GLOBAL GALLERY presents its LAST HEAD ON EXHIBITION…

HEAD ON
comes to an end at
GLOBAL GALLERY
with
FIVE SOLO EXHIBITIONS

OPENING WEDNESDAY 30TH MAY 6-9PM
UNTIL SUNDAY 3RD JUNE


Ireneusz Luty

‘City de noir’ is a unique and engaging photographic exploration which presents the viewer with Sydney from new and unexpected angles. These images explore the ordinary moments absorbed by the intensity of everyday city life; they encapsulate the fleeting experience and focus on the beauty in the mundane. The unpredictable and ever changing nature of the city is conveyed through fluid and dynamic compositions and form, which are achieved through long exposure infra-red photography.

They create the surreal impression of urban life immersed in the rapid city environment. Luty encourages the viewer to examine, consider and reconsider what they see and perceive in his works. Ordinary scenes of everyday life are thus made extraordinary. Sydney is re-imagined and re-presented to the viewer in a dark, mysterious and illusory way.


Quentin Jones

‘#hashtags’ is a collection of 24 of my favourite photographs uploaded to instagram, using my iPhone 4. Instagram has propelled iphonography to a new level, with more than 27 million users. In fact Facebook, has just paid $1 billion, for the app. After taking the photographs, I enhanced them on the phone, using PS Express (Photoshop app), and Snapseed (Photo editing app). A modern take on still life photography, all photographs are limited to 3 editions.

Quentin is a Sydney based artist, who has been a professional photographer for more than 25 years. This is his second solo exhibition, after his very successful exhibition last year “Lost”, of lost and abandoned shopping trolleys. His photographs are in private collections, as well as the National Portrait Gallery, National Library and Mitchell Library, Sydney.


Fotostrada

The bus is ubiquitous. Every country on the planet has some form of bus transportation. From a cramped roof top ride on a dishevelled bus in India or a tiny ‘bemos’ in Indonesia to a work bus in Antarctica; from the mundane mass transport in Hong Kong or a luxury express bus back home in Australia.

The Fotostrada collective team has captured all of these and more in a startling variety of images which convey the very essence of the travelling bus passenger and the machines that carry them for their exhibition ‘Portraits on a Bus’.


Australian Street Photographers

The ASP Group is Australia’s premier Street Photography Group, comprising of over 450 members from around the country. The ASP Group Exhibition provides a depiction of Australian life from the eye of the Street Photographer and a glimpse into the Australian psyche which is often overlooked in our everyday lives. The ASP Group Exhibition is a unique and distinct record of Australian culture which has never been shown in public before.


Ali Nasseri

Ali Nasseri is a Sydney based photographic artist specializing in capturing the social scene of our times. With book projects such as Bondi Republic and the soon to be released “We own the night” shot in Kings Cross, Ali has created a unique visual style that both tells a story and provokes our imagination. He gives just enough away in each frame to draw the viewers interest without telling the whole story. Each photograph reveals and hides with craft and subtlety. The viewer is always in the photograph, as is Ali. The story is told from the experience of being imbedded in each scene. The result is that the stories are told in the first person rather than narrated or told as a description.

Ali’s work has been collected by private collectors in Australia and abroad. He has been commissioned by advertising and design agencies and has created advertising and branding campaigns for Qantas, Panadol, NAB, MLC, and magazine covers such as the good weekend. In 2009 and 2010 his photographs were hung in the Sydney life exhibition in Hyde Park and short listed for the Moran photographic prize

GLOBAL GALLERY presents SONGS FOR SYDNEY - OPENING Thursday June 7th, 6-9pm

An Exhibition of new art from international award winning artists:

Olivia Alexander
Rhonda Cao
Keith Morant
Carol Rowling

Four award winning artists and international exhibitors come together for the first time in ‘Songs for Sydney’ - an Exhibition of new works; paintings and sculpture.

Spanning the world, these artists and their works have independently achieved international critical acclaim, and now, in a unique collective, Alexander, Cao, Morant and Rowling come together to share their deep passion for the abstract representation of visual art and music.

“Our works do not seek to directly translate music into a visual form rather create a new concept of work based on the effects music has in visual terms. We are exploring the harmonious fusion between colour, texture and sound,” said artist Keith Morant.

“From the time we got together, there was a strong sense of unity between us as we each caught the vision of ‘Songs for Sydney’. As artists, we work mainly on our own but there is a certain sense of ‘power’ that came when we worked together – it fed our creative spirit,” said artist Olivia Alexander.

The ‘Songs for Sydney’ opening will feature a special guest performance by Wendy Dixon, Soprano for Opera Australia; Verna Lee, Harpist with the Grevillia Ensemble and Ukranian violist, Anatoly Zelinsky, and will be officially opened by Alan Conolly LL.B of AR Conolly & Company and patron of the arts.

