Signal 8 Storm Group Exhibition at The Cat St Gallery Hong Kong

The Cat Street Gallery is delighted to announce that the gallery’s annual salon show is back for a fi;h year, with a special

Australian twist. 'Signal 8: STORM' brings a selecFon of works by some of country's most prominent contemporary arFsts, as well as pieces from its celebrated emerging talent. Australia conFnues to forge its presence in the art world today, seHng an impressive standard for its contemporary arFsts. With long-‐established naFonal prizes, biennials, galleries and museums, it is a naFon whose art is becoming increasingly recognized by internaFonal collectors. It was parFcularly notable this year in Hong Kong, at ArtHK 2012, that Australian galleries and arFsts did especially well. Many galleries sold out, and new record prices were set for some of the naFon's most sought-‐a;er arFsts. Buyers were snapping up works by some of the country's hoTest talents, recognizing their increasing value and role in a contemporary art collecFon. The Cat Street Gallery is proud to conFnue it's culFvaFon of a sustained dialogue between contemporary Australian arFsts and Hong Kong’s rapidly developing art scene. This year the gallery brings a curator's pick of yet more rich and dynamic art to the region, and for the first Fme since it opened, The Cat Street Gallery's iconic front glass windows will be used as part of the exhibiFon. Archibald finalist, Juan Ford, has created a special installaFon for the show, which will take over the gallery -‐ seHng a dramaFc tone for this unique exhibiFon. Ford's moody 'Conference of Birds', is a spectacular and arresFng image, evoking dark storm clouds with the intensity of its blackest part, and a magic delicacy with its lightest, becoming all the more surreal as it wraps around the building. Inside the exhibiFon, the dramaFc mood will conFnue, with bold colors, surreal shapes, mulF-‐media -‐ whether playing on the importance of nature and landscape, as is key in so many Australian arFst's work, or the noFon of a convergence of ideas and talent, 'Signal 8: STORM' presents a contrasFng and collaboraFve mix of arFsts, listed here for the first Fme: Giles Alexander, Lionel Bawden, Jason Benjamin, Paul Davies, Daniel De'Angeli, Marian Drew, Juan Ford, Todd Hunter, Alan Jones, Tony Lloyd, Camie Lyons, James McGrath, Linton Meagher, Kirsteen Pieterse, Reko Rennie, Ward Roberts, Julie Rrap, Jason Sim, Marc Standing, Tim Summerton and Anthony White.

Julie Rrap has been a major figure in Australian contemporary art for over 25 years. Since the mid-‐1970s, she has worked with photography, painFng, sculpture, performance and video in an ongoing project concerned with representaFons of the body, with a parFcular emphasis on the female body within western art history. Photography has been a parFcular focus because as a medium it bridges fine art and popular imagery, allowing the artwork to dialogue with broader concerns about the body. The use of digital techniques has allowed the exploraFon of the surrealism of the image in a world gone surreal with medical intervenFons into the body. Rrap’s work has been selected for numerous internaFonal and naFonal exhibiFons, including the 1986, 1987, 1992 and 2008 Sydney Biennales, and more recently the 2007 Auckland Triennale, the 2009 Clemenger Contemporary Art Prize, NGV, Melbourne and in 2010, the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Korea. She has won the Hermann's Art Award for her photograph 'Overstepping' in 2001, the Redlands Art prize for a combined sculpture and photographic work in 2008 and the University of Queensland NaEonal ArEsts’ Self-‐Portrait Prize for her video work, '360 Degree Self-‐Portrait', in 2009. In 2007, a publicaFon and 25-‐year survey exhibiFon, 'Body Double', was curated at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney by Victoria Lynn. Rrap's works are held in every major public collecFon in Australia as well as in many corporate and private collecFons in Australia and overseas.

