January

After a short break over xmas and New Year Hand Held's 2010 line up is going to be great!!! The New Year begins with 'Step Lightly Between the Branches' an exhibition of beautiful drawings on paper, timber and found objects by Chloe Vallance. Exhibition opens Jan 14th 6-8pm.


Chloe plans to fill the gallery with hundreds of her miniature illustrations.



We are really looking forward to the 2010 exhibition period which is filling up fast. Proposals will be looked at in Jan/Feb for exhibitions in the latter part of the year.

Lead up to a New Year

The Gallery is looking great at the moment with new shelves up for postcards and a some new work on display. The windows are looking festive with Gail Stiffe's snowflake books in the windows and the Bill Posters exhibition looks great.

Tangent Man Turns...Left

Come on in to Hand Held before December 5th to check out our current exhibition 'Tangent man Turns...Left'.
Jules Chapple shares his quirky cast of characters, taken from his numerous sketchbooks, in the form of postcards, sketchbooks and his new zine Tea with Tim Hill an art-and-craft-travelogue-cookbook!

Coming up

Next Up

Some things to be remembered

There are things that we treasure, personally or as a community, for different reasons. There are objects that make us nostalgic for the past, for place or for people. Clair O'Halloran's pieces in her 'Keepsakes' exhibition are both reminders of the past; of time and place and objects that will inevitably become 'keepsakes' themselves.

Call to Artists

Bill Poster contemporary Poster and Postcard exhibition is back for its 2nd year in December.

Artists are encouraged to submit posters, images or prints in poster format - how that is interpreted as far as text, images, scale, shape, medium, multiple or one off, folding, rolling, binding etc. is entirely up to you.

Entry fee will be $10+ 10 postcard (A6 size) images of each item. Postcards will be sold in random groups of 10 by the gallery as part of the exhibition fee.

More info and expressions of interest - email me at littleredfishy@yahoo.com.au

KEEPSAKES

Dusty sills and white shelves

Jane Simon's exhibition shutter, sill, blind opened last Thursday eve at Hand Held.

shutter, sill, blind comprises 35 miniature light-boxes on 6 shelves like a miniature suburban television display, each one a subtle image of suburbia exploring the liminal spaces of domesticity between interior and exterior, positive and negative, public and private.

A limited addition artist book of hand printed (rizo print) images from the same series accompanies the installation.

Jane's other limited edition book is entitled Savage Cresent or an Oval Dream is a photographic documentary of Savage Cresent, a street in Palmerston, NZ. Savage crescent was a utopian state housing project of the NZ government in the 1930's. Each house was architecturally designed yet Jane's photographs capture the somewhat incongruous nature of the street's houses which seems more a 1930's display home development then a socialist inspired paradise of equality and harmony.

September at Hand Held

A reminder that 'Palm Reader' finishes up this Saturday 29th. Come along and see this lovely exhibition of artist books and objects which respond to the term 'Palm Reader'.


Opening September 3rd is Shutter, Sill, Blind
by Jane Simon.










A series of photographic objects documenting window frames, dusty glass, shutters, and views inside and beyond. The exhibition will include an artists’ book based on the series, and a collection of the artist’s other small books.

Palm Reader Exhibition

Our next exhibition 'Palm Reader' opens Thursday August 6th 6-8pm. We will also host an afternoon tea on Saturday the 16th 2-4pm with tea and cake. Our 1st birthday exhibition, inspired by our resident 'Palm Reader' and the Hand Held nature of our gallery, encouraged artists to respond to the term Palm Reader and the responses are varied and creative. Works range from complex artist books to simple sculptural works with artists from Queensland, W.A, NSW and Victoria involved. The exhibition will include works by Helen Malone, Glen Skien, Elke Ahokas, Quin Young, Megan Herring, Lorelei Clarke, Soxy Fleming, Margaret Manchee, Bridget Lawson, Penny Peckham, Kirsty White and Sasha Foley, Kimberly Young and Tricia Smout. (top image - Kirsty White and Sasha Foley, Below - Helen Malone, Glen Skien and Elke Ahokas)

More from Axioms/Idioms

A few more images of Mel Wolfe's work from the current show..

Axioms/Idioms Images

Here are some images from our new exhibition Axioms/Idioms. I've only posted a few images as my camera has run out of batteries. Will post more soon...

Axioms/Idioms Exhibition

Join Hand Held Gallery and artists Melanie Wolfe and Lenni Morkel-Kingsbury for the opening of Axioms/Idioms July 2nd 6-8pm.

Axioms/Idioms:
a mapping of language/culture; history/memory; emotion/truth...

Artists’ statement

Maps and charts are propositions of truth. They are axioms that we accept as being, somehow, 
self evidently true.
 Stumbling through both real and imagined psychological geographies, 
we explore the subjective nature of language.
 Given the incongruities that exist between the map and what it represents, we discover that we are never exactly where we believe ourselves to be…

Mike Harrison's Stasis opened May 28th.

Stasis is a dramatic installation comprising of 194 suspended toy soldiers (one for each country of the world) suspended in 'Stasis' above a black terrain. 'This exhibition is not a protest of war, but an artistic representation of the way we are all tied together', Mike explains, 'Stasis is the suspension of time; a permanent point in history.' Running alongside the suspended soldiers is the poignant video image of a 'soldier' amid a desolate landscape. He too seems in a state of Stasis, neither victorious or defeated, his clenched hands and vacant stare are the indicators of his state of mind.

Tender Things

Paul Compton's 'Tender Things' opened April 30th with a great number of people crowding into our tiny space.
Paul's images make you laugh quietly and sigh loudly; intricately drawn with tiny pen and brushstrokes they are painfully familiar and inevitably cynical.
Six ink portraits greet you as you enter the gallery. They are tender depictions of friends, elegant and gentle, and a self portrait is nestled among the group.
On the shelves, four artist books are on display. Fallacies on Parade, Sombre Rainbow (pictured), Tender Things(pictured); a leather bound 10 page tea and coffee stained concertina book of fine ink drawings and Everyday Tragedies(pictured); a tattooed, leather bound tome of text and images. Also featured are Paul's Thaumatropes, old worldly optical illusions, mythic and darkly themed. The Ouija Board Spells Out: See you soon is the final piece; a morbidly kitsch Ouija board ---not that every Ouija board isn't morbidly kitsch!. Two of Paul's books (Fallacies on Parade and Everyday Tragedies) are available as zines or mooks (the first time I have heard this term but not the last time I will use it!) making it possible for all to take home and relish a piece of his work.

Tender Things

Paul Compton's, Tender Things opens this Thursday night(April 30th).

An exhibition that playfully explores the inherent fragility of objects, illusions and human lives. This collection of handmade books, objects and drawings combines droll cynicism with sincere empathy and hints at themes of the outsider, animism and nostalgia. Join us from 6-8pm. Exhibition continues until May 26.

Palm Reader Exhibition

To celebrate our 1st Birthday Hand Held invites artists to submit proposals or images for possible inclusion in a group exhibition. Book and object makers are invited to respond to the term 'Palm Reader'. Work can be in any medium or form. There will be a $20 entry fee for works selected into the exhibition. Peoples choice award on opening night will be granted a 2010 exhibition at Hand Held.
Proposals for Palm reader are now closed.

Ladders exhibition

April 2nd-25th: Ladders by Adrian Lawson

Ladders by Adrian Lawson opens Thursday 2nd April 6-8pm. Simple symbolic shapes: paintings and installation.

March at Hand Held

Minuscule/Massive/En Mass will continue through March with Multiply and Manipulate; new interpretation and added books.

Minuscule/Massive/En Masse

Minuscule/Massive/En Masse 27th Jan-28th Feb. The new exhibition is a playful experiment based around the experimental text 'Alley Cat Nomad', by Adrian Lawson. The text, grammar and language of 'Alley Cat' is playful, rhythmic and unique and so too its bindings and reproductions should be rich with interpretation and play. In this exhibition the book is presented in 8 different formats; blown up to a massive poster-sized wall work, shrunk into a 1000page minuscule book, wound onto a scroll, folded and stretched into long long concertina books and winding through a labyrinth on the wall.

All book prototypes are available to order. The text is also available as a simple photocopy.