Front Up

Grace Herbert, Theia Connell & Amber Koroluk-Stephenson

Opening 06.04.16 6-8pm
Artist Talks 28.04.16 6-7pm

Front Up is a group exhibition by artists Theia Connell, Grace Herbert and Amber Koroluk-Stephenson. The show examines the façade as the material output of a myriad of forces at work within our social fabric.
Ideologies are often portrayed through outward appearances, positioning the façade as a potent site for exploring imagined realities. However, surfaces can be deceitful, the built environment is saturated with materials that aren’t what they claim to be. Many of these deceptions are well known, and widely accepted, praised for their ability to stand in for something less achievable, reminding us of what is more desirable.

Front Up seeks to address the disingenuous nature of ubiquitous materials, surfaces and structures within the urban landscape. Positioning these materials as both metaphor for, and output of, contemporary social conditioning.

Biography

Grace Herbert is a visual artist based in Hobart, Tasmania. She studied a Bachelor of Fine Art, Sculpture at RMIT University in Melbourne, graduating in 2010. The artist was awarded the Tasmanian Honours and Art Honours Scholarships to completed Honours in Sculpture at the University of Tasmania in 2014. In 2015, Herbert received the Australia Council’s Art Start Grant and showed her work as part of PICA’s national graduate show, Hatched. The artist uses a mix of sculpture, collage, photography and video. Motivated by an interest in the built environment; and in particular cycles of construction, demolition and decay, her work often takes the form of sitespecific installations or interventions. Herbert has exhibited in solo and group shows and undertaken residencies both locally and internationally, including; Billboards Detroit, Kings ARI, Melbourne 2016, Land of Milk and Honey, Hobart, 2016, (in a blessed parenthesis, a vacuum full on promise), Dunedin, 2015, Billboards, Popp’s Packing, Detroit 2015, The Disillusioned James Gillies, Hobart, 2015. Her arts practice is co-constituted by an involvement in various curatorial projects, publications and artist-run initiatives.

Theia Connell is a visual artist working between Hobart and Melbourne, Australia. In 2014 she graduated from a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Sculpture and Spatial Practice) at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. This was preceded by the completion of a Bachelor of Arts (Art History and Anthropology) at the University of Melbourne, 2010. Theia often works collaboratively, with recent exhibitions including Blurb at Kings ARI, Melbourne (2015) with Jake Preval, and Mediation Station, at Platform Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne (2014) with Samantha McCulloch. She has also been involved in numerous group shows including site-specific exhibition Circus, organised by Constance ARI, Hobart (2015); the Majlis Travelling Scholarship Exhibition for shortlisted applicants at the Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne (2014); and the VCA Graduate Exhibition, Melbourne (2014), for which she was awarded the Perrin Sculpture Foundry Award.

In late 2015, Grace and Theia collaboratively founded experimental art space Visual Bulk in Hobart, where they both actively curate exhibitions. The duo also co-host weekly local arts program ‘Plain Air’ on Hobart’s Community radio, Edge Radio 99.3FM.’

Amber Koroluk-Stephenson is a visual artist based in Hobart. Her work draws on relationships between natural and man-made environments to explore ideas around facade, theatre, utopia and the sublime. Since graduating from the Tasmanian School of Art with a Bachelor in Fine Art with Honours in 2010, Amber has held numerous solo and group exhibitions in Tasmania, Australia and internationally, including Bett Gallery, Hobart, MOP Projects, Sydney, Sawtooth ARI, Launceston, Archive Space, Sydney, Contemporary Art Tasmania, Hobart and Trocadero Art Space, Melbourne. Amber has received several grants and awards for her practice, including an Australia Council Art- Start Grant, a NAVA Australian Artists’ Grant, an ArtsBridge National Grant and a Highly Commended Soya Visual Art Award. She has received numerous studio residencies including Arts Tasmania, Tasmanian College for the Arts, and Contemporary Art Tasmania. In 2016 Amber will commence a Rosamond McColloch Studio Residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, as well as take part in AiR, a residency program run through Arts@Work and Australia Council.