Past | Counterparts
July 12-31 2022
Counterparts is a three-part exhibition and conversation series which explores the creative process and works of designers with parallel practices. Work which ebbs and flows between diverse formats, mediums and disciplines to inform a practice that is expansive and non-singular, with one informing or enabling another. The series unpacks creative practice narratives alongside a contemporary theme.
Part one - Where to From Here, will highlight the work of a selection of Australian and internationally based graphic designers reflecting on notions of past/present/future in a post-pandemic world.
Eva Dijkstra is co-founder and creative director at design studio ‘Design by Toko’. It was her work as a graphic designer which initiated Eva’s work as an artist. Most notably the annual report for the City of The Hague in 2004 where she turned graphs into works of abstract geometric art. It was this commission which brought her under the spell of numbers and data, and continues to inform her art practise today.
Paul Marcus Fuog is highly regarded for his work that intersects the space between art and design. In 2010, he founded the design studio U-P with Uriah Gray. Paul’s insights and knowledge are sought after by both academia and industry. Paul is a founding member of Field Experiments, a nomadic collective that explores other cultures and people through design and collaborative making. In 2015 Paul’s work for Field Experiments was nominated for Design of the Year by the The Design Museum in London.
Uriah Gray is a highly accomplished designer who is regarded for his experimental and expressive approach to new media. In 2010 he founded the design studio U-P with Paul Marcus Fuog. He has collaborated with and completed projects for The National Gallery of Australia, Liquid Architecture, Arts Centre Melbourne, AsiaLink, The Australian Graphic Design Association and RMIT Design Hub. In his current role as a lecturer at Monash Art Design and Architecture, he teaches an experimental course in digital media for graphic designers.
Catherine Griffiths is an Aotearoa New Zealand designer and artist. Improvisation is critical to her practice which moves between graphic design, self-publishing, and commissioned art installations in public and private spaces, architectural and landscape. In 2018 Griffiths protested against gender and cultural inequities in design, founded the platform Designers Speak (Up), and curated poster project and touring exhibition, Present Tense : Wāhine Toi Aotearoa. »catherine griffiths : SOLO IN [ ] SPACE« (2019), her first survey show of selected works, exhibited in Shanghai. A post-exhibition book of the same title, a documentation, was published in 2021. She has exhibited in Aotearoa, Chile, France, USA, China and Korea.
Sean Hogan is based in Melbourne, Australia and established art and design studio Trampoline in 1995. He has worked with clients such as Wired Magazine, The New York Times and Apple Music. Sean has won design awards from AGDA, RAIA, AILA and ABDA. Sean’s system-based art practice spans painting, print and sculpture. He has exhibited in 15 solo and group exhibitions. A collection of 30 of Sean’s digital artworks have been published in a large format poster book titled ‘Sean Hogan: 30 Works 2014-2020’.
Lee James Owens uses fundamental elements of design, communication & modernism through; Colour, Type, Grid, Scale, Hierarchy & Shape to question its role. Inspired by the work of Richard Prince, Barbra Kruger & The Pictures Generation, type & images are stolen, edited & removed from their original context to have its meanings re-evaluated. He re-focuses the viewer on a new way of seeing once familiar, even mundane imagery from the past, giving it entirely new meaning. Printed images & type are simply cropped, combined & composed in new ways to throw their original purpose & message into question. Basic graphic shapes & blocks of flat painted colour are layered on to emphasise ideas & focus the viewer’s attention.