Contemporary Australia: Women

207 Jennifer Mills b.1966 Melbourne, Vic | Lives and works in Melbourne Jennifer Mills is known for her whimsical reimagining of farcical creatures and for her delicately rendered photographic portraits. She has consistently explored mixed-media approaches to drawing, spanning naturalist studies in watercolour and ink, interspersed with vibrant colour, patterning and naive interventions in oil pastel. Mills’s recent work marks a shift in her practice — investigating the notion of transferable identity. By exploring methods of online representation, she considers broader ideas relating to the construction of the self and other. Selected solo exhibitions: ‘What’s in a Name?’, West Space, Melbourne, 2011; and Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, 2011; ‘Colour Me Black’, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, 2009; ‘Learning to Draw III’, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, 2006; ‘Skeleton in the Closet’ (video in collaboration with Jonathon Luker), Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2000; ‘Talk’, Allan’s Walk Artist Run Space, Bendigo, 2000. Selected group exhibitions: ‘Darwin’s Bastards’, Verge Gallery, University of Sydney, Sydney, 2009; ‘The Year of the Bird’, Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, Hawkesbury, 2008; ‘Polar Mark’, RMIT Project Space / Spare Room, Melbourne, 2007; ‘Getting on Mother’s Nerves’, Mother’s Tankstation, Dublin, Ireland, 2006; ‘Home Sweet Home: Works from the Peter Fay Collection’, National Gallery of Australia touring exhibition, 2003–04. Kate Mitchell b.1982 Sydney, NSW | Lives and works in Sydney Kate Mitchell’s performance-based videos are based on conceiving a scenario and then living it out. She places herself at the centre of precarious situations that involve an element of risk, becoming both the agent and object of the work. Often set at the edge of what is physically possible or socially permissible, Mitchell’s works test the limits of her own endurance in order to ask broader questions about the society in which we all ‘perform’. Selected solo exhibitions: ‘Magic Undone’, Artspace, Sydney, 2012; ‘Wall Work’, Next Wave Festival, Melbourne, 2010; ‘Don’t Touch My Rocks’, Chalk Horse, Sydney, 2009. Selected group exhibitions: ‘Nothing is True: Everything is Permitted . . . ’, Chalk Horse, Sydney, 2011; ‘Social Sculpture’, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sydney, 2011; ‘The Grip / La Mainmise’, Kadist Art Foundation, Paris, France, 2011. Rose Nolan b.1959 Melbourne, NSW | Lives and works in Melbourne With a career spanning almost 30 years, Rose Nolan is a significant figure in contemporary Australian art. She typically uses simple, utilitarian materials to create posters, pamphlets and banner-like works as well as large-scale installations. Influenced by early twentieth‑century Constructivism, Nolan seizes on the spirit of anticipation and utopian idealism associated with their revolutionary aesthetics, reconfiguring these with personal content and contemporary experience. Selected solo exhibitions: ‘Another Homework Experiment’, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne, 2009; ‘Why Do We Do the Things We Do’, Artspace, Sydney and Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2008. Selected group exhibitions: ‘The Solo Projects: Andreas Exner and Rose Nolan’, The Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, 2011; ‘Let the Healing Begin’, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2011; ‘Colour Bazaar: Eight Contemporary Works’, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2011; ‘Why We Do The Things We Do’, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth, 2009; ‘Avoiding Myth + Message: Australian Artists and the Literary World’, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2009; ‘My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble’, The Physics Room, Wellington, New Zealand, 2008; ‘Zones of Contact’, 15th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, 2006; ‘21st Century Modern: 2006 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art’, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2006. Jess Olivieri and Hayley Forward with the Parachutes for Ladies Jess Olivieri | b.1982 Warrandyte, VIC Hayley Forward | b.1982 Goomalling, WA est. 2008 Sydney, NSW | Live