Bergie Seltzer

Ben Terakes, Kenzee Patterson, Kevin Platt, Emma White, Sean Rafferty, Kate Mitchell & Will French

Opening 23.07.14 6-9pm
Artist Talks 26.07.14 2-4m

An iceberg floats. However, due to its weight and mass, 90% of the iceberg is submerged underwater - there is a hell of a lot beneath the surface. Drifting with the tides and slowly melting, it creates what is known as “Bergie Seltzer” - a fizzing that is generated as compressed bubbles of air are released from the frozen mass.

Sometimes art is like this; only the smallest portion is accessible while much more is fizzing away below the surface. Hidden at first, but with a little further examination curiously revealed.

This style of work is evident within the art practices of Ben Terakes, Kenzee Patterson, Kevin Platt, Emma White, Sean Rafferty, Kate Mitchell and Will French. These seven artists share an awareness and sensitivity to a visual language that effortlessly shifts medium and method. To be presented with their work is to see the artists present in their work. Memories are offered and experiences are recounted whilst inexplicable, perhaps imperceptible, forces are made physical and conceptual. The artists provide a warm invitation to view their art; access is spontaneous although not complete. Scratching the surface is always rewarded, revealing subtleties, ideas, tricks, puns or tales. Form follows concept. These artists employ a staggering array of materials and media. Ideas are made physical with the aide of embroidery, newspaper cutting, readymades, sun bleaching, carved and assembled timber, painted faces, performance remnants, prints, photography and film, the list goes on.

Currently all based in Australia, this group show has developed out of a long-held and natural gravitation towards each others work. This mutual understanding and appreciation has formed around the importance of the unspoken in each practice.

Curated by committee and tested in a different arrangement of four artists including Terakes, Patterson and French at TCB in Melbourne, 2013, this Firstdraft exhibition was always anticipated as a second and more evolved expression of this experiment. The works are anticipated to hang in limbo, as they fall into a between-space. Possibly too slick to be hardcore conceptual, too cerebral to be particularly commercial, too whimsical to be elitist, too critical to be a joke, but not funny enough to be laughable.