OH S**T!
CURATED BY LUCAS GROGAN
08.10.21 ~ 24.10.21
Featuring: Ellie Hannon, Sally Bourke, Gillian Bencke, Nick Barlow, Unq Rey, Oliver Harlan, Ileigh Hellier, Luke Thurgate, Ben Soedradjit, Lucas Grogan
Oh Shit, is a group show from the artists and alumni of The Shitty Shed Studios in Newcastle, NSW. Conceived at the beginning of the pandemic, this group show is an opportunity for our little family of artists to exhibit together at Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne.
Leaking and barely standing, The Shitty Shed is nestled on the bank of a stormwater drain in the charming industrial part of the city. This warehouse style, multi-space studio could tell so many stories; but the overarching one is that of community and camaraderie. We share our dreams and packing tape, our ideas and power-tools, our hopes and lunches. We build each other up and then shit all over each other.
Whilst stylistically we couldn’t be more different, it’s a shared commitment to our studio practices that unites us. In these extremely cool and normal times it has been really important for all of us that we’ve had each other to get through it as best we can.
Oh Shit is a shared shit-show, a chance to work together as we barely hold it all down and try to put one foot in front of the other with a grin and a grimace. We’re proud of our Shitty Shed, in all its derelict glory, stoked to be working with Backwoods, but saddened we can’t be there to celebrate with you.
The Shitty Shed Studios would like to acknowledge the Awabakal and Worimi peoples on who’s land we live and work on. We recognise and respect their cultural heritage, beliefs and continuing relationship with the land and pay respect to Elders both past, present and future.
Nick Barlow is an emerging artist who likes to mainly paint and draw. Through these mediums he focusses on the mundane, strange and intimate moments of everyday life. By exploring these aspects Nick hopes to gain a broader understanding of how we make sense of the world and how the world can make no sense to us.
Gillian Bencke commenced her art practice in the darkrooms of photography, but often came back to textiles to expose her images on, with either cyanotype or daguerreotype processes. Bencke is interested in the way that textiles can be manipulated quickly using traditional low tech tools, and how each piece of fabric can have a different feel and weight. Bencke is known for her work creating doll-like sculptures, which have evolved from brightly coloured figures into monochromatic beasts. Bencke focuses on how the stitching and detail is amplified when the colour is stripped back. Bencke exhibits throughout Australia and in 2021 won the Wangaratta Textile Art Prize.
Sally Bourke is a Newcastle based artist with a firm footing in painting, incorporating a range of techniques producing incredibly profound outcomes. An obsessive maker, Bourke has a rigorous approach to her day-to-day studio practice. These habitual processes are evident in her paintings which often depict an image archive reconciling experiences from the past. Though abstract, Bourke’s paintings are curiously recognisable, a celebration of personal encounter and memory. Bourke exhibits throughout Australia and is represented by Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney and Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide.
Lucas Grogan’s practice spans multiple disciplines, painting, textiles and murals. Highly patterned, mostly blue and white and often including a few choice words, his works are instantly recognisable. Grogan has exhibited extensively throughout Australia and Internationally, and collaborated with numerous companies. Grogan is represented by Hugo Michell Gallery Adelaide and Martin Browne Contemporary Sydney.
Ellie Hannon is an Australian artist who works out of her studio in Newcastle, NSW. Traversing the fields of exhibition work, public art and community engagement projects in her practice, Ellie establishes a visual narrative that explores the themes of values and our relationship with our environments, investigating how our interactions with the natural environment shape our personal and collective identities. Ellie has exhibited throughout Australia, including recent shows at Backwoods Gallery and Marfa Gallery, Melbourne. She has collaborated on community lead mural projects in Java Indonesia, Jabiru Northern Territory and Newcastle NSW.
Oliver Harlan is a multidisciplinary artist, known for installation and performance work in Newcastle Australia and now Los Angeles, where he has been living stranded due to covid since March 2020. Far from his studio and community of fellow artists at The Shitty Shed, Oliver’s work, like the artist himself, has had to embrace his new American home and process what it means to live through these times in that particular environment. Oliver has trained and worked in film production and brings elements of costume and set design together with improv and performance to create strange character-based worlds. Oliver hand- makes his sets and costumes often involving models and special effects. His most recent notable work was Cable 2020, commissioned by The Lock-Up Artspace. It was a performed recreation of American cable news and paranormal investigation shows edited together into a fast blur. https://vimeo.com/473687438. In 2019 Oliver collaborated on Argo Pacifico in which he coordinated and co-created a fake cruise ship to appear and take over an entire gallery for two months. The project was made with artist Jen Denzin and featured work by a large variety people from the Newcastle art scene. https:// vimeo.com/343386446. Now Oliver can successfully drive on LA freeways, has a Dodger’s cap, knows every ghost in Griffith Park and has found where to buy Vegemite in the City of Angels (The Indian Grocery).
Ileigh Hellier is an artist from Newcastle, Australia. Her paintings are about wonderment, sensitivity, and curiosity in relation to the natural landscape. Ileigh references the Australian landscape as a subject and a metaphor, often blurring the line between the two. Her work is playful and contemplative, dotted with references to abstraction with a healthy dose of naivety. Ileigh received a highly commended award in the Glover prize in 2020 and is represented by Curatorial and Co in Sydney, NSW and AK Bellinger Gallery in Inverell, NSW.
Una Rey is a scholar, arts writer, freelance curator and a slow painter. Her imagery is derived from ambiguity, conflation, transformation and accident. Her most recent solo show was The Dreaming Room (2016) at Maitland Regional Art Gallery and Rey curated Black, White & Restive for Newcastle Art Gallery (2016) and Inside Elands at The Lock-Up in 2021. Rey’s paintings are in a few public collections and a number of private ones.
Ben Soedradjit’s practice employs painting, printmaking, drawing and collage mediums. Explorations of the vernacular, paradox, identity and layered histories inform his work. He has exhibited his work in Australia and internationally. His work is held in public and private collections throughout North America, Asia, Europe, Africa and Australia and he has participated in the studio residency program associated with London Print Studio. His work has featured in a range of publications and was included in Printed in Australia, a compendium of Australian printmaking.
Luke Thurgate teaches drawing at the National Art School in Sydney. His current work uses the monster as a surrogate ’other’ to explore tensions between parody and sincerity, menace and pathos, vulnerability and power. He has participated in numerous exhibitions, residencies and arts festivals and has been a finalist in the Dobell Drawing Prize, the Tom Bass Figurative Sculpture Prize and the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award. He is represented in Sydney by .M Contemporary Gallery.