004 — CUrating & Writing
Curating
& Writing
Jacqueline Armitstead has extensive experience curating for public galleries having also held curatorial positions at Griffith University Art Museum and artisan: Queensland Centre for contemporary art and design. Jacqueline has collaborated with artists, craftworkers and designers throughout the entirety of her career and has worked with countless small and large-scale multidisciplinary teams. She is passionate about collaborating with artists, museums and arts organisations to realise their projects.
Jacqueline combines thorough research and knowledge of contemporary Australian art with high level logistical and project management expertise, excellent interpersonal and communication skills. She has developed exhibition proposals for galleries which has supported the commission of new work, fostering collaboration and exhibitions showcasing existing work.
Jacqueline has also contributed writing for project exhibition catalogues, arts journals, publications and for social history projects. She has written countless Cultural Opportunity Reports, Artwork Commissioning Briefing documents, didactics and grant applications and acquittal’s, artist statements and reviews.
01
‘Carly Kotynski’
William Street Images
02
'Carly Scoufos'
William Street Images
03
'Barbara Heath'
William Street Images
04
'Barbara Heath'
William Street Images
01
‘Carly Kotynski’
William Street Images
02
'Carly Scoufos'
William Street Images
03
'Barbara Heath'
William Street Images
04
'Barbara Heath'
William Street Images
01
‘Carly Kotynski’
William Street Images
02
'Carly Scoufos'
William Street Images
03
'Barbara Heath'
William Street Images
04
'Barbara Heath'
William Street Images
01
‘Carly Kotynski’
William Street Images
02
'Carly Scoufos'
William Street Images
03
'Barbara Heath'
William Street Images
04
'Barbara Heath'
William Street Images
The great divide
Artisan
381 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley
Proudly sponsored by COX Rayner architects
“Cogita, ergo sum”
“je pense, donc je suis”
“I think, therefore I am”
Rene Descartes
The great divide exhibition features the work of eight Queensland artists whose work engage with a resurgent interest in process, materiality or construction. Lincoln Austin, Jennie Jackson, Donna Marcus, Mandy Ridley, Carly Scoufos, Samuel Tupou, Sharyn Woods and Christina Waterson adopt a range of artmaking processes or visual systems inspired by historical art or design theory, patterns in nature, science, geometry and digital technology. The innovative and visually engaging 2 and 3 dimensional artworks presented in the great divide provide intelligent and engaging responses to both the tangible and intangible world and reassert the importance of the handmade, the process of construction often reflected in the beauty of mathematical and physical principles that build structures operating in both nature and culture.
The great divide exhibition aims to challenge the historical debate and ongoing divide between “fine art” as high art versus “craft” as utilitarian or accessible and to blur the boundaries by exploring both the mutable and congruent space between and contemplating the role of curators in defining, bridging or enforcing the divide between art, craft and design.
In 2005, she was also engaged by the State Library of Queensland to curate sufferance — a visual art exhibition attracting national recognition in a major review in The Australian.
Sufferance
Women’s Artists’ Books – a Queensland Centenary of Women’s Suffrage project presented by the State Library of Queensland. Celebrate the past, claim the future. Words provided to roundhouse under separate email.
Donna Marcus
gold, silver and rough diamonds
Catalogue Essay
Silver, the inaugural exhibition in the newly developed Museum in City Hall, showcased new work from six teams of contemporary photographers and jewellers with strong links to the city. The ductile metallic element silver acts as the compelling and conductive connection between the photographer, with their knowledge or use of silver gelatin silver photographic process and jewellery, with their practice the design and development of handcrafted silvery jewellery and objects. The teams were paired due to mutual investigations or concerns in
their studio-based practices. The six teams: Michael Cook and Ari Athans, Ray Cook and Matt Dwyer, Marian Drew and Barbara Heath, Andrea Higgins and Madeleine Brown, Deb Mansfield and Sheridan Kennedy and Carl Warner and Nadine Cameron were invited to conceive artworks in response to a three-fold curatorial rationale: to collaborate, to explore silver in process or practice, and to explore the history of Brisbane. The artist teams were invited to research the Museums vast holdings for inspiration. The resulting artworks are contemporary interpretations of the history and mythology of Brisbane and imbue the optimism, humour and inquiry emblematic of place. They are rigorously conceived and presented and offer a commentary on both the positive and negative impact rapid development has made on the local natural and cultural landscape at its people. The silver exhibition was accompanied by a reading room researched and presented by the curator to provide additional history and context.
Silver
Museum of Brisbane
Level 3, Brisbane City Hall
King George Square, Brisbane
Richard Nolan-Neylan going public
Queensland Centre for Photography and Redland Art Gallery – featuring Lisa Adams, Richard Bell, Marian Drew, Simone Eisler, Barbara Heath, Bec Mac, Donna Marcus, Sebastian Di Mauro, Laurie Nilsen (1953-2020), Debra Porch (1954-2017), Bruce Reynolds, Mona Ryder, Ian Smith, June Tupicoff, Judy Watson Redland Art Gallery, going local featuring Belinda Close, Lucinda Elliott, Kim Guthrie, Lyndal Hargrave, Sharon Jewell, Jack Oudyn, Luke Roberts, Julie Shepherd, Judith Sinnamon, Carl Warner, Michael Zavros
going public presents a series of simple yet evocative artist portraits documented in private studios or workspaces. The portraits aim is to provide a greater understanding of the artist whose primary engagement with “the public” is through their art practice. In art history “the gaze” is a critical theory that examines how visual media views and constructs its subjects exploring the power dynamics that exist between the viewer and the subject. The concept is also centred in art practice, with the artist’s desire to control what they see. When the artist becomes the subject “the gaze” shifts from a tool of external observation to a complex act of identity or mirror effect, as the artist is forced to confront how they see themselves versus how the world sees or perceives them. While acknowledging each artist’s determination of themselves as individuals in the world, Nolan-Neylan mimics the desire to control what he is seeing, to hold the artist’s gaze. By adopting a documentary photographic process Nolan-Neylan offers a rare insight into the
vision of each artist story to engender a greater understanding of the creative process at play.
Richard Nolan-Neylan approached curator Jacqueline Armitstead to collaborate on a project he had been considering for some time – an exhibition of artists portraits documented in their studios. After developing the exhibition rationale, Armitstead identified several local artists who had made a significant contribution to the
local and national arts landscape, several of whom she had worked with either in an exhibition or commission context.
Richard Nolan-Neylan is an art and fashion photographer based in Sydney, Following fine art studies at the College of Art and Design he relocated to London where he worked extensively in advertising and fashion establishing a diverse clientele including the Sunday Times, Glamour and Marie Claire. Nolan-Neylan’s art
practice focuses on portraiture and documentary imagery, going public is his first exhibition in Australia. He has also exhibited in London and Sydney and his portrait of artist Jody Graham titled ‘out of the black’ was shortlisted in the national Percival Photographic Portrait Prize.
https://richardnolan-neylan.com.au/going-public
