ARTIST TALK: CAROLINA FURQUE & STEPHEN EASTAUGH
Event description
Join us at the Geraldton Regional Art Gallery with exhibiting Artists Carolina Furque and Stephen Eastaugh to gain some unique insights into REMOTELYCLOSE
About REMOTLEYCLOSE
REMOTLEYCLOSE is about the happiness and sorrow of migrating, leaving home and reinvention elsewhere. The artists contemplate both ‘home and away.’ Is ‘home’ simply made by adding together time + safety + familiarity as the geographer Yi Fu Tuan tells us? The question of how people turn a foreign space into a known place or a home is embedded into most of Furque and Eastaugh’s work.
Across the world borders and migration are currently heated topics and the fascination or fear of the exotic is constant. Questions like - “how porous are borders?” “who goes where and why?” “How do we deal with a planet full of over eight billion humans?” and “where on earth is home?” These and many more complex geopolitical aspects of travel are embedded in the photographs, films and mixed media work to be presented. REMOTELYCLOSE will unpack the many views of Furque and Eastaugh who have extensive travel experiences across all continents and an ongoing curiosity about how we all locate ourselves.
An array of mixed media work, B/W photographs and works on paper shape the exhibition plus the presentation of short digital films depicting work created on the road in a dozen formal art residency programs. These films show contrasting locations, the diverse working methods and wide-ranging artistic outcomes.
Travel is a universal topic adored by most Australians and REMOTELYCLOSE reinforces both the travails and treasures of human movement. This is a travelling show that visually wanders where we all are.
ABOUT THE ARISTS
Photo of Carolina Furque and Stephen Eastaugh provided by artists
CAROLINA FURQUE is an Argentinean born, Australian based self-taught photographer who has exhibited in Argentina, Chile, France, Netherlands, Cambodia, Thailand and Australia. Since 2000 the artist has participated in numerous art residencies across four continents. Investigating, sharing and connecting with communities is a basic element of her practice. Work has been created in far flung locations about diverse topics and characters. Carolina has documented Argentinean street sex workers, circuses in Argentina, Chile and France, tropical bus trips with third gender Fijians and Greenlandic landscapes. Her ongoing methodology involves unwrapping topics as photo-essays while meeting and connecting with people, stories and situations. Carolina's work is incorporated into the collections of the National Library of France, Polaroid, the OSDE Foundation, the Casa Fader Provincial Museum and numerous private collections. Learning English and adjusting to life in Australia has been a recent focus as have the topics of migration, location, and movement.
STEPHEN EASTAUGH had two fathers, both where sailors and both were the cause or inspiration for his ongoing wanderlust. Travel, geography and dis/location have continuously fed his practice which has often been characterized by overseas research and the creation of new mixed media work in response to extensive travels. The artist has undertaken over thirty art residencies world-wide, travelled to over 100 countries and while on the road has managed to present over 100 solo exhibitions in a wide range of venues. Studios have been set up on a Russian icebreaker at the North Pole, in a bus in the Sahara desert and in a one star hotel in Mongolia. On three occasions he has been awarded the Australian Antarctic Art Fellowship which enabled him in 2009 to be the first contemporary artist to spend a winter in Antarctica. His mixed media work can be found in public collections in Australia and USA.
Access: The Gallery has two floors with a disability toilet on the Ground Floor and the First Floor accessible via a lift.
Please note that photographs and footage will be taken throughout the event. These will be used by the Gallery for publicity and reporting in our publications, on our website and in social media. Young people aged under 18 years must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.