"THE IMMACULATE PERCEPTION continues"
by GRAEME BALCHIN
14-02-2012 - 25-02-2012

"SALLIE PORTNOY CAST GLASS"
by SALLIE PORTNOY
15-02-2012 - 24-02-2012

"THE SHIMMER OF AFRICA"
by ALEXANDRA SPYRATOS
25-02-2012 - 23-03-2012

Exhibition Comments:

GRAEME BALCHIN - ARTIST PAINTER

IMMACULATE PERCEPTION EXHIBITION

EXHIBITING FEBRUARY 4 to 24.

GRAEME BALCHIN EXHIBITION VISUAL 

Presentation Speaker Yianni Johns will open the exhibition.

Christine Ibrahim Musician will perform at the exhibtion preview.

Art is something that lives inside me, a thing that is vital to my well-being. It is a huge part of my everyday life and to be without it is something I could not comprehend.A full time artist working mainly in oils and graphite, I choose the term "Imaginative Realist" to describe my style. I am mostly self taught but have learnt and studied in a great many places, so I am influenced by many but determined to stay true to my own style.
I have found that I am a solitary person, not quit fitting in with mainstream demographics and therefore I live alone and am happy to do so; I feel most artists are this way. I often feel perhaps we are just a touch crazy.

I constantly look for meaning in my work; a story that can hide inside the painting. I find it hard to paint just a portrait of someone.My endeavour in life is to create a masterpiece - which I hope I will never do as it would signal the end of my desire to paint.

Exhibition Comments:

GRAEME BALCHIN ARTIST

 IMMACULATE PERCEPTION

Contemporary Figurative Paintings

EXHIBITION PREVIEW PREVIEW FEBRUARY 4, 6 to 8pm

We live in a time where technology has advanced to the point we no longer need a camera to make a great image. For the commercial world, technology is the future, for it has embraced the new mediums with open arms. With this in mind, I am constantly amazed with the amount of artists who still use traditional mediums and methods simply because they wish too. I am one of those people, who has a compelling desire that borders on an insane obsession, to paint and draw. Painting has been and still is a successful way of recording history, but I feel it is also an integral part of human endeavor; the need to achieve excellence in creation. 

Education

Studied at Paddington Art School 1986, Pennant Hills Life Drawing 1987, Sydney Art Station 1988, Julian Ashtons Art School Sydney p/t (drawing, painting,etching), Studied Etching at Duck Print, Professional Trade - Signwriter. 

Business Acumen

On completion of trade qualifications, I established and ran my own successful signwriting business Vital Signs which operated until 2000.We produced work for Village Road Show, Hoyts, Greater Union, Home Pics Video,Top Video and many RSL, Leagues and Bowling Clubs.In 2000 we sold the business and my invention of a Aluminum flexible signface. I later started p/t Teaching at Newcastle Tafe in 2003 and finished in 2004 to pursue a career in Fine Art.

Exhibition Comments:

 INNOVATIVE CONTEMPORARY SCULPTURE 

If my parents had had their way I would have been an engineer. Although I studied Electrical Sciences in my native Poland, I never completed my degree. I was yearning to learn a craft, to shape things with my hands. So, instead of fulfilling a parental ambition I became a silversmith. As Gdansk has a fine tradition in gold and silversmithery it was not too hard to find a silversmith to take me in. After three years of apprenticeship in Gdansk's leading workshop I passed my journeyman exam and shortly after I got my Master's Certificate. At the same time I was spending my evenings in a sculptor's studio next to my silversmithing workshop carving in wood and later creating sculptures in bronze.

In 1982 I migrated to Australia. The richness and beauty of Australian fauna and flora boosted my creativity profoundly and I became well known as a creator of many designs depicting Australian animals and flowers. From the beginning I was selling my works through Seasons Gallery in North Sydney, Beaver Gallery in Canberra and Maker's Mark in Melbourne. While living in Sydney I attended workshops with well-known sculptor John Gardner and made works mainly in bronze. Shortly after my move to Brisbane in 1988 I started to work in stone and operate now from my studio in Brisbane. Apart from bronze, I work in marble, granite, sandstone; and black Chillago marble is my favourite stone. In 1997 I stopped working as a silversmith and now I work as a full time sculptor.

Working for many years as a silversmith I developed a great need for details and even now when I sculpt on a large scale I cannot divorce myself from it. Although the amount of time I spend on each sculpture increases enormously, the more it takes the better. I guess, I want to enjoy every piece of stone as long as possible. I love to carve in marble the most intricate and crisp lines and lack of forgiveness of stone makes it more challenging. I create both figurative and abstract works and there are always several of them in my studio to appreciate.

 

Exhibition Comments:

GRAEME BALCHIN ARTIST PAINTER

THE IMMACULATE PERCEPTION

Art is something that lives inside me, a thing that is vital to my well-being. It is a huge part of my everyday life and to be without it is something I could not comprehend.
A full time artist working mainly in oils and graphite, I choose the term “Imaginative Realist" to describe my style. I am mostly self taught but have learnt and studied in a great many places, so I am influenced by many but determined to stay true to my own style.
I have found that I am a solitary person, not quit fitting in with mainstream demographics and therefore I live alone and am happy to do so; I feel most artists are this way. I often feel perhaps we are just a touch crazy.

