Thursday, 5 Feb 2025
 
Amanda Bell and Simpson family dinner
At KARLA, Yagan Square, Perth
 
Part of the annual Judy Wheeler commission, where an artist is commissioned to create a new site specific work in the stairwell area at PICA.
 
Badimia Yamatji and Yued Noongar artist Amanda Bell first started making art in 2017 while working as a full-time carer for her elderly mother. During this time of intense isolation, art became an important outlet and avenue for her to explore and connect with her cultural and familial heritage. Bell has since developed an expansive, experimental practice rooted in her interests in language and its enduring powers, and in exploring new ways of telling stories – through poetry, written word and imagery, together with sculpture, sound and installation.  

Bell’s new commission F = m•a (five ways to make a rainbow) is the third Judy Wheeler Commission, an annual series of site-specific works that respond to the history and site of PICA. Using sunlight, sound and language, Bell’s work for PICA addresses the building’s history, acknowledging its construction on unceded land, a moment marked by colonial dispossession and violence. As Bell says, ‘In some of that story there is darkness. I will use light and sound to allow visitors to sit in discomfort. To see, feel and listen to voices and stories that linger with us today.’ 

On display throughout 2025, Bell’s installation channels and directs the sun’s light through the windows of PICA’s stairwell deep into the building’s recesses. The shifting interplay of light, sound and language with the architecture creates a captivating yet unsettling atmosphere, urging visitors to engage with their surroundings and reflect on the layered histories of the spaces we inhabit – what Bell calls ‘the very collision of building and boodja.’

Amanda Bell is a Badamia Yamatji and Yued Noongar artist woman living and working on Wardandi land in Goomburrup. Working with mediums such as video, sound, textiles, sculpture and installation, Bell’s wide-ranging practice is dedicated to ‘… trying new ways of telling stories that are sometimes uncomfortable and painful, sometimes fun and frivolous.’ Recent exhibitions include N’yettin-ngal Wagur – Yeye Wongie (Ancestors breath – Today talk), John Curtain Gallery, Perth (2024), South West Art Now 2024 (SWAN): A New Constellation, Bunbury Regional Art Gallery, Bunbury (2024), Emergencies (Open Borders), The Creative Corner and the Holmes à Court Gallery @ Vasse Felix (2023), KANANGOOR/Shimmer, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery (2023), 2021 Revealed Exhibition, Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle (2021). In 2022, Bell was a finalist in the John Stringer Art Prize. Bell’s works are included in the State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia and City of Fremantle Art Collection. 

We moved on to a delicate banquet at KARLA – a dining room with a view of the city, taking inspiration from Asian cuisine cooked over flames. The word ‘Karla’ means fire in Noongar language. Thai-born chef, Ben Pienprasop, known for the iconic Chin Chin (Melbourne), and chef Sundoo Kim have created a menu of tantalizing tastes sources locally and making cunning use of native ingredients, weaving them seamlessly into traditional Asian favourites. Luxurious touches of hospitality spanned all areas of the experience;  from the attentive service, cosy ambience and consideration to lighting and soundscaping, the overall experience was a cool cocoon on a hot February night. My only criticism would be the dessert – perhaps the peanut butter parfait was not as fluffy as it could be, but that could be because I’d already filled up so greedily on the previous courses and was too full to appreciate it. It was served with an Oreo cookie which seemed like a lazy gesture and undermined the classiness of everything else. Could they not find or make a better kind of cookie? I will never understand the popularity of Oreos. The chocolate ice-cream was excellent and intensely chocolatey.

​Memorable moments were the spicy edamame, a stunningly simple ceviche, grilled prawn skewers, and a market fish choo chee, with an asian apple salad, hot and sour sauce, fried shallots. Also the tom yam fried rice was tangy and paired well with everything.

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Thursday, 6 Feb 2025
 
Laure Prouvost
Oui Move In You
7 Feb – 30 March
 
Oui Move In You is a major solo exhibition by Turner Award-winning, French artist Laure Prouvost. Best known for creating idiosyncratic immersive installations combining film and mixed media, Oui Move In You introduces Western Australian audiences to the imaginative, absorbing and frequently absurdist hallmarks of Prouvost’s artistic practice.

Inspired by the radical, experimental and pathfinding figures who came before her, Oui Move In You conceptually explores the roles and legacies of grandmothers (both real and symbolic), the maternal spaces of mother and child, and ideas of intergenerational relationships and change. The exhibition takes audiences on a journey of evolution and transformation, from the watery space of the womb, through the earthly realm of childhood towards a climactic celestial release. Laure Prouvost’s Oui Move In You is composed as a celebration of liberation and imagination, being and belonging, care and connection across the evolving course of our human lives.  
 
