A Grand Tour

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A Grand Tour

Lucy Vader’s upcoming exhibition, ‘A Grand Tour,’ was inspired by a remarkable academic find – an image of Australia’s beloved Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo in a book residing in the Vatican, produced between 1241 and 1248.

The discovery sparked a desire to paint these birds, extrapolating a single bird being taken on a grand tour, in what could either be the Australian bush, or other unknown lands. In seven vibrant paintings, Vader captures the larrikin playfulness of these iconic Australian characters.

‘Whimsical and intense, the Cockatoo paintings are semi en plein air and semi-imagined. I wanted to be free in capturing the motion of the soaring or tumbling free flight of these birds, as well as their characters as best I could.

The meeting of a Northern Hemisphere animal, the deer, highlights the character difference between Australia and Europe: one demure, gracious, beautiful, and composed; the other loud, unashamed, a bit silly, and bearing the hallmarks of days in the southern sun. Straya, meet Europe.’

Lucy Vader

Ngura (Country)

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Ngura (Country)

  • Artist
    Alec Baker
  • Dates
    19 Jan—11 Feb 2023
  • Catalogue
    Download now
  • Gallery Location
    Eora / Sydney

Alec Baker’s topographical paintings of country rumble with energy. Dense, complex, and sprawling with movement; in each painting we witness physical phenomena and ancestral stories (Tjukurpa) that have been central to Indulkana’s spiritual history for 80,000 years. Informed by his traditional Anangu upbringing on ancestral country, Baker’s paintings speak to a life intrinsically wedded to the land.

I paint all the rocky hills and paint the Tjukurpa (ancestral story) of the women near the rock holes, the women living nearby. I like to paint everything that makes that place. All the emu tracks coming and going across the country.

The desert country of Indulkana Community is located the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in the remote north-west of South Australia, and is an area of the continent globally famed for its artistic output. Once Alec Baker’s fathers country, Baker himself now presides as cultural authority and community leader of the region.

Now in his ninth decade, Alec Baker remains steadfast in his service to the arts, and has spent decades providing creative counsel to his peers at Iwantja Arts. As co-founder and primary leader of the art centre, Alec Baker has been crucial in providing resources and professional pathways to a roster of widely recognised artists. Vincent Namatjira, Kaylene Whiskey and fellow Michael Reid artist Betty Chimney join Alec Baker in interpreting their worlds at Iwantja, adding latitude to the diversity of contemporary First Nations painting.

Every Alec Baker painting uses his Indulkana as its stage, with each emphatically bursting with undiluted wonder. Ngura (Country) is the artist’s first solo show at our Sydney Gallery, and follows several exhibitions at Michael Reid Berlin.

Essential Object

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Essential Object

  • Artist
    Steph Woods
  • Dates
    12—28 Jan 2023
  • Gallery Location
    Eora / Sydney

Showing in January at Michael Reid Sydney is a delightful collection of new handmade ceramics by Brisbane based artist, Steph Woods. Rounding out our summertime schedule of new work by emerging artist’s.

Steph Woods’ meticulously crafted, hand built vessels are curvaceous, textured and visually daring, all embellished with striking matt glaze.

Our Sydney Gallery installation is on view until January 28th. Those interested in viewing these superb works are encouraged to visit.

On the evening of Thursday 19th January 2023 Michael Reid Sydney will host a combined opening reception for our Steph Woods exhibition, Ben Waters exhibition and JAMOO pop up store. This event will take place from 6pm to 8pm at 109 Shepherd Street, Chippendale NSW 2008. Phone (02) 8353 3500 for more information, or email danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au

Shared Places

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Shared Places

  • Artist
    Ben Waters
  • Dates
    12—28 Jan 2023
  • Catalogue
    Download now
  • Gallery Location
    Eora / Sydney

Our Summer exhibition program commences with Shared Places, Ben Waters‘ first exhibition at Michael Reid Sydney, which will open from January 12th 2023.

In this exhibition, Ben Waters’ graphic paintings of the Barrenjoey Headlands and Pittwater surrounds have been marvellously up-scaled and are among the largest examples of the artist’s work to date. Bright, warm and quintessentially Australian, paintings from this exhibition offer a considered introduction the the artist’s thoughtful treatment of the painted landscape.

On the evening of Thursday 19th January 2023 Michael Reid Sydney will host a combined opening reception for our Steph Woods exhibition, Ben Waters exhibition and JAMOO pop up store. This event will take place from 6pm to 8pm at 109 Shepherd Street, Chippendale NSW 2008. Phone (02) 8353 3500 for more information, or email danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au

DEKADE: 10 Years of Michael Reid Berlin

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DEKADE: 10 Years of Michael Reid Berlin

  • Dates
    10 Nov—17 Dec 2022
  • Catalogue
    Download now
  • Gallery Location
    Berlin

2022 represents a milestone for Michael Reid – for ten years we have championed the very best Australian artists from the world stage of contemporary art, Berlin.

Since our inaugural German showing, Murr-ma* uncovering Aboriginal & Australian contemporary art at Halle Am Wasser in 2012, to Dekade at the close of 2022, we have presented over 90 exhibitions to the German public. Using Berlin as a base, we have toured Indigenous Art and Contemporary Australian photography across Europe. We have celebrated our nation’s artists at exhibitions encompassing embassies, at Art Fair Booths in lofty palaces and at cultural festivals across the continent.

While this exhibition includes two artists whose work we first brought to Berlin in 2012 at Murr-ma, the inimitable Nici Cumpston OAM and Dr Christian Thompson AO, it is not a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Instead, we are presenting the best of contemporary First Nations art today. It celebrates the diversity of contemporary artistic expression that lives and breathes in Australia and looks to the next ten years of exhibitions, fairs and festivals.

Thank you to the artists that have entrusted us with their work along the way, to the collectors who have supported the gallery, and to the staff who have worked tirelessly to bring them together.

Here’s to the Dekade to come.

H.E. PHILIP GREEN OAM

Australian Ambassador to Germany

‘I very much welcome and thank Michael Reid Berlin for what it does here.
For promoting Australian art, for focusing in particular on Indigenous art and culture.

While you are a commercial institution, you are also one that wants to add to the fabric
of Australian engagement with Germany, and bring something very fine and special
to German eyes.


Your gallery distinguishes itself by the degree to which it is actively enriching
German life with a very particular part of Australian culture, and I thank you for that.’


Pictured:DR Christian Thompson AO, Rule of three, 2020, 

on display at the Residence of the Ambassador

IWANTJA ARTS

Indulkana, SA

JILAMARA ARTS & CRAFTS ASSOCIATION

Milikapiti, Tiwi Islands, NT

NICI CUMPSTON OAM

BUKU-LARRNGGAY MULKA

Yirrkala, Miwatj, NT

ARTISTS OF AMPILATWATJA

Ampilatwatja, Central Desert, NT

MANINGRIDA ARTS & CULTURE

Kunibídji Country, Arnhem Land, NT

ERNABELLA ARTS

Pukatja, NT

DR CHRISTIAN THOMPSON AO

Place In Between: The Changeling

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Place In Between: The Changeling

Narelle Autio returns to her renowned cinematic style in this 2020 body of work, capturing the dark depths of the sea and the moments of magic concealed by its murky waters.

This body of work is very personal to the artist, tracing its beginning to an idea born in motherhood, a time the Autio calls immersive and all consuming much like the ocean. As a mother of young teenagers, Autio feels she is coming up for air yet is also suspended in her own new beginnings.

These underwater works, which were photographed under many of South Australia’s jetties, are a metaphor for life and its incessant move towards change, yet they are also capturing the in between moments of the changelings, the place in between. These unstaged works suspend moments of swimmers jumping off the jetty that Narelle is submerged under. In the midst of a magical episode, their bodies are incapsulated in bubbles and motion. As the bubbles dissipate, the swimmer is briefly revealed as a strange figure… they could be fairies or even something more sinister.

Penumbra

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Penumbra

  • Artist
    Scott Perkins
  • Dates
    4 Nov—3 Dec 2022
  • Catalogue
    Download now
  • Gallery Location
    Eora / Sydney

Penumbra was Australian photographer Scott Perkins’ first exhibition at Michael Reid Sydney, debuting the artist’s finely distilled employment of abstract photography. Penumbra followed a series of successful exhibitions in New Zealand and was the first opportunity for Australian collectors to engage with Perkins’ reanimated treatment of the photographic craft.

Presented in three distinct modes, Scott Perkins’ images of unidentified landscapes have been captured in state of balance, occupying a space between light and dark. Brooding, atmospheric and technically imposing, Scott Perkins’ images thread a trio of presentation methods that add a dynamic viewing experience to each work of art. 

In this exhibition, viewers were treated to impeccably presented lightbox photographs of bespoke design that transform their surrounding spaces. The artist’s use of Hanhnemule metallic paper add a complementary lustre to the surface of his mysterious still photograph images.

‘Palace of Dreams,’ 2022

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‘Palace of Dreams,’ 2022

Following a two year hiatus, Sydney Contemporary returned in 2022 and it was Tamara Dean who represented Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin.

Palace of Dreams, a project over twelve months in the making, made it’s worldwide debut at the art fair, seeing an audience of over 150,000 people across five days. In this series, Dean disorientates her subjects using a purpose built underwater studio. With Palace of Dreams Tamara Dean successfully choreographs a dreamlike world, illustrated across eight gravity defying subjects.

John Honeywill

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John Honeywill

John Honeywill’s paintings are often described as realist. He removes objects from their context and presents them to us isolated, commanding in their silence. Their intriguing qualities come not from their suggested narrative, but of the stark sense of light, colour and luminosity they convey. Stripped of all story-telling levers, Honeywill offers his viewers what might be understood as a pure distillation of presence. 

Opening on Thursday 25th of August, John Honeywill’s Michael Reid Sydney exhibition assembled twenty-six new paintings.

Flowers

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Flowers

Showing in the upstairs gallery at Michael Reid Sydney, Flowers gathered eight new paintings by Kaspar Kägi; each demonstrating the rising artist’s original and refreshing sensibility. Kägi’s graphic, yet painterly visual language wedded perfectly with his botanical images.

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