Lorna Grear

“The World of Love—image from my heart”, of which all subject and content are about dogs and cats.  It will be a part of Willoughby Spring Festival. The exhibition will run on from 14^th to 24^th of September 2019. Curated by Ginger;

Jingzhe Li

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/kkAt5g9xW94I03FIx-56KA

I showed these two works based on Macy- a Staffy Border Collie x dog.

Winter Macy Swirls, digital print on etching rag 78 cm x 90 cm

Purple Francesca, digital print on etching rag 78 cm x 90 cm

SHEFFER GALLERY
38 LANDER ST DARLINGTON SYDNEY
Gallery open Wednesday – Saturday 11- 6pm

OPENING THURSDAY 2 MAY  6- 9PM / CLOSING EVENT SATURDAY 11 MAY 2- 6PM

HiskeWeijers

Tiergarten means ‘animal garden’, it is the name of a large park in Berlin.

In the 16^thcentury the elector of Brandenburg put animals in the then fenced off forest for hunting. That soon changed as the park became an area for people and slowly statues were placed there ( some of animals). After WWII Tiergarten was used to store coal and grow food under British occupation.

Now it is back to being a place for wild animals and people. Nightingales have left London over the past decade to come to Tiergarten ( and other areas like this) as it offers a safe haven for them to breed. It is an enormous park with monumental statues scattered around and lots of scrub to  hide in.

The exhibition has animal garden as its theme. You will be surrounded by images of animals or inspired by them.

For Hiske, animals have been a popular theme in her art from a very early age in the Netherlands where she is from and grew up. Now she spends half her time between Europe ( based in Berlin) and Sydney.

Hiskeweijers.com

Nicole Eggers

Having been born in Germany and emigrating here to Australia with her parents in the 1970s, the theme of Tiergarten, German for ‘Animal Garden’ and also well known

as a huge park in Berlin and the home of that city’s zoological gardens, naturally appealed greatly to Nicole, whose work has, for a long time, been concerned with the

treatment and plight of animals, particularly that of native Australian animals.  An exhibition wholly centred around the theme of animals has allowed her to continue to explore this subject, this time in a deeply personal way, having the opportunity to relate aspects of her own life spent with dingoes.

For this new group show, Nicole has included pieces from a variety of mediums; etching, drawing, photographic installation and digital media. Nicole feels greatly privileged to have spent many years now living with dingoes and it is this experience which forms the backdrop of her work in Tiergarten. Recently she has adopted two rescue dingoes, Juno & Silke, both of whom have given her endless joy and served as the primary inspiration for this current body of work.

Nicole’s pieces, which are both lighthearted and playful in their turn, seek to counter the more often than not, negative portrayal popularised in the media, of this unique creature.  This irresponsible reportage she believes has led to one of our most iconic animals being largely misunderstood and demonised within the Australian psyche, her work instead offers a more balanced and positive view of this complex native animal within a personal and domestic context.

Lorna Grear

When I was invited to exhibit with Nicole and Hiske I was intrigued. I was in the middle of working on my ongoing series titled Paralands-. a series of work using the idea of hidden paradises found in unusual places -drawings are made from urban parklands,nature-­‐ strips and gardens that are then manipulated digitally and printed.

Macy our Staffy x Border Collie came to live with us last year and I thought it would give me a chance to include her form in my garden images for the show at Sheffer Gallery. The idea of Tiergarten and my usual body of work didn’t seem so far removed. My Macy in Tiergartenseries aims to re-create the idea of a hidden playspace- whether intellectually or real- into a patterned wonderland using dogs as the underpinning form. The series is a celebration of animals (dogs) as a simple, uncomplicated motif immersed in patterns which could suggest truth, honesty and a spiritual sense of well being.

Many cultures have used the Dog as a form which symbolized guidance, protection, loyalty, fidelity, faithfulness, alertness and love. The Greeks used the three headed Cerberus as the guardian of the dead. Or there is the Norse Garmr- the dog that stands at the gates of the underworld. Garmr will only howl if the end of the world is imminent.

In Tarot dogs symbolise communication, friendship and community, animals teach us, about unconventional communication. They remind us of the varied languages available to us for expression-  psychic, body language, music, symbolic and visual.

Lorna has held numerous solo exhibitions including at the infamous Tailor Room Gallery, Sydney in 1998 – 2003, at Peloton Gallery in 2005, 2009 and 2011; at MOP Projects in 2013 and at AIRspace Projects Inc in 2017 and 2018. Other galleries where her work has been shown include, Imperial Slacks, Herringbone, SNO, Phatspace, Zitlip, Sheffer, UTS Gallery and Firstdraft. Lorna’s work has been selected for the Portia Geach Memorial Prize, The Fisher’s Ghost Open Award, Mosman Art Prize and the Liverpool Art Prize. Most recently her work was shown at the MCA Artbar, curated by Anney Bounpraseth as digital projections in February 2018.

In her independent curatorial practice Lorna co-curated ‘Here is a Fresh Egg’, as part of a collective in Zitlip Gallery, 1994 and curated Homefront at Sheffer Gallery, Sydney in 2010 and The Baker’s Dozen at UTS Gallery, Sydney in 2012. Prior to this her time was spent in London, 1987-­‐1993,initiating community arts groups,including the Dolehouse, Peckham, London and ScarecrowTiggy-­‐an artist run co-­‐ operative in Camberwell, London. She is a graduate of both Sydney College  of the  Arts (BVA, Honours, and MVA), The National Art School, Sydney (Dip F A) and Art & Design, UNSW  (Grad Cert Design2014).

Lorna is currently the A/Head teacher of the Ceramic Design Studio, Gymea, TAFENSW and visual art teacher at Campbelltown, TAFENSW

 

All works are printed on archival etching rag paper. Limited editions of 10 only, individually signed. 90 cm x 76 cm, unframed or framed.

Macy in Tiergarten Series 2019