Magnify AIR Artists Exhibition, Talk and Tour

Magnify AIR Artists Exhibition, Talk and Tour

Daril Atkins, Claire Bridge, Timothee Chalazonits, Jayne McSwiney, Lori Hakim, Laura Roos, Merel MAY Tieland, Andreea-Monica Sfarlea, Surya David White, Belinda Wilson, Amy Lees-Doherty  

Wednesday 13 November – Saturday 14 December 2024
13 November - 14 December

Kingston Arts Centre
G1 Gallery, Kingston Arts Centre
979-985 Nepean Hwy, Moorabbin

Opening Hours: 
11am – 4pm
Wednesday to Saturday

Please join me for a studio visit and an informal artist talk on

Saturday 23rd Nov

English 11.30 am - 12.15 pm
Auslan 12.15 - 1 pm

Kingston Arts Centre
G2 Gallery, Kingston Arts Centre
979-985 Nepean Hwy, Moorabbin

image: Claire Bridge, We must risk new shapes, 2023, glazed stoneware ceramic, 37.8 x 31 x 26.5cm

Magnify Artist Residency 2024-2025

Claire Bridge has been awarded the Magnify Artist Residency.

During this residency spanning 2024 to 2025, Claire will be developing new ceramics sculptures and paintings in the light filled expansive studios and purpose built ceramics room equipped with kiln at Kingston Arts Centre.

Thanks to Kingston Arts for this wonderful support and the opportunity to take on new challenges, experiment and make new works!

“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to create exciting new ceramic works and especially grateful for the support of Kingston Arts to develop and expand my practice” ~ Claire Bridge

image: light filled studio space on day 1 of the artist residency with a clay sculpture in progress.

Omnia Art Prize 2024 Finalist

Claire Bridge is a finalist in the Omnia Art Prize, one of Australia’s premier awards for contemporary art. 

This prestigious $15,000 annual prize is open to established and emerging Australian contemporary artists, with all exhibited artworks for sale. Vibrant, culturally-rich and thought-provoking, the hundreds of artworks on display reflect the best of Australian contemporary art across mediums from oils, acrylics, drawing, photograph, mixed media to small sculptures.

The exhibition is open
25-26 May
KC Smith Hall,
St Kevin’s College

This year’s prize will be judged by curator, writer and lecturer, Dr Rebecca Coates, Director of Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA)

image: Claire Bridge, The Unfolding, 2022, glazed stoneware ceramic, 16 x 49 x 49cm, Photo SimonStrong

Art work acquisition announcement 2024

Claire Bridge's sculpture, Grenade, has been acquired by the Maroondah City Art Collection as a Mayoral Acquisition from over 180 works in the 29th Mayoral Art Exhibition. 

"I am delighted that my sculpture Grenade has been chosen by the Mayor, Cr Kylie Spears, for a Mayoral Acquisition. Employing humour and satire, Grenade speaks to the important and serious issues of gender, violence, and objectification of women. With an oversized metal ring piercing an ambiguous breast-like form, the sculpture morphs into a grenade, both as an expression of the volatile dangers faced by Queer, Disabled and female bodies, and as a celebration of the dynamic force of our creativity and resilience.

I am honoured that this piece, which addresses issues impacting far too many of us in contemporary society, will now be part of the Maroondah City Art Collection. I am grateful my work can contribute to these important conversations as we move towards creating safer communities and a more equitable, just, and inclusive society.”

~ Claire Bridge

image: Claire Bridge, Grenade, 2018, glazed stoneware ceramic, nickel plated steel, rubber, enamel, approx 15 x 21 x 33 cm, photo by Jeremy Blincoe

Beechworth Biennale 2024

CLAIRE BRIDGE, ACEPHALOUS
Beechworth Biennale 2024
8 - 12 March 2024

Come. Meet the Oracle.
The Oracle speaks, yet her meaning may seem hidden.

Listen. Can you sense it?
Entering trance, the Oracle reveals her wisdom. She does not give of her secrets easily.
Drink of the cup
Sway
Breathe
Slow
When stillness arises, the words of the Oracle appear, cast upon the waves of your breath,
pulsing to the rhythms of your heart. Listen.

