(e)merging 2020 2 Arrange whatever pieces come your way – Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary Being the emerging curators of an exhibition of emerging artists with an open call out performs a tension between posturing and proselytising. The collective nature of (e)merging 2020 has shifted all the familiar rules and roles involved in exhibition making, and the intensity and immensity of this project is unparalleled in our experience. In 2019, Room01 Collective had our inaugural exhibition at First Floor Gallery, YMCA HQ in Leederville. Titled (cross)hatched, the exhibition was informed partly by the dwindling number of artists selected in the Hatched National Graduate Show at PICA (from 35 artists in 2017 to 18 artists in 2019, with just three from Western Australia). What started as a conversation about institutional critique between friends at a university enthusiastically transpired into a celebration of recent graduate practice. We salon-hung the works of 33 artists into 26 square metres of floor space in a single day. In 2020, our pieces drastically changed. Our Collective went from eight members to two, we gained 367 square metres of floor space in Old Customs House and the generous support of Artsource. We are proud to present the work of 42 artists, all within the first three years of their practice. This year, we wanted to function less as institutional irritant and to instead welcome and nurture collaborative curatorial and emerging artistic practice. Alongside the exhibition we presented a series of professional development workshops, open to all exhibiting artists. We have learned immensely from mentors in the field and are especially grateful for the support of Madeleine van der List, Leah Robbie and Sandra Murray. Our endless thanks go to Artsource General Manager Sue-Lyn Aldrian Moyle, who knows the answers for questions we haven’t yet thought of. We are indebted to the support of the Artsource Board for the creation of the Studio Award, presented inaugurally at the (e)merging opening night to four exhibiting artists. The works in this show are, quite literally, glaringly heterogenous: fluorescent lights, chicken wire, embossed calico, charcoal, oxidised stoneware and a repurposed doormat feature amongst oil on canvas and ink pen on paper. They evidence that contemporary artistic concerns are eternal ones; ideas about memory, time, the body, identity, art history and place are wielded, provoked and reflected upon. Alongside a particular thoughtfulness to the found object and gentleness to stitched material are senses of urgency and anxiety. Constructed objects flash and whir, wood has been stabbed with pencils, film transports to other worlds. Aesthetic phenomena unique to this time and place arise; works created and titled ‘in lockdown’ mean differently than if those words had appeared six months ago. There is a vulnerability and intimacy in the personal narratives expressed within many of the works. Most acute is a heightened sense of being in the world; artists distilling, expressing and unearthing what they see around them, and inventing when what they see is lacking in some way. This quality is matched by works that embody art for art’s sake. It is our hope that (e)merging 2020 presents a sample of artistic currency, an expression of solidarity and an optimistic forecast of the future of our local cultural landscape. Our curatorial process was this: keep everything (not anything). We accepted every application for the exhibition that aligned with our early-career criteria. Within this category exists a range of tertiary graduates and artists operating outside institutional parameters. Many artists have come to find their craft after embarking on other careers, some are self-taught and others are feverishly pursuing a career in the arts at a time in which it is fraught to do so. Your support, of them and us, is treasured. Aimee Dodds and Elizabeth Smith Room01 Collective 3 Aliesha King (Ā)k. @alieshavking Graduating from ECU this year after receiving the Artsource Industry Ready Award and having the work Even the mighty fall join ECU’s art collection, I have refocused my energies on finding my creative voice in this post-COVID climate. Working towards a research project where the creative intersection between poetry and drawing navigates the tranquillity and turbulence of life, I hope to continue my studies Aliesha King, Breath of Life, 2020 while exhibiting and serving the a rts community into the future. Breath of Life is based upon the theory of rebirth with site-specific investigations done at ‘Wild Dog Cave’ in Yanchep National Park. Historically utilising the cave as a space for reincarnation and the unknown, I formed a reflexive practice which led to uninhibited mark making with clay and soot, and developed abstract formulas that were contextually enriched by the work of artists Hilma af Klint, Joseph Beuys and Victor Hugo. Through this work I introduce an exploratory passage which delves into the phenomenology of creation and destruction. 