“Blaze is the best way to start a busy year that I can think of.” So says Richard Blackwell, one of the artists picked to exhibit in Blaze#4.
Blaze , presented by Canberra Contemporary Art Space, is an annual exhibition of emerging local visual artists. This week, CCAS director David Broker dodged a steady stream of phone calls to chat with me about the fourth incarnation of the show.
When David came to CCAS, it was with an enthusiasm to merge its focus on high-quality contemporary art with active support for up-and-coming young artists. “I feel strongly about supporting local emerging artists because the arts is a scary business. It can take a long time to break into. You do have to sacrifice quite a lot and, if you are serious, you have to hang in there. The more support we can offer, the better.”
To this end, Blaze exhibitions compliment CCAS’s strong Emerging Artists in Residence Program. CCAS offers six six-month residencies that aim to provide professional, real-life experience for young artists. For emerging artists in the ACT, Blaze has become an important calendar event, forecasting the direction of contemporary art in Canberra. 2009 CCAS artist-in-residence Skylen Dall explains that: “Blaze is an exciting show, with a huge variety of interesting contemporary work. I think Canberra has so many talented and energetic artists and it’s great to be able to exhibit as part of this group.”
Curated by David, alongside Serge Bodulovich and Yolande Norris, this is the first year that Blaze has not exclusively exhibited work by CCAS artists-in-residence. Blaze#4 includes five additional Canberran artists, making this show the biggest yet. The artists are: Adam Veikkanen, Benjamin Forster, Erica Hurrell, Jacqueline Bradley, Rachael Freeman, Richard Blackwell, Robbie Karmel, Sarah Kaur, Skylen Dall, Tj Phillipson and Tye McBride.
Selecting the artists for a show of this quality and focus is a decision made gradually over a year of monitoring a dense and dynamic jungle of art. David laughs to himself at the idea. “We ask ‘what have we seen this year in Canberra that we can remember?’ We try to get to as much as we possibly can.” In the case of Blaze#4 David notes, with some excitement, that a theme has emerged for the show, quite by accident. “We haven’t actively looked for work to fit a theme. What you do with Blaze is select works, then look if something does emerge. ...Blaze#4 seems to examine works that distort perspectives whether they be psychological or to do with physical perception.”
Art in Canberra thrives with the support of a strong network of galleries and institutions. “Canberra has a really great art scene for a city of its size. It is hard for me to distinguish that much difference between Canberra and, say, Brisbane, which has a much larger population.” However, its development is challenged by the popular assumption that nothing really goes on here. Nevertheless, David believes this is why shows like Blaze are important. “If you want to support the development of distinctive localised cultural practice, it’s really important to support the people who are emerging into it.”
Blaze seeks to make the dynamism of ACT’s art culture more visible, something about which TJ Phillipson is particularly enthusiastic: “Blaze is a great showcase for Canberra’s emerging artists and it can hopefully dispel thoughts that Canberra’s art scene is boring.”
There is a tendency for general gallery visitors to favour familiar, established artists. Blaze is an opportunity for nascent artists to be seen – to introduce themselves, their art, and their ideas. These ideas are as dynamic and challenging as one might expect from an eclectic group of young artists.
Adam Veikkanen is curious about how an audience will relate to his work: “I am interested in a lot of things: music for instance is fascinating because people don’t really read an essay on it to like it. They just like it. I guess I would like the art I make to be like that: understandable or graspable. Something that relates to a person, not a theoretician.”
For some, like Richard Blackwell, it can be about creation itself: “I make art because it’s a very straight-forward way of making something. Unlike other practices which are bound by some kind of function or program – someone who makes art can make anything they want.”
Or it can be something simply to enjoy, as TJ Phillipson describes: “I try to be a bit weird and different in my art and I like to think I have a unique perspective on things/life/art that other people will enjoy.”
It is this diversity that has always made Blaze a particularly rewarding exhibition, for both its audiences and its curators. David explains: “my favourite thing about being able to put on a show like Blaze is the opportunity to work with enthusiastic young artists with new ideas, not weighed down by the conventions of the art world. Blaze is about freshness and enthusiasm and what happens here, in Canberra.” As it turns out, quite a lot is happening.
After speaking passionately about the show for the last hour, David looks up at me with a clichéd twiddle of his fingers and twinkle in his eye. “You know, having talked about it, I am really excited for it to happen. It is going to be a great show.” Even as I write this, I am excited.
And, as Benjamin Forster told me: “art should be exciting.”
Blaze#4 opens at CCAS on Friday February 26at 6pm, and continues until April 1.
