GROUP SCULPTURE - Factory 49, 49 Shepherd St, Marrickville - 12 May to 5 June 2021

Group Sculpture was an exhibition of works by 4 artists at Factory 49 in Sydney. The artists involved were Karen Benton, Mel Clyne, David Helmers and myself. I created a painted cube work. It was constructed from 12 painted rectangular cardboard boxes that were arranged to create a cube with a void in the centre, tied together with yarn. The work measured 88cm x 88cm x 88cm.

 Photo credit: Aster Haskas

Kate Mackay (foreground) Karen Benton  (wall on left)
 Mel Clyne (wall on right) David Helmers (floor on plinths)

Photo credit: Aster Haskas

COVIMETRY - XXI Gallery, Warsaw, Poland - April 2021

COVIMETRY is an exhibition organised by Mark Starel, the creator of Discursive Geometry.  The exhibition has 3 editions, both actual and virtual.

Discursive Geometry is a trend in contemporary geometric art, the feature of which is the ability to enter into discourses other than its own.

From the Covimetry Art Project Introduction:

"The name COVIMETRY comes from the combination of two words: COVID (Corona Virus Desease) and GEOMETRY (any trend in geometric art: constructivist, hard edge, minimal art, op-art, concrete art, non-objective art, discursive geometry and others).

About 300 artists from over 40 countries in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia take part in the project. The number of participants and countries continues to grow.

The starting theme of all the work is an anti-virus mask template. The presented works have been realized in various techniques and technologies, such as: drawing, painting, graphics, collage, object, photography, mix media, computer animation, video."

My contribution made use of a quote from Laurie Anderson "Language Is a Virus".

"Laurie Anderson: Language Is A Virus", gouache on paper, 2021

The exhibition was held at the XXI Gallery, Warsaw, Poland at the end of April 2021, the Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT, USA (online) and the BWA Gallery, Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Poland.  

The work of all the participants are available to be viewed on the COVIMETRY WEBSITE.

ARTICULATE TURNS TEN - Articulate Project Space, 497 Parramatta Rd, Leichhardt - 29 December 2020 to 3 January 2021

 Articulate Turns Ten was the end of year exhibition involving a number of artists who had been involved in the space over the previous ten years.

CLICK HERE to go to a post of the exhibition on the Articulate blog.

The show included the work of Susan Andrews, Vilma  Bader, Bettina Bruder,  Mandy Burgess and Ro Murray, Jane Burton Taylor, Curtis Ceapa, Sue Callanan, Rox De Luca, Parris Dewhurst, Ella Dreyfus, Nicole Ellis, Bonita Ely, Steven Fasan, Sarah Fitzgerald, Juliet Fowler Smith, Beata Geyer, Simone Griffin, Philippa Hagon, Barbara Halnan, Jan Handel, Kendal Heyes, Isobel Johnston and Jude Crawford, Sonja Karl, Fiona Kemp, Michelle Ledain, Noelene Lucas, Kate Mackay, Diane McCarthy, Mahalya Middlemist, Raymond Matthews, Sue Murray, Sue Pedley and  Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Renay Pepita, Anya Pesce, Elizabeth Rankin, Che Ritz, Margaret Roberts, Tamsin Salehian, Alan Schacher, Lisa Sharp, Anke Stacker, Voices of Women (Lliane Clarke), Molly Wagner, Gary Warner and Elke Wohlfahrt.

Being mid-covid, I contributed the work "Language Is A Virus - Laurie Anderson", oil on canvas, 38cm x 38cm, 2020.

photo credit: Articulate/Margaret Roberts

photo credit: Lisa Pang

L-R: Ella Dreyfus, Kate Mackay credit: Articulate/Margaret Roberts

NEW MODERN, RNOP MELBOURNE - THE ROAD PAINTINGS - Five Walls, Level 1, 119-121 Hopkins St, Footscray - 13 to 26 June, 2019 then to THE STORES BUILDING - North Parramatta - Oct 19, 2019

'The Road Paintings' was a group exhibition shown at Five Walls in Melbourne then at The Stores Building at Parramatta in Sydney as part of 'Coterie to Coterie'.  The exhibition was curated by Dr. Billy Gruner and co-curated in Melbourne by Aaron Martin.  The works resulted from ongoing exhibitions of post-contemporary reductive art as part of the Biennale of International Reductive and Non-Objective Art.

My contribution was a small work called 'Art Is Theft'.

"Art Is Theft", oil on canvas on board, 26cm x 26cm, 2018

BETWEEN BOREDOM AND CONFUSION - Factory 49, 49 Shepherd St, Marrickville - 20 August to 29 August, 2020

This solo exhibition at Factory 49 in Marrickville, Sydney is a continuation of paintings from my "Nothing To Say Here" series, in which arrangements of circles and squares are determined by random artists' quotes. 

From the exhibition catalogue:

These works are a continuation of my series of paintings “Nothing To See Here”.  These paintings resulted from an initial work created in 2015 based on a quote from John Cage - “I have nothing to say and I am saying it”.  For me, painting is arranging colour and shape on a surface.  There is no subject.  With these paintings, ideas of repetition, process and random difference within uniformity are played with and explored.

 The series of paintings are created by repeated combinations of simple elements. The repetition and use of stencils leads to inevitable imperfection as the systems break down. These works are determined by quotes from artists and philosophers concerning the meaning, use and understanding of art. The arrangements of circles on squares relate directly to the quote used to title the work, although this is never made explicit. The viewer may come to realise that the work contains a kind of ’code’ and try to make further sense of it, determining whether the colour combinations used are random or contain direct relationships to the wording used.

