Contrast is a wonderful thing, especially when the works of two or more artists are wildly different from each other. The two main artists in Artemisia Gallery’s new exhibition, Aidan Filshie and Eddy Burger, are such artists. According to the artists’ statement, the Dada-inspired works of Sophie Fitsioris and Olga Tsara in the back room serve to finish the trio of opposites.
Aidan Filshie’s Colori d’Italia is a masterclass in impressionistic landscape oil painting, largely documenting his travels in Italy. Canals, valleys, fields and small towns backdropped by towering behemoth-like mountains are all captured beautifully. Some, such as Rosa, are achieved with thick scrapes of layered texture, yet others, such as Venetian Romance and Pines of the Dolomites #2, employ more delicate, detailed, quiet strokes. The resulting works would look perfectly at home in the Victorian Artists Society, a gallery renowned for proudly preserving and celebrating traditional painting methods and styles.
Whereas Filshie uses art to harness impressions of reality, Eddy Burger uses art to run as far away from reality as possible. Well known in the Melbourne arts scene as an artistic chameleon, regularly delving into spoken word, theatre, puppetry, photography, visual arts and even the odd Gilbert and Sullivan opera performance, Burger’s exhibition features newly-coloured versions of some of of his previously black and white line drawings, along with a bunch of similarly-coloured new material.
Trying to describe Burger’s work in a single sentence poses problems, because each illustration is a universe/reality unto itself, following its own laws of logic, physics and taste, with only a few adjectives such as surreal, brazen and perpetually idiosyncratic to tie them together. Some works are angular and geometric, others are fluid and biological. To give them film classifications, some are rated G, some are MA. Aliens, robots, mutants and unidentifiable creatures inhabit Burger’s landscapes, and sometimes are the landscapes, such as in Totem Pole People and Quebeton goes on a Planetary Jaunt. Some are quirky, such as Helping a Giant Snail Afraid of Water.Â
Some are reworked Burger classics such as A Spaceship Witch Looks like a Nail, some are creature-fests like Droopy Blobby Monsters, and Cattle Revenge needs to be seen to be believed. Burger’s world and everything in it is weird, strange, relentlessly individual, and quite often brilliant.
Fitsioris and Tsara’s show is totally different again, using predominantly textiles, for instance a range of wearable woollen headpieces. The rest of their room features five hanging pieces, all of different sizes, mediums and artistic methods, held together with a sense of a willingness to give any artistic idea a go and see what happens. Cultural images live along an assortment of multimedia, along with triptychs and collages, from ancient and traditional people to contemporary pop culture.
Read: Theatre review: The Dictionary of Lost Words, Playhouse Theatre, Brisbane
Although relatively new, this exhibition shows again that Artemisia is both prestigious enough to attract high-calibre artists, and bold enough to host works by proudly, almost adamantly, less commercial ones. The ability to blend both those worlds, attracting and mixing its existing fanbases and intended demographics, is a very healthy approach to working in a place that has as many artists as Melbourne.
Aidan Filshie: Colori d’Italia, Eddy Burger: Colourisma Fantasmic and Sophie Fitsioris and Olga Tsara: Untitled Exhibition About Art will all be exhibited at Artemisia Gallery and Event Space until 4 May 2025.
Artist talk by Eddy Burger will be on Saturday 3 May from 11am-1pm, free entry.
