LAUNCH 2014

Brunswick Arts Space

21 February - 2 March 2014

Xanthe Dobbie | Thea Jones | Aimee Howard | Matthew Downe | Victoria Vigors | Tricia Page | Jacqui Gordon | Cassandra Littlehands

“This year’s artists have been invited to exhibit in LAUNCH for their exceptional creative practice which explicitly demonstrates their unabashed exploration and knowledge of their tools, subject matter and material, revealing an innovative and intimate relationship to their art. 

Although there are clear concepts and individual philosophies driving each of the works - each catapulted, launched, into actualisation with their own poignant raison d'etre - the very heart of each piece, of any artwork in fact, is the artist, and at times more so the audience, completely and utterly relinquishing themselves to the medium. Falling prey to her seductive charms, her charisma, her euphoria. I fantasise artists as slaves to their art and to the medium, to the allure of her unreliable predictability, her predictable unreliability. That scent of turpentine, the burning toxicity of adhesive, the perpetual grit on their hands, the strained eyes, fatigued muscles, the blisters, the cognitive exhaustion, that elusive and omnipotent problem that needs solving. But it’s not slavery entirely. It’s at once a surrender to and a mastery of the medium. It’s slavery to the touch, it’s slavery to movement, to space, to the grasp, the ungraspable, to societal downfalls, to philosophy and overall to the creative process. And it is the mastery of all of those things and more.

The 2014 LAUNCH artists are showing signs of being both the slaves to and the masters of the problem and the medium. And, as an outsider, there is something utterly exciting and exhilarating in witnessing that.”

Curated by Jenna Corcoran and Josephine Mead