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Time and light are the central themes running through several exhibitions visiting Gosford Regional Gallery during April and May.
Jessica Loughlin is Australia’s most internationally acclaimed glass artist and is renowned for her highly innovative technical approach to kilnformed glass.
A studio glass artist for over 25 years, Loughlin creates ethereal kilnformed glass artworks that explore her fascination with the beauty of emptiness and her extensive research into light and space.
The JamFactory ICON Jessica Loughlin: of light, is a JamFactory touring exhibition assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory board.
Join the exhibition’s opening night at 6pm on 14 April 2023 and public program at 11am on 15 April. The exhibition runs until 4 June.
Jessica Loughlin acknowledges the support of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet through an Arts South Australia Grant.
RSVP for the opening event Friday 14 April 2023
There will be a a free event with Jessica Loughlin on Saturday 15 April 2023, 11am Moving : Still A Visual Meditative Sound Experience
Nomadic Movement by Tanya Alexandra Richards is also visiting the Gallery from April 1 to June 4.
‘The best, the definition for ‘nomad’ is that it is a kind of human mind that is less attached’. – French anthropologist, Romaine Simenel.
Richards uses the metaphor of the nomad to simultaneously emphasise her own mental and physical movements and the improvised action of the body’s rhythmic motion in space.
Enter Nomadic Movement and lose self-consciousness through embracing the invitation for imagination and corporeal encounters through a space of intensities: lights, shadows, forms, reflections, positive and negative structures. Fascinated by chiaroscuro, or the intense contrast of light, Richards creates sensations to embrace the viewer in a fusion of the multi-sensory experiences and a personal response to the architecture of the gallery space.
Dr Tanya Alexandra Richards was born and raised in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province of Northern China. She undertook her PhD at Sydney College of the Arts in 2021 and has exhibited with both her installation and ceramic based works across NSW and Taiwan.
Now residing on the Central Coast, her works pay homage to her nomadic roots and the intersection of this ancient way of life with the contemporary world.
Ali Tahayori’s exhibition, from 1 April to June 4 is called The Sky is the Same.
Inspired by the geometry found in the Australian night sky, The Sky Is The Same is an immersive video installation that examines the transformative power of light, nature and geometry.
The installation arrives at the intersection of culture, geography and the natural world and explores the notion of home through a queer diasporic lens. The title is drawn from an Iranian proverb: “wherever you go, the sky is the same”, traditionally used to console a person as they depart from their homeland.
Ali Tahayori was born and raised in the oppressively homophobic climate of 1980s Iran, and assumed the identity of an outsider which was further compounded by his migration to Australia in 2007.
Combining fractured mirrors with text and imagery, his recent works draw on ancient Iranian philosophies about light and mirrors to create kaleidoscopic experiences; moments of both revelation and concealment hint at the conflicted nature of his identity.
Translating the traditional Iranian craft of Āine-Kāri (mirror-works) into a contemporary visual vocabulary, Ali’s practice skilfully combines a discourse about diaspora and displacement with an exploration of queerness – in both cases, poignantly testifying to his experience of being othered.
He holds a Doctorate in Medicine, a Graduate Diploma in Photography, and a Master of Fine Arts in Photomedia from Sydney’s National Art School. His work has been extensively exhibited in the middle East, Europe and Australia.
Michele Heibel’s Making Time runs from April 8 to May 28.
‘Making Time’ is a collection of works that seek to bring the viewer back to the ‘simpler times’ that are so often reminisced about.
With her delicate miniature scenes, Heibel seeks to convey the idea that moments such as these do not have to be bound to any particular point in history, or time of life. That these moments can, in fact, still be found here today in our modern world.
One just has to take a step back, draw a breath and make time.
Born into an artistic Swiss-German family in 1972, Heibel spent most of her childhood years in Switzerland’s Bernese countryside. In 1983, after extensive travels, her family made the decision to settle permanently in Australia.
She attained her Diploma of Graphic Design at North Sydney’s Billy Blue School of Graphic Arts in 1991 and worked as a designer for the following eighteen years. Now based in the Hunter region, Heibel has returned to her artistic roots and that familiar rural lifestyle, where she creates delicate artworks on black clayboard using only a pin.
Her award-winning works possess a whimsical quality that often belie the serious message within.
