The Christmas Tree Bucket, Trent Parke's Family Album
"It was there," Trent Parke says, "while staring into that bright red bucket, vomiting every hour on the hour for 15 hours straight - that I started to think how strange families, suburbia, life, vomit and, in particular, Christmas really was..."
So began Trent's latest series, THE CHRISTMAS TREE BUCKET.
Le Rire 2008, Robert Rooney
Few spaces capture the awkward loneliness of life like the Darren Knight Gallery. Whether displaying works by Noel McKenna, Rob McHaffie or Michael Harrison, the sparse, fragile aesthetic perfectly conveys the ups, downs and utter emptiness of city living. Surprisingly though, the gallery's next show by artist Robert Rooney offers something completely different.
Bateaux Jouets, Toy Boats From Paris 1850 - 1950
The last time I was at the Maritime Museum I was four years old and had a vegemite sandwich stolen out of my Power Ranger backpack.
Despite the sad memories, I recently decided to return (pledging to keep a vigilant eye on my lunch). It seems facing your demons pays off, in the form of two exhibitions currently on show.
Regional Galleries
Regional galleries are fantastic and grossly overlooked. Three that I try and keep up with are the recently reopened, epic-scaled Casula Powerhouse; the revamped and extended mega-centre for the arts at Campbelltown; and the idyllic heritage cottages that make up Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers' Bequest.
Till Death Do Us Part, Angelique Houtkamp
People sometimes do imprudent things in Amsterdam. Things they come to rue. If you find yourself there contemplating a tattoo, you might want to think again. Unless, that is, you're able to get an appointment with the Dutch tattoo artist, painter and shoe designer Angelique Houtkamp at Rob Admiraals Studio.
The Descendants
W.C. Fields once said, "never work with children or animals," but he was a strange man. Petrina Hicks works with both, and she does it well. She's a master of ambiguity - traversing lines between truth and falseness, perfection and imperfection, innocence and cynicism.
With starkly simple compositions, flat antiseptic lighting and extensive digital manipulations, her subjects are impossibly neat, excessively flawless, and somehow dehumanised.
Koji Ryui
Seeing new possibilities in the humble materials of everyday life, Koji Ryui deftly re-arranges them into elegant, intricate and often creature-like sculptural forms, in his ongoing exploration of transformation.
Showing at the beautifully situated Sarah Cottier Gallery, SO LONG will present a series of the artist's latest creations, incorporating non-heroic materials like paper, polystyrene, plastic drinking straws, drift wood, a metal bin, a mop stick, cigarette filters, paper streamers, cotton buds, marshmallows, double sided tape, chewing gum, nylon rope and even MSG.
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