Past Residents
Past Resident2012: Creative Australia
Benjamin Armstrong
Benjamin Armstrong creates sculptures, drawings and prints that allude to a prehistoric time yet to come. Working with materials such as wax, wood, blown glass, inks and pigments, the nucleus of his practice is always found through drawing. His objects and images offer the viewer a concentrated palette and powerful simplicity. His works are both graceful and disquieting.
Armstrong (born 1975) will exhibit his work in Gwangju Biennale in September (2012). Previous international projects include: First Life, Xin Dong Cheng Gallery, Beijing (2010); Before and After Science, Adelaide Biennial, Australia (2010); Hong Kong Art Fair (2010); and Still Vast Reserves, Magazzino d’Arte Moderna, Rome (2009). Recent solo exhibitions include: Conjurers, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne (2012) and Hold Everything Dear, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth (2009). Selected group exhibitions include: The Sleep of Reason, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2012); New09, Australian Centre for Contemporary, Melbourne (2009); and Primavera, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2006). In 2010 Emblem Books published Holding a Thread, covering the last ten years of Armstrong’s practice with an essay by Juliana Engberg and interview by Charlotte Day.
Benjamin Armstrong, Conjurer.
Benjamin Armstrong, Installation of Conjurers.
Benjamin Armstrong, Witness & Dust to Gold.
Benjamin Armstrong, Hold Everything Dear I.
Benjamin Armstrong, The shape of things to come.
Residents from Australia
Past Resident2012: Sugremin
Linarejos Moreno
The large-format prints on burlap and the memory-laden objects in Linarejos Moreno’s installations become sculptural objects that speak of absence. Her constructions document spaces that are fated to disappear. However, this documentation is not objective; rather, Moreno aims to reach a state of estrangement linked to personal memory and the intimacy of “the inhospitable.” To accomplish this, she sets up a series of actions and rituals which she then photographs. The photographs speak about the subjective memory of these spaces and the globalizing trend in economics that has triggered their disappearance. Always on the boundary between theatrical figuration and complex ritual, she explores the fragility of human beings when faced with economic machinery and time.
Linarejos Moreno graduated in Conservation and Restoration from the National Heritage and Cultural Assets School (E.S.C.R.B.C) and the Fine Arts School of the Complutense University of Madrid. She was awarded a 2012 Fulbright grant to conduct research at Rice University, Houston. Her solo exhibitions include In the Country of Last Things, Llucia Homs Gallery, Barcelona and Plañideras, Vacío 9 Gallery, Madrid. Her group exhibitions include Artifactual Realities, Fotofest 2012, Station Museum, Houston; Entropías. Otros imaginarios, otros vacios de lugar, PhotoEspaña 2009; Idilio sueño y Falacia, Centro de Arte Contemporaneo Da2, Salamanca; Arte Emergente Español, Alcalá 31 (CAM), Madrid; and Entre dos mares, Valencia Bienal. Moreno has been awarded the Purificación Garcia Prize for Contemporary Photography and the ABC prize of Painting and Photography, among others.
Linarejos Moreno, The Social Spiders Project, 2012.
Linarejos Moreno, Cutting and Rebounding of Threads 1, 2010, Inkjet print on burlap, 62 × 118 in. (157.48 × 299.72 cm).
Linarejos Moreno, Weaving the Remains of the Shipwreck IV, 2011, Iron, pantyhose and Lightjet photography, 8 × 16 in. (20.32 × 40.64 cm).
Linarejos Moreno, Weaving the Remains of the Shipwreck IV (detail), 2011, Iron, pantyhose and Lightjet photography, 8 × 16 in. (20.32 × 40.64 cm).
Linarejos Moreno, The Social Spiders Project (Detail), 2012.
Past Resident2012: Foundation for a Civil Society
Ilija Prokopiev
Working mainly in the media of drawing and painting, Ilija Prokopiev focuses intensely on spatiality, forms and art history. Space and spatiality are his means for analyzing and interpreting personal, historical and cultural images and events. Working with figures, he uses his everyday surroundings as subject matter.
Prokopiev was born in Skopje, Macedonia in 1985 and holds a degree from the University of Skopje’s Faculty of Fine Arts. He has had three solo exhibitions: In Search for a New Place, E-Werk, Freiburg, Germany; At the Same Place, Cultural Center CK, Skopje; and Open Graphic Studio Gallery, Skopje, Macedonia. Prokopiev has participated in several group exhibitions and projects in Macedonia and abroad. He also works as a book illustrator and author in the field of art and culture as a postgraduate student of cultural studies at St. Cyril and Methodius University and is the recipient of the DENES Young Visual Artist Award for 2011.
Ilija Prokopiev, Portrait of My Mother, 2011, Pencil, 79 × 55 in. (200.66 × 139.7 cm).
Ilija Prokopiev, Self-Portrait, 2011, Pencil, 60 × 55 in. (152.4 × 139.7 cm).
Ilija Prokopiev, Island, 2011, Pencil, 14 × 20 in. (35.56 × 50.8 cm).
Ilija Prokopiev, Untitled, 2010, Pencil, 35 × 16 in. (88.9 × 40.64 cm).
Ilija Prokopiev, Untitled, 2010, Pencil, 14 × 20 in. (35.56 × 50.8 cm).
