Tony Twigg

26 April - 31 May      The Absent 5th

This work considers the proposition of playing a work of art as one might play a musical instrument.

In this case the work of art is The absent 5th, by Tony Twigg. A collection of 14 puppet-like wooden forms, similar but not identical, which found a resolution in the form that is exhibited here. 

The proposition of playing this collection of forms called for then to be shuffled, evoking the process of a card game. They became a hand from where elements could be drawn and played. 

Each arrangement adopted by this puppet-like musical instrument that sounds like a hand of cards was recorded in a photograph. A sequence repeated many times that progressed from the given form, through a shuffling that was played out to a remaining single element or nothing. 

Like a single blazing note on a saxophone or a collection of rhythms on a kalimba these hands could be assembled visually into compositions and rendered as a score. For example-

The necessary photographs, 25 in all were printed out and the composition assembled, but would the result be a work of art or would it be a rendition of a work of art? Like the voice of the violin, is this the voice of The absent 5th?

Tony Twigg

Jualian Twigg, Tony Twigg, A Twigg

13 March - 24 March      TWIGG X 3
Link to artist's website

Julian Twigg. Sailing Rose Bay.

Decades ago there was an invitation to an art exhibition in my letter box, paintings of Sydney Harbor by Julian Twig at the James Harvey Galley, I think, somewhere near Bronte. It was a surprise, partly because I’d been thinking of myself, Tony Twigg as the only Twigg in Australian art.

Years went by, swapping invitations to exhibitions with Julian until I emailed him with the unlikely news that I had found another Twigg in Australian art, a marine artist whose picture of Sydney Harbor had turned up at Davidsons Auction House in Annandale.

Almost nothing is known of A. Twigg beyond a small collection of pictures that over lay his sailing boats on Sydney Harbour with a startling schematic understanding of reality. In this his work is not unlike Julian Twigg’s, but unlike Julian, A. Twigg painted portraits of boats. A profession described by an advertisement in the Business Cards column on page 1 of the Sydney Morning Herald, 10 November 1876, “Balmain Regatta – Owners of racing boats wishing to have a PAINTING of their boat with a view of the regatta can have them done on application to A. Twigg, Marine Artist No. 10 Erskine St.”   The photocopies here are of the 2 works by A. Twigg sold through Davidsons Auction House. I found another sold by the Bridget McDonnell Gallery in Melbourne. There is a painting of the Ballina Ferry in the collection of the Mitchell Library and one other, The Cimba & pilot boat through Sydney Heads, 5 known paintings in total survive.

A. Twigg, Ballina Ferry [mid to late 1800s]

The oil painting here is of boats sailing past Rose Bay by Julian Twigg. Australian Galleries who represent Julian describes him as a “Painter, ceramicist and printmaker (who) completed a Diploma of Visual Art at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2000. His impasto paintings of maritime scenes are constructed from simplified forms and broad colour, emphasising the emotive aspects and changing temperaments of Port Philip Bay. Twigg’s works have been exhibited in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. He was awarded the ANL Maritime Prize in 2007 and the Mayor’s Prize Waverley Art Prize, in 2010. His work is held in several regional and tertiary collections.”

My own work, A Sail, by Tony Twigg is from a suite of works made in 1980 as I considered offering my life to the becoming of an artist. So long ago now that memories of how and why crumble when pause is taken to recall them. But if the poetry of a sail is given, it is also shared, coincidently through a name, blown however fleetingly through Australian Art by the unrelated artists, Twigg.

-Tony Twigg

Twigg X3: A Sail by Tony Twigg, photocopied images of paintings of ferry and paddle steamer by A. Twigg, Sailing Rose Bay by Julian Twigg.

SLOT@Macquarie University Art Gallery | Tony Twigg

Tony Twigg. Ubu's Chair 1986.

A Macquarie University Art Gallery exhibition in collaboration with Brenda Colahan Fine Art from 9 March-10 May. 

To be opened by Dr Andrew Simpson, Honorary Fellow, Department of Ancient History, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University on Wednesday 14 March at 6pm.

