Featured artists include Darcell Alpu, Billy Bain, Frances Barrett, Tracey Moffat, Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi, Elisabeth Pointon, David Prichard, Samia Sayed, Ans Westra and Min Wong. Min has taken her love of Crossfit and transferred it to the canvas.
“Exercise, just like any sport, is a form of meditation where your brain switches off and you are just focused on the task,” she said.
“While self-care has gained traction as a way to support alternative life practices, it has also been usurped by social media influences, cultish fitness leaders and global sport advertising campaigns for capitalist gains.”
Min’s artwork ’No Days Off’ examines these concepts by appropriating tropes from CrossFit ideologies and mixing these with motivational quotes and modernist sculptural forms.
Frances and her curator Toby Chapman actually undertook freestyle wrestling training to produce her video work in which their sporting efforts are professionally adjudicated.
“It was just a fun way to demonstrate the sometimes struggles between the artist and the curator, looking at sport and competition at large,” she said.
Billy grew up on the Northern Beaches playing rugby league and supporting local side the Manly Sea Eagles.
Dubbed the ‘Silvertails’ for being seen as the glamour club through the 70s and 80s, they were the team that everyone loved to hate.
“With ‘Champs’ being situated in the heart of their rival’s territory, the working-class Western Suburbs Magpies, my ‘Class Warfare’ sculptures pay homage to an era where violence, aggression and tribalism defined the character of rugby league,” he said.
With free entry, the exhibition runs until June 25, with the gallery open from 11am-4pm, Wednesday to Friday, and from 11am-3pm on Saturday.
