New HOTA Gallery to unveil 19 artist commissions in inaugural exhibition

April 20, 2021

Arts / Culture / Venues /

The Gold Coast’s Contemporary cultural precinct Home of the Arts (HOTA) today announced details of 19 new artist commissions to be unveiled in its inaugural exhibition presented in the new HOTA Gallery, opening to the public on 8th May 2021.

‘Solid Gold: Artists from Paradise’ will launch the Gallery’s first exhibition program, with a series of major new indoor and outdoor works from emerging and established Australian artists and collectives, each with a personal connection to the Gold Coast region.

HOTA Chief Executive, Criena Gehrke advised “you don’t get to call yourself Home of the Arts without having a deep commitment to local artists. The Gold Coast has a rich history of innovation and creativity, so it’s absolutely fitting that we’re putting our local talent front and centre in the first ever exhibition in the new Gallery.

“Exclusively developed by HOTA, ‘Solid Gold: Artists from Paradise’ reflects a diverse and modern city and positions local artists in a national conversation.”

Presented throughout the Gallery and the surrounding HOTA parklands, ‘Solid Gold: Artists from Paradise’ (8th May – 4th July 2021) will include large-scale sculpture, weaving, textiles, ceramics, painting, photography, immersive video and installation. Commissioned by the Gallery, artists including Hiromi Tango, Michael Candy, Elliot Bastianon, CJ Anderson and Libby Harward have created work exploring the relationship between people and place, the human impact on the natural world, as well as the urban environment and beauty of the landscape.

Commissioned artworks presented in Solid Gold: Artists from Paradise include:

• Torres Strait Islander artist Lisa Sorbie Martin’s suspended sculpture will be installed in the new Gallery’s 11-metre-high foyer. Created with 120 fibre-optic strands, the luminous work will remain in the gallery for the duration of its opening year.

• Melbourne-based artist Jason Haggerty will relay real time wave data from the region’s coastline to create a hypnotic digital installation spanning 14 metres.

• Ali Bezer’s practice explores the experience of sound processed as image and has created an 8-metre aluminium and bitumen sculpture, coated in blue and silver, to represent the repetitive sound of the ocean at shore break.

• Japanese-Australian artist Hiromi Tango will present a new immersive installation with the colours of the rainbow looping out over the visitor.

• In the parkland surrounding HOTA Gallery, Gold Coast artist Erica Gray will present a series of soft sculptural forms using textiles to represent corals and other elements of the coastline.

• Samuel Leighton-Dore, playing with the definition of what a ‘cloud’ is defined as in a digital era, will create an interactive cloud installation, merging ceramics with augmented reality.

• Gold Coast based ceramicist Claudia De Salvo will present a performative sculptural work featuring 100 clay vessels, on a large plinth, that are filled with water.

• Quandamooka artist Libby Harward will explore water systems and sovereignty in a new film work, positioning herself among pipes and hoses against a background of mangrove and tea tree swamp muds from Gold Coast wetlands.

• New media artist Michael Candy, internationally renowned for his installations exploring social experiments and ecological interventions in public spaces, will suspend a visual recreation of the sun inside the gallery.

• Women’s Collective Whatu Manawa, whose works preserve traditional Maori practices within contemporary art, will create a Pātaka (storage house) with woven Tukutuku panels.

• Canberra-based artist Elliot Bastianon will present abstract works incorporating his signature style of immersing materials in copper sulphate to create a crust of blue crystals.

• Probing the intersection of politics and ecology Nicola Moss' collaged works highlight the importance of green spaces amid congested urban environments. Based in the Gold Coast Hinterland surrounded by the natural world, Moss has, for the first time, painted large-scale collages of the valley she lives in.

• CJ Anderson, extends his practice in object and furniture designs, to create distressed sculptures questioning the need for perfection in design.

• Interdisciplinary artist Mimi Dennett, known for immersive site-specific installations and collaborative performances, will present a living sculpture of edible, exotic and Indigenous plants that will be embedded into the landscape.

• JIL Studio will incorporate endemic and rare plants nestled within a sculpture of curves and voids to reflect irrevocable change on local topography.

• Mary Elizabeth Barron, drawing on her practice of combining traditional craft techniques with an innovative use of recycled materials, has created a large-scale bobbin lace charting the Nerang River from the hinterland to the ocean, forming a contemporary portrait of the city.

• Contemporary figurative painter Abbey McCulloch will present vibrant paintings merging the human figure with dramatic landscapes, matched with ceramic sculptures distorted into beautiful, bright and strange shapes, presenting a vision of the individual in a wild and rocky world.

• Aaron Chapman, known for his work across a range of mediums including public art, photography and sculpture, will present a series of large-format photographs documenting the iconic yellow-hooded lifeguard towers dotted along the length of the Gold Coast.

• Kirsty Bruce, celebrated for her richly detailed and multi-layered artworks, will present a series of artworks inspired by images in magazines which evoke a sense of vulnerability, melancholy, dramatic tension or introspection.

Tracy Cooper-Lavery, Director, Gallery and Visual Arts, HOTA added “Solid Gold features commissions by some of the most exciting visual artists working in Australia today, each with strong personal ties to the Gold Coast. The exhibition showcases the thriving creative wealth of the region and provides important support to local and Australian practising artists. You can forget everything you think you knew about the Gold Coast. We are home to incredible artists, our City Collection is more than you ever imagined, and our major exhibitions are ambitious and unbound by tradition.”

Opening on 8th May 2021, the new $60.5 million HOTA Gallery will be the largest public gallery outside a capital city in Australia, spanning six levels and presenting a dynamic program of world premiere international exhibitions, Australian exclusives and new commissions. Designed by award-winning Melbourne-based architects ARM, the gallery will include over 2000metre2 of AAA rated, international standard exhibition space and a dedicated Children’s Gallery, and will be home to the $32 million City collection, consisting of more than 4,400 artworks, including one of the largest collections of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art in regional Australia.

EXHIBITION DATES

Solid Gold: Artists from Paradise

8th May – 4th July 2021

Sat-Thu 10am - 5pm / Fri 10am – 8pm

HOTA Gallery, 135 Bundall Rd, Surfers Paradise

Free – Timed ticketing (bookings open in early 2021)

For more information visit hota.com.au/new-hota-gallery

Image top: HOTA Gallery entrance; Image above: L-R Pictured: Lisa Sorbie Martin Eternè (2021). Image courtesy the artist. Hiromi Tango New Now (2021). Image courtesy the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf. Nicola Moss Local Air (2021). Image courtesy the artist. All images: SOLID GOLD: Artists from Paradise, HOTA Gallery.

20th November 2020 - Gold Coast’s HOTA Gallery announces 2021 program

9th September 2020 - HOTA reveals its live program for October

4th June 2020 - Construction begins on exterior of Gold Coast’s new HOTA gallery

17th March 2020 - HOTA and MONA close to prevent spread of Coronavirus

3rd February 2020 - Gold Coast’s Green Bridge connecting HOTA to Chevron Island opens

26th September 2019 - Construction advances on HOTA’s Gallery and Green Bridge

2nd May 2019 - Gold Coast’s HOTA arts precinct continues to break box office records

17th September 2018 - Early works set commence on HOTA project

19th July 2018 - Gallery designs unveiled as early works start on next stages of HOTA

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