Exhibitions
by John Mongard
The domino - effect 26th May 2007
Exhibition of customised furniture for Brisbane INDESIGN 2007
Medium
Custom painted furniture by John Mongard. (Folded steel plate ?domino? table/stool designed by David Shaw).
Artists Statement
The Domino table has a vegetal leaf like form. The painting work by John Mongard highlights this with cellular patterning based on coffee cup stains. The top is chlorophyll green, and the underside rhoeo purples.
Chloro Form was part of a suite of custom painted Domino tables. Street and Garden invited a group of Brisbane?s top creatives to help engage the greater community in design.
The tables were auctioned online, with the proceeds from the artist/furniture works going to the charity Drug-Arm. (refer to www.thedomino-effect.net).
Custom Painted Table Title
Chloro Form
Location
Street + Garden Furniture Company, 13 Kurilpa St, West End
Spark 2006
Medium
Fibre optics, recycled conduit, netting and string
About the Event
The inspiration behind Spark was the desire to create a memorable landmark event, a design show that would bring together a select group of designers, artists and creatives to respond to a challenging exhibition brief. The aim was to create a raw and sensual setting for one of Brisbane's most evocative and significant design events. The outcome of the event would be to ignite the design sector in Brisbane and to link the curated group installations with a broad community of professionals from diverse industries.
Spark was a celebration of design excellence, and an avenue for discourse, networking and discussion. It has generated new networks and business opportunities, while also creating a focus on the Brisbane creative community.
Event founders Alexander Lotersztain (derlot.com) and Surya Graf (urban-amoeba) joined forces to create Spark. The concept was developed from a desire to promote design excellence and as a way to facilitate cross-fertilization among some of the best creative thinkers and industry leaders in South East Queensland.
The curated group of 12 Creatives involved were drawn from a pool of Architects, Landscape Architects, Interior and Industrial Designers, Artists, Jewelers and the Advertising industry.
The event involved a dramatic installation of lighting sculptures, live music and fashion, and created a stunningly creative setting for the inspiration of a diverse and important group of creative businesses.
The venue was a voluminous warehouse in West End's industrial sector, a setting rapidly evolving into the river's edge precinct. Guests numbered over 700, and included high profile artists, designers and their related media from Queensland and interstate. Spark truly was a night to remember.
Sponsorship
Light equipment and support for this installation has been sponsored by Advanced Lighting. Special thanks to Steve Taylor.
An Other Reality 2006
Medium
Fibre optics, recycled conduit, netting and string
Artists Statement
Inspired by sea and coral creatures, C Things draws on industrial and recycled objects as a means of capturing their unique transparency and dynamic colours.
Fibre optic lighting provides a fluid light medium for highlighting the form of these C Things.
The sea urchin forms utilise the tensile and reflective form of recycled air-conditioning conduit.
The 'blue bottle' suspended form alludes to jellyfish and also to the microscopic organisms of the ocean. The slow and soft pulsing light change simulates the gentle light transmittance of the deep sea.
Sponsorship
Light equipment and support for this installation has been sponsored by Advanced Lighting. Special thanks to Steve Taylor.
Homeshow 1999
Medium
Ricepaper and bamboo, marine stainless rigging, palm husks, hessian mats, plastic.
Artists Statement
Between Culture and Nature
An architecture in the landscape can only happen when we engage our culture as well as our nature at the same time. This gives meaning to what we build, as we searchfor a place to dwell.
We should search for new ways of looking at the landscape in Australia, always being reminded that we live in a finite garden set in a dynamic and multicultural neighbourhood. This installation is a poetic interpretation of these ideas.
About the Event
In 1999 The Courier Mail Homeshow invited landscape architects to create exhibitions on contemporary Queensland Landscapes. John Mongard and team prepared an installation which aimed to question the overlaps between culture/nature, landscape/construction, sculpture/product. It was the only installation which did not feature growing plants.
The exhibition was held at the R.N.A. showgrounds in Brisbane, 1999.
Sponsorship and Collaboration
John Mongard and Tim Conybeare developed the concept and made the installation. Artist Tony rice collaborated on the mobiles and rigging. Lily Karmatz from the Sogetsu School of Ikebana collaborated on the uhsk installations. Don Hill from Drawing and Drafting collaborated on the mobile graphic printing.