Virtual Gallery: Evie Hassiotis, ‘Xenitia’

Xenitia is a solo exhibition by Evie Hassiotis, presented in The Mill Showcase Gallery for SALA 2020. Roughly translated, Xenitia means self-imposed exile. This project explores Greek migration to Australia during the 1950’s, speaking from Evie’s personal experience alongside the experiences of her family and friends. Evie has investigated the impact of migration, following narratives through the generations in order to more deeply understand how culture is transmitted and how migrant families have built communities and culture in Australia. Evie’s expressive multi-arts practice builds layers of understanding through the use of collage and paint alongside dolls made by individuals within her community, and a film ‘Made in Greece’. She speaks about community, identity and the role of art in the understanding of the self.

Photos: Morgan Sette

Image: Venus Liberated, 2019, mixed media on wood (Photographer: Morgan Sette).

Many of my artworks are multilayered and I keep adding layers until the piece is finished. I have created some artworks relating to my own grief experience of being forced to leave my small community in Northern Greece to come to live in Adelaide in 1964. Producing this body of work has been a healing and transformative process for me, and has also allowed me to investigate how others have navigated life after migration.

⏤ Evie Hassiotis

Artist statement

This project explores the migration period that saw my family and many Greek migrants come to Australia mainly by passenger ships. It is about wanting to see what is happening now to those migrants and their children and grandchildren and how the contribution of these people has made a big difference in Australian culture and economy.

Image: Evie’s Studio (Photographer: Morgan Sette).

Photos: Morgan Sette

Virtual Gallery: Yana Lehey, ‘Face up’

Yana Lehey’s Face Up is a series of large-scale watercolour portraits of youth climate activists presented at The Mill for SALA Festival 2020. Inspired by the energy and drive of youth climate activists from around the world, Yana has produced a body of work that celebrates determination and conviction. The series of larger-than-life portraits are arresting in their scale and in their stance. Yana has taken inspiration from Australian artist Cherry Hood, creating intensity and conveying emotion through the glowering expression of the subjects’ faces. The levity of these large-scale works seeks to emulate the importance of their work. Yana has also focused on Indigenous activists, highlighting and centring their voices within the climate change discussion.

Photos: Morgan Sette

Image: Yana Lehey, Face up (installation view), 2020, Photographer: Morgan Sette.

I decided to portray a very real and existential rage felt by a highly driven, but consistently dismissed group of people. This is especially true of the majority of the people portrayed in the Face Up series of Youth Activists. I have painted Greta Thunberg (Sweden), Jamie Margolin (USA), Vanessa Nakate (Uganda), Kevin J Patel (USA), and Isra Hirsi (USA), Xiuhtezcatl Martinez who has Indigenous Mexican heritage and is based in Colorado (USA), Artemisa Xakriabá of the Xakriabá tribe (Brazil), Helena Guaglinga of Kichwa-native & Finnish origin from Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon (Ecuador) and Autumn Peltier, who is Anishinaabe-kwe and a member of the Wiikwemkoong First Nation (Canada). Each activist has different strengths, different approaches, and different nuance in how they think of their activism. Despite their young age, many of these activists have been fighting for a decade or more.

The point of the exhibition is to shine a light on diverse groups who are largely ignored in favour of white, comparatively privileged people. I hope it will start some conversations which need to be had.

⏤ Yana Lehey

Artist statement

Face Up started life as an assignment for Life Drawing 2.2 at Adelaide Central School of Art, taught by Christopher Orchard. While sketching at the Art Gallery of SA I noticed that many portrayals of marginalised people in artworks seemed to be wearing the same pinched, fed up glower. I recognised the same expression in climate activist locally and worldwide. This caught my interest, as young climate activists are often discredited as ignorant, naive, and easily manipulated children. It brings to light a tendency to associate infantilisation with dismissal.

Image: Yana Lehey, Greta, 2020, watercolour on 300gsm montval paper, 2000 x 1500. Photographer: Morgan Sette.

Photos: Morgan Sette

Virtual Gallery: The Mill Showcase

The Mill Showcase is a gallery space dedicated to artists who work in our studio spaces at our Angas Street location, exhibiting some of the artworks and products that have been produced under our roof. The Mill Showcase profiles our artists, so that you can put a face to the name and get to know some of our dedicated makers.

This sophomore edition of The Mill Showcase features work by Andrew Eden, Blake Canham-Bennett, Annabel Hume and Mark Mason.

Photos: Daniel Purvis

Image: (L) Maps: Tailored Vulnerability, and (R) Ephemeral Pride.

Andrew Eden

AG is an Adelaide based design studio led by Andrew Eden. Specialising in furniture, lighting & interiors, the studio produces high quality pieces & outcomes that are competitively priced.

Andrew is exhibiting a number of pieces of contemporary furniture in The Mill Showcase.

Image: Tasmanian devil, Numbat and Spotted Quoll sculptures.