J U L I E R R A P b . 1 9 5 0

Loaded: White #4

Digital print 126 × 126cm

2012 EdiFon of 3 + 2 AP

HKD 70,000

Loaded: Blue #6



HKD 70,000

Loaded: Green #6



HKD 70,000

Stepping Out

Bronze and metallic paint 16 x 25 x 28 cm EdiFon of 3 + 2AP

HKD 125,000

Based in Sydney, Australian arFst Paul Davies creates atmospheric painFngs which draw heavily upon American and Australian modern architecture. The painFngs are part-‐stylised, whilst also featuring more abstract painterly moFfs, resulFng in a thoroughly compelling, contemporary style. The arFst’s latest series of works feature the use of delicate hand-‐cut paper stencils that provide a perspecFve, content and detail within a painterly abstract environment. Key to the success of Davies’ work is aTenFon to detail and site studies. Recently the arFst made a study exploraFon in California, allowing him to focus on American Modernist architecture and its profound influence on Australian Modernist design. Davies’ research tour included visits to the homes of Schindler and Eames in Los Angeles where both architects experimented in new ways of appreciaFng America’s west coast environment. Among other homes, Davies visited Richard Neutra’s iconic Kauffman House and Frank Sinatra’s infamous holiday retreat in Palm Springs. These 1940s and 1950s buildings are the protagonists in Davies painFngs and remain vacant of people to reinforce the original concept of its architecture. Further, by allowing the scene to remain uninhabited, the arFst creates a sense of foreboding or surrealist overtones, encouraging the viewer to conjure up their own scenarios within the composiFon. Davies work looks at both the restored and forgoTen modernist buildings in a way relevant to today rather than isolaFng them in their Fme. In creaFng this unique style of landscape painFng, Paul Davies sights inspiraFon from some of the world's greatest living arFsts such as Peter Doig, David Hockney and David Schnell. Over the past three years Davies has been commissioned by government and private clients including BYL Companies Philadelphia U.S.A., Historic Houses Trust Australia and Wilson & Hill Architects New Zealand to interpret parFcular iconic Modernist buildings across America and other countries. Davies has had several highly successful solo exhibiFons in Australia since 2004 and 2009/10 saw his first solo shows in Hong Kong, London and L.A. His work has been exhibited in several InternaFonal Art Fairs including Australia, London, New York and Hong Kong. Recent publicaFons include Art & Australia, Art World, Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Belle, Wish, and Inside Out.

P A U L D A V I E S b . 1 9 7 9

Mums House Empty Pool Day Stars

Acrylic on linen 165 x 122 cm

2012

HKD 110,000

Luxembourg Gardens Looking Down White

Acrylic on linen 153 x 122 cm

2012

HKD 110,000

Lionel Bawden is an Australian arFst working in sculpture, performance, installaFon and painFng. Bawden’s core pracFce exploits hexagonal coloured pencils as a sculptural material, reconfigured and carved into amorphous shapes, mining the material’s rich qualiFes of colour, geometry and metaphor. Bawden explores themes of flux, transformaFon and repeFFon as precondiFons to our experience of the physical world, essenFal to the construcFon of idenFty. Bawden’s sculptural works harness landscape as a stand-‐in for the body, personal themes of desire, longing and interconnecFon become abstracted in a generaFve process to create form. Bawden’s recent painFngs explore darker psychological states, grounded in an exploraFon of an ambivalent relaFonship between figure and landscape. These painFngs mark a return to the figure a;er a sustained fascinaFon with more oblique approaches to arFculaFng aspects of the human condiFon. Lionel Bawden completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours in the painFng department at The Australian NaFonal University, Canberra School of Art in 1997. During 1995 Bawden spent six months at The China NaFonal Academy of Fine Art, Hangzhou, China. Bawden was recipient of the 2009 Art Omi InternaFonal ArFst Residency, New York, USA, (through Art Omi Australia commiTee) and the 2003 CreaFve New Zealand residency at Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand, creaFng the exhibiFon ‘the spring tune’. In 2005 Bawden shared a 3-‐month Red Gate Gallery arFst residency, Beijing with Sydney arFst Nell. Bawden was the recipient of the 2009 Wynne Prize, through the Art Gallery of NSW and the 2004 ABN Amro emerging ArFst Award, Sydney.

L I O N E L B A W D E N b . 1 9 7 4

Epicentre

Coloured Staedtler pencils, epoxy, incralac (on acrylic shelf)