Composed of over one thousand hand-pressed ceramic pieces, woven together with copper wire, Acephalous explores the body as personal, collective, communal, and divine. Hand-pressed, each ceramic scale is imprinted with the artist’s palm. A thousand hands invoke the deities of a thousand arms and innumerable beings contained therein. Ruptured pieces bear wounds, scars, and histories, and in their traced lines, new futures are destined and divined.

Forming a serpentine skin, the body which was torn apart is rewoven, repaired as a communal and collective being. In some Indian, Celtic and European traditions, the severed head holds oracular power, a symbolic seat of the soul and of the divine. Acephalous embodies this oracular potency and symbolism. In a parallel reading Acephalous means “headless state” and considers the possibilities of collective agency and a kaleidoscopic reimagining of contemporary society.

View more

video: Claire Bridge, Acephelous, 2021 - 2024, single channel video with audio, 6 minute loop, mapped video projection onto over 1000 ceramic scales, coral, copper, steel, Beechworth Biennale Installation view, 250 x 200 x 150 cm dimensions variable

Site 13: The Stage, Hotel Nicholas, cnr Camp and High St

2024 Darebin Art Prize, Finalist

Claire Bridge is a finalist in the 2024 Darebin Art Prize.

The Darebin Art Prize is an acquisitive prize of $10,000 awarded to the winner.

A People's Choice Prize of $1000 is also awarded and depends on your votes.

Finalists Exhibition
10 Jan 24 - 23 Mar 24
Bundoora Homestead Arts Centre 
7 Prospect Hill Dr, Bundoora 3083 

image: Claire Bridge, We must risk new shapes, 2023, hand-built, glazed stoneware ceramic, 37.8cm x 31cm x 26.5cm, showing now in the Darebin Art Prize 2024

 Enquiries

We must risk new shapes draws its title from Sophie Strand’s eponymous essay and offers a speculative new god for these times of ecological crisis and upheaval.

The sculpture’s silhouette suggests a seated buddha, referencing the dissolution of a siloed self. The work challenges notions of individualism and the cultural and ecological crises of anthropocentric capitalism. 

We must risk new shapes decenters the human, proposing a polyamorous communion of oceanic beings and hybrid lichenised fusions. The three segments of the base - body and head - come together in a communal multifaceted whole. It presents its own complex, diverse, and interconnected ecosystem. We must risk new shapes imagines an alternative collaborative vision for our shared futures. ~ Claire Bridge

OLSEN GALLERY ~ 30 Year Celebration

30 YEAR CELEBRATION  
OLSEN GALLERY

19 December 2023 - 30 January 2024

OLSEN GALLERY AND OLSEN ANNEXE 

View Exhibition

To enquire about available works
Email:info@olsengallery.com 
Call: (02)9327 3922

images above: Claire Bridge, Thousand Petal Lotus, s2022, glazed stoneware ceramic, 14 x 26 x 25 cm, Photos by Simon Strong

Claire Bridge, Poet on the Moon

Not only are her paintings going to the Moon, a poem by Claire Bridge has also been selected to be sent to the Moon for posterity.

Published in January of 2023, The Polaris Trilogy has been compiled as a gift to the Moon by its three editors: Joyce Brinkman, Dr. Joe Heithaus, and Jessica Reed. This anthology will be available to those who visit the Moon for millions of years to come. It will arrive on a NASA flight and become part of the Lunar Codex at the Moon’s South Pole. Adjunct Professor Jessica Reed of Butler University (Indianapolis, Indiana), who teaches a course in “Physics and the Arts,” selected Bridge’s work for the anthology.

Three distinct sections present poetry from every continent on Earth in the native languages of Earth’s poets. Each section’s poems are inspired by that section’s set of three words that reflect the Earth’s history and habitats while they reveal elemens of Earth’s culture and life forms.

Bridge’s poem ‘Safe Words’ includes the themes of Ice, Wind and Fire and contemplates the nature of violence and power.

The Polaris Trilogy: Poems for the Moon Paperback

published January 23, 2023 ,by Brick Street Poetry Inc. (Author), Joyce Brinkman (Editor), Jessica Reed (Editor), Dr. Joe Heithaus (Editor) and is available on Amazon.

