80:20 artist agency inaugural exhibition

80:20 artist agency 

new concept : new space : new work

80:20 is an artist agency run by artists for the benefit of artists - it offers fairness and ethics and changes the dynamics between artist, gallery and art market system.

80:20 works with creative partners on art projects it finances and produces; manages and promotes artists; locates project sites, sells and commissions work; and organises performances, exhibitions and events.

80:20 represents and assists artists with promotion, production and support. It manages artists’ commitments, facilitates national and international exhibitions and events, locates project sponsors, operates studio residencies, and works with other creative businesses on projects.

80:20 works with artists for fair remuneration and profit-shares, which is embedded in the agency’s structure.

80:20 artist agency is facilitated by William Seeto PhD

80:20 artist agency  opens with an inaugural exhibition by Elizabeth Close, Adrian Hall and Barbara Halnan: 22 April to 25 June 2023. Saturday-Sunday 12-5pm - weekdays by appointment

80:20 artist agency  is at 377 Parramatta Road, Leichhardt. NSW 2040. Australia 

phone: +61 2 89575587

website:  www.eightytwentyartistagency.blogspot.com

email: eightytwentyartistagency@yahoo.com

Elizabeth Close: Aboriginal Visual Artist_Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara

Elizabeth Close is a Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara woman from the APY Lands in Central Australia. Based in Adelaide, Elizabeth's arts practice has evolved from canvas beginnings to now also include large scale public art and digital design. Elizabeth's work is a unique and distinct fusion of contemporary and traditional Aboriginal Art, using vivid warmth to convey the landscape of the APY while also drawing upon sociopolitical themes of identity, forced removal policies, loss of culture and intergenerational trauma.

Elizabeth’s exhibition at 80:20 artist agency is her first on the East Coast of Australia.

Ngura - Pitjantjatjara

Elizabeth Close, Landscape 2021. n.f.s. & Landscape (archival print) 2023). ed. 3/9, 153 x 115cm.

Ngura

Elizabeth Yanyi Close is an Anangu woman from the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara Language Groups, whose family links are to the communities of Pukutja and Amata in the APY Lands. Through her work, she explores her connection to Country, and Aboriginal and Western understandings of value, family and the concept of connection to place and space more broadly. Ngura is her first exhibition on the East Coast, after building a successful career on Kaurna Country.

Painting has been somewhat of a touchstone for Elizabeth throughout her life, a practice she turned to at various points in order to connect with family and to process grief and intergenerational trauma. It was her Grandmother in particular who taught her to paint, and worked alongside her, sharing stories, learning about Country and helping them both to heal. As a member of the Stolen Generation, Elizabeth’s Grandmother was cut off from her family and home. Finding space to paint and work with Elizabeth helped them both to connect to their shared history.

Following the passing of her Grandmother, Elizabeth turned once more to painting to understand her grief. Through commissions, exhibitions and prizes, she began to build her practice, working both on large-scale public murals and in gallery spaces. In 2015 Elizabeth and her family, including two toddlers, decided to move back to Tjala, in the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, in the north-west of South Australia. It was here that, one aIernoon in the blistering heat, Elizabeth’s family found her. Over the twelve months Elizabeth and her family lived in Tjala, she was able to immerse herself in her culture and her language, to learn from family, to visit her traditional lands, and to learn her Tjukurpa. This year had a profound impact on Elizabeth’s practice, deepening not only her connection to Country but also to her understanding of this connection. 

Following her return to Adelaide, Elizabeth’s career accelerated, and she developed her distinct, parallel practices; public facing, large-scale murals, and a more intimate studio practice. Though these are different forms of presentation, they both perform the same radical act: placing Aboriginal ideas, connections and stories into spaces which have historically excluded them. Elizabeth’s public art practice ensures not only are Aboriginal stories told on these lands, but they are unavoidable, painted on a large scale, immovable for many years. traditional symbols, patterns and colours have been returned to the cityscape. Through collaborations, Elizabeth has worked closely with both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal artists to combine stories and develop new artistic techniques. Across Australia, Elizabeth has told stories where once they were silenced.

