email manfred@tilt.com.au

Amanda van Gils

Amanda is a young Melbourne artist who has this year been short listed for no less than six art prizes. It is easy to see what has generated this excitement. Her recent works evoke the experience of travel, as twilight sets loose the connections of the familiar landscape and road with our personal histories. As the end of the day is inhabited by our memories, so the road home carries the reminders of its history. Each speaks of small but significant displacement to accommodate the other.

Tilt Contemporary Art proudly  presents:          

"Twilight Travels" - paintings and works on paper by Amanda van Gils     August 27 – September 13                     

Opening celebration  Sat. August 30   4 – 6 pm.

Ferntree Gully , August 2003:      

Artist’s Statement by Amanda van Gils

Twilight Travels

“Twilight is the time when things can be both definite and vague simultaneously.

The work in Twilight Travels takes a non-linear approach to time and place to consider the psychological connection between people and place. These works are as much about ‘spirit of place’ with all the associated history, which that entails, as they are about personal response to that spirit.

 These works are not landscapes in the grand tradition of Von Guerard (or countless other 19^th Century landscape painters), and nor is the history I refer to the grand scale events that are captured in history books and on CNN.

The landscapes and roads in these works are small and familiar; they are roads we have driven down, land that we have cleared, fences that we have made. They are part of our everyday lives and they inform our everyday understanding of the world. Likewise, the Travellers are just ordinary people traversing the various planes of existence. They are somewhat indistinct and their presence is not always easily explained but they are (or were) people just like you and me who through their daily activities have left an impression in their wake.

Even the smallest experience leaves traces”.

About Amanda van Gils

Born:  Australia 1968

STUDIES

2000           Graduate Diploma in Visual Arts - Victorian College of the Arts

1999           Studio Practice - LaTrobe Street College of Art and New Media

1987-89 Bachelor of Art - Fine Art - Chisholm Institute of Technology

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2003     Twilight Travels - Tilt Contemporary Art, Ferntree Gully, Vic.

2003     Irresistible Detours - Pantechnicon Gallery, Daylesford, Vic.

2003     Mistakenly - Metropolis Gallery, St Kilda, Vic.

2002     subvisible - red gallery, North Fitzroy, Vic

2002     Cars Like Us - LaTrobe Street Gallery, Melbourne, Vic.

2001     Parameters - Eisenberg Gallery: The Victorian Museum of Experimental Art, Brunswick, Vic.

RECENT GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2003           The Hutchins Art Prize, 2003 – The Long Gallery, Salamanca Place, Hobart, Tas.

      City of Banyule Works on Paper Art Award, 2003 – Ivanhoe Receptions, Ivanhoe, Vic.

      La Trobe Darebin Acquisitive Art Prize 2003 - Bundoora Homestead Arts Centre, Bundoora,Vic.

      Nillumbik Prize 2003 - Nillumbik Shire, Eltham, Vic.

      The Foot Square Exhibition - C.C.A.C., Richmond, Vic.

                  Red Group Show - red gallery, North Fitzroy, Vic

               Wyndham City Contemporary Art Prize - Wyndham Community Cultural Centre, Werribee, Vic.

         The Smorgon Steel Contemporary Art Prize - Williamstown Festival, Williamstown, Vic.

                  St Kilda Art Supplies 10^th Birthday Show - Metropolis Gallery, St Kilda, Vic.

      Linden Postcard Show - Linden Gallery, St Kilda, Vic.

2000           VCA Graduate Show - Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Vic. 

                  Eccentricity - Monsalvat Gallery, Eltham, Vic.

      ANZ Visual Arts Fellowship Award - ANZ Cathedral room, Melbourne, Vic.

      Proud 2000 - Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Vic. 

COLLECTIONS

Monash University

                        Chisholm Institute of Technology

                        Various private and business collections 

MEMBERSHIPS   

      NAVA

      VISCOPY