BEC SMITH. EMILY IMESON. JUSTIN SCIVETTI

SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY EXPLORE ONLINE 2021

Explore Contemporary Satellite Exhibition

THE ARC OF HAPPINESS

11-21 November 2021

Thursday 11th November 7pm – Opening Night Panel Discussion
Online via Zoom Webinar. Email info@saintcloche.com to attend.

Saturday 13th November 11am – 4pm
Meet Melbourne artists Bec Smith & Justin Scivetti

Catalogue & Price List: View PDF Catalogue (9 Mb)

VISIT ‘THE ARC OF HAPPINESS’ VIEWING ROOM

Although Sydney Contemporary 2021 was unable to go ahead as planned this year, organisers will be presenting Explore Sydney Contemporary – a newly designed and custom-built digital platform with the country’s largest and most diverse gathering of leading galleries for viewing and collecting art, from 11-21 November 2021 (Collector Preview, 10 November 2021).

Saint Cloche will be staging their satellite exhibition and activations to coincide with Explore, revealing three artists who were originally invited to exhibit at Sydney Contemporary, Carriageworks.

At Saint Cloche we believe in the power of art to make a real-life difference and help yield on-the-ground change, and that’s what we are striving for. There is an undeniable desire within each of us not just as artists but within each individual of the world at large to find  a point of connection to one another and to our surroundings.

Our natural and built environments so uniquely diverse collide in this universal pursuit which both connects and anchors us all in a narrative continuously unfolding and expanding. It is this pursuit of the value of place and identity which brings vitality and often unexpected happiness into our everyday lives. The ordinary becomes the exquisite, and the innate, natural and the insignificant or overlooked, become sacred.

EXPLORE CONTEMPORARY
OPENING NIGHT EVENT

Thursday 11th November 7pm

Panel Discussion:
How do Artists help us see things that can’t be seen?

Online via Zoom Webinar. Email info@saintcloche.com to attend.

When Saint Cloche debuted at Sydney Contemporary 2019 we presented a live panel discussion event on Opening Night at Carriageworks on the topic, Colour Is My Super Power. This year, even with all the postponements and pivoting to Explore Contemporary online, we wanted to do it again. We are very pleased and excited to present another Opening Night panel discussion, this time virtually via Zoom for all to enjoy!

MODERATOR: Georgina Reid
PANEL: Emily Imeson, Bec Smith, Justin Scivetti and Damon Gameau

Learn more

MEET THE ARTISTS

Saturday 13th November 11am – 4pm
Meet Melbourne artists Bec Smith & Justin Scivetti

Saint Cloche is delighted to partner with our gourmet neighbours Omeio Deli to offer you a special treat! After your visit to the gallery, we invite you to takeaway one of Omeio’s signature picnic boxes (feeds 2-3). Pre-order here and use the code ‘SAINTCLOCHE’ to get 15% off your order.

Make sure you grab a glass of complimentary chilled vino from the gallery to accompany, generously sponsored by one of Hunter Valleys finest boutique winery, Iron Gate Estate.

Please note: Due to Covid regulations, there is limited space to gather on our pavement. Please feel free to bring a picnic blanket and bask in the sunshine and the lush surrounds of Paddington at the Royal Hospital for Women Park that is a stone’s throw away from the gallery, enjoy your complimentary wine, Omeio’s delicious picnic box and the fresh summer air, alfresco style.

Bec Smith is a Melbourne-based artist who has practiced art and design in both Australia and overseas for over 20 years.

In pursuit of her creative practice Bec has studied at The Art Academy in London, the Art Room in Melbourne, RMIT and Swinburne National School of Design where she holds a Bachelor degree.

Bec has always stayed particularly interested in abstract, non- objective, and colourfield paintings from the early part of the last century – a natural extension of a designer’s grounding in the early design language of the Bauhaus, equally with her interest in 20th century postmodernism. Her works are realisations of actual and idealised situations about the dynamics of people translated into static, photograph-like frames. A particular moment in time for what it may be or may become – fiction, non-fiction and multiple truths.

Bec has been selected for the Belle Art Prize, exhibited at the Melbourne Design Festival on multiple occasions, and her work is held in private collections.

My works are realisations of actual and idealised situations about the dynamics of people translated into a painted static ‘freeze frame’. Whether a witnessed exchange, or an environment my paintings expose a particular moment in time for what it may be, or may become. Fiction, non-fiction, and multiple truths.

– Bec Smith

Emily continuously takes herself into the land exploring ways to translate experience into paintings. Inspired by the resilience found within nature, the landscape has become a metaphor for her own psychology.

Her works explore vivifying forces of nature, whilst also encouraging her audience to reflect on the impact humanity assails upon the world. Set in foundations of ‘en plein air’ painting she attempts to push beyond exclusively visual stimuli by reflecting upon memories.

From 2018 – 2021 Emily traversed the country, living and working out of her trusty Toyota Troopy. A formative experience that highlighted a consciousness of the tensions embedded in landscape traditions and Australia’s sustained colonisation.

Emily was awarded the Macquarie Group Emerging Artist Prize in 2019 for her work ‘Alive in the Dead of Night’. Most recently, she received a Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, 2021. She has multiple works in private collections, works in the Macquarie Group Collection, Ballina Shire Council’s collection, Law Courts Building at Queen’s Square and is represented by Saint Cloche Gallery.

Through the sustained immersion in the landscape and ‘en plein air’ painting I explore my immediate environment. I move through place to learn, watch, listen, take notes, sketch and paint. I am inspired by healthy environments and feel a responsibility to understand, respect, and care for the landscapes I encounter.

– Emily Imeson

Justin Maurice Scivetti is a figurative Landscape painter based in Melbourne. His artistic practice is balanced by a career in horticulture and landscaping, as well as nourishing his passion for plants working at a nursery.

Floating somewhere between the real and unreal, his landscapes imbue a type of fantasy; they appear mysterious and other-worldly conjuring a quiet stillness. They are inspired by the natural and built environment, exploring subtleties in colour and light to bring the works to life.

Justin has a Bachelor of Fine Arts – Printmaking, after graduating from the National Art School in 2011, a Diploma of Fine Arts – Painting & Photography, St. George TAFE, Sydney in 2008, and more recently, a Diploma of applied Horticultural Science – Melbourne Polytechnic, 2017. He has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions in Sydney, and Melbourne, and has been a finalist in several art prizes – including receiving the Oil Painting Prize in the Waverly Art Prize 2019.

I have been looking at every day, local landscapes around Melbourne. Those that I come across on the daily or places I frequent.
Focusing on the built and architectural element of my surroundings. Using those as a vehicle to explore colour and atmosphere to create quiet, contemplative narratives.

– Justin Scivetti