Grad shows always seem to muster up such mixed feelings in people. For the students concerned, it’s the anxiety of showing what you’ve learnt, of bringing together all your best bits from the past three years and putting them on display for the public to see.
For those attending, grad shows are a double edged sword. On the one hand, they are just a showcase of student work. On the other, they provide the opportunity to see some truly remarkable talent, the veritable next wave of shining stars.
The Central Tafe Graduate Exhibition, taking place at Gallery Central on Aberdeen Street this week, contains three such stars. Cherish Marrington, Stephen Genovese and Elizabeth Marpole each cover a different aspect of art, and do so with impeccable insights and a style that is unique and ‘world ready’.
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Marrington’s work is perhaps the most accessible – and potentially commercial – of the three, her images a sluice of old world characters, slightly twisted and melancholic. Daemons spring up in places, as do moments of nostalgia wrapped up with dark sinister motives.
‘My work is about questioning who these people are and why we invent characters the way that we do and where their personalities come from,’ Marrington explained, her imagery recognisable from the recent Windows on William exhibitions.
‘I see them as coming from what you see around you and memories and other people’s memories and stuff. I don’t reflect much about them, although sometimes they come from stories. When you see them all together it’s less confusing. It’s like its part of the world or something.’
Influenced by social surrealists, her work has similar narrative hints to recent graduate and Perth Zine Collective co-founder Anna Dunnill. It’s no surprise then that Marrington herself has a thing for zines. But where Dunnill’s characters purposely stayed on the surface, of both the page and the viewers’ attention, Marrington’s work hints as something dark deep beneath.
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Stephen Genovese represents the social conscience of the trio. He deals with concepts of waste, his amazing photographs of curb side collection highlighting the insignificance of what we discard by making them appear as miniature dioramas.
‘Refuse, basically,’ Genovese said of the themes his work tackles. ‘The stuff that is discarded by others. Myself and a few other artists really thrive on this stuff, but a majority of people just leave it out. It explores where we might be heading, hopefully not.’
The photographs, however, are merely one tiny mesmerising part of his palette. Genovese has a passion for performance art, a pile of shoes – one pair refashioned from a doormat – hinting at the work he does, travelling the city.
‘What I like about performance art is how it can be more interactive and involve the viewer more than a static object. And what I ultimately want to end up doing is have the audience participate as much as the artist does in the art piece. I’m not there yet but that’s one of my goals.’
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Finally comes Marpole, whose work deals with issues of identity. Hers is perhaps the most audacious and humorous. She began by knitting paper to make balaclavas before making life size balaclava suits, ‘stealing’ materials for art much in the same way artists appropriate ideas from each other.
‘People tend to think it tears a lot and that it’s really fragile, but it’s not, it’s quite durable,’ Marpole said of the process of knitting paper. ‘And it’s quite pleasant. It doesn’t cut your hands or anything.’
She’d wear the suits in public, documenting her travels. From there she went on to create models and drawings of the suits, the latter filled with fragility and abject horror.
‘I started by drawing the patterns of balaclavas and then repeating them but as you can see they are unravelling. While being at art school I’ve noticed myself unravelling, becoming freer in my beliefs or whatever. People are more open to who I am, so my veil or my balaclava is unravelling now because I feel open to what’s happening around me.’
Central Tafe’s 2010 Graduate Exhibition opens Wednesday December 7 and runs until December 15, excluding Sundays, at Gallery Central, 12 Aberdeen Street Northbridge. www.gallerycentral.com.au
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
