Art matters

Some beautiful work on display last night at Kick Gallery in Northcote, part of the opening night of Northern Exposure 2007. Now in its third year, the event sees the series of galleries and artist-run-initiatives clustered on High Street host their opening nights simultaneously, resulting in throngs of people swarming from gallery to gallery along the street; a collective stroking of chins and tilting of heads and expressing of opinions.

At Kick, artists had been asked to work on two pre-supplied canvases, each approximately 15cm x 15cm in size, with the resulting pieces forming the entire exhibition. From dreamlike landscapes to vivid photographic portraits, richly textured oils to playful cartoons, each of the 14 artists responded in their own way to the brief, resulting in often striking work.

Inspired work was also on display at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, such as that on display upstairs in Studio 18, exploring the poignancy of death and the commercial aspects of the media culture which exploits it; as well as The Great Alone, Starlie Geikie's vivid exploration of the interface between masculine art and feminine craft, using space and colour to great effect in Studio 12; and in the main gallery downstairs, A Storm Machine, an exhibition by Adelaide artist Matthew Bradley, exploring the beauty of destruction and a visitation by an alien, mechanoid culture (pictured).

I ended my busy Friday night at Dantes, listening to poetry and spoken word, at the launch of the latest edition of Voiceworks magazine (a publication dedicated to supporting the work of artists and writers under 25. If you fit into their demographic, perhaps you'd like to consider submitting to the next issue, Third Party) before drifting home to drink wine and cry while watching Brokeback Mountain for the umpeenth time...