Thursday, March 18, 2010


Two wonderful new exhibitions just opened at Damien Minton Gallery in Redfern: Di Holdsworth's Fly Me to the Moon and Daniel Wallace's Enquire Within. Both shows continue until April 3rd and are so funny and clever, the work so beautifully crafted that you really should get along to see this exhibition.

Di Holdsworth's found object assemblages are minutely detailed, fully functioning music boxes complete with little handles to animate the characters within. There is a Superman glove puppet, a racetrack with galloping horses, ballerinas which pirhouette and the clown (above) learing suggestively toward his paramour, the cupie doll, who looks just a little concerned.

Daniel Wallace has constructed a large temple within the gallery space which on opening night provided a wonderful sanctuary for all the kids to chill out, lounging around with their game consoles and leaving the adults to view the art. Daniel is a master of deception. His finely crafted timber sculptures play around with metaphor and perspective and cleverly incorporate branches and twigs to convey everyday domestic objects transformed into fascinating objet d'art.

Just two doors away in Great Buckingham street, at Smith and Hall Gallery, I happened upon another exhibition the same night: Matt Dive Gold, various artists portraying the gorgeous Matthew Mitcham. Matthew is one of the very few international Olympic stars to have openly declared themselves as gay, and having won gold at Beijing he has consequently become a Sydney Gay Icon, a role he appears to embrace with both pride and humility.

I enjoyed William Yang's photographs very much, with his diary notes scrawled across the surface of the image. Unfortunately this exhibition, which included such greats as Tom Bianchi(USA), Tracey Moffat(Aust) and rising star Craig Ruddy(Aust), came down today. But keep an eye on this Gallery as they are clearly carving out a distinct niche in Sydney's exhibition scene.

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