St Heliers Street Gallery: Studio Start-up 2017 Exhibition
The Abbotsford Convent's Studio Start-up 2017 recipients, Lauren Dunn and Samantha Sommariva, present a joint exhibition in St Heliers Street Gallery.
An Abbotsford Convent Key Program, Studio Start-up is designed to help emerging artists make the transition from studying to having a professional career in the arts. Dunn and Sommariva were both awarded a rent-free studio space for six months each in 2016. In 2018, Studio Start-up evolved into the Abbotsford Convent Studio Residency Program.
Lauren Dunn
Planning dinner while we eat breakfast
Exploring underlying codes within photography, advertising and ethnography, Dunn's practice is deeply rooted in engaging in contemporary questions surrounding photographic and video practice through a material outcome. Her work particularly investigates society’s consumptive relationship to the image (found and constructed) as an indicator to broader behavioural trends and habits.
Viewers of Dunn's works are usually drawn in by their scale, beauty or boldness but on further consideration discover a broader political discussion can be had.
Samantha Sommariva
Beauty and Decay
"All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born"
These words, spoken by Yeats to describe the Dublin Rebellion, are now, somehow, equally relevant to the state of our oceans. Our relationship to this great wonder encompasses so much; beauty, solace, livelihood, shame. Whatever your relationship with our oceans, the not-so-slow-motion tragedy that is unfolding before us is impossible to deny. How will we choose to respond?
Spoken through a series of sculptural works by Sommariva, intricate coral formations are hybridised with the cultural icon of politics and power – the greying bust – to tell a tale of 'Beauty and Decay', the story of the reef.
Artist's Talk
Join us in the gallery from 6.30pm on Thursday 1 March for a free artist talk with Lauren Dunn and Samantha Sommariva. Hear directly from the artists about their practice and how their works developed for this exhibition during their six month residencies at the Abbotsford Convent.
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