4 Amy Neville @krem.caramel Saintly relics, often preserved body parts of saintly figures, are a tradition that has endured. Many saints’ stories are preserved through both their artistic depictions, as well as their physical remains. The concept is to inspire devotion and contemplation through representation, yet to an outsider, this practice appears both morbid, and an odd juxtaposition between the desecration of bodily remains and the Catholic practice to keep Andrew Farmer, TRUE BLUE, 2020 bodies whole after death. Through exploring the Catholic tradition of saintly relics in digital medias, I aim to question if these traditions still have a Andrew Farmer place in the modern world, and create a dialogue @andrew_farmer_art between what we assume, and what we know, about the modern Catholic Church. I’m a self-taught geometric abstractionist and epoxy resin artist. My love for block colour and Born in Western Australia in a Catholic household, geometric shapes defines my work. A former I was raised in a deeply religious society, and while Royal Air Force aircraft engineer I bring my I remain a practicing Catholic, I find myself calling methodical and structured training to my art by into question my beliefs and their place in this er applying precision engineering principles and express myself as queer in the LGBTQ+ society. design methodology to each piece. I love my Studying at UWA, I have become a published geometric work as it neatly boxes colour allowing comic book artist and author, writing about art me to coordinate palettes to play hues off history and the ethics of gallery and museum against each to great effect. Resin brings a new spaces. dimension to my art. It offers less control overall to form geometrically precise shapes, but gives Amy Neville, Heavenly Bodies, Human Bones, 2020. back in its ability to present bulk colour in amazing ways from translucent pools to contoured waves of shades not possible with acrylic. Multiple layers of tinted epoxy resin in ever increasing darker hues of sapphire blue culminate to create an optical illusion. The more you investigate the vivid coloured rings the deeper they appear. True Blue is reminiscent of the waters around our West Australian coast. 5 Annette Peterson @annettegracepeterson Annette Peterson was born in Stavanger, Norway, and has both studio and plein air approaches to her painting practice. She utilises photography and painting techniques to facilitate both realistic and impressionistic style landscape paintings. Peterson is most influenced by changes in light and atmosphere on everyday suburban street scenes, especially the suburban drive. Most recently, her work has investigated the moving image in painting and digital form. In 2017, Annette Peterson, The more I looked, the more I Peterson graduated from Curtin University with a pondered, en plein air Masters in Applied Design and Art, and Honours in Visual Arts in 2019. In 2020, Peterson has been The more I looked, the more I pondered, en plein selected for the City of Joondalup Invitation Art air, offers a perspective of how we come to Award and the 2021 Bunbury Biennale. Having know and see the world through the everyday completed an Artist Residency in Fremantle Art suburban drive with contemporary painting. Centre, she is working in her studio at Heathcote I wanted to communicate through paint, an Cultural Centre, preparing for a residency at affective moment or the emotional essence of Mundaring Arts Centre and an exhibition at the the suburban driving experience. Such moments, Bunbury Regional Art Gallery for 2021. often overlooked due to the inability to record or recall once our destination is attained, can shape our being. This painting contemplates the Beth Scholey beauty of the Australian bush seen on the side of @beth__scholey the road in my suburban drive. Directly painting the embodied experience, en plein air, in my car, Beth Scholey has an Advanced Diploma in props best captured the essence of this moment. The and scenery from WAAPA and an Advanced painting, created in a 15-minute time-frame is Diploma in visual arts from North Metro TAFE. less detailed but offers a sense of immediacy. Her primary focus is mental health and how art This focused observation and heightened affects others. She has been an antique collector an affinity with my senses, as attention was for 15 years and often uses antiques in her work fixated on translating through paint the affective to link the works to history. phenomenon I was experiencing. Panic attacks are a common theme in Beth’s life. She documented each panic attack with a polaroid portrait over 6 months. These attacks occurred over small things like the house not being clean or bigger things like her mum starting chemo or being sexually harassed. The juxtaposition between the portraits shows us that panic attacks, and in turn mental health, come in many forms.