THERESE KENYON
As an artist and the director of Manly Art Gallery & Museum in Sydney I
would be extremely interested in visiting and exhibiting in this region, as
Manly has a sister city relationship with the Jing'an district in Shanghai.
I would be very keen to reciprocate the visits that we enjoy with the
Chinese visitors to Manly Art Gallery. As Jing'an is very close to Hangzhou
district I would enjoy seeing galleries and cultural institutions to expand
my knowledge of art, traditions and structures which support the arts in
this region.
My own artwork is concerned with the landscape and with the water
architecture of dams, canals and locks which different cultures have adopted
in managing their water supplies.
I would like to visit the three gorges dam
project or at least find out more about the massive water conservation
projects undertaken in China.
I often use photography as preliminary source
material and drawings and watercolours follow. My most recent work is of the
Canal du Midi in Southern France at Agde and La Redorte.
As a curator I am very interested in the visual culture of Asian art.
The richness of the cultural language and techniques has often intrigued me.
I have
curated and shown various contemporary Chinese artists in Sydney who have
migrated or who have visited for short periods.
At the University of Sydney
a Chinese international group called 'Art Action' was shown in 1993 and Jin
Wei a young artist was exhibited for the first time in Australia and is now
quite well known. Also 'Affinities' was an exchange exhibition between 5
Australian artists and 6 Korean artists which was shown at the University of
Sydney at the Tin Sheds Gallery in 1998.