James Mulholland’s pencil and charcoal on paper drawings at Jugglers Art Space Level 1 gallery are captivatingly haunting works, an unpacking of his own experience as a young male attempting to make sense of maleness incorporated as it so often is in young adult male violence, threat and fear. Self identity and a sense of self comes out in this body of work as a pathway still clouded with uncertainty.

Above Jugglers Artspace on Brunswick Street in Fortitude Valley is a large-scale mural by Brisbane street artist Guido Van Helten. It features a black and white image of a man whose contemplative gaze is directed above and beyond the bustling street and surrounding rooftops. Helten created this tangible image from a photograph and subsequent drawing on paper. Like most of his works, which are painted on water towers, reactors, building facades, and other public spaces around the world, the mural captures the man’s inner essence, and provides a gateway into exploring his story. It is the story Sha Sarwari.

Early last Wednesday morning, before sunrise, I drove to a small beach in Northern New South Wales with a handful of artists and students. We had been invited to the burning of a boat, the next phase of an art project by Sha Sarwari, a former Hazara asylum seeker from Afghanistan and graduate of Griffith University [Queensland College of Art]. Sha has become a close friend over the past 3- 4 years through his work which I see as a very public journaling of his journey from asylum seeker/ refugee/detainee to Australian citizen and justice advocate. When not caring for his new son and developing his arts practice, he works as an interpreter for asylum seekers and detainees under the Australian Government’s “pacific solution.”

What does it mean to talk of “space”? The word at once invites the idea of specified place but also the notion of absence, a gap, a void. Teagan Ramsay’s work can be seen as mediating these two, almost oppositional notions of space. Her ambient, durational videos depict domestic spaces, yet without their usual inhabitants. In this way, they are not so much empty as they are emptied: we can sense people were in them a day, hour or even minute ago. There is something ghostly underlying Ramsay’s interiors. The ghost is haunting because it is at once present and dead. Much the same, the people in Ramsay’s scenes are both there and not there: lingering in the wood, glass and concrete.

Janna Kovak created her installation Between two worlds by digitally projecting florescent light onto two pieces of fabric that she suspended from the ceiling. Visible as I entered the gallery, the work immediately grabbed my attention and encouraged my interaction. The wavering green light beckoned me forward, and as I approached, I was struck by the transparency of the material. It reminded me of the mosquito net that hung over my bed as a child, and provoked by this memory, I stepped through the first veil and into the liminal space.

Transition refers to a process of change or adaption. It is a passage between one form, state, or condition, and another. In disrupting the viewer’s perceptions, it allows for the creation of an alterative reality.

The exhibition Transition at Jugglers Art Space brings together the works of Cherylynne Bullen, Justin Garnsworthy, and Birgit Kehr, to explore how technology can be used to physically alter images, materials, and mediums. Each artwork in the exhibition maps a transition of sorts – from the figurative to the abstract, the materiality of recognisable objects into two-dimensional forms, and a personal transition between differing worlds.

On entering numinous- i, one is invited into a space of sanctified quietness. A series of large, busy, Primitive-esque paintings by David Howard encircle a suspended black box, containing Darryl Roger’s hologram piece, Sehnsucht; and so, pagan visions surround the tabernacle. A sense of ritual undoubtedly informs both sets of work, yet is manifested quite differently in each. Howard gives a wild, uncontained spilling-forward of figures: as if spirits have seeped from the canvas into the gallery space. The shapes seem to balloon before one’s eyes: the image is full of gaseous intensity. Rogers provides a far more internal experience. One must enter his space; the art becomes a kind of confession-box and, as such, the surrounding area of the gallery begins to concave in on the box. The coupling of these two artists is something like the coming together of the voodoo and the sacramental, to create a meta-spiritualism.

The Marie Ellis Prize is one of the few awards given to professional artists for their works in drawing. It is indeed a rarity in the today’s scene and yet one of the most important initiatives in Australian art.

Why do we need drawing? The immediate answer is that it is fast becoming a lost craft and that it cannot be expunged from society’s skillset, as it were. Yet many skills have been wiped out of practice, with no hint of mourning for the lost arts of butter churning, telegram composing or riverside clothes washing. There is a more profound reason, beyond simple traditionalism, that drawing must be kept alive.

During the 2015 Marie Ellis Prize for Drawing, Jugglers established a range of small initiatives. One of these, initiated by MEPD co – manager Holly Riding, was the Artist’s Profile segment. This involved selected practicing artists who are passionate about drawing. The intent was to expose artists, collectors and the general public to the ongoing conversation and excitement around drawing in its many phases and applications. These conversations have been included in Two Pages as part of our contribution to a more reflective and educated readership.

During the 2015 Marie Ellis Prize for Drawing, Jugglers established a range of small initiatives. One of these, initiated by MEPD co – manager Holly Riding, was the Artist’s Profile segment. This involved selected practicing artists who are passionate about drawing. The intent was to expose artists, collectors and the general public to the ongoing conversation and excitement around drawing in its many phases and applications. These conversations have been included in Two Pages as part of our contribution to a more reflective and educated readership.

