OBSERVER: Arts Column with Peter Kemp
he Birds
MUMA is unveilling the eighth Ian Potter Sculpture Court Commission – The Birds
Created by artists Ben Berean, Callum Morton and Linda Tegg – working collaborative as Monash Arts Projects (MAP) – this temporary installation takes inspiration from the humble bird bath to encourage the return of birds to the urban campus.
Comprising six stone boulders set up with cameras and a livestream, The Birds is grounded in research on biodiversity and explores how public art could enhance relationships with other species and of the natural environment.
Exhibition closes in September.
MUMA
Building F, Caulfield Campus
Princes Hwy, Caulfield
Dandenong
Confluence –
The Dreaming Project
This multi-artform installation explores global shared experiences through the lens of Australia’s First Nations perspectives, highlighting themes of identity, heritage, and unity. Inspired by the Dandenong Creek’s cultural and natural significance to the Bunutang, Wurun-djeri, and local communities, the creek symbolises the blending of cultures and stories.
With water as a metaphor for life and transformation, the exhibition honours the creek’s role as a lifeline and cultural touchstone, fostering reflection on our shared human spirit..
Exhibition closes Friday May 30.
The Walker Street Gallery
Cnr Walker St and Robinson St.
Dandenong
At Bender
Ordered Chaos – Jo Ryan
The artwork is created of a weird psychologist and surreal imagery, depicting hidden moments n a familiar world.
The familiarity of suburbia is something that Ryan placates through her choice of imagery.
The absence of life in mush of the artwork evokes vast emptiness and creates a window into a familiar dystopian world.
Ryan has constructed a mise en scene, that gives the iconography a new and secondary life outside the suburban banality.
Ryan uses design techniques to blur the boundaries of urban art, fine art, and design.
Her techniques emphasis this interest in the urban, through her choice of imagery.
Dystopian landscapes re-envisioned with passion transforming the ugly and banal.
Exhibition opens April 18 and closes May 4.
Blender Studios
400 Spencer St, West Melbourne
Bendigo
In Her Own Image – Frida Kahlo
presents an intimate view of one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
This exclusive exhibition features Kahlo’s personal belongings, clothing, makeup, accessories., and medical items, on loan from the Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico for the first time in Australia.
Sealed in a bathroom for 50 years after Kahlo’s death, her cherished family home, La Casa Azul, this precious collection’s rediscovery sheds new light on Kahlo’s carefully crafted appearance.
Frida Kahlo: In her Own Image illuminates the resonant dialogues between Kahlo’s clothing and styling, her performance in photography, and her drawing and painting, including her iconic self-portraits.
Exhibition opens March 15 and closes July 13.
Bendigo Art Gallery
42 View St, Bendigo
Peter Kemp