Carol Rowling as part of SONGS FOR SYDNEY - OPENING Thursday June 7th, 6-9pm

Carol Rowling is an award winning artist whose work has been acquired for private collections and corporate clients. She studied at the Claremont School of Art in Perth and has gone on to exhibit in many solo and group exhibitions and art societies. Her abstract approach to the exploration of texture has developed into a unique form of painting technique involving layers of paint and an angle grinder which she calls ‘breaking colour’.

Her fascination with and exploration of texture and colour has resulted in paintings that have been described as ‘moving experiences’ to see, both physically and emotionally, by the viewer.

Rhonda Cao as part of SONGS FOR SYDNEY - OPENING Thursday June 7th, 6-9pm

Rhonda Cao has been sculpting for over 12 years following a career in graphic design and teaching. Her work focuses mainly on the human form, balancing shape, movement and expression. Rhonda works with a variety of materials such as clay, glass, bronze, hebel and crystal and focuses on developing complex and rhythmic shapes based on the form and movement of the human figure.

“I want my work to suggest movement and mood and then let the viewer fill in the rest. Working with a traditional medium in bronze, I also want to maintain an element of irreverence. I often use classic Aussie names such as Johnno and Bruce for my figures and like to think that my work makes people smile,” said Rhonda.

Keith Morant as part of SONGS FOR SYDNEY - OPENING Thursday June 7th, 6-9pm

Keith Morant is an international award winning artist who lives and works in New Zealand. He is well known for his vibrant, celebratory works and exhibits extensively in Europe, Italy and New York. Over recent years he has been honoured with six international art awards. These included the Florence Biennale Lorenzo Il Magnifico Award, the Lifetime Achievement in Art award and the Critics Choice award. He was also honoured at the Premio San Valentino International Art Exhibition with the first prize, ‘President of the Republic’s Medal’.

“My art is always a journey of discovery into the essence of being. It is an attempt to generate enquiry into the greater spheres of understanding which lie beyond conventional intellection. Art is always an answer awaiting its question,” said Keith.

Olivia Alexander as part of SONGS FOR SYDNEY - OPENING Thursday June 7th, 6-9pm

Olivia Alexander has recently been awarded Bronze Medal Diploma by Société Arts, Sciences & Lettres’ in Paris honouring her work as a visual artist. Olivia has had group and solo exhibitions in Australia and her work has also been exhibited in the United Arab Emirates, Bologna, Florida, Las Vegas and Paris.

Olivia’s paintings are rich in texture with the layering of colour referencing nature and natural forces. Her work has been described as “immediate in its seduction while unsettling in its destruction.”

DOCUMENTARY EXHIBITION opens at Global Gallery on WEDNESDAY 16TH MAY 6-9pm as part of HEAD ON…

Head On Photo Festival has emerged into an inclusive celebration of photography in one of the world’s most vibrant cities. Global Gallery, as a key venue within Head On, has brought together established and emerging photographers to create a vibrant and diverse Documentary Exhibition.


Origins: The Roots of Hip Hop Culture - David Maurice Smith

“In this marginalized setting, the struggle for respect and recognition of those distilled in Dave’s photographs is evident in their bejewelled fists and ostentatious garb and in the brash, American pride with which it is worn - as if a magic suit which lifts its wearer out of inadequacy and into a state of affluence. Human interactions both primal and passionate are captured at the extremities of the emotional spectrum. There is a sense of threat, of foreboding in these photographs. Violence and sex compete for ascendency while the humdrum of home and family life behind the bravado provides a dichotomous yet endearing and intimate portrayal of the widely practiced but little understood culture of hip hop.” – Oculi photographer Andrew Quilty,

‘Origins’ is a reportage that goes deep into the boroughs of New York City to present cinematic documentary imagery of the culture of hip hop at its roots. The work explores the culture and conditions out of which hip hop was born as a form of expression and a reaction to the life in the ghettos of New York City.


Old, Sad and Mad - Kevin Cooper

Pashupatinath, the only elderly persons home operated in Nepal, lies on the banks of the holy bagmati river, just behind the Ghats where the dead are cremated daily. Established in 1882, and run by the Social Welfare Elderly Home Committe since 1977, it is home to 230 elderly Nepalese who have no home elsewhere. They spend their remaining days wandering the green slippery cobbled stones or curled in a fetal position on an old mattress, some spending a fleeting moment basking in the sun.

The faint sound of TV and radio is heard amongst the wailing of pain and the silence of dementia. Amongst the despair there are glimmers of hope, of community, of strained friendships, but with no more than one meal a day, the white dresses of the friendly faced mother Teresa ladies and a few young International volunteers, Cooper’s reportage is raw, emotionally charged and pervading but it is not without humanity. At all times it beckons the question, ‘Is there a better way?’


