Gow Langsford at SC19. Photography by Zan Wimberley. Sydney Contemporary’s sixth edition – the first physical one since 2019 – returns this September with a stellar line-up of over 80 emerging and established galleries from Australia and New Zealand.
The selection of galleries will showcase the best of Australian, Indigenous, and international art, and are a significant drawcard for high profile collectors and those just starting their collections. Artists from over 30 countries will be represented across the fair, including opportunities at AMPLIFY, Performance Contemporary and Kid Contemporary programs that all run concurrently throughout the Fair.
The fair is also home to restaurants, cafes and bespoke bars making it an all-encompassing art and dining experience. Billed as one of the most celebrated events on Australia’s cultural calendar, Sydney Contemporary has firmly established itself as a must-attend art event and the perfect place to discover and collect modern and contemporary art.
Presented at Carriageworks, Australia’s largest multi-arts centre, Sydney Contemporary will run from Thursday, 8 September – Sunday, 11 September 2022. Tickets are now on sale. With so much showcased, T Australia offers a curated selection of 11 artists, both established and emerging, that we’ll be looking out for in the program this year.
WeiZen Ho
As part of Performance Contemporary, a program of experimental and ephemeral work, performance artist WeiZen Ho presents “The Stories from the Body #1”, the first of a performance series that attempts to retrace lineages that have been disrupted by migration from the South Fujian Province of China to Java, Singapore and Malaysia.
Ho devises participatory works that occupy the spaces of uncertainty between performance, ritual and installation and investigate methods of accessing the memory body through a combination of image concept sketching, vocal-bodywork, improvisation techniques and the mimicry of spirit possession.
Atong Atem
Presented by MARS
Atong Atem works primarily with photography and video to explore migrant narratives, postcolonial practices in the African diaspora and identity through portraiture. She will be exhibiting new work at Sydney Contemporary.
Born in Ethiopia, Atong Atem migrated to Australia at a young age and now lives in Melbourne. Atem has exhibited her work across the country, and more recently, she was the first Australian artist to show at Photo Basel 2022. She has also won several prestigious awards and this year was awarded the inaugural La Prairie Art Award.
George Tjungurrayi
Presented by Utopia Art Sydney
Utopia Art Sydney will dedicate their booth to Papunya Tula Artists to mark the 50th anniversary, including work by George Tjungurrayi. Tjungurrayi served his “apprenticeship” as an artist at Papunya in the late 1970s, amongst the senior Pintupi masters like Uta Uta Tjangala, Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi and Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri.
His work is included in many significant Australian and international collections, such as the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, the Groninger Museum, The Netherlands and the Seattle Art Museum, USA.
Vincent Namatjira
Presented by This Is No Fantasy
This Melbourne-based gallery will present a solo exhibition of new paintings by 2020 Archibald Prize winner and Western Aranda artist Vincent Namatjira, reflecting on his Aboriginal heritage and the ongoing impact of Australia’s colonial history. Namatjira’s observational works chart his personal history and his investigatory search for identity. In 2020 Namatjira was the recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) 2020 in honour of his contribution to Indigenous visual arts and was the first Indigenous artist to win the Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, for his portrait of Adam Goodes.
Namatjira will also present his work “The Royal Tour (Diana, Vincent and Charles)” for the AMPLIFY program, an exhibition of large-scale artworks in a diverse range of media.
Jonny Niesche
Presented by 1301SW and STARKWHITE
Jonny Niesche will present his new lightboxes, works reminiscent of his beloved paintings in Voile (also on view), but extending the sensory stimulation viewers are accustomed to. The dialogue between these two pictorial forms will offer a criss-crossing duel of light, material and surface.
Niesche works across an expanded field of painting, sculpture and abstraction, where his vividly coloured work wraps the viewer in total sensory stimulation. His glowing neon tones and soft pastels that flow from a mysterious dark centre are finished with reflective gold rims, mirroring the viewer back to his or her self in a surprising encounter with the artwork.
Zoe Young
Presented by 3:33 Art Projects
Zoe Young will explore the drama of still life in new works presented at Sydney Contemporary. Following her debut show in Los Angeles, Young continues the exploration of drama through the arrangement of objects. Her most recent works are inspired by simultaneously writing autobiographical yet surreal screenplays exploring her early 20s while living in Amsterdam and travelling throughout Europe.
Young has been setting up her easel amidst the gardens and evocative displays of an antique store in New South Wales’ Southern Highlands. The culmination of her exploration is a series of intimate studies blown out of proportion in Young’s quintessentially unapologetic, sculptural yet elaborate approach to painting the everyday.
Charlie Komsic
Presented by The National Art School
Sydney’s National Art School will present the work of eight recently graduated emerging artists including Charlie Komsic. Komsic is a Kil.N.It studio resident who exhibited with Kil.N.It at the Ceramics Triennial in Alice Springs in July 2022. Komsic was a finalist in the Wyndham Art Prize (2022) and will soon be embarking on an internship and residency at the Tapatjatjaka Arts and Craft Centre.
Linde Freya Tangelder
Presented by C. Gallery
Dutch designer Linde Freya Tangelder will present a lit metal wall sculpture, using the time-honoured technique of the lost-wax casting. Within Destroyers/Builders, her studio, Tangelder’s works have a sculptural and architectural character, and balance between contemporary and traditional elements. The studio takes on projects that range from commissions to self-initiated projects, and extend across the realms of both architectural furniture and interior projects.
Tangelder works in close collaboration with valerie_objects, a Belgian design label, and has recently launched a first collection with Cassina.
Nadia Hernández
Presented by STATION
Nadia Hernández’s practice is informed by the political climate of her home country and her diasporic experience as a Venezuelan woman. Through textiles, paper constructions, paintings, music, installations, sculptures, and murals, she negotiates complex narratives intersecting the personal with the political.
Hernandez will also present “It’s time for sancocho!” for the 2022 edition of Kid Contemporary. Occupying a dedicated space at the fair, children of all ages are invited to create an artwork inspired by Hernández’s practice.
Ah Xian
Presented by Vermillion Art
Ah Xian is one of Australia’s most prominent contemporary artists, known for his striking life-sized sculptures made of materials such as cloisonné, fibreglass, bronze, jade and ox-bone inlay and latex. His latest series “Fledging”, using giclee and ink, will be presented by Vermillion Art, the first independent bilingual gallery in Australia focusing on Chinese contemporary art from local talent and Mainland China.
Xian’s pieces are held in notable collections in Australia and overseas, including the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, and the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.
Elisa Jane Carmichael
Presented by Onespace
Quandamooka artist Elisa Jane Carmichael explores her personal connection to country through striking works of scale. Carmichael offers a beautiful collection of cyanotypes on cotton, incorporating elements of her saltwater country: shells, sand, saltwater, and hand-woven elements.
Carmichael’s practice uses both new techniques and materials acknowledging, nurturing, and protecting her culture and the resources of Quandamooka country. Her unique explorations into contemporary Quandamooka weaving and vivacious use of colour and materials are becoming more distinctly recognised by esteemed industry colleagues across the country.
Presented at Carriageworks, Australia’s largest multi-arts centre, Sydney Contemporary will run from Thursday, 8 September – Sunday, 11 September 2022. Tickets are now on sale.
