"StArtUp Top Arts" 2016 and Jan Senbergs' "Observation- Imagination" at the NGV

Last weekend, I went to the 2016 exhibition  of  StArtUp TOP ARTS at the National Gallery of Victoria, with family.  I must confess that all of us were a little disappointed at this year's choices.  Many of them were technically very good, but we did not feel that any of them were as outstanding, individual or interesting as in previous years.  None had that wow factor.

In spite of this, there were some nice pieces.  I rather liked Prudence Coburn's Simply Sticks 'n' Stability, a hanging installation of wood, basalt, rope, but felt that the venue did not show it at its best.  It needed to be higher  and be in a larger space.  Tom Habal's Fluidity was also very well done.  He used slit-scan photography to distort the human body in a way which was quite beautiful.  I thought the resulting images looked like a morphing of the human body with flamingoes. Madeline George's  Untitiled 1 used photography in quite a different way to produce some very beautiful images of flowers.

The following are a selection of of other works which stood out for me. 

Rosemary Duffy's work, Grace, can be viewed from the front or the back. Her portrait was created by injecting synthetic polymer paint into bubble wrap.

Kirrah Thompson cleverly paints a model to represent Picasso's original work, then photographs it in Weeping Woman After Picasso ,

while, Mahalia Kluwer's What a Time to be Alive  sculpture depicts death, celebrity and worship with a great deal of wit.

 

and Stephanie Mayer uses charcoal, synthetic polymer paint and pastel in her work, Phasing.

 

 

Angharad Neal Williams'  Agar Plates  recreates bacteria in agar plates by using gouache paints on paper.

 

 

 

Haotian Qian, on the other hand, uses pencil, ink and watercolours for his work , Ground force.

I liked Elsie Preston's brushwork  and textures in this triptych

 

 

while Master 2 enjoyed lying on he floor beside this projected image by Alexandra Trethaway, Forecast Deprivation,

 

 

and Miss 5 was intrigued by Lily Harding's Motion.

 

 



After viewing the exhibition, Miss 5 and Master 2 worked on their own pieces of art

 

while their father took me to see the work of Jan Senbergs.  He is particularly fond of Senbergs' surreal map pieces like  Melbourne Capriccio 3.

 

 

I thought they were clever, but I preferred his other works which had cleaner, simpler, lines, like The Flyer

 

Two Heads

 

 and Sky Wall.

In the end, my favourite pieces in the exhibition were the black and white sketches, like Port Structure.

A great day exploring art.  Can't wait to try out some of the techniques.