I constantly look for meaning in my work; a story that can hide inside the painting. I find it hard to paint just a portrait of someone.

My endeavour in life is to create a masterpiece - which I hope I will never do as it would signal the end of my desire to paint.

I am fascinated by the changes in young women that have come about due to their freedom and equality, which I find an endless inspiration. Most of my figure work has come from this; the dawning of their own sensuality and how they work with it.

The paintings I have created for this exhibition, "Immaculate Perception" are the culmination of a decade of working with two particular models, my stepdaughter Amy and her friend Alexandra.

I started painting Amy at the age of twelve. She loved to pose and I painted her for the local regional art prize each year. She introduced me to Alex, who was equally keen to pose, and they became my main stay muses each year, winning me People’s Choice in 2009.

After some time I became aware that I was capturing the lives of these two young women as they grew into adults. Theirs was such a different experience to mine when I was young and yet strangely the same. As they say, the more things change the more they stay the same.

I started playing with their ‘modern-ness’ and my era, bringing the two together, painting in a style that would bring out the feeling of them and not just the image. After you have studied a subject so long in painting it, you fall in love with every little detail. I like to paint so as to give the desire to touch the painting, the feel of the skin, or the material -  kind of 3D effect.

I want to give the viewer the same feeling that I get when painting it; everything becomes so immaculate and the shapes are so beautiful you can not stop looking at them.

Having known Amy and Alex so long I feel I can paint their personalities as well as their image. The two girls are quite different; Amy a little reserved, Alex more extrovert. I feel this shows in the paintings, not just in their images but also in the whole story of the work. Their sensuality shows in different ways. It has been a great delight to watch them obtain and recognize the power their looks have given them, and observe how they use this to get their way - how they throw it at me when they pose and then giggle at the knowledge of their suggestiveness.
It is an amazing journey for them, and to be able to paint it is even more amazing. I hope the viewer can feel this also.
The only way to capture this emotion is with a high degree of realism but I am always aware of not losing a painterly effect. It lets the viewer see that the artwork has been created and crafted with emotion and thought; about how to capture the moment with narrative and symbology; how to make their temporality eternal.

Most of my paintings carry a metaphor or symbolism, a story of a part of the lives of these young ladies. "Papiliophobia” - the fear of butterflies - the desire to be free, but with it comes the fear of the responsibility; the desire to leave the nest, crossed with their need for security.
They want to go in search of far away castles but are hearing the warnings of danger.

Exhibition Comments:

ARTIST  SALLIE PORTNOY 

 INNOVATIVE CONTEMPORARY CAST GLASS

Sallie Portnoy was born in Mid West Canada. Her works mainly focus on figurative sculpture created in cast glass lead crystal. She is prolific and is known also to work in clay, bronze, cement, polystyrene, glass mosaic, and stainless steel. Portnoy also specializes in the design and fabrication of interior & exterior mosaic floors & walls. Community projects as well as weekend workshops and summer school teaching are welcomed distractions to her solo studio practice.

 Portnoy says, "Where I get my inspiration is a mystery to me. I am often surprised at what I create and excited at how it provides me with a window into the deeper levels of my conscious. I travel a lot - back to North America for family and friends and to as many exotic destinations as possible. My interest has always been in human nature, human form, human psychology, mysticism, ritual and the mysteries of life.

Exhibition Comments:

ZYGMUNT LIBUCHA SCULPTURE 

CONTEMPORARY FIGURATIVE SCULPTURE

If my parents had had their way I would have been an engineer. Although I studied Electrical Sciences in my native Poland, I never completed my degree. I was yearning to learn a craft, to shape things with my hands. So, instead of fulfilling a parental ambition I became a silversmith. As Gdansk has a fine tradition in gold and silversmithery it was not too hard to find a silversmith to take me in. After three years of apprenticeship in Gdansk's leading workshop I passed my journeyman exam and shortly after I got my Master's Certificate. At the same time I was spending my evenings in a sculptor's studio next to my silversmithing workshop carving in wood and later creating sculptures in bronze.

In 1982 I migrated to Australia. The richness and beauty of Australian fauna and flora boosted my creativity profoundly and I became well known as a creator of many designs depicting Australian animals and flowers. From the beginning I was selling my works through Seasons Gallery in North Sydney, Beaver Gallery in Canberra and Maker's Mark in Melbourne. While living in Sydney I attended workshops with well-known sculptor John Gardner and made works mainly in bronze. Shortly after my move to Brisbane in 1988 I started to work in stone and operate now from my studio in Brisbane. Apart from bronze, I work in marble, granite, sandstone; and black Chillago marble is my favourite stone. In 1997 I stopped working as a silversmith and now I work as a full time sculptor.

Working for many years as a silversmith I developed a great need for details and even now when I sculpt on a large scale I cannot divorce myself from it. Although the amount of time I spend on each sculpture increases enormously, the more it takes the better. I guess, I want to enjoy every piece of stone as long as possible. I love to carve in marble the most intricate and crisp lines and lack of forgiveness of stone makes it more challenging. I create both figurative and abstract works and there are always several of them in my studio to appreciate.

Artwork visual and list of works on application.