New Ceremony
Kate Beckingham & Benjamin Chadbond
07.10.2015 - 30.10.2015
Opening 07.10.15 6-8pm
Artist Talks 28.10.15 6-7pm
New Ceremony is an exhibition of works by artists Kate Beckingham and Benjamin Chadbond.
Beginning with the idea of talismans and their apparent similarities to both art objects and the act of art making itself, this exhibition of new work is an exchange that aims to explore relegation of meaning and intention as auguries of the contemporary condition.
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A talisman is traditionally considered to be a sacramental object that holds within it properties for protection and good fortune. Charged only through the action and intention of the owner through the act of making, such objects can be at once both sentimental and pragmatic and can be particularly revealing of their subjective purpose. United in practice by a shared investigation of objects and their power (or lack there of) both artists seek to question how and why we attribute meaning to the world around us, and particularly the objects we possess. There is no attempt at austere concretes or axioms, or to suggest that any level of engagement is more or less valid. Rather the works in the show are merely an attempt to embody the illusive nature of the subject matter with unruly tethers to the personal, the absurd, and the idiosyncratic methodologies of their makers.
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Biography
Kate Beckingham completed her Masters of Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts in 2012. Projects since then include solo exhibitions at Galerie pompom, Sydney and FeltSPACE, Adelaide as well as inclusion in group exhibitions at Seventh Gallery, Melbourne, Alaska Projects, Sydney and The Jam Factory, Adelaide. Beckingham was a committee member at MOP Projects, Sydney between 2011 and 2014. In 2014 she was the recipient of an ArtStart grant and participated in the SafARI Festival as one half of the collective, OK YEAH COOL GREAT. In September 2015 Beckingham undertook a residency at the Bundanon Trust. She is interested in using her practice to explore the sites between artistic actions, intentions and output.
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Benjamin Chadbond completed a Bachelor of Design in Photography and Situated Media (Honors) at University of Technology, Sydney in 2014. He is the co-founder an online publication called Try Hard Magazine, which aims to broaden discourse around the medium of photography in Australia and New Zealand and more recently an affiliated limited-run photobook publishing initiative, Try Hard Editions. His first solo exhibition I Told You I Needed You was shown at MOP Gallery, Sydney in 2015 and group exhibitions include Tenderness at Gray Gardens Projects in Melbourne, The Break Up at 107 Projects, Sydney and Life is Hard curated by Todd McMillian and Natalya Hughes at Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney.