30x30

30th Anniversary Exhibition
Flinders Lane Gallery
To December 21
Level 1, Nicholas Building
Swanston Street
Melbourne


FLG has been exhibiting contemporary and Indigenous artworks for 30 years, supporting a diverse range of practices by some of Australia's leading artists.

Cemented within Melbourne's vibrant art scene, this year has been a particularly important one - with the gallery relocating from its original site and onto level one of the Nicholas Building, a thriving creative precinct on the corner of Flinders Lane and Swanston Street.

To celebrate this anniversary milestone, we have invited our represented artists to create an artwork that is 30 x 30 - either cms or inches. Each artwork is indicative of the artist's practice and inspired by Melbourne, showcasing the varied yet strong creative talents of the artists of FLG. 




Puff, 2019, oil on paper, 32 x 31 x 14 cm.

Artist statement:

'In late January a blackbird flew into my garden to forage as they occasionally do. The species was introduced to Australia in the 1850s. Nevertheless I enjoy their gentleness. The appearance of this particular bird however has stayed with me as it had one white tail feather. Was it a genetic mutation? An environmental consequence of being in a foreign land? Its lack of symmetry as is usual in bird tail feathers lead me to consider the boundary or ‘threshold’ of decoration and composition. What is the minimal point where compositional dialogue commences? It led a series of ‘paper paintings’ called the Blackbird Series. ‘Puff’ is part of this series and its shape relates to native fungus growing near the Yarra River.'


Installation photo, Flinders Lane Gallery

Opening speeches at Flinders Lane Gallery


Industrial Panorama

Curated by Clinton Cross
Gatakers Artspace Maryborough, Qld.
Opening November 29
To 5th January 2020.


White Bands, 2018, oil on card, 25 x 15 cm.



Grey Stripes, 2018, oil on card, 30 x 12 cm.



Artists
Nicolo Baraggioli
Terri Brooks
Marlene Sarroff
Diane Scott
Jo Katsiaris
Karee Dahl
Rose Moxham
David. T. Milller
Michael Cusack
Christine Myerscough
Clinton Cross
Beverly Rautenberg
Stuart Fineman
Roland Orepuk
Fabian Freese
Frank van Ansem
Lorna Crane
Ulla Pedersen
Deb Covell
Jo Williams
Louise Tuckwell
Evelyn Snoek
Glenn Locklee


Installation shots:










Biennale of Reductive and Non Objective Art

An independent biennale of contemporary reductive arts to be held in assoc with the CNOA Biennale of Grenoble. The event takes place in three cities, Kyiv, Grenoble and Sydney. Over 120 artists from abroad nationally and locally presenting in Sydney. Please come and celebrate what is also the opening of a new venue for the arts and community use in Parramatta, located in a warehouse behind Parramatta Goal. Opens from 1pm to 5pm sat Oct 19.

Opening this Friday at The Stores building and then Fri and Sat from 1 to 5pm weekly.

Entry is free. See The Stores Building on FB for more information.



RNOP Road Paintings at the Biennale, Top Steven Baris, photo Marlene Sarroff

RNOP Road Paintings at the Biennale, photo Dani Marti




Widewalls

'Abstraction Between Order and Chaos - Terri Brooks in an Interview'
Brent Hallard
Widewalls Magazine
October 11











Read the article here: https://www.widewalls.ch/abstraction-between-order-and-chaos-terri-brooks-in-an-interview/

Thanks very much Bent Hallard and Widewalls for sharing the time with me for this interview.

Brent Hallard is an Australian-born abstract artist, curator and writer whose works on paper and aluminium explore minimalist iconography and monochromatic expressions.




Following a Path


Grey Lines, 2016, oil on canvas, 123 x 120 cm
Works from 2014-9
September 18 to October 13
Tacit Art Galleries in association with Flinders Lane Gallery
123a Gipps Street, Collingwood, Victoria
Opening Wednesday September 18 6.30-8 pm

10% of any sales going to the Australia Cancer Research Foundation

Selected works:


Variations on White, 2014, oil and enamel on canvas, 153 x 153 cm.


Black Side, 2015, oil, enamel and pencil on canvas, 153 x 153 cm.


