Adelaide exhibition guide: December 2019

Feels Like Home
Praxis ARTSPACE
Until 13 December
praxisartspace.com.au

Curated by Gabi Lane Feels Like Home brings together a selection of local artists who explore notions of home and our relationship to home in varying ways.

Jasmine Crisp and Joe Felber look at travelling and our desire to create a sense of home while we are constantly on the move. Felber’s works reflect his nomadic way of life and his eventual migration to Australia. Crisp’s installation work, But she was home now, is a response to her recent travels to Iceland and Finland and her feelings of homecoming and homesickness.

Both Peter Serwan and Donovan Christie focus on the urban landscape in their work. Serwan presents the quintessential urban landscape and Christie’s paintings of iconic Adelaide buildings and businesses capture a moment in time. A highlight of the exhibition is Christie’s recreation of his bedroom growing up which is filled with 90s memorabilia.

Liz Butler looks at the idea that we can live and exist in one place but our heart can be somewhere else. She spent a lot of time in the desert and feels that her mind is here but her heart is there. The work of Elizabeth Close explores a deeper concept of Aboriginal connection to country and her paintings here are presented with red sand from her Grandmother’s Country.

Through their practice these artists are giving us a glimpse of what the concept of home might look like to them. While it differs for each individual, we all share an innate desire to create a sense of place and feel at home no matter where we are.

Lucy Vader: Australia Felix
Peter Walker Fine Art
Until 7 December
peterwalker.com.au

Australia Felix the name given to lush pasture in parts of western Victoria by explorer Thomas Mitchell in 1836 is also the title and inspiration for Lucy Vader’s current exhibition at Peter Walker Fine Art. Vader, whose family has farmed for generations, is greatly inspired by the Australian landscape and in particular the impact of the weather on those living off the land.

Vader’s paintings are strong and painterly with several thick layers of paint that blur the boundary between abstraction and representation. She uses strong, vibrant colours, green, yellow, red and blue, reflecting the true colours of the landscape.

Vader’s visually appealing paintings often include sheep and cattle with her technique giving the impression that the animals are immersed in the landscape and that they are part of the land. Her sheep gaze out of the canvas light heartedly conveying a playfulness that has become synonymous with her work.

Aleksandra Antic: a study for the dissolved self
FELTspace
5 – 21 December
feltspace.org

Aleksandra Antic is a South Australian based artist who completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts Honours (First Class) at the University of South Australia in 2012 and in 2018, Masters of Visual Arts by Research, as an Australian Postgraduate Award scholarship recipient. Much of her work is inspired by her experiences of life in former Yugoslavia and her migration to Australia in 2004 as she explores notions around the limitations of human resilience in the context of migration and assimilation.

In this exhibition, a study for the dissolved self at FELTspace Antic presents works on paper (ink and screen-print) and video works in which she engages with the legacy of the working life of her mother, a printed textile industry labourer. She uses this as the basis for an inquiry beyond the dichotomy between internal and external ‘modes’ of being. These works use fragmentation and repetition to address the idea of limbo and in-betweenness in the search for identity and belonging.

Head to our Adelaide Review Event Guide to find out what else is happening around the city