36.5 cm x 15.5 cm x 26.5 cm 2012

-‐SOLD-‐ HKD 65,000

SecreFon-‐ losing containment


27.5 cm x 11 cm x 22.5 cm 2012

-‐SOLD-‐ HKD 50,000

PaHern Cloud -‐ The EYE


32.5 cm x 7 cm x 24.5 cm 2012

HKD 65,000

Alan Jones employs painting, sculpture and mixed media installation in his exploration of identity, both individual and collective. Jones takes a personal approach in his art, drawing heavily upon his own cultural and genealogical identity, a rare move in the wider scheme of twentieth century art. It is not uncommon to !nd a self-portrait of the artist alongside !gures from the late eighteenth century British Empire. Jones has traced his family’s roots back to the arrival of convict Robert Forrester in the First Fleet. Forrester arrived on The Scarborough in early 1788 and settled with Isabella Ramsay in Green Hills (now known as Windsor), an area where Jones has lived and worked in recent years and continues to draw inspiration from. The artist uses his own family history as the genesis for further investigation into notions of what it means to be Australian, both today and in the past. Although much of Jones’ imagery draws from colonial motifs, the artist does not adopt a singularly political approach. Rather, his art is a vehicle for larger discussions about the intricacies of human connections and how his own family history has directly in"uenced his life and now his artwork. Jones moves between the mediums of painting and sculpture, employing a fresh, witty and sometimes knowingly naive style in each. For all their visual accessibility – we recall the soft heads hand sewn by Jones and installed in a bright yellow BBQ - there is a distinctly sophisticated content at their core. Jones has managed to unite the story of European settlers of centuries past with the concerns of modern Australians in works which transcend their contemporary physical origin. In 1997 Jones was awarded his BA of Fine Arts at the National Art School in Sydney. Jones has since furthered his education abroad as the recipient of the 1997 Inaugural Pat Corrigan Travelling Art Scholarship and the 2004 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship. Alan Jones has held 12 solo exhibitions and has been involved in over 80 group exhibitions throughout various commercial, regional and state galleries. In 2008 Jones won the Paddington Art Prize for landscape painting. In 2010 his work was acquired by the prestigious Kedumba Collection of Contemporary Australian Drawing and he was the recipient of the Kedumba Drawing Award. Other important public collections that have acquired Jones’ work include: Artbank, Macquarie Group and the Gold Coast City Art Gallery.

A L A N J O N E S b . 1 9 7 7

Darren 1979

Oil on canvas 153 x 138 cm

2011

HKD 65,000

Todd 1979


2011

-‐SOLD-‐ HKD 65,000

Self Portrait 1980


2011

HKD 95,000

Jason Benjamin’s exquisitely rendered oil painFngs, with their careful disFllaFon of light and space, invite contemplaFon and emoFonal engagement. Despite now being based in Sydney, Australia’s largest city, Benjamin engages with the visual language and tradiFon of landscape painFng. However, while his memory and experience of parFcular locaFons may ignite each new body of work, Benjamin’s landscapes are rarely literal or precise. Elusive and propheFc Ftles invite a narraFve and an aTachment between viewer and painFng, one based on hope and renewal. An impressive career to date, he has exhibited successfully across Australia, frequently in Tokyo, Japan and both in Hong Kong and Italy. He has twice been a finalist in the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW and won the Packing Room Prize in 2005. Represented in many important collecFons including the Australian NaFonal Gallery, Canberra and the NaFonal Gallery of Victoria. Jason Benjamin makes an excepFonal contribuFon to the ongoing importance of the Australian landscape genre.

J A S O N B E N J A M I N b . 1 9 7 1

A Clear Mind

Oil on linen 122 x 122 cm

2012

-‐SOLD-‐ HKD 240,000

There She Goes


2012

HKD 240,000

Australian arFst Todd Hunter creates expressive, dynamic canvasses which seek to represent the essence rather than the physical maTer of things. Described as an ‘alchemist of form’ his work can not be considered in the tradiFonal sense of either figuraFon or abstracFon. Hunter extracts colour, form and senFment from the world around him and refashions them in his own vocabulary. Hunter is not disinterested in his subjects, whether they be figures or landscapes, he simply bypasses their literal components and presents them anew, expressively and with great energy. Whilst many of the pieces could be described as displaying a violence of form, there is a duality at play between gentler passages of lyrical, graceful paint applicaFon. Like a composer marshalling an unyielding orchestra, Hunter captures the movement of light and form, freezing them in Fme. His works have a natural rhythm at their core, paralleling the effects of nature and history. The arFst cites music as a huge source of inspiraFon in his work, and there is no denying its abstracted presence in every epic canvas. Hunter is a sophisFcated colourist, adopFng disFncFve combinaFons with his paleTe knife and creaFng a harmony between them. The criFcally acclaimed and hugely successful Love Buzz series takes as its subject maTer the taboo subject of pornography and presents the arFst’s own unique visual dialogue with the subject. These canvasses have a disFnct sensuality and conjure abstracted flesh in large, expressive brushstrokes, presenFng evocaFve passages derived from sensual pleasure and physical interacFons. Hunter graduated from Griffith University Brisbane, in 1992 and subsequently aTended the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney. Since graduaFng, the arFst has had numerous solo shows throughout Australia and has also been exhibited in a large number of group shows naFonally. He has been a finalist of the Sunshine Coast Art Prize, Paddington Art Prize and the Logan NaFonal Art Award amongst others. His work is held in several public and corporate collecFons including Art Bank and the Australian Embassy.

