Books

A Scratched Surface

A Scratched Surface

Documentation as a drawing observation of Mignon Falls, Australia. 2006
Assembled as an artist book.
Works on paper 30cm x 20cm

12 months in Shanghai

Directly responding to my surroundings.

12 months in Shanghai is a collection of 12 artists books that are a layering of histories and surfaces examining the experience of places and incidences. Mistakes held ransom, erasure becoming an extension expanding an understanding of a continuing transformative experience of place.

Looking Up From the Other Side of the World

A collaboration Between Caitlin Reilly and Kate Stead

Looking Up From the Other Side of the World is a visual dialogue of drawings between two Australian artist friends, one of whom is temporarily living in Shanghai, China, the other, living in the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales in Australia.

The project was conceived as a daily dialogue between friends who were separated by distance but united as artists. In seeking something real to connect us, we became aware of the sky. When we looked up from our distant, other lands, we were in fact, connected by the same sky - not as solid as the earth beneath our feet but unlike lands, separated by oceans – this sky, we thought, was in essence the same sky that exists for all.

Here was an unbroken, physical connection between friends in different ‘worlds’. That sky, wrapping, as it does like a blanket around the globe, became our meeting place. It became our inspiration to draw our daily experiences of our worlds, new or familiar, joyous, or otherwise.

For 90 days, we looked up from the other side of the world and talked to each other about what we saw. We conducted a visual conversation about what it was like to witness what we saw … how it felt to see what we saw … what we thought we could see – and what we wanted to see … as friends do.

The drawings are also a response to our email communications which highlighted a sense of distance and separation.

Exhibitions

  • 2012 Between the Sheets: 2012 Artists Book Exhibition at Gallery East Western Australia. http://www.galleryeast.com.au/exhibit/current/main.htm
  • 2011 Looking up from the other side of the world through the eyes of children. Xuhui Art Museum No.8 Tianlin Rd. (E) Shanghai China.
  • Village Of Bliss at A Day in Blossom 3 Hunan Lu Shanghai China
  • 2010 Centennial Celebration of Women in Art—World Artists Exhibition Shanghai Museum of Art.
  • The Ground Beneath Our Feet EDB Art Pavilion at 1933 Shanghai, China.
  • 2009 Suspended Arrival The Elisabeth de Brabant Art Center Shanghai, China
  • 2006 Space in Between Site specific installation Byron Bay Cinema Centre, Australia.
  • 2005 Naïve Muzzled Shetlands, Space boys, Rocket ships and a butterfly, Barebones Art Space. Australia.

Looking Up From the Other Side of the World

In 2009, Artists Caitlin Reilly and Kate Stead spent a few months drawing as they looked up from where they stood in the world - Caitlin in China, Kate in Australia. The result of that visual dialectic is a book entitled Looking Up From The Other Side Of The World. To share their experience of both cultural exchange and unification, they invited local schools to participate in a similar adventure and draw their own findings.

looking up from the other side of the world through the eyes of children is the culmination of that project. In Shanghai, China, the students of the Seven – Color Flower Elementary School looked up and saw the tall buildings that surrounded them. The sky some days so blue, other days so grey. From their memory of looking up in the mornings, they documented in drawings people they’d seen, trees they’d observed, colors that had affected them and often, even dreams of rocket ships and rainbows they had imagined. In the township of Maclean, N.S.W. Australia, the children looked up to the tops of nearby buildings including the Catholic church with its sandstone bricks and stained glass windows; they saw a towering teacher who is defined by his glasses and may, or may not be wearing an argyle knit. When their art teacher, Mrs Donelan, released a bunch of balloons, they saw the magic of bright colours lighting up an otherwise dull, grey sky; and like us, they saw the ubiquitous electricity pole which seems to draw its own parallel black lines across the sky all over the world.

To draw is to look. Each glance assembles evidence, and through the eyes of these children from these two schools, we have arranged a document that anchors their vision to a time and place - forever cementing a perspective that innocently reveals their world.

The Ground Beneath Our Feet

Living in downtown Shanghai there are very few spaces available where you can run walk skip or stand on the grass in the parked areas. The sense of stability and grounding, play and freedom that these earthly textures resonate are a rare experience. In most of the parks you are not allowed to walk on the grass and if you do you are promptly instructed to get off the grass by the whistle blowing security guards. Coming from Byron Bay Australia where there is an abundance of grassed park areas that you can engage and run freely in, this restriction has often felt incredibly frustrating. As a response to the dark History of the 1933abattoire Site and to the lack of grassed areas accessible to shoeless soles I installed a large grassed area encouraging people to engage with the earth. To stand bare foot on the grass and feel the ground beneath you.

April 2010 Elisabeth de Brabant Art Pavilion at 1933, 3F 10 Shajing Road, near Jiu Long Bing Guan, Hongkou Distric Shanghai, China.