Abstraction 111, opening at the Macquarie University Art Gallery will feature a puppet installation Ubu’s chair by Tony Twigg, first exhibited at Performance Space in 1986. The installation was purchased in entirety by James Baker and included in the opening exhibition of his Museum of Modern Art, Brisbane, Contemporary art in Australia, a review in 1987. Later the work was sold to Peter Bohem who has donated it to the collection of the Maquarie University Art Gallery.

Curators Rhonda Davis and Kate Hargraves 

Artists James Doolin, Geoffrey de Groen, Dale Hickey, Christopher Hodges, Robert Jacks, Alun Leach-Jones, Ildiko Kovacs, Rocket Mattler, Harald Noritis, Ti Parks, Robert Rooney, Jenny Sages, Rollin Schlicht, Joseph Szabo, George Ward Tjungurrayi, Tony Twigg, Craig Waddell and John A White. 


Below is a snippet of the review written by Terence Maloon when Ubu's Chair was first shown at Art Space 

The Sydney Morning Herald 14th July 1986. Arts and Entertainment Review by Terence Maloon.

Tony Twigg

17 September - 14 October      Paint?

   

Tony Twigg. Two by two (left), Two (right). 2017. Enamel paint on wood.

 

The application of paint is a question. 
As works are made they accumulate a patina of corrected errors, revised decisions, and compromises of craftsmanship that become a history of process. In theory at least it is a truth of the work.

 

When a work is “re-made” from a previous work this is even more pronounced. An echo of the past lingers, shattered on the surface of the new. Truth again shimmers as a veil of history tempering a view of the new.

 

Paint, tracing like a blind man's finger reveals the object washed of its romantisised past. The truth of the fact revealed is an object and nothing more.  Consider the object in paint, balance it with tone, embellish it with color, make it beautiful and finish it with paint.

Two. 2017.

Beauty, is it truth? Could beauty conceal truth? Could there be truth either side of the paint? Would truth be the position between what was and what could be? And if it were, would it be painted? 

 

 

-Tony Twigg

 

 

 

Two by two. 2017

 

 

 

 

 

Charles Cooper & Pia Larsen

6 November - 10 December      Flag Wavering

 

Pia Larsen and Charles Cooper have assembled an exhibition of nine Sydney artists meditating on the national symbol of the U.S.A and what underlies the American Project at the moment of that country’s cyclic rebirth, the Presidential election. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pia Larsen. Welcome & Last Drinks.  

Paper, bottles, gouache, digital prints, 

watercolour & ink. Dimensions variable

Below: Charles Cooper. Old Glory. Watercolour 

on paper. 18 x 26cm

Assemblage of Flag Wavering.

  

Charles Cooper. Old Glory. Watercolour on paper. 18 x 26cm 

 

Pia Larsen. Welcome & Last Drinks. Paper, bottles, gouache, digital prints, watercolour & ink. Dimensions variable

Margaret Roberts. 50 black stars and half a Strzeminski painting. Tulle + floor tape. 75 x 35cm

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicole Ellis 

Faded and Down Home 1 & 2

Cotton on wood

loose cotton pieces. 

241cm x 2.5cm

 

Left: Frank Littler. Flags of perpetual war 1, 2 & 3. Oil paint on canvas paper. 30 x 42cm & 28 x 36cm.  Right: Lynne Eastaway. Fold. Acrylic paint on Belgian linen. 13 x 18 x 8cm.

Wendy Murray. GIANTS & DODGERS (& I’m not talking sport). Acrylic monoprint (serigraph) from letterpress positive set at Hamilton Ink Spot. 76 x 51cm/ installation variable

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony Twigg. Stars & Stripes. 

 Enamel paint on timber construction

found objects. 195 x 31 x 12cm

 

 

Maryanne Coutts. Black News/White News: Stars & Stripes. Watercolour + gouache on paper. 31 x 31cm.  

Pia Larsen's bottles on the lower right