Read more about the Lunar Codex here

Read some of Claire Bridge’s poetry here

CHIMERA, solo exhibition by Claire Bridge, Nov 2022

CHIMERA, solo exhibition by Claire Bridge

opens November 17, 2-5pm

82A Wellington St Collingwood, VIC

visit ACAE Gallery for more information

Claire Bridge Melbourne Now 2023 Artist

Claire Bridge announced as participating artist in Melbourne Now 2023.

Celebrating new and ambitious local art and design, Melbourne Now will cross a range of contemporary disciplines including fashion and jewellery, painting, sculpture, architecture, ceramics, video, performance, printmaking and publishing.

Bold in scale, Melbourne Now will be displayed throughout all levels of The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, including permanent collection galleries, showcasing new works and commissions by emerging, mid-career and senior practitioners as well as local collectives.

The inaugural 2013 exhibition was an unprecedented survey of some of the most exciting local contemporary practitioners. Ten years on, Melbourne Now 2023 will again highlight the latest art, architecture, design, and cultural practice shaping Melbourne.

The exhibition will also mark the second edition of the hugely popular ‘Design Wall’ showcasing work by dozens of the city’s most innovative design practitioners, as well as popular NGV Kids interactive projects.

images above: Melbourne Now 2023 artists and designers at the announcement event on 18 October. Melbourne Now 2023 will open on 24 March 2023 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia. Photos: Eugene Hyland 

Alter State - Claire Bridge and Chelle Destefano Arts Centre Melbourne

Alter State - Claire Bridge and Chelle Destefano Arts Centre Melbourne

Arts Centre Melbourne and Arts Access Victoria present

CheckPoint at Alter State

Arts Centre Melbourne

WED 5th October

12pm – 1pm

In conversation with the artists, discover this collaboration of over seventy Deaf and hearing allies in which strategies of truth-telling, provocation and self-representation challenge audist colonisation of Deaf lives, bodies, language and knowledges.

We call it 'Trouble Making' :)

Auslan / English Interpreters

View the Talk here

What I Wish I'd Told You at ArtSpace at Realm in Ringwood, 1st Oct - 20th Nov, 2022

What I Wish I'd Told You is supported by the West Space/FCAC Commission 2022
and
Australia Council for the Arts
Creative Victoria
Regional Arts Victoria
City of Melbourne Arts Grants
Maroondah Arts and Culture Grant
Hyphen-Wodonga Commission
The Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Melbourne

What I Wish I'd Told You, ArtSpace Realm, 1st Oct - Nov 20th

Auslan storytellers affirm Deaf experiences and diverse, complex identities, in an immersive exhibition of large-scale video projections, which bring visitors into a Deaf world. In this collaboration of over seventy Deaf and hearing allies, empowered Deaf storytellers draw on decolonising strategies of truth-telling, provocation, and self-representation, to challenge audist colonisation of Deaf lives, bodies, language and knowledges.

“In Auslan, we pass stories from hand to hand. Our stories cannot be put on a page, detached from us. When we tell stories through sign language, our whole body, mind, emotion, and inner self is also expressed. Our signed stories carry culture. They are a site of resistance and pride.” – Chelle Destefano.

Shared with humour, wit, courage, and care, What I Wish I’d Told You transforms the Art Space into a Deaf space and Deaf Cultural experience.

What I Wish I’d Told You is supported by the Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Melbourne, Australia Council, Creative Victoria, Regional Arts Victoria, City of Melbourne, the West Space/ Footscray Community Arts Commission, Hyphen Wodonga Commission and the Maroondah Arts and Culture Grant.

Printed catalogue available. Request a catalogue

image: Claire Bridge and Chelle Destefano, Lost, with Ida Rogers, in What I Wish I’d Told You, 2022, installation view, ArtSpace at Realm

Deaf Futures, National Week of Deaf People, Panel Discussion, Catherine Dunn, Karthik Vijayanandam, Chelle Destefano, and Becky Rose-Mundy

Deaf Futures with Catherine Dunn, Karthik Vijayanandam, Chelle Destefano, and Becky Rose-Mundy

About this event

Join us for a lively and important discussion of Deaf Futures with Catherine Dunn, Karthik Vijayanandam, Chelle Destefano, and Becky Rose-Mundy as we celebrate National Week of Deaf People.

