Salad Days: Justin Balmain, Deidre Brollo, Catherine Fox, David Wills

In 2007 The National Art School selected four talented young artists to undertake residencies within the fields of drawing, photography, painting and printmaking. After a year of working in their studios on campus, teaching and sustained interaction with students and faculty, The National Art School is presenting an invigorating exhibition defined by fresh new ideas inspired by the art school environment. The exhibition features work by the artists Justin Balmain, Deidre Brollo, Catherine Fox and David Wills. Salad Days is an exciting and diverse exhibition that is the manifestation of a years’ work for these four artists. The title Salad Days plays with the idiomatic expression used to refer to the days when we are young and relatively inexperienced and idealistic, but can also mean a time when we are at the peak of our abilities.

Justin Balmain’s abstract paintings and drawings playfully embrace ornament, pattern making and shifting perspective often creating striking optical effects. His work questions the material parameters of two dimensional works, and incorporates blankets, wallpaper, rubber, and graffiti along with traditional media of paint and ink. David Wills’ photo-media based work examines the nature of consumer society and mass-consumption. His mass accumulation of photographs look at both images of luxury and the abject that make up our daily intake of visual information. Catherine Fox’s large and small scale oil paintings evoke both traditional and contemporary representations of the nude and self-portraiture. Deidre Brollo is a printmaker with a particular interest in artists' books. Using various printmaking techniques she creates familiar images of unfamiliar places as a means of evoking ideas of place and the uncertainty of memory.

Salad Days will take the format of a group exhibition with an evolving project space that will be utilised by three of the artists for a period of 6 days each over the duration of the overall presentation. This allows for a continuous display of work and evolving solo presentations by the artists.


Salad Days: Justin Balmain, Deidre Brollo, Catherine Fox, David Wills
National Art School 2007 Artists in Residence

21 February – 29 March 2008
National Art School Gallery
10am – 4pm (Closed Sundays & Public Holidays)


EVENTS

Midweek Social
Thursday 6 March, 6 – 9pm
David Wills invites you to an evening of board games, refreshments, entertainment and prizes
Dress Code: Cocktail/Cruise