T O D D H U N T E R b . 1 9 7 2

Barrenjoey Lighthouse

128 x 122cm Oil on Canvas

2012

HKD 80,000

Bronte to Bondi

128 x 122cm Oil on Canvas

2012

HKD 80,000

Marian Drew, born in 1960, Bundaberg, is one of Australia's most significant contemporary photographic arFsts. Drew's pracFce, spanning more than twenty years, is characterised by innovaFon and exploraFon of photo-‐media. Drew has held over 20 solo shows across Australia, United States, France and Germany and is currently represented by galleries in United States and Australia. Her work is held is many major public and private collecFons across Australia including Australian NaFonal Gallery, Queensland Art Gallery, South Australian Art Gallery and in the J. Paul GeTy Museum in the USA. Drew has one previous publicaFon; Marian Drew -‐ Photographs + Video works; a survey of her pracFce from 1983 to 2006, which contains texts by Dr. Caroline Jordan, Anne Kirker, Dr. BrigiTa Olubas, Russel Storer and a foreword by internaFonally renowned art theoreFcian Geoffrey Batchen. Drew was chosen to represent Australia in the First Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery. Recently one of her works was purchased by the J. Paul GeTy Museum in Los Angeles, where it featured in the exhibiFon "In Focus: SFll Life" in September 2010. Presently, Drew is an Associate Professor at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University.

M A R I A N D R E W b . 1 9 6 0

Drake

40 x 50 cm Photographic print

EdiFon of 10 2012

HKD 28,000

Figure and red browed finch


EdiFon of 10 2012

HKD 28,000

Flight


EdiFon of 10 2012

HKD 28,000

Yellow Robin Drawing


EdiFon of 10 2012

HKD 28,000

Australian Sculptor Camie Lyons creates delicate and graceful sculptures from organically inspired lines and shapes. A primary preoccupaFon for Lyons has been to capture dance, to trace the lines made while moving, which she has been doing successfully for many years in what she refers to as ‘solid drawings in space’. Using metallic finishes and even bold colours, the line of the sculpture reminds one of a drawing in that there is more negaFve space than sculpted material. In this negaFve space dynamic energy is captured and allows the sculpture to be viewed from many perspecFves and even turned on their sides. In her work Lyons tries to find a balance and beauty in the constant cycle that is memory, percepFon and daily life. Sinew, limbs, bone and gesture are present in the work and the exploraFon of these can get giddy, like piroueHng on the inside, or buTerflies in the stomach, or falling in love, over and over and over again. Unsurprisingly the arFst’s background is in dance, which equips her with a keen sense of Fming, rhythm and line. “A dancer's sense of balance and movement is captured and translated into bronze linear sculpture.” R Alwill, Belle Magazine Lyons lives and works in Sydney where she has had several solo exhibiFons. The arist has also had several successful shows outside of Sydney and been awarded public commissions, her work lending itself perfectly to outdoor and public spaces.

C A M I E L Y O N S

Conductor For Lush ConversaFon

Bronze 76 x 73 x 36 cm

2012

HKD 55,000

Planet with Foot

56 x 76 cm Ink and charcoal on paper

2012

HKD 16,000

Upward Orb


2012

HKD 16,000

Many Winged Insect


2012

HKD 19,000

MulF Petaled Bloom


2012

HKD 19,000

Anthony White comes from the gestural abstracFonist school of painFng that emerged from Australia’s NaFonal Art School in the last decade. While it is easy to describe White as an abstracFonist he is arguably more a stringent realist. When he paints the Seine in Paris he gets down into the dirty detail of a river assailed by centuries of industrial development. When he visits Au Bonheur des dames, rather than paint a romanFc Parisian street scene, he unearths the dirt and grit of the aged metropolis. “When I paint en plein air then the studies seek out form and are very much concerned with structure and the depicEon of planar space. The process involves lots of drawing and painEng outside, then painEng in the studio from memory and never from photographs. The further developed painEngs take on a life of their own through constant revision and erasure. It is through this constant erasure that different forms emerge into the picture plane. The form of a figure has recently emerged quite by accident as I was painEng the sea and its associated feelings.” Anthony White was born in Sydney and grew up on the NSW South Coast. His work has featured in many important exhibiFons across Australia. He has had work in the Norvil Art Prize, Murrurundi, NSW, The Churchie Emerging Art Prize in Brisbane,Qld and The Paddington Art Prize in Sydney.

