VCA ART 2020

Professor Natalie King OAM

When the world as we know it falls apart, what then?

Humans share the air with one another and with animals; they share the surfaces of the world. They touch what others have touches and they touch one another. These reciprocal and material modes of sharing describe a crucial dimension of our vulnerability, intertwinements and interdependence of our embodied social life. Judith Butler

After a year of turmoil and uncertainty, VCA graduates offer tender worlds and intimate interiorities. Isolation and seclusion have induced altered states and imaginings as artists turn inwards towards injustices, rage and resistance. With the loss of predictable futures, life is lived in the details of daily life. While some images are vulnerable others recall repressed memories. At times, anxieties and dread resurface as well as fear and mourning. Our pervasive sense of uncertainty and reticence has also prompted longing. Some artists turn to geometries for solace whilst others incorporate dreamy hues. Portraits conjure others from afar during times of separation. Together, these graduates show us a creative vision that attests to how we are all intertwined and interconnected.

Ebony Hickey, Mother, posca, sharpie, texta, 2020
Arna Meldrum, Dream Thursday night 8 October 2020, single channel video, 2:48 minutes duration, 2020
Madeleine Minack, Untitled (dip), wire, wax, plastic, natural fibres, 2020. Documentation by Guy Grabowksy.
Marie Honore, Green Room, acrylic on canvas, 2020. Documentation by Christo Crocker, Eliza Dyball and Aaron Rees.
Paul Barnes, Portraits (Film Director Series), oil on linen & wood, 2020. Documentation by Lucy Foster.
Patrick Walker, Speedway Girl, slide film scan, 2020.
Klari Agar, Turned Away (Namesake), 35mm film negatives (archival source), 2020; negatives from sometime between 1928-1934 in Hungary. Documentation by Lucy Foster.
Brendan R Lee, Untitled, Digital Video, 2020.
L Hermosilla, Codex, reclaimed timber, recycled paper fibreboard, paint, chaos magick, 2020.
Sarah Rudledge, Remembering Matsushima Island, single channel video, textile, performance, graphite drawing, 2019–

Professor Natalie King OAM

Natalie King is an Australian curator, editor and arts leader. She is an Enterprise Professor of Visual Arts, Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. She is curator of Aotearoa New Zealand pavilion, 59th Venice Biennale 2022 with artist, Yuki Kihara.

In 2017, she was Curator of Tracey Moffatt: My Horizon, Australian Pavilion at 57th Venice Biennale, accompanied by a publication that she edited with Thames & Hudson. Natalie has curated exhibitions for the Singapore Art Museum; the National Museum of Art, Osaka; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

She is widely published in arts media including Flash Art International, Art and Australia and the ABC. She is a Series Editor with Thames & Hudson for Mini Monographs. She is President of the International Association of Art Critics, Paris. In 2018 she was a finalist in the AFR 100 Women of Influence. In the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours, King was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for "service to the contemporary visual arts".

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We acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Owners of the lands upon which our campus is situated, the people of the Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung, who have created art, made music and told their stories here for thousands of generations. We also acknowledge and extend our respect to the Traditional Owners of all lands on which our work is viewed, shared and enjoyed, and to all Elders, past, present and emerging.

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