Beyond the studio by the MAPgroup

Dancer Edna Reinhardt. © Brian Carr.
Dancer Edna Reinhardt. © Brian Carr.

MAPgroup has been working on an exciting new project, Beyond the studio – a collection of over 90 portraits of the artists of Castlemaine, captured by 18 documentary photographers in the MAPgroup (Many Australian Photographers Group). The images will feature throughout the town's walls as large-scale, black-and-white paste-ups. The exhibition is part of the Open Studios program which is a component of the Castlemaine State Festival.

Sculptor Lyn Edey. © Naomi Herzog.
Sculptor Lyn Edey. © Naomi Herzog.

The innovative exhibition transforms the streets using large-scale paste-up portraits which provide a snapshot into the amazing diversity of the artists of Castlemaine. Paste-ups are a form of street art where images are printed onto paper and pasted directly onto walls and buildings, resulting in an accessible way for people to experience artwork.

With over 90 local artists, spanning diverse mediums including painting, installation, printmaking, writing, dance, music, and circus performance, the project only just manages to scratch the surface and is the first installment of an ongoing series documenting Castlemaine’s artists.

Ceramicist Phil Elson. © Jaime Murcia.
Ceramicist Phil Elson. © Jaime Murcia.

MAPgroup will install the large-scale, black-and-white photographs as 1.8 metre panels throughout the town. The work marks the quickest route between the town’s two key performance spaces, from Mostyn Street near the Castlemaine State Festival Hub at Theatre Royal to the Phee Broadway Theatre on Mechanics Lane as well as further exhibition sites at The Mill and Lot 19.

Images will be on display at the following locations: Mechanics Lane, Bendigo Bank, Frederick Street including the Town Hall, The Mill, Lot 19.

Furniture maker Hugh Makin. © Jaime Murcia.
Furniture maker Hugh Makin. © Jaime Murcia.
Painter Jenny Rodgerson. © Krystal Seigerman.
Painter Jenny Rodgerson. © Krystal Seigerman.
Printmaker Clayton Tremlett. © Tobias Titz.
Printmaker Clayton Tremlett. © Tobias Titz.

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November

Sydney: The exhibition delves into the State Library of NSW's vast collection of two million images, showcasing 400 photos – many displayed for the first time.

February

Melbourne: Jill Orr’s The Promised Land Refigured is an exhibition that reworks the original project created in 2012 with new insights that have emerged in the past eleven years.

March

Melbourne: Environmental Futures features five artists whose work addresses how the natural world is affected by climate change and encompasses photography, sculpture and installation both within the gallery spaces and around the museum grounds.

Ballarat: Nan Goldin is an American artist whose work explores subcultures, moments of intimacy, the impacts of the HIV/AIDS and opioid epidemics on her communities, and photography as a tool for social activism.

Sydney: The Ocean Photographer of the Year Award, run by London based Oceanographic Magazine is in its 4th year and has quickly achieved recognition amongst photographers around the world.

Albury: The National Photography Prize offers a $30,000 acquisitive prize, the $5000 John and Margaret Baker Fellowship for an emerging practitioner, and further supports a number of artists through focused acquisitions.

April

Sydney: Photographers Harold David, Lyndal Irons, Ladstreet, Selina Ou, David Porter, Greg Semu, and Craig Walsh exhibit a diverse and varied snapshot of Penrith and western Sydney as it has changed and grown over the last sixty years.

The City Surveyor’s ‘Condemnation and Demolition Books’ is a key photographic collection held in the City Archives comprising almost 5000 photographs and associated glass plate negatives.

Sydney: The images in Bill Henson’s cinematic new body of work, The Liquid Night, derive from work the highly acclaimed artist shot on 35mm colour negative film in New York City in 1989.

May

Ballarat: Art Gallery of Ballarat presents Lost in Palm Springs, a multidisciplinary exhibition that brings together fourteen creative minds who respond to, capture, or re-imagine the magical qualities of the landscape and the celebrated mid-century modern architecture of Palm Springs, California and across Australia.