccess and the commemorative print portfolio.

Barbie Robinson

Barbie Robinson is a member and staff member of PhotoAccess. Her exhibition 256 Shades of Grey was shown in the HUW DAVIES GALLERY in 2005. She is supporting the edition in memory of her mother, Beb Bartholomew. Beb came to openings at PhotoAccess and sat happily in 'her' chair at the front desk sipping champagne and people-watching. She loved encouraging and supporting people she saw as 'having a go'. She had a special affection for PhotoAccess, observing a supportive environment for both its staff and its artists. Ed Whalan was her particular pin-up boy because of his role in introducing Barbie to the intricacies and boundless delights of photography.

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