Outer Space Gallery will host a double exhibition opening at its Montague Road art space at 6pm on Friday 5 October. The double exhibition will feature group show Class Act dissecting the nature of class issues, and solo exhibition What’s Good For You of new sculptures by Brisbane artist Hailey Atkins.
Class Act brings together works by seven artists whose diverse practices agitate and complicate ideas around class issues that underpin our dominant narratives. Exploring the impacts and signifiers of class, this exhibition aims to provoke dialogue and question assumptions related to the experience and articulation of socio-economic and cultural classes; the values of labour; and the role of artistic production within the broader conversation. Class Act features works by Kay Abude, Gerwyn Davies, Rhiannon Dionysius, Daniel McKewen, Leen Rieth, and Raphaela Rosella, with public program workshops by Llewellyn Millhouse. The exhibition is curated by Lisa Bryan-Brown and is accompanied by an essay by Courtney Pedersen.
What’s Good for You presents and extends upon a body of work created during Hailey Atkins’ three-month residency at Kaus Australis in Rotterdam (NL), which focused on exploring and dealing with the discomfort and absurdity surrounding notions of repair, carrying, holding on and leaving behind. Through her sculpture, Atkins ponders “at what point should you stop trying to make something better and just leave it behind in the bush where you found it?”
Atkins’ practice focuses on ways of navigating and articulating experiences related to “not-knowing”. Through gesture, form and materials, her work expresses the sometimes funny, sometimes gloomy, always awkward feelings that result when occupying the inbetween spaces of ambivalence, and how this is often felt as failure. Using a combination of anecdotal visual puns and visceral materiality, she seeks to present a relatable, uplifting experience of ‘not-knowing’, self-doubt and never ending existential worrying—an alternate vision of the world occupied by objects that remind us sense doesn’t need to be made of everything.
The exhibition will run from Saturday 6 to Saturday 20 October.
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