Mediums: Turf /wood / sand : 5mt x 5mt Duration: 10 days

Village of Bliss

It was with delight and gratitude for the past year in Shanghai, in the surroundings of Fu Lu Cun (Village of Bliss) on Jianguo Xi Lu, inspired by my friendship with Ying from

‘A Day in Blossom’ (Flower Salon at 3 Hunan Lu) that I journeyed into the world of colour that flowers ignite.

These works are mementos of the passage from winter to spring, the growth and nurture of friendship, and the hope that flowers bring.

The flowers of this time renunculas, orchids, and sometimes lilies placed in vases bought from the local markets and bric-a-brac shops，for me now are preserved. These vessels, their layered history imbedded within these paintings will forever remind me of Shanghai.

Centennial Celebration of Women in Art—World Artists’ Exhibition

Shanghai Museum



(Press release from The Elisabeth de Brabant Art Center)

The Elisabeth de Brabant Art Center is proud to announce that from March 7 to 11 2010, artist Caitlin Reilly Chosen by the Australian Consulate and Xiao Hui Wang will be participating in the “Centennial Celebration of Women in Art—World Artists’ Exhibition” that will take place at the Shanghai Art Museum in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the International Women’s Day.

This event has been organized by the Shanghai Women’s Federation in cooperation with Consular Spouses Shanghai, Shanghai Artists Association and Shanghai Female Artists Association, as well as the Shanghai Art Museum. The exhibition will be curated by Mati Cuenca from Museum of Contemporary Art.

Suspended Arrival

The Elisabeth de Brabant Art Center Shanghai, China.

November 11 – December 15, 2009

Suspended Arrival is a body of work on paper that is underpinned by an autobiographical subtext. A direct response to my surroundings, daily comings and goings and a reflection of my environment both physically and emotionally. The outcome was a layering of histories and surfaces that held mistakes to ransom, their erasure becoming an extension that expanded an understanding of a continuing transformative experience of place. The evolution of Suspended Arrival has spanned more than two years, originated in my studio in Australia and taking form in my current home here in Shanghai, China. The metamorphosis of my work over this period has culminated in the addition of small artist’s books and two larger pieces that seemed essential in order to reinforce the original sentiment of falling. Drawing for me is no less or more important than any other medium. It is a way in which I fill space, remember experiences and respond to this incredible world in which we live. For me, here in Shanghai it is a continual process of merging into another culture whilst simultaneously departing from my own.

Suspended Arrival is material evidence derived from this intense, multilayered experience of place made tangible by the simple repetitive act of drawing.

Naïve Muzzled Shetlands, Space boys, Rocket ships and a butterfly, Barebones Art Space. Australia. 2005

The works in this collection are all inspired by my childhood shared with a Shetland pony, Pee Wee in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.

The narrative begins with the memory of Pee Wee as he was, in his paddock-home in the country and progresses through an imagined journey to Elwood’s foreshore dressed in drag, parading like a queen. There is also an appearance from the sub-conscious ­ a dreamy visit on a starry night, sad and lonely before his demise. Pee Wee’s passage through my mind and across these works ends with a fatal gun shot after having torn his leg on a barbed wire fence.

All my prints ­ “With Max” ­ are derived from Max Dupain’s photograph “Moss Vale” taken in 1975. I was eight years old and embarking on my friendship with Pee Wee at this time. That particular photograph encapsulates my memory of a familiar childhood scene ­- a horse in a paddock. From this photograph I have taken the horse and enlarged, abstracted, released onto lino, carved and printed and distorted. The exaggeration of imagery serves to demonstrate a diversity of means housing all marks made their presence creating textual history seen and unseen. .

Paintings

Paintings 2003 - 2011

New Paintings

Press

  • Zing Magazine PDF 1 2 3 4
  • Press Release Elisabeth de Brabant PDF
  • Art Link
  • Art Press Shanghai Courier PDF
  • Riverside Quarterly 1 2
  • Tall Guy Shanghai
  • Review Shanghai Talk
  • Weekend Star PDF

Press

Shanghai Talk

EdB Art Pavillion @ 1933

Last night Elisabeth de Brabant Art Centre launched its first exhibtion at 1933. They're calling it the EdB "Art Pavilion" and it takes up a whopping 1,400sqm on the third floor of MC Escher's favourite repuruposed abattoir. Thnks to the extra space, they're able to show large scale works by a large group of the artists they've previously nourished in their Fuxing Lu stables. Artists currently on show include Xiao Hui Wang, Jin Jiangbo, Shiau Jon Jen, Luo Er Qi, Barbara Edelstein, Caitlin Reilly and French tag team Tristan and Lidia. The works include photography, video, sculptures and a Caitlin Reilly installation that encourages visitors to put themselves out to pasture. The exhibition runs for about a month, but the gallery plans to continue exhibiting work there for at least the duration of the Expo. Then the artists will be processed to make glue. (No, not really.) Elisabeth de Brabant Art Pavilion at 1933, 3F 10 Shajing Road, near Jiu Long Bing Guan, Hongkou District. Tel: 6466 7428

