EXHIBITIONS

(RE)BORROWING ARROWS WITH THATCHED BOATS

9 June - 24 June 2023
Moores Building Contemporary Art Space, 46 Henry Street, Fremantle WA

Official Opening Event Fri 9 June, 6pm
Exhibition runs 10 - 24 June 2023
Artist Talk Sat 17 June, 1.30pm


Artists: Desmond Mah (Curator), Patricia Amorim, Shanti Gelmi, Deborah Worthy-Collins and Tami Xiang

The exhibition ‘(Re)Borrowing Arrows with Thatched Boats’ centres around the Chinese idiom or chengyu "草船借箭". This chengyu was coined from a military strategy developed by Zhuge Liang during the Three Kingdoms Period in China. The strategy involved using decoy boats filled with straw to trick the enemy into wasting their arrows, which were later retrieved and used to launch a successful attack.
Chengyu are idiomatic expressions in the Chinese language that encapsulate cultural, historical, and philosophical concepts in a concise and memorable way. They have been used in literature, poetry, and everyday conversation for centuries. However, despite the presence of Chinese Diaspora in Western Australia, this aspect of Chinese culture is not visible to the broader public.
Patricia Amorim, Shanti Gelmi, Desmond Mah, Deborah Worthy-Collins and Tami Xiang will use 草船借箭 as a catalyst to navigate their worlds, and process their personal histories, experiences and memories. These Boorloo-based artists will produce their body of works collectively as a poetic metaphor.

Image Credit: illustration from Selected Pictorial Stories From The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, 1989

TRACING ABSENCE

14 April -3 May 2023
Kent Street Gallery - Victoria Park Centre for the Arts

Tracing Absence brings together a multidisciplinary, and close group of ECU alumni and friends, interpreting the themes of absence, loss, and the ways in which absence is made present, through their own personal experiences and their diverse practices and approaches to material.

Inherent to memory, is forgetting: loss and absence. We began to think about the ways in which absences influence how we perceive ourselves (altering our sense of self), how we interact with the world (altering our sense of space), and how we perceive and connect to the past and the future (altering our sense of time).

The key conceptual foundation underpinning the work in this show is the conflict between our inability to articulate and materialise what is not there, and our desire to engage with absences on a material level.

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Review by SeeSaw Magazine

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HERENOW|23: IN-BETWEEN-NESS

1 February - 30 March 2023
ECU Galleries, Spectrum Project Space,
Mount Lawley WA 6050

A curated exhibition featuring 10 culturally diverse artists responding to their experiences of living in a multicultural, yet tension filled, contemporary Western Australia. These artists, who collectively draw on lived experiences spanning five continents, have explored their relationship between land and culture through the materialities of paint, print, sculpture, performance, installation, video and photography.

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This exhibition has been made possible through funding provided by the ‘Department of Local Government Sport and Cultural Industries’ grant, as well as support by ‘ECU Galleries’.

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Artists:

Patricia Amorim, Kelsey Ashe, Yvette Dunn-Moses, Marcia Espinosa, Shanti Gelmi, Sue Leeming, Desmond Mah, Leonie Ngahuia Mansbridge, Matthew McAlpine and Lea Taylor.

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Curator: Dr Harrison See

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Review by SeeSaw Magazine

EXTRICATE

MUNDARING ARTS CENTRE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

1 July - 12 September 2022

Through transformative processes, this group of emerging artists take the printmakers craft beyond tradition. While maintaining the physical presence of the artist's hand in the work, the artists reveal outcomes using non-traditional materials, scale and form, following chance revelations and surprising serendipities into an expanded practice.

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Artists: Jane Button, Shanti Gelmi, Louise Grimshaw, Isaac Huggins, Eveline Ruys and Kristy Scaddan.

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Image: The Money Trap, Louise Grimshaw, 2022.

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Review by SeeSaw Magazine

HERENOW22: OUTSIDE IN

2 February - 3 March 2022
Spectrum Project Space, Edith Cowan University Galleries, Mount Lawley, Western Australia.

HERENOW22: Outside In, curated by Isaac Huggins, will investigate local artists' use of recycled, repurposed, and discarded materials, surfaces, and mediums. This exhibition aims to raise awareness about sustainability and the environmental impact of consumerism in today’s society and subvert the idea of the traditional 'white wall' gallery model.

There is a distinctive difference in attitude between what is done outside, what is done inside. By providing a collaborative space for both contemporary and public art to co-exist in the same setting, Isaac asks what better way to challenge this than to bring the OUTSIDE IN? 

Featuring artists: Andy Quilty, Ariel Katzir, Conor Macgrath, Jack Richards, Jordan Botello, Luke O'Donohoe, Rob Douglas, Shanti Gelmi and Straker

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Review by SeeSaw Magazine

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Image: Idle Hands, Luke O'Dononoe,  2021

SHADOWED

COOL CHANGE CONTEMPORARY, BON MARCHE ARCADE, BARRACK STREET, PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

1 - 23 October 2021

Shadow is used as a metaphor for invisible societal, psychological and environmental forces by giving them an impermanent material expression through abstraction, incorporating movement of lighting to create dynamic shadow play on the ceiling and walls in an immersive sculptural installation. I also celebrate my cultural heritage by creating a series of laser cut drawings in colours synonymous with Indian culture.

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This work was developed during my residency at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and has been supported by a grant from the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries.

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Further information:

https://coolchange.net.au/2021/09/25/g2-shanti-gelmi-shadowed/

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Photograph by Royce Gelmi.

FINE ART AT HALE INVITATIONAL

22 July - 24 July 2022

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https://www.fineartathale.org/artists/

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Photograph by Royce Gelmi.

ALL THAT REMAINS

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ELLENBROOK ARTS, 34 MAIN STREET, ELLENBROOK, WA

4 June - 3 July 2021

Curated by Robyn Bernadt, All That Remains is a contemporary exhibition exploring the theme of memory in a variety of mediums and materials from a group of emerging and established artists, all current students or alumni of Edith Cowan University.

Featuring works by: Robyn Bernadt, Olivia Colja, Chris De Sira, Shanti Gelmi, Louise Grimshaw, Kristy Scaddan, Cim Sears, Laura Sikes, Deborah Worthy Collins and Jane Ziemons.

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Photograph by Laura Sikes.

REMIDA PERTH RESIDENCY

July 2021

This residency will be used to engage with REmida's materials, repurposing waste and developing a more sustainable approach to my work.