Dressing up. For fun, ritual, celebration, inspiration and remembering. These things are as natural a part of our lives as sleeping and dreaming. The deepest, most personal and most universal way of expressing oneself, Whether it be behind closed doors or in the public eye, Fashion, costume and the way we groom ourselves express who we really are and who we want to be. Skin and Bones is a group show that aims to get back to the roots of this kind of human experience. Now in it’s third year, Skin and Bones is a unique show that celebrates costume, fashion and fantasy at Bus Gallery. Skin and Bones; Bus 2009 fashion and costume show is very proud to be a part of the Loreal Melbourne international Fashion Festival and acknowledges the support of the City of Melbourne.
Skin and Bones is also very excited to announce that it has once again been invited out of the Bus closet to exhibit at Penthouse Mouse in 2009. See you at the show.
Artists: Oliver Hextall, Alex Vivian, Fjorn Butler, Alexander Ouchtomsky, Sean Bailey, Kiki Ando (Japan), Harriett Morgan, Evergreen Terrace, Sally Blenheim, Hyper colour castle, Thomas Bernard (France), Circle Pit (Sydney), Dell Stewart, Tin and Ed, Jarrah de Kuijer.
Curated by Patrick O’Brien.
ARTIST BIOS
Oliver Hextall is a collage artist and builder of costumes. Sometime member of Melbourne Out performance group, Hi-god people, Oliver works with the abstract paper materials and bits of nature.
Alex Vivian is a member of Gugg, and performs solo under the name Always. He is also involved in the Joint Hassles gallery Collective.
Fjorn Butler constructs collages that combine the normative with the unusual and frightening - a synthesis between the unconscious and the conscious - in imaginary and dream-like scenarios.
Alexander Ouchtomsky works in a variety of forms, mostly collage and assemblage. He also make music with The thunder eggs.
Sean Bailey is one of the founders of Joint Hassles, runs the inverted crux record/cassette label and performs under the name Lakes. Sean also plays in Paeces, Wasted Truth and has collaborated with The Donkey’s Tail.
Kiki Ando (Japan) is a fashion designer from Japan. She is currently residing in Melbourne.
Kate Morgan is a practicing artist and musician, whilst also gallery director of artist collective Joint Hassles. After running the gallery, playing in two bands (Wasted Truth and Downtown) and working for two and a half years, Harriett decided that she needed a change of scenery. She had money, which was unusual and decided to head for QLD (Going between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast). “The T shirts I have made represent my experience in QLD, the people I met and how I feel having done that. It was a strange experience, forcing me to question my position as a human in the world.”
Evergreen Terrace is is a project-based collaboration initiated by James Deutsher and Liv Barrett in Melbourne, 2007. They make clothing as a response to ideology and ways of living. Evergreen Terrace also focus on a twice-yearly periodical, Evergreen, and a series of thick photocopied readers, Evergreen Terrace Volumes.
Sally Blenheim is an installation artist and animator. In 2006, she completed a residency in London. She has been exploring the notion of the disintegrated self, the uncanny and the gothic. Western civilisation has repressed the body and it’s exigencies to the extent that now when confronted with death, it retreats into anxious mystification and denial. The body exists as a kind of temporary flame, a projection, a thought. Somebody’s dream.
Hyper colour castle are an international collective brimming with funny ideas and lo-fi DIY aesthetics. They draw pictures and create fantastic costumes.
Thomas Bernard (France) is a visual artist who works primarily with collage. His work has shown all over Europe and the US and can be found in several publications. This is his first show in Australia.
Circle Pit (Sydney) are a band from Sydney led by Jack Mannix and Angela Bermuda. (In this curator’s humble opinion, they are one of the best rock and roll bands to come out of Australia since Jaguar is Jaguar.)
Dell Stewart has returned to Melbourne after a year making art and staring at things in Berlin and The Netherlands. She has organized and participated in numerous solo and collaborative exhibitions, most recently curating "Grow Wild" at Utopian Slumps with Adam Cruickshank. Dell works with a bit of everything, from sculpture through drawing, installation, animation and occasionally knitting.
Tin & Ed are Tin Nguyen and Edward Cutting, and they hail from Angiang in Vietnam and Melbourne in Australia respectively. They are both based in Melbourne now, where they enjoy the weather and peach martinis from Double Happiness, but view Swanston Street with suspicion. Their past clients include Crumpler, Tourism Victoria, and the Royal Children’s Hospital. They are currently working for the Australian Ballet. Tin & Ed will work with everything available to them, but are grateful to get away from the computer. They believe you can find inspiration in anything.
Jarrah de Kuijer is a Melbourne based Artist just graduated from the VCA. Jarrah works in a combination of media. Installation, video, sculpture, sound, images and performance combine to make his work a very sticky observation of the absurdity modern world. Jarrah is also a part of the “Greatest Hits” collective.
Patrick O’Brien has served on the Bus Board for 5 years now, curating the Outer series of concerts and CD releases over this time. He curated the first Skin and Bones costume and fashion show in 2007. Patrick also plays records whenever anyone will let him and is the proprieter of Sunshine & Grease. A new music, books, DVD store at 117 Little Lonsdale st, sharing lodgings with Bus Gallery.
