Address: Sidespace Gallery

Opening event: Thursday 30 March 2023, 5.30pm

An exhibition of paintings by Robyn Harman. Her artistic practice reflects the striking imagery of coastal landforms around Tasmania. Everything changes in time, the light, the wind on the water and the rock that is exposed to the eroding forces of the sea.

Robyn Harman continues her exploration of rock formations around the coastline of Tasmania. She is interested in the way landscape is viewed; as ancient and tracked with memories and myths, as terrain refracted by abstraction and digitisation. These paintings bring to mind the geological history of the island, the amount of thermal energy needed to create these mineral monoliths, the stretch of time that weathered and hewed them into their present state isolated from the shore. This understanding of time is contrasted with the use of photography and the capture of the briefest moment when the sea and the light fall upon the rock in a certain way. One fraction of a moment in an inestimable span – a freeze frame in geological time chronicled with the materiality of paint. The rock stands mute and resolute in steadfast solitude.

Opening Event
Thursday 16 March 2023
5:30pm – 7:30pm

An exhibition of contemporary mosaic works by Rachel Bremner, created to encourage the viewer to find personal meaning that resonates emotionally, without prompts, like listening to songs without words.

“From early childhood leading up to my life as a visual artist, I trained and performed as a professional violinist. I continue to be fascinated by the similarities, and the differences between the two forms of artistic expression. 

I had never conceived of music as an art form that needed words to provide background or convey what I meant to express.

Expressing myself in words has never come easily to me, I can rarely find the right ones for my purpose, music was always a perfect medium for my intense sense of privacy. In music performance I could present my inner world to the audience, all my thoughts, reactions, emotions without having to describe the background story. 

When I started to put my mosaic work out into the world, in contrast to music-making I struggled with the obligation in the art world to use words when presenting to an audience. I felt a growing conflict with the wordless immediacy with which I wanted to engage and how much words can interfere with that engagement.

I present this exhibition as an offering to the audience to pause, observe each work and examine emotional reactions in their own terms, with no titles, no accompanying prompts.”
– Rachel Bremner

A pictorial journey through Hobart en plein air by Peter Rudd. 

“My recent cityscapes depict the streets, buildings, parks and docks of Hobart. I like to paint outdoors because I am drawn to the colour of light at different times of day, and in different weather, and I want to translate my experience of looking at it into paint. 

Painting these pictures has been my way of getting to know Hobart. I have chosen subjects which produce an emotional response in me, and which I feel express the charm of the city. I have especially enjoyed observing the layering of old and new architecture which can be seen in Hobart wherever one goes.”
– Peter Rudd

Vale is a collection of paintings by Lorna Quinn, created after an experience with a mountain plain in the Central Highlands in 2020.

“As a tourist looking in from a designated viewing platform, I found pleasure in imagining living on the slopes of the mountain as a bat or a worm or as a gust of wind. At the same time, I felt a sense of pain at the remoteness of this vision of dwelling – an absolute separateness from it. These two feelings, of inhabiting, and of outsideness, tangled together in a sort of ache, a longing, that I decided to represent in paint. Using a combination of holiday snaps, memory, and invention back at home, I repetitively formed and reformed the hills that I could remember in careful experiments with colour, texture and shade.  

Returning to the viewing platform two years later, I found that my impression of the place had shifted. The idea of the mountain scene had grown so complete in its absence that the real thing felt pale and diminished, the paintings more concrete.”
– Lorna Quinn

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Lorna Quinn

Lorna Quinn is a Melbourne based artist, creating small-scale portraits of vegetation, rock, earth and sky. Her practice considers the triangular relationship between landscape, personal experience and painting.

Opening Event
Friday 17 February 2023
5:00pm – 7:00pm

Enter a gallery space transformed – by designers, using seaweed-derived products – into a ‘speculative vision of a future home’, where a regenerative relationship between humanity and earth (and seaweed) has blossomed.

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Pneu is part of the International Seaweed Symposium (ISS) and MONA FOMA 2023

Opening Event
Friday 3 February 2023
6:00pm – 8:00pm

Layers of monochrome became earth, sky, abstracted fields, wheat and grass twisted, flattened and forced – a changed landscape. From Nina Keri‘s psyche comes images of Ukraine as the breadbasket. Food, sustenance, life – threatened again by war. Borderland consists of eight works painted in heartfelt response to Ukraine.

“For several years the theme of my artwork has been my maternal family history – of life in Ukraine before and during the Second World War.  Specifically, the stories from my Russian Grandma.  I have shaped her stories into forms that are carriers of a deep family narrative of survival and continuation despite the destruction of war.  Part of me has always experienced Ukraine through my Grandma’s stories.  It is an almost fairy tale place in my psyche.  In my mind’s eye I see the farm, the many creatures that shared the life of the family, horses, cattle, pigeons, rabbits, a pet fox and a pet wolf, the great expanse of Steppe. green and verdant, where Grandma would ride.  But as with all fairy tales, there is darkness and evil.  I also see the cattle train taking my grandmother away, and her beloved uncle running after it.  It’s a real place, but I have never been there.  Yet in my DNA lies the deep rich soil, maybe alongside bits of broken china, rusty nails and animal bones.  To see this world of my imagination down the barrel of a soldier’s gun, uploaded to tiktok, is almost indescribable for me. 

On the 24th of February 2022, to my shock and disbelief, Russia invade Ukraine.  Four days into the war I started painting without concept, in a cathartic state, to release my mental and emotional anguish.  Layers of monochrome became earth and sky, abstracted fields, wheat and grass that’s twisted, flattened and forced – a changed landscape.  From deep in my psyche comes images of Ukraine as the breadbasket.  Food, sustenance, life – all this is threatened again by war.  I allowed myself free rein in the creative process.  If an image came to mind, I would honour it.  If there were suggestions in the beginning of a work, I would follow them.  I have named this exhibition Borderland.  It consists of eight works painted in heartfelt response to Ukraine.”
– Nina Keri

The annual Hunter Island Press (HIP) Mini Print Exhibition and Sale showcases the different printmaking techniques and variety of subjects undertaken by its members. 

The fine art prints are all a uniform paper size of 21cm x 21cm and are affordably priced at $40 each.

The work is pegged around the room and customers are encouraged to help themselves to the print they would like to purchase in an untraditional gallery style way. As a print is sold, it is replaced with another by the same printmaker. This may not necessarily be the same subject or technique as participants are unrestricted for this Exhibition. Sales are made on a first come, first serve basis.

Opening Event
Friday 25 November 2022
6:00pm – 8:00pm

An exhibition of new landscape paintings in oil, by Stephen Mallick.

Opening Event
Friday 11 November 2022
6:00pm – 8:00pm

An exhibition of small sculptural works in wood by Taiwanese/Tasmanian artist Chi Ling Tabart.

We are all sentient beings. We talk about our feelings and express those complex emotions in language and in art. There are various eddies in our life we deal constantly with. Some are bigger and some are smaller caused by psychological and environmental stressors.

Eddies are rolling us and pushing us around and creating a state of unhappiness. Sometimes we get stuck, or capsized by the turbulence, but other times we learn to cope and recover emotionally with days, months or years.

Opening Event
Friday 14 October 2022
6:00pm – 8:00pm

A study of identity through portraiture and still life, by Zoe Lovell.

“Portraits give us a glimpse into who a sitter is through their physical appearance. We are able to understand aspects of who they are through their facial expressions, body language and personal style. However, there’s always more to someone than what’s presented on the surface.

This body of work was born out of a frustration of being overlooked based on my outward appearance and the way I present myself. We each have our own unique experience with this sense of dismissal, regardless of how we appear on the outside and it saddens me to know that through some eyes, we’re only worth as much as our looks. 

I have created a series of portraits of myself and my friends, showcasing not only the way we look, but aspects of our lives that shape our identities, whether that’s through our lived in spaces or objects of importance to us. My aim during this process has been to capture aspects of ourselves that we value most and want to be recognised for. We each have our own set of ambitions, skills and personality traits that define who we are and eclipse the significance of our outward appearances. 

Whilst I have created portraits, which typically only give us a sense of personality through expression, body language and looks, these paintings aim to be a quiet celebration of individuality through the everyday and act as windows into the lives and identities of the subjects.”
– Zoe Lovell