Hans Churchie Review

The Churchie National Emerging Art Exhibition

The Churchie National Emerging Art Exhibition is a competition, to promote and enhance recognition of emerging artists. The Churchie is not restricted by category or medium. This year 41 artists out of around 320 entrants made it into the exhibition, so  we were able to see many interesting works by artists such as Heath Franco (The Churchie prize winner) with his cheeky “Your Door”entry, Sam Cranstoun’s Drawing “Coronation”, Agenvive Kemarr Loy with a mesmerizing tradition aboriginal painting of a bush flower, Agatha Gothe-Snape (all judges highly commended) with her print “Headliners”, and Anastasia Booth “Marion Glass1906” sculpture, Sean Crossely “Templace” painting, and Dominic Reidy small “Plan for a neon victory” piece .

The Churchie (as stated above) aims to expose, and promote the emerging artists to enhance their recognition in the public (and commercial) field, and offers a generous prize to the winner. Because the exhibit is not restricted by category or medium we were able to see a great array of different pieces displayed, the work “Marion Glass 1906” by Anastasia Booth, Brisbane based artist, who works predominately in sculpture and instillations, really had me thinking, I found that when I came to Anastasia’s piece I had me wondering “what is it” the work was made with glass, leather and wood, even though I was standing there wondering what the piece was possibly used for (looking like a sort of fetish instrument), I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the piece, the beauty of the glass orbs, and in contrast with the leather straps and wooden stance of the piece kept me “wanting” to know what it is and glancing in its direction.

On the other hand we also had a sculpture by Dominic Reidy, a recent graduate in 2011 and also a local Brisbane artist, “Plan for a neon victory” is quirky and simple, having a go at, and questioning masculinity with its obviously small size of the whole piece, and the main wooden element in the piece is clearly a phallic symbol.

Even though there where a lot of tradition art pieces, the Churchie seemed to be very dominated with a lot of Media pieces, a lot of video instillations. It was great to see the diversity and a good mix of traditional and “New Media” in the exhibition, but it very much got to a point where a lot of the works seemed to be fighting for attention, with the small gallery space all the works were packed into and the length of some of the videos, it made it easier to miss some, or part of the works. I remember there were three pieces displayed closely next to each other and at points I was trying to watch all three screens so as not to miss anything or because another screen was flashing in my field of vision. There was a lot of noise happening in the winner’s work, Heath Franco, that could be heard across the other side of the gallery making that piece clashing in my mind when viewing and pondering other artists works, with his crazy characters welcoming people into the gallery and after walking away having it follow you around the gallery.

There were many other great pieces, and it showed that The Churchie had a great plethora of works to choose from and display in the gallery. They brought together a great range of styles and themes which gave a very interesting exhibition.