A N T H O N Y W H I T E b . 1 9 7 6

Regime


2011

HKD 65,000

DefecFon


2011

-‐SOLD-‐ HKD 65,000

Born in Sydney, Australian arFst Linton Meagher puts his two degrees in art and medicine to remarkable use in his artworks which are known for their unusual physical content -‐ his work is formed from empty pill capsules or scalpel blades. Meagher places each pill or blade individually like a tessarae in a mosaic and then applies a resin. When taken out of their ordinary context the pills or blades, usually considered clinical and even menacing, can be transformed to create an evocaFve and beauFful image. When hung and lit the finished artworks transcend their ingredients, but close inspecFon reveals the intriguing materials from which they are composed. Having studied at Sydney hospital to be a doctor, Meagher is in the unique posiFon of being able to channel his insights into the world of medicine into his art. Inevitably, one cannot help but consider the increasing role that prescripFon drugs play in people’s lives, especially in a provocaFve figuraFve scene formed of curvilinear lines of pills. Recently Meagher has created new departures in his work by employing a range of other mass produced items in mulFple form, including watch faces, golden bullets and dollar bills. Meagher always creates a memorable juxtaposiFon between media and form; golden bullets may be shaped into a gun or a flower, or scapel blades into a graceful female nude. Meagher studied at the Julian Ashton School of Art in Sydney and received his Bachelor of Fines Arts at the University of Sydney in 1996. He has had several successful solo and group exhibiFons since 2005 in both Australia and Hong Kong. His work is in many private collecFons internaFonally and corporate commissions include pieces for Blackmores and the World Health OrgainsaFon.

L I N T O N M E A G H E R b . 1 9 7 5

SeducFon

ImitaFon LipsFcks in resin on Perspex 117 x 79cm

2012

HKD 70,000

Obsession

ImitaFon LipsFcks in resin on Perspex 85 x 32 cm + 85 x 52cm.

2012

HKD 100,000

Reko Rennie is a Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay/Gummaroi man, born in Melbourne, Australia in 1974. Through his art, Reko explores what it means to be an urban Aboriginal in contemporary Australian society. The NaFonal Gallery of Victoria Indigenous curator, Stephen Gilchrist, highly commended the arFst's work for his uncompromising poliFcs and technical virtuosity. Rennie received no formal arFsFc training but as a teenager discovered graffiF, which would become an all-‐consuming passion. He quickly began producing original art on the streets of Melbourne. Subsequently Rennie has matured into an interrogaFve and highly innovaFve arFst. His art and installaFons conFnually explore issues of idenFty, race, law and jusFce, land rights, stolen generaFons and other issues affecFng Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in contemporary society. Rennie's work is characterised by vibrant colours, line work and intricate stencil imagery. Drawing inspiraFon from his Aboriginal heritage, the arFst recreates tradiFonal images in a contemporary context using spraypaint and stencils. His work o;en features the characterisFc flora and fauna imagery that represent his community. Rennie has exhibited in several solo shows including 'NaFve' at the Dianne Tanzer Gallery in Melbourne and 'Bora', at LeMUR AssociaFon in Paris and numerous group exhibiFons in Australia. His work is held in the Art Gallery of Western Australia and in Koorie Heritage Trust. He has been the recipient of many major awards including the 2009 Cite InternaFonal des Arts Australia Council Residency, Paris.

R E K O R E N N I E b . 1 9 7 4

Message SFck (Gold Spraycan)

Hand pressed texFle foil screen print on Belgium linen

150 x 150cm 2011

HKD 96,000

Juan Ford's pracFce has consistently been engaged with opening up new possibiliFes for realism in painFng. He has employed many strategies, which argue around the theoreFcal 'problems' of realism in painFng. He enjoys exploiFng the limited shortcomings of the dull, officially sancFoned dialogue between painFng and its would-‐be execuFoner, photography, in order to develop new potenFals for realism. Consequently his work evolves and varies with every exhibiFon. Juan Ford was awarded a BA with 1st class honours in 1998 and completed his MA in 2001, both at RMIT. He has been the recipient of a number of grants and prizes including a 2005 Australia Council Studio Residency in Rome, the presFgious Fletcher Jones Art Award, and the Conrad Jupiters Art Prize. He won the People’s Choice prize in 2004 for both the ABN Amro Emerging ArFst Art Prize and the Salon des Reuses. Ford has also been included in a number of important group and survey exhibiFons including Galcier: Contemporary PainFng, which toured Australia from 2001 to 2003. In 2010 Ford won the Basil Sellers Art Prize, People’s Choice Award and was a finalist in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales amongst other important prizes.

J U A N F O R D b . 1 9 7 3

The Conference of the Birds

Archicalk ink on acid-‐free rag paper 110 x 82 cm

2012 EdiFon of 10

HKD 12,000

Impossibility yielding to necessity

Archicalk ink on acid-‐free rag paper 110 x 82 cm

2012 EdiFon of 10

HKD 15,000

Jason Sims’ mesmerizing light boxes extend space beyond physical capability, enFcing the observer to travel ever deeper into an expanse of infinite dimensions. Portals of perspecFve, Sims Fmeless light boxes capture the magic of illusion whilst inviFng the viewer to explore their own parameters within, a fundamental element to the existenFal theory and a driving force behind Sims pracFce. Sims was awarded a Bachelor of Visual Arts Honours degree in Fine Art at The University of South Australia in 2006. He then went on to win the Helpman Award Graduate Show People’s Choice Award in 2007. In 2010 ArtBank acquired three of Sims’ pieces for their collecFon and parFcipated in the group exhibiFon SafARI, an unofficial fringe event to the Sydney Biennial of Contemporary Art, held at Firstdradt. In 2011 he was a finalist in the Tom Malone Prize and in early September Sims held his third solo show at A.P. Bond Aboriginal and Contemporary Art gallery in Adelaide followed by a Gaffa Pop Up show in the Rocks, Sydney.

J A S O N S I M S b . 1 9 8 1

Oppose

Wood, reflecFve glass, mirror, and LED lights 43 x 78 x 16 cm

2012

HKD 40,000

During a visit to Australia in 2005 Daniel was profoundly moved by the strong colours and the unique textures of her primordial landscape. Six months later he accepted an invitaFon to develop the area of colour studies at COFA, the College of Fine Arts of the University of New South Wales, Sydney. This gave him the opportunity not only to conFnue his academic research into the languages of colour, but also to travel through the Red Centre, the Kimberley and the Northern Territories. Returning each Fme to his studio in the Killcare peninsula, NSW, he faced the difficult challenge of translaFng into painFng what he had seen and experienced: the blinding light, the extraordinary colours and above all the sense of infinity. De’Angeli graduated in Florence from the Accademia di Belle ArF di Firenze a;er studying painFng in Mexico City and etching in Urbino, Italy. His personal drawing technique, which can be seen in the fine lines of the under drawing of most of his painFngs, is the legacy of the years spent training as an etcher. His conFnuing fascinaFon with transparent colours reflect the twenty years in which he worked almost exclusively in watercolours. Daniel De’Angeli has exhibited across Europe and his work is in private and public art collecFons in the UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Brazil, ArgenFna, Mexico, U.S.A. and Australia. His teaching career spans over thirty years and has always focused on interdisciplinary colour studies and painFng techniques. He lectured at Syracuse University in Florence, the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London, and the College of Fine Arts (COFA) of the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Before leaving Australia he was nominated Honorary Senior Lecturer at COFA UNSW.

D A N I E L D E ’ A N G E L I b . 1 9 5 4

Looking Beyond

Oil on linen 70 x 100 cm 2010/11

HKD 70,000

I Dreamed The Sea at Mutawintji

Oil on linen 70 x 100 cm 2010/11

HKD 70,000

Born in Sydney, the work of Australian arFst James McGrath takes as its starFng point Baroque painFng and architectural tradiFons. The arFst de;ly navigates an accomplished old master technique with contemporary materials and innovaFve spaFal techniques, simultaneously deconstrucFng the noFon of the Baroque original and modernising it. In 2010, McGrath was granted special access to the Strahov Baroque MonasFc Library in Prague. Set within this notable historic building, the monastery's ornate libraries hold over 125,000 volumes of the world's best collecFons of philosophical and theological texts. McGrath studies of these centuries old parchments, illuminated manuscripts and first ediFons, form the basis of his latest body of work, ‘Ex Libris’. It is against this Fmeless backdrop that McGrath overlays his recurring flora-‐and-‐fauna moFfs, presenFng a heightened, surrealisFc vision of this potent visual world. McGrath studied the techniques and principles of the sixteenth-‐ and seventeenth-‐century masters at the studio school of Patrick Betaudier in Paris. Before graduaFng as an architect he worked as a studio assistant with Australia’s greatest expressionist painter, Arthur Boyd. While a lecturer at New South Wales University he was awarded several prizes for architecture and art, including the Australian Postgraduate Award and a residency in Paris. Over the last ten years he has exhibited in New York, London, Sydney and Paris. He has also produced highly original digital installaFons and videos commissioned by several Australian museums and subsequently presented at the J. Paul GeTy Museum, Los Angeles, in 2000.

J A M E S M c G R A T H b . 1 9 6 9

Study for Amnesis I

Oil on canvas mounted to panel 60 x 40cm

2012

HKD 25,000

Study for Amnesis III


2012

HKD 25,000

Study for Amnesis IV


2012

HKD 25,000

Study for Amnesis V


2012

HKD 25,000

Study for Amnesis VI


2012

-‐SOLD-‐ HKD 25,000

Study for Amnesis VIII


2012

HKD 25,000

Study for Amnesis IX


2012

HKD 25,000

Australian photographer Ward Roberts lived and worked in Hong Kong for a number of years before returning back to his hometown, Melbourne. Roberts is a conceptual arFst who creates exquisitely composed photographs drawing on themes such as loneliness and isolaFon in the modern world. The young arFst’s perspecFve is fresh and engaging, the sophisFcated aestheFc prevents his work from being downbeat in spite of the fact that many of his composiFons are empty landscapes. Rather, there is an innate energy at the core of his work, one which is harnessed and marshaled into every detail in the composiFon. Roberts’ work is in many ways a rebuTal of the prevailing trend of urban, griTy style contemporary photography. There is a dichotomy at play in his fine art images which simultaneously recall the mastery of medium and calculated paFence of remote academic painters, yet his subjects and presentaFon feel completely new and contemporary. In 2008 Roberts graduated from RMIT University in Australia. He won the ACMP Les Walkling award the same year and in 2009 was a finalist in both the New York Photo FesFval and PDN Pix digital imaging new talent. Further, he received an Honorable MenFon in the London InternaFonal CreaFve awards and won the Xto photography fine art award.

W A R D R O B E R T S b . 1 9 8 6

Billions #1

Photographic print 58 x 58 cm

2010 EdiFon of 5 + 1AP

HKD 18,000

Billions #7

Photographic print 58 x 58 cm

2010 EdiFon of 5 + 1AP

HKD 18,000

Based in Hong Kong, the ScoHsh sculptor Pieterse draws on an enduring interest in the landscape and the structures that man builds within it. In her architectural pieces and drawings the arFst considers the natural world and the effect this power can have upon built environments. Her works are intended to evoke nostalgia, fear and unease and to lead to a quesFoning of our regard for and relaFonship to the landscape. The sculptures are deliberately meant to refer to architectural models, but they represent not something about to be undertaken, but structures in a state of disrepair. The stainless steel and acrylic sculptures o;en appear as unstable remnants of past construcFons, braced on the brink of collapse or abandoned and le; to be reclaimed by the forces of nature. In her work the arFst o;en makes reference to iconic buildings and sites such as the old Brighton Pier on the south coast of England. In her latest works Pieterse makes specific reference to the Hong Kong environment, using the city’s iconic bamboo and also transparent acrylic to evoke wet weather. The arFst’s work displays a powerful duality between something which is physically sound but which appears fragile or ruinous. In essence, the precariously leaning works speak of Fme and erosion and seek to demonstrate the romance and enduring might of the natural world. Pieterse studied at the Glasgow School of Art and completed an MA in Art in Architecture. The arFst now lives and works in Hong Kong, having moved from Australia where she exhibited widely and lectured in Media and Design at Macquarie University and the University of Western Sydney. In 2009 Pieterse had shows in Hong Kong and at MarFn Browne Fine Arts in Australia. In 2008 the arFst won the Helen Lempiere Sculpture Award, in 2004 she won the Peoples’ Choice Award at the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, and in 2005 she was a finalist in the NaFonal Sculpture Prize & ExhibiFon at the NaFonal Gallery of Australia.

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Cloud study

Stainless steel (marine grade) 104 x 32 x 20 cm

2012

HKD $70,000

'From childhood I have always had an innate compulsion to paint. No maYer where I am in the world I am inspired by the textures, colors, and images around me. The subject maYer in my pracEce is drawn from personal experience and touches upon themes regarding idenEty, displacement, and our human fragility.' Marc Standing Born in Zimbabwe, based in Sydney and now more recently in Hong Kong, Standing's iconic and haunFng painFngs have developed along a complex path of progression. Driven by an innate compulsion to paint, Standing explores tension felt by a personal search for idenFty, embodied by complexiFes felt by a mass consciousness -‐ one which has been le; with toxic traces of colonialism. For this is what packs such a punch in Standing's work -‐ the other-‐wordly layering of textures and imagery which evoke a surreal clarity in the viewer. Standing's recent eerie yet peaceful painFngs use a paleTe and composiFonal plazorm, mixed with sinister imagery, to explore the tensions felt between light and dark; comfort and discomfort; a sense of belonging and a sense of void. His works have been shown extensively throughout Australia and have also been included in prominent Australian art prizes. His work has also been exhibited in New York, London, Holland, Hong Kong, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

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Provenance


2012

-‐SOLD-‐ HKD 45,000

Tim Summerton has been drawing inspiraFon from the Australian landscape for over a decade in his soulful abstract painFngs. Working with a wet-‐on-‐wet oil applicaFon process, he manipulates the slow drying effect of the medium to great effect in his layered canvasses. By working with combinaFons of saturated bright tones and more gentle hues Summerton allows form to emerge as a luminous force from the depths of his complex surfaces. In his first solo show in Asia, FloaFng Forest, Summerton contemplates the prisFne tangle of the abundant strangling vines that inhabit and consume the tall trees occupying the steep hillside of his home in Kangaroo Valley. Working from the memory of his frequent visits, Summerton conjures undulaFng looping lines with rubber blades in a conFnual process of addiFon and subtracFon that simultaneously portray the rhythmical vegetaFon and ghosts, or trace marks, of recollecFon. Tim Summerton completed a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Newcastle, Sydney in 1998 and an Honours degree in Fine Art from the University of New South Wales in 2000. Summerton has been exhibiFng with Tim Olsen Gallery in Sydney since 2002 where he launched his solo career and has had several solo shows since. He was the 2009 runner up for the presFgious Kings School Art Prize. His work is included in the Macquarie Bank’s corporate collecFon and in numerous private collecFons in Australia, the US, Britain and Asia.

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FloaFng Forest I


2011

HKD 120,000

Tony Lloyd explores the relaFonship between natural and constructed worlds in his dramaFc realist painFngs. The arFst has culFvated a style subtly removed from photo-‐realism, his dark landscapes are cinemaFc in feel with evocaFve, so; luminous passages. Lloyd presents the world to us in all its vast splendour, de;ly infusing his representaFonal painFngs with a sense of awe but also an ominous sense foreboding in the face of the universe. It is not simply his composiFons and tonal variaFons that are thoughzully observed, Lloyd is also a master of creaFng intelligent atmospheric scenarios, recalling Hitchcock, Lynch and film noir. Rather than present clear narraFves for his reader, Lloyd conjures something more akin to a metaphor, disallowing his canvasses to be fully comprehensible. Bulukadaru takes its name from a small Aboriginal outstaFon in Arnhem Land, in northern Australia. Whilst on a field trip in the region the arFst was inspired by the contrast between daylight and effect of night on a small dirt track; at dusk the area was transformed from an unforgiving dry scrub into a rich enchanFng forest. In his landscape our eyes must adjust to the darkness, carefully delineaFng the path from the silhoueTed trees and the ominous sky. The darkness is a uniFng force in the work; various details of the landscape are silenced into an uncomplicated presentaFon. The scene struck the arFst as a metaphor for the ways in which humans have interpreted their natural surroundings. Physics tells us that all maTer is united through being made of parFcles and Aboriginal people in the area have devised an animisFc idea of everything being connected somehow. In Bulukadaru Lloyd explores the parallels between western physics and Aboriginal ways of understanding the universe. Tony Lloyd lives and works in Melbourne where he studied painFng at RMIT University, gaining his MA in 2001. Lloyd has had twenty solo shows and has been included in a number of group exhibiFons in Australia and Europe. His work also featured in Heat: Art and Climate Change at RMIT Gallery and most recently Gippsland Art Gallery presented a survey of his work from 1999-‐2009. Lloyd has twice received grants from the Australia Council for the Arts and has been short-‐listed for numerous art prizes. The arFst’s painFngs have been collected by the State Library of Victoria, Gippsland Art Gallery, Artbank, Macquarie bank, BHP Billiton, the City of Whitehorse and many individual private collecFons in Australia, Japan, Europe and U.S.A.

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On A Dark Night You Can See Forever


2010

HKD 80,000

Giles Alexander’s painFngs o;en use images of historical significance to draw parallels with and criFcally reflect on contemporary issues and their representaFon in the media. Underpinning this interest in the status of the image is the very materiality of the work, always executed with a virtuoso academic ability. Alexander raises quesFons about the role of realist painFng, the hand-‐made and authorship by someFmes revealing and someFmes hiding the painter’s hand. He explores concepts of looking through, at or upon by contrasFng “contemporary” layers of resin and paint over “tradiFonally” oil glazed imagery, giving illusionisFc depth while at the same Fme an awareness of surface. Britannia Rules the (cosmic) Waves projects a ficFFous space where the mythical winged Britannia and an equally fable-‐like BriFsh astronaut collide. Britannia has served as an emblem of BriFsh idenFty since Roman occupaFon. In contrast the BriFsh astronaut refers to a small window of Fme prior to the Second World War when Britain was winning the space race. The atmospheric juxtaposiFon presents a sideways view on the noFon of patrioFsm and BriFsh idenFty in the modern era. Born in the UK and currently based in Sydney, Giles Alexander trained at St MarFns, London before receiving his BA from the NaFonal Art School in Sydney where he is currently compleFng his MFA. Alexander was named amongst the 50 most collecFble arFsts by the Australian Art Collector in 2011 and has twice been a finalist in the Archibald Prize. He has had several solo exhibiFons throughout Australia and shown in group shows and art fairs internaFonally. May 2012 marks his first solo show in London at The Fine Art Society.

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Britannia rules the (cosmic) waves

Oil and resin on canvas 105 x 65 cm

2012

HKD94,500

Documents

Signal 8 Storm Group Exhibition at The Cat St Gallery Hong Kong