Black Weave, 2018, oil on canvas, 122 x 91 cm.


Loose Grid, 2019, oil on canvas, 76 x 61 cm.


Paper Painting, Blackbird Series, Waterline, 2019,
oil and enamel on paper, 31 x 22 x 14 cm.


Following a Path catalogue essay by Kathryn Marshall and Terri Brooks

A Line Made by Walking, 1967, Richard Long

The sojourns of neighbour’s collide, but how often do they travel the same road? Grass bends beneath our feet, as together we cross between old and new paths, while talking about life and art and all the poetry in between.

I am one twinkle in the constellation of humanity, trying to understand and see other stars. Light emissions fluctuate as their light is blinded by orbiting companions or perhaps my view is blinded by mine. I sometimes fail to see the wonder of other stars. 

I feel this is where my view of Terri and her art started, overcast with distractions. However, I’m not sure if becoming better friends with Terri has led me to admire her art more or discovering the world of minimal art has resulted in seeing Terri as a truly bright and beautiful star.
Walking
My neighbour walks the path I trod,
But does she see the things I saw?

Sometimes I ask Terri to describe herself or what her art is. The answer always seems to blend both as we walk a path that has inspired her art and directed her life. Terri’s painting philosophy is closer to Chinese landscape painting than the Western realist landscape tradition ... an artist stands on one mountain and paints what it feels like to gaze upon another mountain.

Terri is a sixth generation Australian, or perhaps even more. She lives near two waterways, the Yarra and the Merri, although she cannot see them from home. Her kindred birds and trees tell her the river and creek are near. Throughout her life, Terri has walked almost all the paths that meander and weave across the meeting place of these waters. It is her space, her peace, full of music she loves and her home.

Serenity
My hand was held along the river banks,
as nature and I became friends.
The outside world called to me,
‘discover what I’ve hidden - seen and unseen.’
Sometimes the wind and rain hastened my steps
to a secret retreat,
or the sun invited me to linger and breathe,
 with eucalypt oil drifting on the wind.
My arms reached up to grab stringy bark
peeling from upstretched gums.
I climbed into the hollow trunk filled with the life
of birds and bugs and me, as the tree decayed.
Fields of wildflowers and grassy woodlands
grown tall and wild in the sun
sway in the wind,
as I sway in the wind,
hearing it…
The sounds and songs that spoke
and still speak to my soul.
Serenity guides my life
and the strokes of my brush.
My art’s not always calm, as nature can be wild,
simplified to bare forms,
elementary,
which cycles,
comforting and peaceful and serene.

It has been said that a ‘king’s’ burial ground lies where the Yarra and Merri meet and Billibellary is buried here, but a freeway and revegetation now claim this land. A great meeting of Indigenous people was held at the Merri Creek on Heidelberg Road when Terri was a child. They stayed many days in their tents and then were gone. Their departure faded into a memory for Terri, like the songs from a flock of birds gathering and then returning home. Recently, a blackbird inspired Terri’s creativity and the opening lyrics of ‘Blackbird’ (Paul McCartney, 1968) pervaded her thoughts.

Blackbird
The sun shines after rain has fallen, glistening on receding puddles
that beckon the little blackbirds to come and bathe before they fade away.
Birds chirp and call to each other as their plumage puffs in splashed water.
Black wings unfold and tails twitch, but one bird is different.
A white feather interrupts the black symmetry.
No other birds notice or seem to mind, chirping and puffing and splashing.
Lines ripple in the water as the puddle plays too.
The puddle’s time is short as the sun shines on and on.
Then the blackbirds flee, their songs fade, the water recedes and all that remains
are the water lines hinting of their past fun.

The Great Heidelberg Road was the first road to be macadamised in Victoria in the late 1840s and it was private. The toll gate was near Terri’s house, as was the Yarra Bend Asylum. She remembers when Heidelberg Road was closed for days when the Merri flooded after heavy rain. That has never happened again and terraced gardens at Yarra Bend and some stone steps are all that remain of the toll gate and asylum.

It is here she stood as a child with her grandfather on a sunny day talking about nature and the park. Together they would sing ‘Side by Side’ (Harry M Woods, 1927) as they walked.

