Group Show

Overview

You know the summer slumber is over when even the gallerinas are back at work. Not that they have been on holiday. No, its just that everyone else has. Hamptons, anyone?

Just like the traditional putting away of your white shoes after Labour day, Sydney commercial art galleries start to pry open their doors post-Australia Day with the lure of the group show. Last year we saw a bumper crop of group shows where most of the high profile Sydney galleries tackled the GFC head on with emerging (cheaper) artists. This sounds nasty but it actually worked. It really felt like the end of summer, coming up from your last salty wave into February. This year, we are back to stable (staple) group shows, and I am tongueing my tears for the salt.

BREENSPACE puts on a good goodbye to summer. Here we see David Haines and Joyce Hinterding, Dani Marti, Tim Silver, Sally Smart, John Tonkin & Emma White with almost all new works across the two gallery spaces. John Tonkin presents a stunning farewell with his last light view of Bondi, Emma White never fails to bring a smile with her wonderful work on 'the beach ball of death', and like a sprawling sea floor of anemone, Dani Marti envelopes us with his face-off portraits, standing guard by the entrance like the red and yellow flags we know so well.

It's not all goodbye fun and sun and holidays, it's also hello art world — welcome back!

Image: Emma White, A Blank (make your mark already), 2011