ArtExpress 2014 at AGNSW - 30 April

I was at the Ben Quilty reception at Bank of America the other day and he was talking about the benefits of being a Trustee at the AGNSW.  The best thing about it according to Ben was that he got the AGNSW to keep exhibiting the ArtExpress when the gallery was considering dumping it.  Ben got his start in this show way back when and I agree with him that it is something for the students to look forward to and set as a goal.  So given that wrap I thought I'd check out the art stars of tomorrow ...

My favourite thing about this show remains the fact that most of the students list the artists that inspired their work.  So you can kind of play guess the influence as you walk around.  Now I am a big fan of Reuben Paterson and yes he was an influence to Jessica Hodge (pictured top, the exquisite muse of sorrow).  Rather than flowers each work portrays a different type of cancer cell.  A disease that Jessica has herself experienced.  I hope she has been cured.  Quite a few influencing artists listed that I had never heard of.  Maybe all the art kids trying to be too cool for art school!  I could see a bit of Euan Macleod in Karlene Galiluyo's work and Lionel Bawden in Giorgia Jackson's book based sculptures (pic below, mortui sunt aclyoneum libros).  Giorgia is replicating dead coral here and making a statement about the end of books.  A nice clever sculpture from this Armidale girl.  I also liked Tracey Poon's SMART Solutions (pictured middle).  Tracey has taken inspiration from Claes Oldenburg and made some playful food sculptures out of cardboard and coloured paper.  She had vanilla slices, chocolate sponge rolls, kiwi tarts, cupcakes and more but no you know whats.

Points:  3 points for Jessica Hodge for her glitter cancer works.  Visually striking and moving artist statement.  2 points for Giorgia Jackson for the book coral sculpture and 1 point for Tracey Poon whose cardboard treats appealed to the baker in me (and would've been 3 if there were some lamingtons!).