Terri’s history is intertwined with the land around her, culminating into her present as the rivers combine into something greater together. Painting and walking go hand in hand. Terri walks before she paints. Thoughts float in and out while Terri walks and problems that house her dissipate. She obtains a state of free association while being in the now, looking, thinking and relating.

As an abstract artist, Terri works with the elements of art that include line, shape, colour and tone. She thinks about paint and the marks she makes back in the studio. There’s a relationship between what she has seen walking and marks she creates on her canvases.

Contoured Paths
A purely straight line is boring, untouched by the vibrations of life,
and my world is filled with distorted lines:
twisted, bending, curved and contorted by the variety of the world I live in.
No straight line was ever true,
an illusion of someone blind to imperfect beauty.
I like the curves, bumps and meandering flow of motion in the world,
so fast my eyes can’t follow or infinitesimally slow the world seems to stand still.
We don’t always see eye to eye, out of view on the bent lines we follow.
We are intertwined in the woven lines,
and tangle for moments
or years or decades,
until quiet vibrations or earthquakes move us on our way.
My lines stretch forth and are what they are.
Fear not if separation finds us because the weave that connects
will see our lines intersect again,
in this life
or the next.

Her city could be any city intertwined with nature and part of her essence. Terri feels the texture of a perfectly formed geometric seed pod while she studies graffiti, road signs telling her to stop and green lights directing her to go.  Scuffs, rain patterns, and dribbling rust stains, new and old architecture, and forgotten traces of the presence of man decay and are reclaimed by nature.

These marks and patterns tell her where she is and guide her hand on the canvas.  Thoughts of nature and how we are as people are reflected in her art. We really are part of the world. We are the lightning, the wind, the rain and the thunder. During her painting process, she is back in the rhythm of walking, searching for harmony, but now it’s with lines on the canvas using elements of nature such as motion, gravity and time, and therefore history.

Ash
Walking at dusk when the lights are low,
Black and white vision are last to go.
That’s why ash is my favourite colour.

Not a burnt-out end or death for some,
A chance for something new to become.
Art born where urban nature is mother

Night and then a deep breath in the dawn,
Black, white and grey shapes and lines are drawn
In the stillness of art, my soul recovers



Installation image Tacit Galleries


Installation image Tacit Galleries


Installation image Tacit Galleries

Third Birthday Exhibition

Opening this Saturday 17th August 6pm.
Music Performance starts with Colleen Peterson at 7.30 pm.
Cross Gallery
Bundaberg


Selected works:


Striped Wrap, 2019, oil on card, 27 x 18 x 9 cm. Private collection.

Black Stripe, 2018, oil on paper on card, 39 x 13 cm.

Black Border, 2018, oil on card, 40 x 20 cm. Private collection.




Congratulations to Clinton Cross for achieving high standard international exhibitions of innovative art to Australia.


Salon installation at Cross Gallery

Free and Breathe

Two exhibitions
'Free' Arvid Boecker
'Breathe' curated by Arvid Boecker
June 28 - August 18
Museum St Wendel
Germany







Terri Brooks, Veiled Yellow Dots, oil, enamel, pigment and PVA on canvas, 40 x 40 cm.


Installation image of  'Breathe'

At the opening 'Free'

At the opening 'Breathe'

'Boecker shows works by himself and colleagues' Saarbruecker-Zeitung, DE. July 17.
"The trend has gone away from the subject, towards an avant-garde orientation, (Cornelieke) Lagerwaard writes. The painting process is now also part of the artwork.'

Museum St Wendel, Saarbruecker-Zeitung, DE

Arvid Boecker, 'Breathe' and 'Free', Museum St Wendel


New Modern

RNOP MELBOURNE – THE ROAD PAINTINGS
Co curator and on-line artist essay: Billy Gruner.

Five Walls
Footscray
13.06.19 – 29.06.19


Terri Brooks, Box Set, 2019, oil and acrylic on card, 23 x 21 x 4 cm.