Similarly, her studio practice also enters and takes over the white cube, where voices of the marginalised have not always been included. Canvases celebrating Country, and the environment, challenge audiences to think about their own place in these spaces, their own connection to stolen land and to the traditional owners. Through her imagery, symbolism and use of mixed media, including soil, she is able to bring her home into urban, rarefied spaces.

Ngura continues Elizabeth’s experimentation, bringing together her various mediums and techniques to showcase the unique aspects of her practice and working methods. Combining her paint with sand and dirt from home, she brings a small sprinkle of the APY onto Gadigal land. The surface of the canvas is textured and gritty. A recent development, she has included gold, silver and copper leaf, capturing the preciousness of the land, but also the way in which this preciousness is viewed by many Western cultures primarily as a resource. She includes aerosol paint, a nod to her work in the public realm and the one that first drew the attention of audiences and the arts community alike. Taking as its launching point the work Landscape (2022), Elizabeth has continued to build and experiment with her practice, to pay homage to Country, culture and family.

Landscape consists of sections of red, black and orange, dividing the canvas horizontally in elongated, rounded shapes. Each is decorated with line, colour and pattern. On opposite edges of the work there are section that shine with gold leaf. While it could be a cross section of rock strata, it could also be a top down view of the sandhills and desert. The segments bow as they lay on top of each other, squeezing onto the canvas, butting up against each other, shifting and moving as the desert itself. For early settlers, the desert appeared harsh and unforgiving, empty and vacant. Elizabeth’s work shows the care that she takes with the land, the soft gentle connection to it and the deep understanding of this place. The decorative elements capture the life that teems in the sand. As Elizabeth has done consistently in her practice , this painting highlights the different ways in which Western and Aboriginal cultures understand Country; one, a misunderstanding, the other, a deep familiarity.

To create Songstress (2022) Elizabeth has cut her canvas, shaping it into a series of circles that sit inside each other. Here, the bottom of the circle appears to drip down the wall, as it would appear if painted in aerosol paint. A small recognition of the dual side of her practice . This symbol is utilised throughout her practice to signify community and family. New to her practice, this action, cutting the symbol from the canvas, was borne of a desire by Elizabeth to create a new form of painting, and to explore the limitations and possibilities of her working surface. The canvas is painted with a combination of earth tones, aerosol and texture replicating the earth, adorned in places with gold and copper leaf. Elizabeth has highlighted the parts of the earth that Western cultures often value most: the metals and minerals in the ground. Slashing through the middle of this work is a pink wedge, decorated by white lines, replicating the sandhills of the desert. Again, Elizabeth’s work operates on two perspectives; the pink could be bursting through the rough, earth coloured surface, or the pattern could be placed on top. In the first instance, Indigenous knowledge, or perhaps songlines as alluded to in the title, sits hidden beneath the surface of the earth, unseen knowledge that forms the support for the land. Alternatively, a representation of the land with the sandhills in pink as seen on the surface sitting protectively over the metals and other elements below, considered precious and necessary to be mined by many, Indigenous knowledge protecting that which belongs beneath. Criticism and experimentation around these two knowledge systems and ways of understanding is central to Elizabeth’s practice and is exemplified here in Songstress.

Ngura is a body of work that connects the artist deeply with her Country. In these works Elizabeth has taken all her techniques and ideas, learned through both art making at her Grandmother’s knee, her mural practice and in her studio, and utilises them together to tell the complete story of who she is and where she comes from.

Eleanor Scicchitano, April 2023

Elizabeth Close is no longer represented at 80:20 artist agency.

***

Adrian Hall: ‘The space around us all - is his arena’

Adrian Hall has lived and worked in the United States, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Australia and the United Kingdom. He returned to New Zealand, early in the 21st century; to a tiny coastal village in the South Island which he now considers home; Aramoana, the Pathway of the Sea. Though he does fully inhabit the world at large. His ‘means’ have moved steadily from painting through to formal structures, to photo/video installations and sound works and all kinds of combinations. He continues to challenge preconceptions of the world; and eliminates that which seems irrelevant, as he also examines the sanctity of art as it is presumed to be. Sometimes he screams.

Currently, photographic works with textual addenda at gallery scale rival his live practice; objects and structures and drawings too. This work practice now includes colleagues and friends in improvised visual/sonic collaboration. He relishes conjugations of mixed gender, race, and generations.

