Harvison Gallery and Graham Stove
Posted: 22 Nov 2011 | By: Andrew Nicholls
Established in 2003 in Director Mark Walker’s home (on the street that gave it its name), Randell Lane Gallery would showcase some of Western Australia’s best Indigenous remote community painting and fibre art over the following eight years. Rapidly outgrowing its domestic surrounds, the gallery moved to small but stylish Mt. Lawley premises in 2006, from where it presented some of the most breathtaking exhibitions of contemporary Indigenous art this writer has seen. Early this year with the space’s lease due for renewal, Walker made the decision to shift location a second time and rename. Harvison Gallery (a family name) opened in March, in larger, inner-city premises that have allowed Walker to expand his curatorial focus to encompass non-Indigenous and interstate artists, alongside the community works for which Randell Lane was renowned. The centrepiece of the new space, a ludicrously ugly (and ridiculously comfortable) 1970s leather modular sofa, provides a note of disarming humour amongst Walker’s trademark minimal elegance.
Influencing the rebranding was Walker’s interest in challenging divisions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous art that he feels to be unnecessarily prevalent; in particular, he laments that so much community art is channelled into galleries that only sell Indigenous art, thereby limiting its audience. He considers the new venture an opportunity to simply promote exceptional contemporary Australian art, irrespective of racial classification.
Hence, program highlights of the gallery’s former incarnation will remain, such as the annual Generation Next emerging artists survey that has previously helped establish the careers of Joshua Bonson, Lloyd Kwilla and Lance Peck, amongst others. Generation Next was counterbalanced by Masterstroke, showcasing some of the leading mature community artists (such as Freddie Timms and Robert Boynes). Both shows will now be expanded to incorporate non-Indigenous participants for the Harvison program, alongside exhibitions by the likes of Bonson, Boynes and Timms, Canberra-based photographer Gary Lee, Western Australians Layli Raksha, Esther Giles Nampitjinpa and Nyurapayia Nampitjinpa (Mrs Bennett), in addition to Red Rock Art Kununurra, Papunya Tjupi and Munupi Arts Centres. Perth-based Graham Stove will also hold his fourth (self-titled) solo exhibition of paintings at the gallery, opening in November. Stove majored in textiles at Curtin University during the 1990s, prior to which he studied graphic design; the formal elements of both disciplines have informed his practice (which also incorporates printmaking, collage and textiles) since then. Walker initially met Stove through another artist and was immediately drawn to the ‘meditative feel’ of his works.
Stove’s exhibition is the culmination of work produced since 2008 based on grids, mazes and labyrinths. Some of the paintings suggest organic or botanical forms, others mathematical or architectonic constructions. They employ surface pattern and layering to create the illusion of three dimensions, resulting in complex compositions in which the viewer’s eye can get lost.
Click to view image/s from this exhibition:
