SUMMER STUDIO: THE SUN’S BEEN UP FOR HOURS
20 - 24 January 2015
Opening Night | Thursday 22 January 6 - 8pm
Artist Talk | Saturday 24 January 2.30pm
Tim Woodward
1. ‘When I see the United Artists ident, I think of disgruntled gaffers and grips and boom operators, sneering at the “talent” through their cigarettes. But of course on the day Charlie Chaplin established United Artists, there wasn’t any such thing as boom operators. All the boom operators were sitting about silently, waiting for sound to be invented.’
2. ‘The boom and the bang. I’m placing thunder in the boom category, and bang appearing somewhere around mid 9th century?’
3. ‘As kids we’d load up our guns with rolls of red paper, and tear a thousand caps in ten minutes. Between every bang there’d be three or four clicks as the paper fed through. To this day I feel I’ve maintained that success rate in life.’
4. ‘Well I don’t enjoy carrying a firearm, but like Twitter and smoking cigarettes it’s a vice I accept as my own. Walking out the door: pants, pockets, phone, wallet, keys, ciggs, gun.’
5. ‘You know there’s a scene in The Right Stuff, when pilot Alan Sheppard says to the capsule communicator, “Why don’t you fix your little problems and light this candle?” I’ve always imagined you performing that line holding a cigarette. And I’d pass the zippo and say “Right you are. Light the candle”.’
Moving across mediums, forms and ideas, Tim Woodward’s practice typically engages with processes of editing, free association and re-imagining. Previously his artworks have materialised as sculpture, video, writing, installation, drawings and public events.
IMAGES | Tim Woodward, The sun's been up for hours, 2014 |Broken Truth Attempted Speaker Repair 6th January 2015, BLINDSIDE installation view, 2015.| Images courtesy of the artist.
Woodward has exhibited regularly both in Australia and overseas. Recent solo exhibitions include True Timbre, Screen Space, Melbourne; Standard Candle, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney; Concertistic Life, Boxcopy, Brisbane; House Lights, TCB art inc., Melbourne; Ring Around the Dowser, Geomuseum, Münster (all 2014).
Woodward has been the recipient of several grants and awards including the Melville Haysom Memorial Art Scholarship (2011); the Art & Australia / Credit Suisse Private Banking Contemporary Art Award (2012); The Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant (2012) and the Cite Internationale des Arts studios in Paris scholarship, awarded by the Art Gallery of NSW (2014). Woodward was a founding member and co-director of Boxcopy until 2011, and is represented by Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney.
SUMMER STUDIO
Blindside begins 2015 with Summer Studio, an annual arts residency with Melbourne artists Tim Woodward and Marcin Wojcik. This residency provides artists an opportunity to experiment and test ideas, and culminates in an exhibition open to the public at the end of January.
In Gallery One, Tim Woodward presents The Sun’s Been Up For Hours, a treatment of the institutional and self-imposed conditions of labour and lethargy, discovered in a summer studio. Working broadly across mediums, forms and ideas, Woodward typically engages with processes of editing, free association and re-imaging.
For Blindside he will exhibit a new video work and sculptures. Tim Woodward has exhibited regularly both in Australia and overseas, and has been the recipient of several grants and awards, including the Melville Haysom Memorial Art Scholarship (2011); the Art & Australia / Credit Suisse Private Banking Contemporary Art Award (2012); The Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant (2012) and the Cite Internationale des Arts studios in Paris scholarship, awarded by the Art Gallery of NSW (2014).
In Gallery Two, Wojcik draws on his interest in the theatricality of performance and its manifestation as roles, props and scenes to interrogate the themes of exploration, masculinity, adventure and adversity. Wojcik’s project will extend his consideration of props that specifically assist the suturing of the artist into a collection of roles, but also function as part of the scene itself. Marcin Wojcik holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) in Sculpture at the Victorian College of the Arts and has featured work in exhibitions at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces (2012), Sutton Project Space (2011) and Seventh Gallery (2011). He undertook a residency at The Art Vault in Mildura (2011) and was mentored by Laresa Kosloff through Australia Council’s JUMP program (2012).
Summer Studio will be open to the public from 20 to 24 May, with an opening event on Thursday 22 January, 6-8pm. Artist talks will be held on Saturday 24 January, 2.30pm. Blindside can be found on the 7th floor of the Nicholas Building in Melbourne.
- SAMSARA DUNSTON