Blake Canham-Bennett

Blake “Blakesby” Canham-Bennett is a multi-award winning hatter (he is not a milliner), and one of very few in Australia reviving the traditional artform of men’s hats.

Blake is exhibiting a series of hats which feature unique handmade details.

Mark Mason

Mark Mason works primarily as a tattooer, using handpoke techniques to create new and relevant work.

Mark is exhibiting a group of four new works on paper in the Mill Showcase.

Image: FLC (Frame Lounge Chair), and Sly Table.

Annabel Hume

Annabel Hume is a visual arts graduate from the University of South Australia with a major in sculpture and printmaking.

Annabel is exhibiting a series of bowls and sculptures that feature Australian animals.

Image: Beaver Fur Sombrero Cordobes, and Tangerine Fedora.

Virtual Gallery: Kirsty Martinsen, ‘Our Lady: en feu’

Our Lady: en feu (Notre Dame: on fire) is a significant new body of work by painter and colourist Kirsty Martinsen. Inspired by the images of Notre Dame Cathedral ablaze in 2019, the work explores powerful moments within recent history: the #metoo movement, recent political conflict, human-induced climate change, the Australian bushfires, and most recently COVID-19.

Photos: Morgan Sette

Image: Flèche en Fue (je T’aime), 2019, pastel on earth ground on paper, 24cm x 32.5cm framed (Photographer: Alex Makeyev).

Our Lady appears with pastel drawings of the Notre Dame fires, all individually framed by Tom Borgas, and others of the Bushfires, Australian Native Flowers series, and Chernobyl and Gaza as examples of a human population hellbent on destruction. The scale of these disasters are totally diminished by the enormity of what is happening to the world currently. The burning of an 800 year old church is almost trivial in the face of a worldwide pandemic that has irrevocably altered everything. This body of work is an invaluable memento of life as we know it that’s gone forever. It questions what humans actually respect and value, and the state of the anthropogenic world we live in.

⏤ Kirsty Martinsen

Artist statement

I’ve been a painter for 20 years and consider myself a colourist. I’m interested in the issues of climate change and human relationships. ‘Our Lady: en feu’ is a series of recent drawings that began when I saw the colourful flames and smoke of the burning Notre Dame cathedral. I immediately connected them to the naked crucified woman I was working on. The naked figure was for me a burning spire. Witnessing the spire and cathedral burning, a Parisian bystander said it was “significant beyond its religious meaning”. I was left pondering how the world would be today if Jesus was a woman.

Image: Flèche en Fue III, 2019, pastel on earth ground on paper, 33cm x 45.5cm framed (Photographer: Alex Makeyev).

Virtual Gallery: Dance Launchpad 2020

Presented in partnership with Helpmann Academy, Dance Launchpad is designed to support recent graduates and emerging artists to build experience in the professional industry, by working with local South Australian choreographers and directors. This inaugural program, supported by Dance Hub SA, Hopgood Theatre and Cirkidz nurtures the ecology of dance in SA.

Recent Adelaide College of The Arts Graduate Jacinta Hriskin is the 2020 recipient of Dance Launchpad.

Jacinta (Jazz) has been working with three local choreographers; Tobiah Booth Remmers, Lewis Major, Erin Fowler and videographer Chris Herzfeld/Camlight Productions.

The process has resulted in three short solo works for Jazz and a professional showreel, which you can watch below.

Videography and photography: Chris Herzfeld of Camlight Productions.

Artist Feedback

Dance Launchpad was a brilliant opportunity that came about as a result of Covid-19. Initially, it was such a pleasure to physically work face-to-face in a studio environment and connect with local dance artists here in Adelaide.

Working with three different choreographers opened me up to the variety of ways that people work and run their creative process. Each choreographer was unique in the way they produce material and used concepts such as imagery, brainstorming, research and improvisation.

The filming day was a successful experience in a very professional environment. I witnessed and got involved with the behind the scenes aspects of performing. This involved theatre setup and packdown, as well as working with a schedule and coordinating lighting and set designs. I was elated to be on a stage again and perform the works.

The editing process of the footage taken by Chris Herzfeld was another great learning experience. It encouraged me to be decisive, choose key points and find effective transitions for my showreel.

The whole program was extremely valuable to myself as an emerging professional dancer. It is the perfect platform to promote networking with the industry and establish myself as an artist in Adelaide.

Exhibition Space Residency: The Bait Fridge, 'Art Basics'

“Collective practice is the mitochondria of the BF cell. All of our individual practices have been challenged and mulched by the collective environment of the Bait Fridge. It has taught all Baities at different times how to let go of sole authority over their own work (independence is an illusion! No person is an island!), and that can be an incredibly liberating experience but also something uncomfortable! The Bait Fridge is a constant exercise in creative compromise and resourcefulness, and everyone in the crew has gone on to draw from the group in different ways in their personal projects, whether it is by reaching out for people to perform in their work or get involved in some way, or even just to have a tight community to use as a springboard when we need support.” ⏤ Emmaline Zanelli

The Exhibition Space Residency Program is presented in partnership with City of Adelaide