During the 2015 Marie Ellis Prize for Drawing, Jugglers established a range of small initiatives. One of these, initiated by MEPD co – manager Holly Riding, was the Artist’s Profile segment. This involved selected practicing artists who are passionate about drawing. The intent was to expose artists, collectors and the general public to the ongoing conversation and excitement around drawing in its many phases and applications. These conversations have been included in Two Pages as part of our contribution to a more reflective and educated readership.

During the 2015 Marie Ellis Prize for Drawing, Jugglers established a range of small initiatives. One of these, initiated by MEPD co – manager Holly Riding, was the Artist’s Profile segment. This involved selected practicing artists who are passionate about drawing. The intent was to expose artists, collectors and the general public to the ongoing conversation and excitement around drawing in its many phases and applications. These conversations have been included in Two Pages as part of our contribution to a more reflective and educated readership.

During the 2015 Marie Ellis Prize for Drawing, Jugglers established a range of small initiatives. One of these, initiated by MEPD co – manager Holly Riding, was the Artist’s Profile segment. This involved selected practicing artists who are passionate about drawing. The intent was to expose artists, collectors and the general public to the ongoing conversation and excitement around drawing in its many phases and applications. These conversations have been included in Two Pages as part of our contribution to a more reflective and educated readership.

During the 2015 Marie Ellis Prize for Drawing, Jugglers established a range of small initiatives. One of these, initiated by MEPD co – manager Holly Riding, was the Artist’s Profile segment. This involved selected practicing artists who are passionate about drawing. The intent was to expose artists, collectors and the general public to the ongoing conversation and excitement around drawing in its many phases and applications. These conversations have been included in Two Pages as part of our contribution to a more reflective and educated readership.

With art today becoming a highly tactile, visceral and immersive experience, the medium of glass takes on a significance that it may have never had before. Joanna Bone’s works call to be touched. There is something beyond the composition of forms and even beyond the many colours of the works that attracts us. Looking at the sculptures, one wants to delve into the layers of glass: to thread your hand through the ribbons of its substance. The tension between what we know to be a solid object and the molten, taffy-like quality those objects exude cannot be overcome and constantly draws us back for just one more look. If we can judge art by its hold of the eye, then Bone’s project undoubtedly succeeds.

What is it about artists?

What is it about art?

There are times every week when I wonder what I do in the scheme of things and wonder about the “grand scheme” and if there is one, where does this aspiration to be an artist and running an art space – Jugglers Art Space – fit.

Passion for art comes from doing art over and over and over and then doing it some more. The waiting for inspiration probably means someone else will do their art on my coffin.

As part of the growing pervasiveness of digital culture into everyday life, Tumblr allows bloggers to explore alternative forms of presence and interaction in the social world. Tumblr is a microblogging platform that allows bloggers to instantly post quotes, text, videos, music, links, and images on individual blogs. Despite this variety, the platform is saturated with reproduced images with blogs resembling quasi-exhibition spaces that imitate the layout of mood boards. In particular, Tumblr has become a space overwhelmed with fashion imagery, typically derived from mainstream fashion media sources. Through rapidly compiling image after image on their blogs and following other users with similar taste, bloggers can participate in and connect with an ideal world of beauty, novelty, desire, and style.

Last Saturday, Jugglers underwent a significant milestone in the development of becoming a more environmentally conscious space.

As part of the annual Brewsvegas festival, Jugglers facilitated a venue-wide activation of live and large painting to enable some real “badass”, up and coming street artists to continue the dialogue between the genre and participation within the community. Our courtyard and tunnel were transformed throughout the day by the buzzing crowds, live music, good beer and tremendous talent that encompassed the onlookers.

I am a visual artist based in Brisbane Australia. I make life size tableau vivants, otherwise known as ‘living pictures’, complete with scenery and costumed performers. Like so many other artists, I sometimes struggle to find a space that offers all of the elements I need. In my case, I often work with large sheets of paper, which I paint on the ground and make into sets and scenery. To do this, I need significant floor space that is clean and flat. I also install my tableaus in the studio in order to take narrative photographs of them, so the ability to black out the room is crucial.

In our urbanised fast paced lives, it seems commonplace to lose touch with what fundamentally drives us as individuals, something that art today broadly and continuously challenges. German artist Hans Hofmann once said‘Art is to me the glorification of the human spirit, and as such it is the cultural documentation of the time in which it is produced’.

This quote seemed fitting when viewing last week’s group exhibition that, although diverse in ideas and media, encapsulated a common insight exposing platforms of thought around the equivocal concept of ‘the spirit’ in relation to the time and place in which we live. The works wonderfully embraced our senses as viewers were invited to touch, smell, view and reflect on the works of three award winning visual art graduates from TAFE Queensland- Felicity Scarce, Alex Freitas and Jane McGeough.