Moonah Arts Centre: Plugholes and other paintings

Image: Mande Bijelic, San Francisco, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 66cm x 77cm

Opening at Moonah Arts Centre (MAC) on 6pm Thursday 27 October, Mande Bijelic’s Plugholes and Other Paintings is testimony to Bijelic’s ability to identify visual merit in the everyday.

Overlooked by most, the common place is reframed by Bijelic, and presented to us as scenes and objects of great intrigue.

The exhibition spans 20 years of Bijelic’s practice, combining a retrospective selection of paintings with new works from her series of Plughole paintings. In this series, bathtub plugholes from around the world are lovingly rendered in paint; each an entry point to a global network of connectivity though a vast web of unseen plumbing.

Bijelic’s Plughole paintings present the bath plughole as a universal object, one which confronts us as we shower and bathe, acting as an equalizing and unadorned experience. Text plays an important role in Bijelic’s compositions, and each painting is labelled with the name of the town or city where that particular plughole is located. The plughole images originate as photographs gathered internationally by friends, contacts or even by un-introduced requests, each with its own unique story.

Mande Bijelic is an adaptable artist. Due to an injury to her left hand, some of the exhibited works have been painted by Mande using her non-dominant right hand.

Bijelic’s paintings are held in public collections by TMAG, ART BANK, The SCHICK Collection USA, and in private collections in Europe, New Zealand and Australia. She was a finalist for the Glover Prize and is also a published poet.

Making use of bold colours, symmetry and repetition, Mande Bijelic’s Plugholes and Other Paintings transform the seemingly ordinary into visually powerful experiences.

Mande Bijelic’s Plugholes and Other Paintings in on exhibition at MAC from 28 October to 19 November 2016. All are welcome to the free exhibition opening event at 6pm on Thursday 27 October.

ESSENTIAL INFORMATION:

 Opening 6pm Thurs 27 Oct. Free event, all welcome
 Exhibition runs from 28 Oct – 19 Nov 2016
 Moonah Arts Centre, 23-27 Albert Road, Moonah
 Exhibition open from 10am-5pm Tuesday – Friday and 11am-3pm Saturdays
 Entry to the exhibition is free
Sean Kelly