N Building Gallery, UniSA Underdale

THE late Constance Gordon-Johnson was a South Australian artist and worker in community arts who left a bequest for a prize to a Sculpture and Installation graduate student at the SA School of Art. This is the first year it has been awarded and it is a very professional exhibition. The works on show vary greatly, though two sets could be called funky and two calm. The winner of the award, Sarah CrowEST, showed three series of the lumpy, grotty critters that she has been making and showing for some time. The calm stitching and the humorous words included in the work carry its abject surfaces.
In Dual Tragedy, Melania Von De Bour shows a series of configurations using horsehair and clear plastic tubing. Her artist’s statement tells that the work is about pollution caused by the Brukunga Mine and the Bird in Hand Sewage Treatment works in the Bremer Valley of the Adelaide Hills. This knowledge places a new weight on the work but the viewer would never guess it without being told. Car yard advertising is evoked by Graham Kenefick’s loud ARTMAN. Although in a car yard the figure would be made from high density foam. The work of Anna Medlin is about the sea in a fairly general way. Her best work takes the colour of the sea from where it touches the sand right out to where it is bluegreen and deep.