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Kawing: artists linking Darwin to Cebu, Baguio, Manila, Puerto Princesa and Davao

Kawing is Tagalog for 'link', a title that reflects the intention of curator Cath Bowdler, 24 Hour Art Gallery, who selected four Darwin artists to travel for one to two months in 2001 to a regional Filipino city to exhibit and make new work. The artists, Techy Masero, Winsome Jobling, Dennis Bezzant and Jacki Fleet all worked in various venues in Davao, Baguio, Cebu & Puerto Princesa in 2001 and 2002 showing in a total of nine exhibitions during this time. From 11 October to 2 November 2002 the works these artists and the Filipino artists they had collaborated with were shown in two exhibitions at 24 Hour Art Gallery in Darwin.

Brisbane Festival Techy Masero
Techy Masero was born in Chile in 1954 and came to live in Darwin in 1985. She works primarily in cane and other natural materials on a monumental scale and her works are instantly recognisable in NT as an integral part of outdoor festivals and community events. She is concerned with mythologies of place and has interwoven her own conceptual concerns into the many large public commissions she has undertaken. Masero has developed a longstanding relationship with Filipino community groups in Darwin and during her time in the Philippines she is working in Simpocan, 45 kilometers southwest of Puerto Princesa on the resort Island of Palawan. Together with a team of local artisans she will work for two months to create a large, ephemeral outdoor sculpture on the beach. Her visit is being auspiced by Galeri Kanarikutan, a space which, like Masero's work, is entirely made of indigenous materials.

Winsome Jobling
Winsome Jobling was born in Sydney in 1957 and moved to Darwin in 1982. Jobling creates huge paper installations and sculptural forms which extend traditional notions of papermaking. She has been exhibiting since 1981 and her practice is linked to the environment for both political and physical reasons. She recycles used paper and looks for alternatives, such as local banana fibre, to the finite resource of wood pulp. Jobling's recent work has consisted of oversized dresses, patterned with watermarks and stencils dwarfed viewers yet remained fragile and translucent. She exhibited on arrival at the University of the Philippines in Diliman and undertook the Luis Stuart Paper Workshop Tiaong Quezon in early December. Later she will work in Baguio City and will exhibit from 17-21 December at the Botanical Gardens Gallery there.

Dress Ups

Untitled Cane
Dennis Bezzant

Dennis Bezzant is an emerging artist with extensive connections with Sarawak, Malaysia. He completed his undergraduate studies in 1998 and received the 24HR Art Graduate Prize. Dennis' sculptural installations are based around notions of weaving both physically and metaphorically, as in inter-cultural meshing. His interest in combining traditions of Celtic weaving with those of Malaysian indigenous traditions conceptually underpins his work. In the Philippines Dennis is working with the internationally established artist, Bert Monterona in Davao, taking workshops with underprivileged children and will exhibit his work at Dugukan Gallery from 16 December.

Jacki Fleet

Jacki Fleet is a well-established Darwin painter who has engaged in detailed investigations into the dichotomies of landscape/country in the Top End. In forming significant relationships with Aboriginal artists in the Kimberley much or her recent work has centred around the motif of the flying ant. Jackie will travel to Cebu in January 2002 to work at Gallery Luna, an exciting artist run space there, as well as with the local Mardi Gras.

Fire Dance

Asialink, The University of Melbourne

Kawing: artists linking Darwin to Cebu, Baguio, Manila, Puerto Princesa and Davao