Together we explore the following questions.

• What are Deaf Futures?

• What can we imagine?

• How can we get there together?

Presented by Claire Bridge and Chelle Destefano as part of What I Wish I'd Told You exhibition events.
This Zoom panel discussion will be followed by a Q and A.
This event will be Auslan /English Interpreted

What I Wish I'd Told You at ArtSpace at Realm, 1 Oct - 20 Nov
and touring to Hyphen-Wodonga til 4 D4c, 2022

What I Wish I'd Told You is supported by
the West Space/FCAC Commission 2022
and Australia Council for the Arts
Creative Victoria
Regional Arts Victoria
City of Melbourne Arts Grants
Maroondah Arts and Culture Grant
Hyphen-Wodonga Commission
The Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Melbourne

Sept 17, What I Wish I’d Told You – Deaf Club and Live performance, opening event

Empowered Deaf performers Chelle Destefano and Karthik Vijayanandam celebrate Deaf culture through live performances of Deaf storytelling in Auslan (Australian Sign Language). Storytelling is a strong aspect of Deaf culture and identity. These short cameo performances will touch on topics such as audism and Deaf pride as well as highlighting the richness of Auslan. 

Presented within the space of What I Wish I'd Told You, an exhibition by Claire Bridge and Chelle Destefano, audiences can meet the artists and experience Deaf culture firsthand. In the lead-up to National Week of Deaf People, enter a Deaf world and gain an insight into Deaf club surrounded by the immersive large scale projections of the What I Wish I'd Told You exhibition of Auslan video stories. Deaf and hearing audiences will have a chance to mingle, meet and have conversations courtesy of roaming Auslan interpreters. 

 This event will be Auslan-English interpreted.  
 
All welcome.

https://www.hyphenwodonga.com.au/Whats-On/ArtMID/10010/ArticleID/12133

Venue information

Hyphen-Wodonga Library Gallery
126 Hovell St, Wodonga

Saturday, 17 Sep 2022 01:00 - 2:30pm

02 6022 9330 or hyphen@wodonga.vic.gov.au

What I Wish I’d Told You, Tours to Hyphen-Wodonga, 17 Sept - 4 Dec

What I Wish I’d Told You, by Claire Bridge and Chelle Destefano, affirms Deaf voices, identity and culture. Immersive, largescale video projections transform Hyphen’s Playspace Gallery into a Deaf space - a place of belonging and affirmation of sign language, culture and Deafhood.  

The artwork grew from an open invitation from Bridge and Destefano to the Deaf community to respond to the prompt: What is it that you wish you had said, or could say now?  

Deaf people were invited to respond in video stories told in Auslan, with complete agency, in whichever way and to whoever they wanted.  

The artists received a remarkable response and have collaborated with these storytellers to create a valuable living archive of Deaf Cultural experience, Australian sign language, Deaf artistry and creativity. 

What I Wish I Told You brings together Deaf people from diverse backgrounds to celebrate identity, culture, and pride. It creates a sense of safety among Deaf, sharing important stories of oppression, audism and compassion. 

“What I Wish I Told You aims to bring positive change for the Deaf community."  - Chelle Destefano 

“What I Wish I Told You, celebrates Deaf people, Deaf culture and Auslan, centering complex and diverse Deaf identities, Deaf voices and Deaf agency. It creates a bridge between Deaf and hearing worlds, with provocative and intimate insight into Deaf experience as told by Deaf people.” - Claire Bridge 

Visit Hyphen https://www.hyphenwodonga.com.au/Exhibitions/Archive/what-i-wish-id-told-you

This catalogue was developed for the touring exhibition by Footscray Community Arts. Following the exhibition at Hyphen, it will be on exhibition at Realm Artspace in Ringwood in October.

What I Wish I’d Told You is a touring exhibition which premiered at Footscray Community Arts.

What I Wish I’d Told You, by Claire Bridge and Chelle Destefano, is proudly supported by: