Halinka Orszulok & Gallery exhibition

Halinka Orszulok 24 Feb - 17 Mar 2024

Halinka Orszulok Halinka Orszulok is an artist living on the South Coast of NSW. Since obtaining her Masters degree from Sydney College of the Arts in 2002, she has regularly shown her work in both group and solo exhibitions.

A finalist in the Fishers Ghost, Sunshine Coast and Sulman art prizes, in 2018 Halinka was the winner of the Glover Art Prize with her work ‘Ponies’. In 2019 she was the curator of ‘Uncertain Territory’ at Artbank, an exhibition examining our multi-layered relationship to landscape as a conceptual space. In 2021 ‘False Sense of Security’, at The Lock Up in Newcastle, reflected on the two-edged nature of structures that underpin feelings of safety. Her work has been collected by Artbank, Gadens Lawyers and the University of Wollongong.

“My work is created by painting from photographs which I take at night. Night-time darkness activates the subconscious rendering the familiar strange and introducing elements of the uncanny into the landscape. The paintings deliberately reference the photographic, creating the sense of a stilled moment.

With an interest in examining the role our individual subjectivity plays in our perception of place, my work investigates spaces that blur the line between nature and culture, the domestic and the unhomely, history and the present. Increasingly ecology, cultural identity and ownership are themes that I like to tease out in my paintings. The scenes that I paint engender a sense of displacement, challenging our preconceived ways of reading the landscape.

Inherent in my representations of the landscape is an acknowledgement that there is nothing of the world that is left untouched by humanity in some way and that the word ‘nature’ has been redefined in the age of the Anthropocene. There is also an understanding of the important role that our connection to place has in reflecting and forming who we are.”

The Great Divide The Great Divide is an exhibition of works by Halinka Orszulok drawn from the ruins of mining industries west of the Great Dividing Range. The exhibition considers a time when underground resources were abundant with wealth and prosperity; when men dug in perilous conditions, and families gathered to form communities spurred by a booming industry.

Newnes, the site of a shale mine and processing plant, creating oil and petroleum products, once housed around 800 people. The town was abandoned in 1932 when operations became unviable, while some buildings were removed, others left to slowly decay into the bush. On the Gwabegar line which lists thirty-eight closed stations, iconic Ben Bullen train station was originally used to load coal from a local mine. It is now a haunt for those wishing to engage in vandalism and mischief under the cover of darkness. Lithgow No. 1 Dam was the first water supply to the region. Decommissioned when a larger dam was built further up the gully, a trickle of water flows through the dam wall, empty on the other side of the open sluice valve, reclaiming part of its course. The Great Divide captures the collective memory of these places through painting, film, photography, and text - but the affect is one of displacement rather than nostalgia, as the narrative of prosperity west of The Great Dividing Range is laid bare.

Captured with photographic precision in oil on canvas, Halinka’s paintings bare witness and scars of the slow but steady decay into the vegetation that surrounds them. Painted from photographs taken under artificial light, the nocturnal compositions reveal a human presence in otherwise deserted scenes. The built and natural environments coalesce here, engendering a sense of displacement for both human and non-human life, while once active tunnels and water pipes reach back into the earth as if in retreat. Voices of those who worked underground are resurrected in fragmented text across the exhibition, recalling vivid moments from the underground from almost a century ago.

Halinka’s haunting scenes seek to remind us of the role individual subjectivity plays in our perception of place, while considering the historic and deeply political divide that exists between the east and the west of the Great Dividing Range. Here environmental and capitalist concerns are weighed against the need of communities for certainty and connection. In a nation where histories of human habitation are entangled with stories of dispossession and colonial expansion, The Great Divide reminds us that the places we occupy are as vulnerable as the changing fortunes of industry, and of the ongoing narrative of post-colonial habitation.

Halinka’s works occupy the often-undefined space that blur the line between nature and culture, the domestic and the unhomely, history and the present, and the temporal nature of these binaries in a changing world.

Sales: Julie Collins - Director gallery@djprojects.net 0417324 795 Free delivery and installation within Victoria.

Shipping arranged interstate and Overseas. & Gallery accepts Art Money www.artmoney.com 21 Morce Ave Sorrento, Victoria, Australia www.andgalleryaustralia.net & Gallery is part of the djprojects family of art related businesses. www.djprojects.net

1. Lone Rider Oil on canvas 75cm x 105cm framed $3,600

2. Moonlight, rising mist Oil on canvas 100cm x 150cm $4,500

3. Lithgow no.1 Dam Oil on canvas 100 x 150cm $4,500

4. Heritage Pipe Oil on canvas 75 x 105cm $3,600

5. Newnes Chimneys Oil on canvas 100 x 150cm $4,500

6. Ben Bullen Station Oil on canvas 100 x 150 cm $4,500

7. On the Ground Oil on canvas 100cm x 150cm framed $4,500

8. Newnes Coke Kiln Oil on canvas 100 x 150cm $4,500

9. Honeycomb Kilns, Newnes Oil on canvas 75 x 105cm $3,600

Halinka Orszulok C.V. Education 2001-2002

Master of Visual Arts, Sydney College of the Arts

2000

Honours (first class), Sydney College of the Arts

1995-1999

Bachelor of Visual Arts, Sydney College of the Arts

Solo Exhibitions 2020

‘Black Bob’s Creek’ Wollongong Art Gallery

2018

‘Night on the Outskirts’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney

2016

‘Bad Things Happen to Good People’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney

2015

‘Swamp Motel’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney

2014

‘Don’t Fall Asleep’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney

2013

Purgatory Art Space, Gallerysmith, Melbourne

2012

‘Wisdom in Hindsight’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney

2010

‘Phantoms of Suburbia’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney

2009

‘Springwood’ Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney

2007

‘Melrose Park’ MOP Projects, Sydney

2005

‘Unhomely’ MOP Projects, Sydney

Group Exhibitions 2021

Artist/Curator, ‘False Sense of Security’, The Lock Up, Newcastle

2019

Artist/Curator ‘Uncertain Territory’, Artbank, Sydney

2015

‘Exhibit A’, curated by Carrie Miller, The Lock Up, Newcastle

2013

‘330’, Gallerysmith, Melbourne

2010

‘Painting Alumni Exhibition’ Sydney College of the Arts, curated by Brad Buckley

2008

Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney

‘Toyota Emerging Artist Exhibition’, Melbourne

2007

‘Off the Wall’ Art Melbourne

2006

‘Nigredo’ G&A Gallery, Sydney

2003

‘Axis’ Bungay Art House at Shapiro Actioneers, Melbourne

2002

‘Dark Spaces’ Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney

‘Young Artists @Mary Place’, Mary Place Gallery, Sydney

Publications/Press 2021

Arts Hub, ‘Exhibition review: False Sense of Security’, Andrew Frost

Newcastle Herald, ‘Suburban Nights of Peace and Danger’, Damon Cronshaw, 6th Feb

2020

Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend Visual Art July25-26, ‘In the Neighbourhood’ John McDonald

2019

The Art Life ‘Penalties Apply: The Landscape of Uncertain territory’ Andrew Frost, March 4

2018

Art Guide, Sept, Halinka Orszulok interview - Varia Karipoff

Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend Oct 19, ‘Art: Halinka Orszulok’, John McDonald

The Tasmanian Examiner, March 9

The Tasmanian Mercury, March 9

Artist Profile, March 10, issue 42

2016

The Art Life, New Work Friday #207

2014

The Art Life ‘Halinka Orszulok’, Andrew Frost, April 24

2012

The Art Life, Exhibitions, Nov 16, Carrie Miller

Sydney Morning Herald, Metro Nov 30, Andrew Frost

Strobed, Nov 16

2010

The Art Life ‘Phantoms of Suburbia’ Open Gallery, Dec 4-5

2009

Sydney College of the Arts Handbook, Pub Sydney College of the Arts

2007

The Art Life ‘Shit Hot or Not’, Carrie Lumby, theartlife.com.au, July

Turnrow, December, Desperation Press University of Louisiana

2006

Australian Art Collector 36 ‘Undiscovered Artists’ Carrie Lumby, April June

Russh Magazine, ‘Halinka Orszulok’ Pilar Arevalo, Aug -Sept

2005

The Art Life ‘Special Effects’ Andrew Frost, theartlife.com.au, July

2003

Herald Sun, July 23 ‘A Shot in the Dark’ Alison Barclay

2002

Sydney Morning Herald Jan 18-24 ‘Critics Picks – Young Artists @Mary Place’

Prizes 2019

Fishers Ghost Art Prize - finalist

2018

Glover Art Prize – winner

Sunshine Coast Art Prize - finalist

2017

Fishers Ghost Art Prize - finalist

Sunshine Coast Art Prize – finalist

St Kevins Art Award - finalist

2014

Sulman Art Prize, AGNSW - finalist

2008

Fleurieu Biennale – finalist

2007

Paddington Art Prize - finalist

Collections Gadens Lawyers Art Bank Wollongong University