and work in Sydney Jess Olivieri and Hayley Forward with the Parachutes for Ladies make works that sit at the juncture of live art, dance, sound, performance and installation. Often considering individual behaviour within broader public contexts, they work with a continually changing team of participants who form the ‘Parachutes for Ladies’. They have made works spanning humming choirs, self-help audio guides, large-scale pseudo‑musicals and video installations in order to investigate modes of territorialisation and the vulnerability of individuals in society. Selected solo exhibitions: ‘I Thought a Musical was Being Made’, Next Wave Festival, Melbourne, 2010; ‘A Movie’, GRANTPIRRIE, Sydney, 2010; ‘Dance of Death’, TINY Stadiums Festival, Sydney, 2010; ‘Small States’, Inflight Gallery, Hobart, 2009. Selected group exhibitions: ‘Primavera 2011’, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2011; ‘The View from Here’, West Space, Melbourne, 2010. Therese Ritchie b.1961 Newcastle, NSW | Lives and works in Darwin Therese Ritchie was instrumental in the political poster movement of the late 1980s. The visual language of her early work with graphic design techniques continues to inform her recent digital collages and inkjet prints. Ritchie is committed to addressing topical issues affecting Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory — the context in which she lives and works — particularly the complex and paradoxical terrain of race relations. Addressing subject matter that is at times painful, sad or frustrating, Ritchie also uncovers its beauty. Selected solo exhibitions: ‘Recent Works’, Karen Brown Gallery, Darwin, 2009; ‘Peace’, Karen Brown Gallery, Darwin, 2007. Selected group exhibitions: ‘Women Who Shoot’, Gallery Two Six, Darwin, 2011; ‘Stations of the Cross’, Framed Gallery, Darwin, 2011; ‘Not Dead Yet: A Retrospective Exhibition by Therese Ritchie & Chips Mackinolty’, Charles Darwin University Art Gallery, Darwin, 2010. Sandra Selig b.1972 Seven Hills, NSW | Lives and works in Brisbane Sandra Selig works with a range of media — from sound and light works, and small-scale wall pieces; to works on paper and site-specific installations. Her practice, now spanning more than ten years, has often explored the discrepancy between seeing and what is seen, or that which can be loosely described as the ‘poetics’ of science. Astrophysics is a particular interest to Selig, due to its investigation of objects that cannot be seen by human eyes. Selected solo exhibitions: ‘Be Some Other Material’, Artspace, Sydney, 2011; ‘Waves Depend on Us (Light from Tokyo)’, Milani Gallery, Brisbane, 2009; ‘Invisible Surround’, Milani Gallery, Brisbane, 2008; ‘Circuit’, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2006. Selected group exhibitions: ‘New Psychedelia’, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, 2011; ‘Freehand: Recent Australian Drawing’, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2010; ‘Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Before and After Science’, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2010. Noël Skrzypczak b.1975 Toronto, Canada | Lives and works in Melbourne Noël Skrzypczak has been making monumental wall paintings for a number of years. Rather than controlling the paint with a brush, Skrzypzcak uses an action-based pouring process to create her works. The patterns that form by chance — often resembling colourful Rorschach inkblots — are invested with the potential for free association. Recently, she has also developed three‑dimensional sculptural works in soap, glass, silicone and resin. Skrzypczak’s works reveal a strong engagement with the materiality of paint, as well as a belief in its ability to give abstract ideas visible form. Selected solo exhibitions: ‘In The Woods’, Neon Parc, Melbourne, 2011; ‘Talking to Strangers: Noël Skrzypczak, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2011; ‘Love and Babies OR Landscape of the Planet Tralfamadore’, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne, 2008; ‘Twelve Disasters’, Neon Parc, Melbourne, 2008. Selected group exhibitions: ‘Erotographomania’, Contemporary Art Services Tasmania, Hobart, 2011; ‘New Psychedelia’, University of Queensland Art Museum, 2011; ‘This Way Up’, Australian National University School of Art Gallery, Canberra, 2010. Exhibiting artists