DEAN CROSS
SKYE JAMIESON
ALEX LUNDY
SASKIA HAALEBOS (FKA SHAGS)
JOSHUA SLEEMAN-TAYLOR

curated by DAVID BROKER

21 February - 03 March 2019 @ CCAS: Gorman Arts Centre

One of the artists in BLAZE THIRTEEN described their participation as “a big deal”. It was always meant to be – an annual exhibition of emerging visual arts practice in the ACT and a ‘best of’ new artists from the previous year, in this instance 2018.

…

BLAZE THIRTEEN is a perfect storm of evolving technical expertise and exciting new ideas born partly of innocence and the desire to make an enduring impression in the vast and competitive milieu of creativity that greets all graduates from the sheltered confines of art school. The question arises for all new artists; how does one make a mark amidst this amorphous mass of creative enterprise where technique alone will not suffice? Perhaps another factor that loosely binds the artists in exhibitions such as BLAZE, where the curators’ role is unusually distanced, is a sense of self. All five artists in BLAZE THIRTEEN, Dean Cross, Skye Jamieson, Alex Lundy, Saskia Haalebos (FKA Shags) and Joshua Sleeman-Taylor have invested something of themselves into their works. While this is not unusual in the arts, the ability to translate self-reflection into form can be the difference between making a lasting impression and none at all.

Excerpt from catalogue essay by David Broker.

Image: Saskia Haalebos (FKA Shags) Threshold (S detail), 2019, digital glyph from the Alphabet for Modernity font, dimensions variable