{"id":17331,"date":"2008-07-25T04:41:29","date_gmt":"2008-07-24T20:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/inspiration-from-the-mundane-leads-to-solo-exhibition\/"},"modified":"2008-07-25T04:41:29","modified_gmt":"2008-07-24T20:41:29","slug":"inspiration-from-the-mundane-leads-to-solo-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"media-release","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/inspiration-from-the-mundane-leads-to-solo-exhibition\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspiration from the mundane leads to solo exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"
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C211\/08<\/p><\/div>\n

25 July 2008<\/span><\/div>\n

Outstanding Â鶹ֱ²¥ of Technology postgraduate art student Mark Parfitt\u2019s unique artistic practice has earned him the highly regarded Galerie Dusseldorf Scholarship, allowing him the opportunity for his first solo exhibition at a commercial gallery.<\/p>\n

Inspired by mundane, everyday tasks and activities, Marks\u2019s unique works are currently exhibiting at the John Curtin Gallery for dOFa08.<\/p>\n

Mark, a recent Master of Art graduate, said he was thrilled to receive the prestigious scholarship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am honoured to receive this scholarship and look forward to producing a body of work for Galerie Dusseldorf,\u201d Mark said.<\/p>\n

Ted Snell, Dean of Art at Curtin, commended Mark\u2019s achievement and his commitment to attaining such outstanding work.<\/p>\n

\u201cGalerie Dusseldorf is a well recognised gallery that represents many reputable Australian artists. A lot of the previous recipients of this scholarship have gone on to be very successful nationally and internationally,\u201d Professor Snell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a huge opportunity for Mark to test himself artistically and critically in a whole new environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark describes his work as interdisciplinary and non-media biased.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf drawing, performance, sculpture, video, digital printing, book making or anything else is appropriate in any combination for my ideas, then I will go with it,\u201d Mark said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider activity or action as art. I find an everyday task or problem and apply a creative practice to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy work is about ordinary existence, but making it more celebratory, more interesting and fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark\u2019s current work, Carlisle Buffalo, is on show at the John Curtin Gallery until 1 August and provides an insight into the inner workings of his mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy front lawn looked dry, patchy and pathetic, so to fix it, I decided to make it the subject of my artistic practice,\u201d Mark said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI surveyed my front lawn and chose the worst parts to dig up and place in a custom made wooden box. I transported the boxes to work and looked after them during my coffee and lunch breaks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark outsourced the boxes to friends and family and they reported back to him on the progress of each plot of grass.<\/p>\n

\u201cI collected all the information and used it to document the activity. I finished up producing a book, a performance and a very large installation of the returned lawn boxes,\u201d Mark said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of twelve boxes I only received a couple that had been well looked after, consequently some were quite embarrassed to see their lawn box on display in an art gallery.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Carlisle Buffalo project uncovered quite a few interesting things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI became more interested in the normal daily things and friendships that are around me. I became immune to outer pressures and demands from media, politics and commerce,\u201d Mark said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe things that matter are right in front of us no matter how insignificant or futile they may be to others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe things that interest the individual and the social activities that link humans together end up being the most significant things in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editor\/COS: High resolution photographs of Mark\u2019s current work at the John Curtin Gallery and interview opportunities are available on request.<\/p>\n

Modified: 25 July 2008<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Outstanding Â鶹ֱ²¥ of Technology postgraduate art student Mark Parfitt\u2019s unique artistic practice has earned him the highly regarded Galerie Dusseldorf Scholarship, allowing him the opportunity for his first solo exhibition at a commercial gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-17331","media-release","type-media-release","status-publish","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":false,"author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Â鶹ֱ²¥"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/17331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/media-release"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/17331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17331"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=17331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}