Press

Shanghai Talk

EdB Art Pavillion @ 1933

Last night Elisabeth de Brabant Art Centre launched its first exhibtion at 1933. They're calling it the EdB "Art Pavilion" and it takes up a whopping 1,400sqm on the third floor of MC Escher's favourite repuruposed abattoir. Thnks to the extra space, they're able to show large scale works by a large group of the artists they've previously nourished in their Fuxing Lu stables. Artists currently on show include Xiao Hui Wang, Jin Jiangbo, Shiau Jon Jen, Luo Er Qi, Barbara Edelstein, Caitlin Reilly and French tag team Tristan and Lidia. The works include photography, video, sculptures and a Caitlin Reilly installation that encourages visitors to put themselves out to pasture. The exhibition runs for about a month, but the gallery plans to continue exhibiting work there for at least the duration of the Expo. Then the artists will be processed to make glue. (No, not really.) Elisabeth de Brabant Art Pavilion at 1933, 3F 10 Shajing Road, near Jiu Long Bing Guan, Hongkou District. Tel: 6466 7428

Collaborative sites

Collaboration

  • Elisabeth de Brabant (Director and curator Elisabeth de Brabant Art Center Shanghai)
  • Xiao Hui Wang (Artist)
  • Jin Jiangbo (Artist)
  • Shiau Jon Jen (Artist)
  • Luo Er Qi (Artist)
  • Barbara Edelstein (Artist)
  • Lin Qing (curator Xuhui Art Museum)
  • Dr Lyndal Adams (Senior Lecturer Visual Arts Faculty Southern Cross University)
  • Kate Stead (Writer and Artist)
  • Domenico de Clario (Director Experimental Arts Foundation Australia)
  • Retrospect Galleries Australia
  • Bare Bones Gallery Australia
  • Kyle Fong (Photographer)
  • Valentin Drean (Documentary film maker)
  • Black and Cameron Film production company Shanghai

Current / Upcomming

Curriculum Vitae

  • 2010 Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) – Southern Cross University. Lismore. NSW Australia.
  • Solo Exhibitions
  • 2011 Village Of Bliss, A Day In Blossom, Shanghai, China.
  • 2009 Suspended Arrival, Elisabeth De Brabant Art Center, Shanghai, China.
  • 2006 Space in between, Byron Cinema Centre N.S.W. Australia
  • 2005 Naïve Muzzled Shetlands, Space boys, Rocket ships and a butterfly, Barebones Art Space. Australia.
  • 2004 Where has everybody gone, .Six degrees Art space, Industrial estate, Byron Bay, Australia.
  • Selected group exhibitions
  • 2012 Between the Sheets: 2012 Artists Book Exhibition, Gallery East. North Fremantle, Western Australia.
  • 2011 Looking Up From the Other Side of the World, Xuhui Art Museum, Shanghai, China.
  • 12 Months in Shanghai, Lethbridge 10000, Lethbridge Gallery, Australia
  • The Ground Beneath Our Feet, Eco Lifestyles Design World Fair Shanghai world Expo site Shanghai
  • 2010 Centennial Celebration of Women in Art World Artists’ Exhibition, Shanghai Museum of Art. China
  • The Ground Beneath Our Feet, EDB Art Pavilion Shanghai, China.
  • 2005-09 Linden Postcard Show, Linden Gallery St Kilda, Victoria, Australia.
  • 2005-09 Southern Cross University Book prize, Southern Cross University Australia.
  • 2007 The Byron Art Prize, Waywood Gallery, Byron Bay, Australia.
  • 2006-07 Border Art Prize, Tweed Regional Gallery N.S.W. Australia.
  • 2006 Hunting Poll Exhibition, Lismore Regional Art Gallery, N.S.W. Australia.
  • 2005 SODA Art prize, SODA gallery Avalon, N.S.W. Australia.
  • Acquisitions and Awards
  • 2012 M on the Bund Literary Festival, Shanghai. China
  • Between the Sheets: 2012 Artists Book Exhibition, Gallery East, Australia.
  • 2011 Lethbridge Award, Finalist. Lethbridge Gallery, Australia
  • 2007 The Byron Art Prize. ,Winner. Waywood Gallery, Byron Bay, Australia.
  • 2006 Ministry of the Arts Emerging Artist Finalist, Australia
  • 2005 Kasky Award Visual Arts Faculty Painting Prize Southern Cross University Australia.

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