Laure Prouvost is among the most celebrated artists on the contemporary international art scene. Born in 1978 in Lille, France, Prouvost lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. Prouvost graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins (London, 2002) and a Master of Fine Arts from Goldsmiths College (London, 2010). Prouvost represented France at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019, and was the recipient of the prestigious Turner Prize in 2013 and the MaxMara Art Prize for Women in 2011. Prouvost has recently presented solo exhibitions at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (Melbourne, Australia, 2024); De Pont Museum (Tilburg, Netherlands, 2024); Moody Center for the Arts (Houston, USA, 2023); Remai Modern (Saskatoon, Canada 2023); Nasjonalmuseet (Oslo, Norway, 2022); Longlati Foundation (Shanghai, China, 2022); and Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen, Denmark, 2021), as well as a wide range of public art and performance projects.
 
Annika Kristensen is a curator with a particular interest in commissioning new work by contemporary artists. Most recently in the position of Visual Arts Curator at Perth Festival (2023 and 2024), Kristensen was previously Senior Curator at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) in Melbourne, where she worked with major international and Australian artists to commission new work and curate solo and group exhibitions. Kristensen was Exhibition and Project Coordinator for the 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014) and the inaugural Nick Waterlow OAM Curatorial Fellow for the 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012). She has held positions at Frieze Art Fair, Artangel, Film and Video Umbrella and The West Australian newspaper. Kristensen holds an Masters in Art History, Theory and Display from the University of Edinburgh, following undergraduate studies in Arts (Communication Studies) at the University of Western Australia.  

Below: midway through the tricky install, image taken on my google pixel.
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​In Her Footsteps: A Tribute to Matrilineal Legacy
7 Feb - 30 March 2025
​Featuring work by Darcey Bella Arnold / Lauren Burrow / Sarah Elson / Tom Freeman / D Harding / Kate Harding / Zali Morgan.

In Her Footsteps: A Tribute to Matrilineal Legacy brings together seven Australian artists who pay homage to the women who have shaped their lives—grandmothers, mothers, artistic matriarchs, leaders, ancestors and forebears. It celebrates and acknowledges the vital, transformative and nurturing pathways these women have forged, delving into themes of activism and empowerment through a compelling mix of new and existing works. 
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The exhibition starts with Zali Morgan, a Whadjuk, Ballardong and Wilman Noongar artist, whose prints and textiles honour Yooreel Fanny Balbuk, a Whadjuk Noongar woman whose defiant walk along her traditional bidi (track) persisted amidst the encroaching colonialism that reshaped her Boorloo homelands. Lauren Burrow’s sculptures examine the radical life of eco-feminist Val Plumwood, underscoring her enduring legacy and its influence on contemporary artists and thinkers grappling with ecological accountability. Sarah Elson’s intricate sculptures evoke the earth as a nurturing mother, employing materials and collecting practices that speak to intergenerational connections to place. Tom Freeman’s distinctive paintings address personal family history, threading memory, nostalgia and connection. Darcey Bella Arnold has long worked with her mother Jennifer’s experience of living with aphasia, using painting and language to create poignant forms of memory-making.  And, Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal artists D Harding and Kate Harding carry forward the cultural legacies of their matrilineal ties to the Carnarvon Gorge, working with textiles to honour significant personal experiences, weave stories and uphold cultural traditions. 

This group exhibition not only highlights the profound impact of these influential women but also invites audiences to engage with the rich and varied practices of Australian artists, offering insights into the intersections of culture, memory and identity. 

ABOVE: ​Fuck Cluster Brooch, 2021, silver and copper on Shakudo, 10 x 18 x 3cm | Sarah Elson

ednesday, 5 Feb 2025
 
Olivier welcomed us to his cool pastel home / gallery space where a small party had assembled after work. The most impressive architectural feature of this home is that is laid out  in a horse-shoe shape around a turquoise pool, and beautifully planted with a minimalist cactus garden. White, pale pink and baby blue walls have subtle curved features to reflect the owner's love of Memphis style. The day had been scorching hot, and so walking into such a home, with its constant glimpses of pool and gelato palette, was soothing. Inside we discovered a thoughtful arrangement of drawings by Andrew Sayers and in another room, prints by Nathalie Du Pasquier.
 
Andrew Sayers AM (1957-2015), art historian, writer, Canberra, Melbourne, inaugural director of the national Portrait Gallery 1988-2010, an important art historian and writer, was a friend of Olivier and created elegant drawings over the years, only now gaining recognition as an artist in his own right since his passing in 2015. Olivier received a personally signed written letter from former Australian president John Howard congratulating him for presenting this exhibition and Olivier spoke of the emotional speech that he made at the opening event, the artist obviously dear friend and a significant part of his own personal collection. (offmarket gallery catalog, words by Olivier David, 2025)
 
Nathalie Du Pasquier b. 1957, is a Milan-based artist and designer mostly known for her work as a founding member of the Memphis Group. Her early body of work includes furniture, textiles, clothing designs and jewelry in addition to iconic work in decoration and patterns. Since 1987, she has consistently dedicated herself to painting. (Wikipedia) Many original pieces are on sale for extremely reasonable prices, many less than $2,000, some framed, some unframed.
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offmarketgallery.com.au
29 Airlie Street, Clarement, WA, 6010
0439 589 399