The Unforgotten Song - Ella Pellegrini

Ludza was known as the “Jerusalem of Latvia”. Once a thriving Jewish community of more than 3,000 people, it was ravaged first by a great fire in 1928, and then by the German occupation. On one day alone in 1941 more than 800 Jews were murdered at Lake Zorba outside the town. Most of the other residents were killed as the war continued and the survivors fled to Israel when they could.

Today, just 15 Jewish residents are left in this former Judaistic capital. Ella Pellegrini discovered the last members of this dying community, and was greeted with open arms. Her photographs within this moving and inspiring exhibition tell their story.


Australian Street Photographers

The ASP Group is Australia’s premier Street Photography Group, comprising of over 450 members from around the country. The ASP Group Exhibition provides a depiction of Australian life from the eye of the Street Photographer and a glimpse into the Australian psyche which is often overlooked in our everyday lives. The ASP Group Exhibition is a unique and distinct record of Australian culture which has never been shown in public before.

Nowhere - Andrew Rose

‘Nowhere’ is a personal and autobiographical work shot between 2000 and 2011 in Brazil, the UK, Australia, and an airport in Taiwan. By means of black and white film photographs the images are of places passed through: a truck stop, an airport motel, or various objects: a Hills Hoist, an abandoned car seat.The work is a meandering stream-of-conscientiousness set of photographs exploring the idea of home, growing up, loss and loneliness.

Don’t Miss Global Gallery’s PORTRAITURE EXHIBITION as part of the HEAD ON Photography Festival…

RUNNING UNTIL SUNDAY 13TH MAY

‘Sydney Writers’ Festival’ by Adrian Cook
Taken during the 10th Anniversary of the Sydney Writers’ Festival, these photographs by Cook are part of an ongoing personal project celebrating the creators of literature and ideas.
These direct and incisive portraits of authors and publishers include Richard E Grant, Andrew O’Hagan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Will Hutton.
Cook is an award-winning advertising, editorial and stills photographer. His key interest in photographing people and their environment is strongly evident within this collection.


‘On Parade - portraits from Sydney Mardi Gras’ by Jamie Williams
Williams photographed dozens of Sydney Mardi-Gras parade-goers, capturing not only the beautiful bodies and the extravagantly adorned, but also those whose sense of style and personal identity caught his attention.
These vibrant and compelling portraits show varying levels of participation, self expression and outrageous displays of pride and identity, while the isolating backdrop eliminates distractions and requires interaction between photographer and subject.
Williams was interested in presenting a cross section of parade goers that revealed the broader physical, cultural and creative diversity of the LGBTQI community. The resulting collection of striking images includes people of varying ages, shapes, sizes and cultural backgrounds.

‘Cabinets of Curiosities’ by Connie Petrillo
Australia has recently set up protocols for working with children in art, and this is dealt with in Petrillo’s ‘Cabinets of Curiosity’. This new protocols will raise challenging issues for artists and art in general.
The depiction of children may become a thing of the past and completely forbidden within our lifetimes. Hence this portion of the humanity of art will be lost forever; representation of children will become ‘cabinets of curiosities’.


‘Retreat’ by Jacqueline Felstead
‘Retreat’ showcases Felstead’s work with residents of a notorious private Melbourne hotel that provides accommodation for a troubled sector of the community.
These self-conscious residents are photographed with a blanket covering their faces and upper bodies. Felstead’s work communicates invisibility, but does so in a context where anonymity and retreat from social dialogue are obviously connected to social inequality.
Conceptually, the idea of retreat is a temporary position of choice, however in these images it extends, showing these subjects forever locked within these frames

‘Lost in Transit’ by John Slaytor
Slaytor photographed commuters travelling in train carriages that feed Sydney’s CBD every morning. From the 4,000 portraits that were captured through the bars of the railway fence, 18 intimate studies were chosen.
These painterly portraits show the universality of our despair through the sense of loss in the commuters’ faces. It blurs the line between portraiture and street photography and raises issues about privacy within public spaces.
Poor lighting and shooting through dirty or graffiti covered train windows adds to the painterly feel and contrasts the sterile perfection that Slaytor rejects. This adds worth to these invisible commuters by promoting their humanity and dignity.

Head On Photography Festival comes to Global Gallery…

Originally established as a portrait competition and exhibition back in 2004, Head On Photo Festival, now in its third year, has emerged into an inclusive celebration of photography in one of the world’s most vibrant cities.

The Festival, now the second biggest photography festival in the world, has continued to grow exponentially since its inception and includes exhibitions of Australian and international work by established and emerging photographers.

The diversity of the program represents a vibrant and diverse cross-section of new and traditional photographic practices.

Global Gallery, as one of Head On’s feature satellite venues, will be showcasing three exhibitions over five weeks, until Sunday 3rd June.