 The title for this exhibition “Between Boredom and Confusion” is taken from a quote by the art theorist E.H. Gombrich.  The longer quote that is used to produce the painting, proposes that to be of interest aesthetically, an object, image or event must lie between boredom and confusion.  Too much monotony loses our interest, too much novelty overloads our senses.  This seemed to sum up the recent unusual times within which these latest batch of paintings have been produced.

 Kate Mackay, July 2020

CLICK HERE for a VIDEO of the exhibition

top: No Great Artist Ever Sees Things As They Really Are – Oscar Wilde (2018) bottom: Art Does Not Reproduce What We See, It Makes Us See – Paul Klee (2018) Oil on canvas on board, 51cm x 51cm each

left: Some Painters Transform The Sun Into A Yellow Spot Others Transform A Yellow Spot Into The Sun – Pablo Picasso (2018) right: The Aim Of Art Is To Represent Not The Outward Appearance Of Things But Their Inward Significance - Aristotle (2020) Oil on canvas on board, 68cm x 68cm each

Working With Knowns Is The Space For The Unknown To Occur – Robert Hunter (2020) Oil on canvas on board, 55cm x 55cm

A Picture Is A Secret About A Secret – Diane Arbus (2019) Oil on canvas on board, 42.5cm x 42.5cm

top left: If You Look At A Thing Long Enough It Loses All Its Meaning – Andy Warhol (2018) top left: A Man Paints With His Brains And Not With His Hands - Michelangelo (2018) bottom left: An Artist Discovers His Genius The Day He Dares Not To Please – Andre Malraux (2018) bottom right: An Artist Is Somebody Who Makes Things That People Don’t Need – Andy Warhol (2018) Oil on canvas on board, 51cm x 51cm each

left: Art Is Art, Everything Else Is Everything Else – Ad Reinhardt (2019) centre:The Task Of Art Is To Bring Chaos Into Order – Theodor Adorno (2019) right: Art Is Everything You Don’t Have To Do – Brian Eno (2019) Oil on canvas on board, 47cm x 47cm each

Purpose Of Art Is Mystery – Rene Magritte (2019) Oil on canvas on board, 34cm x 34cm

top: Painting Is By Nature A Luminous Language – Robert Delaunay (2019) centre: No Artist Tolerates Reality - Nietzsche (2019) bottom: A Line Is A Dot That Went For A Walk – Paul Klee (2019) Oil on canvas on board, 42.5cm x 42.5cm each

top: However We Analyse The Difference Between The Regular And The Irregular, We Must Ultimately Be Able To Account For The Most Basic Fact Of Aesthetic Experience, The Fact That Delight Lies Somewhere Between Boredom And Confusion.  If Monotony Makes It Difficult To Attend, A Surfeit Of Novelty Will Overload The System And Cause Us To Give Up; We Are Not Tempted To Analyse The Crazy Pavement. -E.H.Gombrich (2020)

bottom: So Deeply Ingrained Is Our Tendency To Regard Order As The Mark Of An Ordering Mind That We Instinctively React With Wonder Whenever We Perceive Regularity In The Natural World.  Sometimes, In Walking Through A Wood, Our Eyes May Be Arrested By Mushrooms Arranged In A Perfect Circle.  Folklore Calls Them Fairy Rings, Because It Seems Impossible To Imagine That Such Regularity Has Come About By Accident. - E.H.Gombrich (2020)

Oil on canvas on board, 136cm x 64cm each

installation view

installation view

PRODUCTION AT THE FACTORY - Factory 49, 49 Shepherd St, Marrickville - 4 December to 14 December, 2019.

'Production at the Factory' was a group exhibtion of artists who had exhibited and/or had residencies in the Factory 49 Paris space.  It involved 12 Australian and International artists - Caroline McGregor, Bart Koldewee, Elizabeth Bodey, Pam Aitken, Kevin Yu, Sandra Curry, Jan Handel, Pam Leung, Audrey Newton, Marta Ferracin and myself.

My work was a gouache on paper, 'Gombrich (So Deeply Ingrained Is Our Tendency To Regard Order As The Mark Of An Ordering MInd That We Instinctively React With Wonder Whenever We Percieve Regularity In The Natural World. Sometimes, In Walking Through A Wood, Our Eyes May Be Arrested By Mushrooms Arranged In A Perfect Circle. Folklore Calls Them Fairy Rings, Because It Seems Impossible To Imagine That Such Regularity Has Come About By Accident.'),  41cm x 82cm. 

CLICK HERE for a copy of the Catalogue.

Detail

 

SALON REALITES NOUVELLES 2019 - Parc de Floral, Paris, France - 19 to 21 October, 2019

For the 2019 Salon Realities Nouvelles I exhibited the 'Cube Tower' that had been a part of my exhibition at Factory 49 Paris, 'Comprendre Pas'. That exhibiton finished on the 5th of October with the Salon opening on October 19th.  A big thank you to Pam Aitken for storing and delivering my work to the Parc Floral de Paris, and also to fellow Salon Participant, Canadian artist Carol Cooper for the photographs from the vernissage. 

Cube Tower, acrylic on cardboard with yarn, 201cm x 36cm x 36cm, 2019

Cube Tower, acrylic on cardboard with yarn, 201cm x 36cm x 36cm, 2019