Coastal Erosion in the Southern Hemisphere 

Adrian Hall - artworks are for sale

Adrian Hall, Coastal Erosion in the Southern Hemisphere 2023

Adrian Hall, Coastal Erosion in the Southern Hemisphere (installation view).2023

Adrian Hall, Sleeping Giant 2023. ed. 1, archival ink & paper, 301 x 153cm.

Adrian Hall, Gas Works 2023. ed. 1, archival ink & paper, 307 x 154cm.

Adrian Hall, Coastal Erosion in the Southern Hemisphere (installation view) 2023

Adrian Hall, Pacific Endeavour & Harbour Mouth 2023. ed. 1, archival ink & paper, 304 x 152cm.

Adrian Hall, Mount Cargill Otago 2023. ed. 1, archival ink & paper,  304 x 151cm.

Adrian Hall, Coastal Erosion in the Southern Hemisphere (installation view) 2023

https://www.adrianhall.space/

Unnatural Symmetries:

Coastal Erosion in the Southern Hemisphere.

These two phrases run through the mind as I move through the physical changes taking place around my present home. They are more conspicuous, here at the end of a rural one-way to the sea.

Dog walking on the beach, the detritus is there. Collapsed heaps of sand, and mysterious new pyramids changing old pathways. The weather too with its own patterns; they are perceptibly different; broader, broodier, heavier, and more violent. The animals can tell. They are the first to fall.

The cruise-ships are rightly blamed for the wash which sweeps out from their bulking passage down the harbour. But the freighters fully laden cause big damage with the room they need to turn, the huge draft they need. All the traffic contributes. The cruise ships burn inferior fuel, which shows as their smoke darkens once out of harbour. The great container ships hardly bother. While berthed the generators all roil, the fumes plume.

In fifty years our only access road shall be reclaimed by the ocean. Our little house too. We are at the very trailing end of the age of steam, and at the end of fossil fuel. The evidence is out there, unsubtle signs of conflict in industry, mirrored by the desperate politics of what is simply survival. Senses are blunted, feelings hypostatised.

These images are not ‘pictures of . . .’ they attempt to blandly change feelings and perceptions of what is becoming not there.

adrian hall, Aramoana, April 2023.

The artist would like to thank Christian Davis, and Dark Star Fine Art Digital Print Studio for advice, assistance and support, in the production of these artworks.

WWW.DARKSTARDIGITAL.COM.AU

***

Barbara Halnan [1941-2021]: Artist, Painter, Installation Artist

Barbara Halnan described herself as an artist, painter and installation artist - her interests were art, music and reading. She was a dedicated artist and for many she was a friend and colleague. As an artist Barbara was knowledgeable, unpretentious, self-sufficient and hard-working. She made art with determination and when she set her mind on something she needed no prompting to achieve it. 

After her passing in 2022, a survey exhibition was facilitated by William Seeto who provided structure to 250+ artworks at Articulate Project Space in Sydney. It offered insight into her creative process and it was the first time her artworks were exhibited together. As an innovative artist, her significant achievements reinforce her place in Australian and international art.

Dislocation - Slippage Series

Barbara Halnan Collection - Not for Sale

Barbara Halnan, Dislocation (constructed painting) 2019; Untitled (from the exhibition ‘On a White Ground’); Faultline 2019

Barbara Halnan, Variations on a Picket Fence 2011

Barbara Halnan, Variations on a Picket Fence (black & blue) 2011

Barbara Halnan, Installation view 2023

Barbara Halnan, Three sets of linear graduated and constructed paintings n.d.

Barbara Halnan, Wanderings (from a white ground 9) 2019

Barbara Halnan, Rhythmic Study (Progressions and Permutations) 2013

Barbara Halnan, Untitled (linear stripe) n.d.

https://studio1at497.blogspot.com/2022/02/barbara-halnan-at-studio-1.html

Dislocation: Slippage Series 

 

The lines are drawn...

In this work I want to explore the visual excitement stimulated by the interaction of sets of lines. I am interested in the relationship between two-dimensional drawing juxtaposed with the three-dimensional drawing in space. The patterning of lines on the wall forms a kind of rhythmic bass visually interrupted by the lyrical flights of the lines forming the spatial drawing. The musical references in the work I have been doing recently are hard to miss. I am fascinated by the way in which sounds form patterns with overlaying lines – the polyphonic harmonies of counterpoint and fugal forms in particular. To attempt a parallel to this in a three-dimensional visual form is part of the project, as are the visual disturbances created by the juxtaposition of the sets of lines.

