4A ANNOUNCES ITS 2015 BEIJING STUDIO PROGRAM ARTISTS
4A is pleased to announce the two selected Australian artists for our 2015 Beijing Studio Program.
Robert McDougall (VIC) and Angela Tiatia (NSW) have been selected to embark on a month-long residency at the studios of renowned Chinese-Australian artist Shen Shaomin.
4A’s Beijing Studio Program, assisted by major supporter Vicki Olsson, is now in its fourth year of operation. It provides early career Australian artists with a valuable opportunity to research new projects in rich cultural surroundings, build professional networks and observe the changes taking place in one of the most important cities in Asia.
Robert McDougall and Angela Tiatia were selected by a committee comprising Sue Acret, 4A Board Member and Co-Founder, ArtAsia Advisory; Gary Carsley, artist and UNSWAAD lecturer, and Maurice O’Riordan, Director of the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin. Artists McDougall and Tiatia were selected based on the strength of their applications, the potential benefits for their practices and capacity to extend their own cross-cultural networks.
Sue Acret said of Robert McDougall:
“Robert’s thoughtful sound, video and installation works reflect an ongoing engagement with Asia. His focus has seen him undertake research, exhibitions and residencies in countries that include India, Vietnam, East Malaysia (Borneo) and Tblisi (Georgia). 4A’s Beijing Studio Program will allow him to continue this exploration of Asian practices and traditions, while also drawing on his own Australian cultural experience and framework to produce work that is informed by both environments.”
Maurice O’Riordan said of Angela Tiatia:
“Angela’s proposal was succinct and her work (performance/video/installation) shares a similar succinctness and clarity of intent. Although she is emerging in the sense of being in the first 5 years of her practice, her international experience and exposure has prepared her for a studio program such as this. This Program will allow Angela to develop a professional relationship with 4A and as such, consider her practice within the context of contemporary Asian art.”
The Program will give these young artists a fantastic opportunity to place their practices within a much broader international art context in a city such as Beijing.
Toby Chapman, 4A Assistant Curator and Beijing Studio Program coordinator said,
“We were thrilled by the number and high standard of applications in 2015. The committee expressed the great challenge in selecting only 2 participants for this program. I believe that both Angela and Robert will benefit greatly from this cultural and professional experience and I look forward to seeing the results of their time in Beijing and the potential of future mentoring.”
McDougall and Tiatia will travel to China to commence their month-long residency in September 2015.
Artists’ Bios:
Angela Tiatia is a filmmaker, curator, and visual artist, exhibiting since 2010 after completing a Visual arts degree at Auckland University of Technology. Tiatia has lived in New Zealand, Australia and Samoa and has exhibited nationally and internationally. Tiatia’s art practice explores the shift in identity encountered by the Pacific Diaspora. Her work explores global contemporary cultures, drawing attention to their relationship to the construction of pacific cultural and sexual identity, the commodification of the body and place, representation, gender politics and neo-colonialism. Tiatia featured in the 2015 Video Platform at Art Stage Singapore, and is an invited artist in the Eighth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT 8), Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane in November 2015. Tiatia is represented by Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne.
Robert McDougall (b. 1986, Melbourne) is an artist working across sound and installation. He has studied a range of compositional modes in electro-acoustic music, video and installation art. Robert is interested in the durational and reductionist temporal aesthetics of early minimalism and various folk traditions, attention to surface and textural detail, numinous spaces and the sublime. Previous exhibitions include Sixty-Five Abstracts 2015, NIICE Public Education, Otar Karalashvili, Tbilisi Art Books, Kiev, Ukraine (2015); Tanpura Study, Pepperhouse Residency Exhibition, Pepperhouse Studios, Kochi, India (2014); John Cage 101: Past, Present, Future Conference, UPSI, Tanjong Malim, Malaysia (2013); and TarraWarra Biennial 2012: Sonic Spheres, TarraWarra Museum of Art (2012).
Images: Angela Tiatia, Hibiscus Rosa Sinesis (still) 2010, single-channel digital video, 1:30 mins. Courtesy the Artist and Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
Angela Tiatia, Liminality (still) 2014, single-channel digital video, 5:37 mins. Courtesy the Artist and Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
Angela Tiatia, Walking the Wall (still) 2014, single-channel digital video, 13:05 mins. Courtesy the Artist and Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
Robert McDougall, Hotel Windsor Study #2 (Triptych) 2013, HD video installation, sound (dimensions variable), 9:50 mins. Courtesy the artist.
Robert McDougall, In Memoriam to the Kayan Keledi 2013, metal, bamboo, glass, rubber, leather, linen, keledi, tv monitor, HD video (dimensions variable). Courtesy the artist.
Robert McDougall, Tanpura Study #2 (sa, ma, pa in C#) 2014, found ceramic pots, wiring, lights, speakers, cotton, television, DVD with sound (dimensions variable). Courtesy the artist.
4A’s Beijing Studio Program is an annual program of 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Major supporter: Vicki Olsson.
