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Saturday 4 January 2014

Opening the box: postscript

Our 2013 exhibition title Opening the box at four point gallery in Newcastle's west end- was a first for our group and a success for the art community who fostered it.

















The idea of " opening up" the Pandora Groups conceptual box (pardon the pun here) is symbolic of an ongoing interest in opening up new dialogue and to highlight the extraordinary artwork by women artists with similar concerns both within our region and further afield. We may to return to this concept of invitational exhibition in the future.


We would like to formally thank the artists who participated in this exhibition and the gallery staff for their assistance and support. The staff at four point gallery (also all women) are emerging curators - Kelly Barlin, Kelsey Fletcher, Vicki Gerritsen and Kate Wilson. 

We would also like to acknowledge Renew Newcastle staff for supporting their initiative and Sarah Johnson curator at Newcastle Art Gallery for her well researched and informative speech at the opening event.
Opening the box was an impromptu invitational exhibition of women artists with similar sensibilities curated by Linda Swinfield.
The individual artists within the Pandora Group were invited to ask other women artists to exhibit.
 

By "opening the box" we opened up our enquiry into conceptual and abstract aesthetics that stretches over a 6 year history as a group to other artists.
As women artists we have continued to investigate and to question the traditions of abstraction born out of mid-20th century art.
 
 
The 6 artists invited to exhibit were:

Una Rey is a painter, free-lance arts-writer and academic based in Newcastle. Rey Lectures in Art Theory at The University of Newcastle.

Carla Feltham is an emerging photo media artist and curator based in Newcastle. She currently works at Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery.

Joy Longworth, is a Newcastle based artist who works with wood and found objects and she is now returning to exhibiting after re-establishing her studio. She is represented in the Newcastle Art Gallery collection.

















Kiera O’Toole is based on the NSW Central Coast; she grew up and studied Fine Art in Ireland at the Dublin Institute of Technology and holds a Masters of Philosophy in Fine Art in Newcastle University, 2013.
 
Caroline Hale is a ceramic artist whose practice spans 30 years. She has exhibited locally and globally, resides in Lake Macquarie and she works at The University of Newcastle.

















Melanie Lazarow is an emerging Melbourne based artist working in two dimensional media. She is currently enrolled in a Masters of Contemporary Art at Victorian College of the Arts.