Past Visiting and International Artists 2008


Australia
	Peter Atkins (Australia) Artist May - August 2008 This new series of work titled ‘readymade abstraction’ sees a return, after a decade, to the use of tarpaulins as the support for my paintings. The shift that has occurred also sees a less painterly approach to the work leaving instead the untouched tarpaulin to act as the ‘ground’ for my painted floating forms. What attracts me most about these used tarpaulins is the encoded history, built up over time, sometimes years, of a narrative that is literally embedded in the surface of the material. The stains, creases, faded canvas and repaired seams and tears , impossible to fabricate, become remnant reminders of lives lived and journeys undertaken. VIEW MORE IMAGES >>
	Ian Haig (Australia) Multimedia Artist February - May 2008 Ian Haig works at the intersection of visual arts and media arts. His work explores the strangeness of everyday reality negotiated through subject matter that is at times perverse and provocative. His practice focuses on the themes of the human body, devolution, mutation, transformation and psychopathology, through the lens of low cultural forms. VIEW MORE IMAGES >>
Croatia
	Marko Tadic (Croatia) Artist April 2008 - May 2008 In the recent works of Marko Tadic, urban myths relying on the aestheticism of punk rock, fanzines, comic books, manga, and B-movies, are merged with art-historical references, fairy-tales and literary quotations, into an organic unity. Tadic does not recoil from arranging these realities on to the surface of wooden souvenirs, paper plates, or wooden boards. In addition, he does this playfully, almost childishly, by using techniques with which many among us used to dirty our small fingers in our early childhood - felt-tip pen or ink. In this way, he constructs multileveled, phantasmagoric stories with only a hint of narration. As in all boyish drawing, be it doodles or graffiti on school tables or bedroom furniture, and evident on the wooden boards of Tadic in his latest body of work, it is possible to perceive a modified hero, or at least - a robot. But when the boyish passion for drawing is combined with the curious investigation into abandoned objects and a fetish for insignificant human traces, such as an abandoned address book, diary, or simply a notebook, imaginary beings find themselves in a rather overpopulated neighbourhood. Heroes taken from the remnants of everyday life evolve in accordance with the precarious rules and whims of that small, mythical world; while the rebus-like landscapes, with their inevitable subtext of transition, conceal the laws of creation of new mythical heroes. VIEW MORE IMAGES >> VIEW VIDEO CREATED DURING RESIDENCY >>
Israel
	Judith Margolis Painter Judith Margolis' work is about what she reads in the newspapers, current events, and social issues. Margolis' paintings find the nexus point where the political and spiritual confront each other. They are informed by the combined influence of German expressionist figuration and color field abstraction (with all the political and spiritual underpinnings that these art movements imply). VIEW MORE IMAGES >>

Mexico
	Marcos Castro (Mexico) Media Artist April 2008 - June 2008 Atrocious and monumental, the capacity for cynicism through the cartoon. The play in Castro's drawings poetically relates the ambiguities between the story of an event and the manifestation of cynicism as an essential way of transmitting these states. Looking through these images forcibly gives the sense of satisfying the need for surprise at the unusualness of the event analogically caricatured by animals. VIEW MORE IMAGES >>
Poland
	Aneta Szylak Curator Aneta Szylak has worked as a curator and art critic based in Gdansk, Poland since 1985. Ms. Szylak is a Vice-President of the Wyspa Progress Foundation, a non-profit art organization established in 1994. In years 1998 Ms. Szylak founded the Center for Contemporary Art Laznia (Bathhouse) and was its Director until spring 2001. Currently she is a co-founder of the Wyspa Institute of Art - the intellectual environment for contemporary visual culture - in the former Gdansk Shipyard premises.

USA
	Michael Arcega (Visions from the New California, sponsored by the James Irvine Foundation) Multi Media Artist July 2008 Informed by my childhood in the Philippines and an increasing social awareness, the content of my work is grounded in the darker regions of human behavior. I gravitate towards historical injustices that echo our present circumstances. To create an interesting counter point, I balance it with a levity infused with corny jokes and satire, using comedic strategies to defuse overtly dispiriting subjects. The humorous aspect of my work is delivered through language and non-traditional art materials. Tongue-in-cheek wordplay and double entendres add layers of content that can be interpreted in many ways. They also serve as portals into the subtext of the work. My materials often embody a historical value that further complicates the content of the piece. VIEW MORE IMAGES >>