14 May — 11 June 2022

Kylie Caldwell, Michael Donnelly, Kairan Ward, Immortal Soil, Fabien Pertzel, Travis Paterson & Betty Russ

Curated by Marian Tubbs & Hamish Sawyer

Travis PATERSON / *Storage* 2022 / lambda print / 15 x 15cm / © Travis Paterson

Steeper than Legal presents the vital practices of eight artists, (four in collaboration) from northern New South Wales. The exhibition title refers to the steep incline of the roads that surround the Northern Rivers, however it also speaks to broader socio-economic issues including rising social and economic inequality; the cost of living and housing; and the climate emergency.

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JWAC Gallery
Cnr Brunswick and Berwick Streets
420 Brunswick Street
Fortitude Valley Q 4006
(map here)

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ARTIST TALK | Facilitated by Ashleigh Ralph, Director of Lismore Regional Gallery
Saturday 14 May 2022, 1pm - 2pm, JWAC Gallery, 420 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley.

OPENING
Saturday 14 May 2022, 3pm - 5pm, JWAC Gallery, 420 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley.

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Travis Paterson is an artist and educator based in Northern NSW whose work encompasses both traditional and digital printmaking. His work primarily addresses ideas of identity, memory and queer histories. Upon graduating from Southern Cross University he was awarded the Kaske Fellowship enabling him to co-curate a touring exhibition of Australian printmakers that was shown in Bristol, UK, as part of the renowned international IMPACT conference. In 2013 he won the Ursula Hoff Institute prize for his finalist entry in the Geelong Acquisitive Print Award. He was a finalist in the 2017 Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture and in 2021 he was a finalist in the Dobell Drawing Prize. Paterson has also undertaken a residency in Mooste, Estonia. His current series of work explores the mediation and translation of found and printed images through analogue and digital technologies.

Betty Russ is an artist and arts worker living on Bundjalung country / Lismore. Working across sculpture, assemblage, installation, sound, and embodied research, her practice ferments between and around the philosophies and renderings of eschatological terror, speculative +/ science fiction, hauntology, spirituality, the-weird-and-the-eerie. Material manifestations protrude from hypnagogic subconscious fantasy, searching for psychological mitigation to the abject shock of the past, and sweaty white-knuckled fear of the future. Betty is also co-founder of Elevator ARI, an emerging artist-run gallery and studio space.

Michael Donnelley is based in Lismore, New South Wales. His practice is a broad investigation of improvisation and transcendence through multiple mediums including painting, assemblage, performance and sound. Michael is currently co-director at Elevator ARI in Lismore New South Wales.

Kairan Ward is a multidisciplinary artist based in the Northern Rivers, NSW. Ward works instinctively and spontaneously, often working on multiple surfaces at a time. He draws inspiration from urban and natural landscapes and the beauty of the unexpected. His works experiment with both traditional and non-traditional mediums and materials. His work also explores different compositions and layering to create intuitive forums and obscure the subject matter beyond recognition.

Kylie Caldwell is an experimental Bundjalung inter-disciplinary artist based in Northern Rivers, NSW. Her practice explores themes that reverberate around her. She has an interest in reviving and pursuing traditional cultural practices that her ancestors have used for over thousands of years. Rediscovering these ancient Bundjalung crafts and threading them into the modern world. Her practice proactively seeks to delve deeper into contemporary Aboriginal values: ways of being, seeing and doing based on lived cultural experiences. She likes to use allegory, metaphors and authentic imagery to explore intimate cultural codes, emphasising perseverance, evolvement and fortitude. Value of kinship, customs and ongoing custodianships of homelands are my core guiding principles.

Fabian Pertzel was raised surrounded by the farmland of New South Wales mid-coast and is currently working from the northern rivers where he is completing a Bachelor of Art and Design at Southern Cross University. The young emerging artist has used his time at university to Study sculpture and develop a conceptual framework for his practice, drawing on his experiences of growing up queer in rural Australia he situates his practice in the greater context of queer history and theory. This investigation into non-heteronormative social identities and contemporary culture has informed much of his work but he resists being defined by these limitations as many of these ideas intersect with seemingly unrelated aspects of today’s culture and technology.

Immortal Soil “NOXIOUS “. Simply labelled Invasive yet symbiotic to its environment .A representation of human kind - moulded into many ways, yet it’s nature that gets to decide who will remain at the end of days. Even if to just inevitably swallow us whole.