'The background theme of ‘New Modern’ discourse outlined earlier in a series of closed-door events held at the Saturation Point in London is by literary conceit to best understood as a related matter in the concept development towards Melbourne. Just as the London events similarly featured artists I would consider foundational to one of the fastest growing genres of modern art after the 20thc century. And given that the central aim for each RNOP presentation is to connect people while highlighting shifting differences and aesthetic concerns between the individual participants, there is, in particular, a relating to or, feeling for disparateness ‘historical precedence’, at the same time. From that vantage, there is at least some critical way to begin commenting on how and why so many contemporary divergent voices within contemporary art are reading each other’s practices so carefully, and in great detail within a single genre. Moreover, it is fundamentally critical to note how these often highly trained artists may be contemporaneously utilising and enacting on individual concerns, while simultaneously developing associated styles or sharing art-critical associations on a flattened out platform simultaneously. That is modern work not seen before. Traction.'  excerpt catalogue essay by Billy Gruner.

75 artists including:


Pam Aitken (Au) - Tania Alexander (Au) - Wahida Azhari(De) - Steven Baris (USA) - Arvid Boecker (De) - Karin Beyens (Bel) - Louise Blyton (Au) - Christine Boiry (Fr) - Terri Brooks (Au) - Raymond Carter (Au) - Andrew Christofides (Au) - Chanelle Collier (Au) - Deb Covell (UK) - Ivo Ringe (De) - Dombrovska Elena (Ukr) - Mikala Dwyer (Au) - Craig Easton (Ch) - Stuart Fineman (USA) - Robbie Fraser (Auc) - Connie Goldman (USA) - Daniel Gottin (Ch) - Dima Gred (Rus) - Billy Gruner (Au) - Badri Guhubianuri (Ukr) - Andrew Gutteridge (Au) - Alan Hathaway (Uk) - Jose Heerkens (Nd) - PJ Hickman (Au) - Peter Holm (Dk) - Kyle Jenkins (Au) - Jeffrey Cortland Jones (Usa) - Heather Jones (Usa) - Sarah Keighery (Au) - Graham Davis King (Au) - Erdem Kucuk-Koroglu (Tur) - Emma Langridge (Au) - Karin Lind (Dk) - Aaron Martin(Au) - Kate Kate Mackay (Au) - Tarn McLean (Au) - Munira Naqui (Usa) - John Nixon (Au) - Brooke Nixon (Usa) - Roland Orépük (Fr) - Ulla Pedersen (Dk) - Anya Pesce (Au) - Serhiy Popov (Ukr) - Theresa Poulton (Uk) - Marlene Sarroff (Au) - David Schell (Usa) - Karen Schifano (Usa) - Lisa Sharp (Au) - Suzan Shutann (Usa) - Ingela Skytte (Dk) - Jessica Snow (Usa) - Anya Speilman (Usa) - T. Michael Stephens (Usa) - Bogumila Strojna (Fr) - Tiberiy Szilvashi (Ukr) - Masato Takasaka (Au) - Aimee Aimée Terburg (Nd) - Patricia Todarello (Au) - LI Trincere (Usa) - Stu Burke (Uk) - Richard Van der Richard van der Aa (Fr) - lemke van Djik (Nd) - Myroslav Vayda (Ukr) - Ian Wells (Au) - Stephen Stephen L Wickham (Au) - Sebastian Wickeroth (De) - Joe Wilson (Au) - Guido Winkler (Nd) - Douglas Witmar (Usa) - Elke Wohlfahrt (Au)


Exhibition


Photo by West Projects FB


Exhibition opening


Installation photos RNOP Melbourne




Aptos Cruz Galleries

APTOS CRUZ ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING SALE includes our complete range of International and Australian manufacturers of furniture and lighting by some of the worlds most highly regarded designers, in stock or custom order to your specification.

Sale also includes our complete stable of contemporary artists, oriental antiques, tribal art and more.

Open everyday 10am-5pm. Sale finishes Sunday 16th June 2019. Be Early.


 
Shiny White Dot 2011. Oil and enamel on canvas 95 x 78 cm.


Weathered Ridges 2011. Oil and pencil on canvas 109 x 78 cm


Black Base 2013 Oil and pencil on canvas 110 x 145 cm


Vertical Marks 2014. Oil on canvas, 153 x 183 cm.



There are 15 key works of mine available at the gallery.