Blue Monaro is a collaborative exhibition of new work by Brisbane artists Bridie Gillman and Kylie Spear. This exhibition responds to The Walls’ location in Miami, Gold Coast; one of Australia’s most popular tourist destinations. Blue Monaro utilises objects associated with Miami’s ‘leisure lifestyle’ in order to elicit experiences of sentimentality, seduction and awkwardness. Using the colour blue as a filter, this exhibition connects the physicality of overused materials with an imagined bodily history.
Bridie Gillman is an emerging artist based in Brisbane and completed her Bachelor of Fine Art with Honours at Queensland College of Art in 2013. Since graduating she has conducted a residency in Yogyakarta, Indonesia and exhibited nationally and internationally, including a recent solo project Moonbird at Gallery Ten in Hobart. Gillman’s practice has focused on the hybridity that often results as part of the process of negotiating cross-cultural experiences. Drawing from her background experiences of living in both Australia and Indonesia, she explore ways in which materials can elicit memory, and are capable of articulating those experiences of awkwardness, the hesitant and the unknown that can so often produce new forms and expressions.
Kylie Spear is an artist, writer and curator based in Brisbane. She completed a BFA (with 1st class Honours) at the Queensland College of Art in 2012. In 2013 Spear co-founded The Hold Artspace, a contemporary gallery based in West End. Spear has been exhibiting her work since 2008 both within Australia and overseas, including shows at BLINDSIDE (Melbourne), Constance ARI (Hobart), Metro Arts (Brisbane), Design Festa Gallery (Japan) and Griffith University Art Gallery (Brisbane). Her work is held in private collections in QLD and NSW. Spear’s practice is concerned primarily with the body, intimacy and contemporary drawing. Her current studio work uses video, audio and installation to explore connections between the body and its experiences, primarily in a studio environment.
Blue Monaro is the second in a series of annual projects at The Walls that brings together the divergent practices of two artists in collaborative installation.
Image: Bridie Gillman and Kylie Spear ‘Blue Monaro’
Opening night event Saturday 18 April, 5-8pm
Essay by Lisa Bryan-Brown
