This month at First Coat Studios we shared new 2 solo exhibitions from visiting artists; Kane Brunjes’ ‘Overflow’ in the Project Space & Gary Abkin’s ‘Australia and Australians’ in the Main Gallery. New faces celebrated with our local community to the sounds of guest music act, Sherman and Field.
‘Australia and Australians’ is a solo exhibition of observational paintings by Ipswich Artist, Gary Abkin. Through naive realism and gestural mark making, Abkin protests against logic and reason with a quiet serenity.
In this new work, Abkin presents two series of portraits; one abstract and the other illustrative. Abkin discusses perceived Australian identities through depicting bushranger anti-heroes, prophets, and everyday people in unexpected places. In this way, he invites the viewer to explore new narratives; combining the serious and the comic.
Posed and self-reflective, Abkin’s portraits form part of his own personal enquiry into Australian psyche. His explorations of colour and texture form playgrounds for human figures, blurring the boundaries between shadows, myth, and existence.
American Australian artist, Gary Abkin is a prolific maker working across the fields of painting, sculpture and music. His highly charged sense of humanity’s illogical behaviour defines his aesthetic. With absurd familiarity and subversive honesty,
Abkin is a material led, contemporary story teller.
Prior to relocating to Ipswich in 2003, Abkin studied painting at the California Institute of the Arts and his Honours degree at the San Francisco Art Institute. He has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Australia.
'Overflow' is the debut solo exhibition by Brisbane based artist, Kane Brunjes. In this work, Brunjes addresses portrayals of observations from surrounding environments influenced by culture, love, and Brunjes’ lived experience as a young man. The works are guided by pieces of recently written poetry and moments surrounding the near past, framed as a collage of varied thoughts.
The words are present to enhance the visuals while allowing for connection through another form. The appearance is subject to evoke an emotion or experience specific to the viewer. Many aspects formed from simply applying the paint in a manner to the feelings and thoughts expressed at the time.
Kane Brunjes is a Murri man from Murgon practicing in both public and gallery realms. Through creating art Brunjes aims to solidify and represent a visual portrayal of how he views and reacts to the environment surrounding him. Continuing from a rich history of culture he paints a contemporary reimagined vision through dots and lines. He has been working alongside other Indigenous artists under the initiative to reignite the ceramic art creation in Cherbourg. He also works with Digi Youth Arts, an organisation that shares the stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people. Inspired by those around him Brunjes finds appreciation in the development of his practice. The exhibition addresses portrayals of observations from surrounding environments influenced by culture, love, and Brunjes’ lived experience as a young man. The works are guided by pieces of recently written poetry and moments surrounding the near past, framed as a collage of varied thoughts.
The words are present to enhance the visuals while allowing for connection through another form. The appearance is subject to evoke an emotion or experience specific to the viewer. Many aspects formed from simply applying the paint in a manner to the feelings and thoughts expressed at the time.
To experience two alternate understandings of Australia through differing contemporary practices was highly dynamic and intriguing. A dialogue between existing cultural dynamics was established between the two exhibition spaces.