The work in its entirety can be seen as a line drawing in space.

Barbara Halnan 2012

In the process of engaging with lines in three-dimensional space, Barbara Halnan made a breakthrough in 2011 with the sculptural installation Notations. With this artwork she made the connection between visual and musical structure and began incorporating it in her work. Notations was an installation created for a corner between two long walls at Factory 49 in Sydney that produced distorted interactions between the hanging lines and taped wall lines, which created kinetic effects as viewers moved along the outer concave arc. It highlighted visual distortions and produced kinetic shifts in perception. Notations was a major artwork that resulted after many years of experimentation, and it was a radical departure from her painted works on canvas. Her paintings also moved from accepted painterly norms by incorporating sewn thread and all white finished canvases she called ‘white paintings’. She also experimented with ‘black paintings’ but they were rarely exhibited.

Nine years later her experiments culminated in another breakthrough with the spatial installation Meander in 2020 at Articulate Project Space in Sydney. Meander was a painted wall-work she called a constructed drawing that was situated in a cube shaped room; it consisted of cut and shaped wallpaper in the angular Meander pattern that was over-painted with multiple layers of white paint and finished with black string that followed the linear edges of the cut paper – the white painted surface erased the normal visual objective of painting and converted it to a perceptual one. With this and other painted works she sought to alter spatial viewing from distance to a closer intimate space. She stated it was intended to look blank from afar and as one approached the details became prominent - It was an experimental installation. Meander was created for the room, and it is related to the painted Meander series of white paintings on canvas and paper. A few months later she made Inclined Plane in the same room, a work consisting of a diagonal black line that followed the walls and ‘cut’ the space of the cubic-shaped room - a room she described as the closest thing to a white cube. Her intention for these painted installations was to create them in Paris; and in a comment in her work notes she wondered how her peers would react.

In opening the text, in medias res, at the ‘middle’ of but not necessarily the end of an artist’s work; in which intervening circumstances may possibly change. There are many stages and years leading up to a point in time, and in order to unravel an artist’s work we need to know a little more about how the exhibition came about.

Background.

With her passing in 2021, Barbara Halnan left a remarkable collection of 250 plus artworks in the form of paintings, works on paper, sculptures, artist’s books, collection of other artists’ works, and work notes. Moving artworks out of her apartment became a priority and everything had to be sorted, catalogued and wrapped. The works were moved into storage as an interim measure, and this allowed breathing space. However, the question of what to do with the artwork remained and several options evolved. One temporarily provided time for consideration with the idea of staging a survey exhibition to celebrate her life’s work. Barbara Halnan was an experienced artist and was known through her links with the Non-Objective Abstraction movement and Articulate Project Space where she participated in exhibitions. She lived through her artwork and the continued showcasing of her work with an exhibition makes a claim for her as an important artist in Australian and international art.

Present and Past.

In order to understand how a thematic structure evolved requires knowing the process she used, which involved making multiple versions in the form of small paintings and works on paper that leads toward the final stage of paintings on canvas, as well as ‘constructed paintings’ like Notations at Factory 49 in 2011, Meanderand Inclined Plane at Articulate Project Space in 2020. For her, these artworks were important breakthroughs and form the last stage of where she was at with her art.

Halnan also revisited large installations made in collaboration with her partner Rose McGreevy - one example being early work at the Tin Sheds Gallery in Sydney. The revisiting of concepts and materials explored large-scale ephemeral works from 1995-2001. Halnan described them as ‘installed constructions’ because they were fabricated within the constraints of individual spaces or environments; and they relied on these environments for their form and the spaces where they were exhibited. These early artworks were specific to site in much the same way as more recent work, which depended on spaces for their existence.

They were constructed in a way where viewers moved around or through the work by creating intimate relationship between viewer and work in comparison to object-based sculpture.

‘The kinetic quality was prevalent in early work, and it was an essential element in their construction. Disturbance created by shifting relationships between layers made for visual excitement; even irritation, a quality that has also been one of the motivations within Halnan's painting practice over the past few years. In both two and three-dimensional work she uses visual rhythms that interact with one another in much the same way harmonics works in musical composition. Dissonance is as important as assonance’.^BH Her artwork is comprised of a ‘highly disciplined and exacting practice with connections between visual and musical expression... a layering of patterns, lines, and shapes mirror complexities of music and the real world’.^BH

Music and its notation inform Halnan’s work with concepts that are extrapolated into visual equivalents. Her interest in patterns has elements of musical composition, tonal progression and seriality within a formal structure; beyond which further making diminishes.

Concept and Process.

For the exhibition my process provides structure for a selection made from 250 plus artworks with the majority being untitled, undated and bearing no indication of which way to hang. It is based on themes from known titles or descriptions with subsets using colours to define difference in similar artwork. The process of assembling on walls over a period of weeks helped significantly with the installation of the work. Several thematic structures became prominent and these I describe as the Slippage, Picket Fence, Black, plus uncategorised sub-groups. The exhibition examines part of the artist’s work with ‘constructed paintings.

In past years Barbara Halnan made forays onto the international art scene in Paris through the Non-Objective Abstraction movement.

 

The International Connection

In examining Barbara Halnan’s art I made the conclusion that an important aspect of her practice was an association with Paris-based groups in the Non-Objective Abstraction movement, which allowed her to converse with likeminded artists and this provided an opportunity to develop and test her artwork against other international artists’ work. Halnan’s association with international artists and groups was not well known in Australia, partly because she did not promote the fact even though she mentioned having work in overseas exhibitions or she was travelling to Paris. And we did not think much about it at the time or knew of its significance and relevance to her art practice and how important it was for her to develop work amongst international peers. One of these groups, The Salon Réalités Nouvelles has a tradition that goes back to the start of modern art.

So, it was a big deal to be part of that tradition and she was one of the few Australians who took part as regular exhibitors. As artists we recognise and attest to what she achieved internationally. Barbara Halnan was modest to the degree that she kept her light under a bushel, as an open personal ‘secret’ the importance of which only now is becoming apparent. 

 

The Salon has been held every year since 1946 in Paris. Its goal is to promote works of art designated as concrete art, non-figurative art or abstract art. It was founded by the art lover Fredo Sidés and the artists Sonia Delaunay, Nelly van Doesburg, Auguste Herbin, Félix Del Marle, Jean Arp, and Pevsner... (It) presented both concrete geometric art with artists such as Jean Dewasne or Victor Vasarely, and non-figurative artists such as Pierre Soulages, Georges Mathieu, Vieira da Silva and Robert Motherwell.

Barbara Halnan had strong ties with Paris and friendships with both French and European artists. She participated in the Salon Réalités Nouvelles from 2012 to 2019 and was part of the group of the "non-objective" art movement in Paris where she participated in exhibitions at the ParisCONCRET and ABSTRACT PROJECT galleries. She was an active member and driving force behind Franco-Australian exchange, particularly for The Drawing Collective; she also organised exhibitions of French and international artists in Australia.

Abstract Project

Conclusion.

Barbara Halnan described herself as an artist, painter and installation artist. She was a dedicated artist and for many she was also a friend and colleague. As an artist Barbara was knowledgeable, unpretentious, friendly, self-sufficient and hard working. She went about making art with determination and she needed no prompting to achieve it. Barbara made an impression on everyone who met her in Australia and other countries. The exhibition in Sydney celebrates her memory, artwork and place in Australian and international art. Barbara was modest about her artwork and did not promote her rightful place in Australian art. 

This exhibition reinforces a claim for her as an innovative artist.

William Seeto PhD 

is a practicing visual artist and exhibition facilitator with a practice of 40 years

80:20 artist agency would like to thank Barbara Halnan’s daughter Nicola Buchler for providing access to the Barbara Halnan Collection.

80:20 artist agency acknowledges the Gadigal, Wangal, Dharug (Eora) peoples as the Traditional Custodians and knowledge-holders of the unceded lands on which we live, learn and work. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first artists and storytellers on this continent, and pay our respects to Elders past, present and future.

COPYRIGHT: Artwork reproduction rights remain with the artist. This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of 80:20 artist agency.