WED 7 DEC - SAT 24 DEC 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Saturday 10 December, 2-4pm 

This exhibition is made up from artist's who have previously been exhibited in the gallery during 2016. Selected and curated by the Director for the annual Director's Choice exhibition.

Artists: Julia Flanagan, Clare Weeks, Peter Lankas, Helene Leane, Vanessa Lewis, Dino Consalvo, Peter Read, Lydia Miller, Joanna O'Toole, Olivia Parsonage, Paul Maher, Michelle Brodie, Susan Ryman, James Murphy, Catherine Tempest, SODAMOLLY, Andrew Finnie, Caelli Jo Brooker, Penny Dunstan, Ellie Hannon, Vanessa Turton, John Heaney, Giselle Penn. 

The director's art cut
By Melinda McMillian | 8 December 2016 | newcastlestar.com.au

Feed The Monsters Of Love
(The Slow Post)
SODAMOLLY
Kristian Glynn & Colleen Hoad

WED 23 NOV - SAT 3 DEC 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Friday 25 November 6pm

SODAMOLLY is the appellation for a collaborative Melbourne/Hobart based art duo, consisting of Kristian Glynn, known as Soda, and Colleen Hoad, known as Molly.

Their names are merged as is their creative styles. Their art tells tales of an abstract yet extremely personal nature. Drawing us into their world with a seemless combination of explosive colour and intensely layered imagery.

From their debut show behold our sour kingdom held in Melbourne during 2012, comes this second installation Feed The Monsters Of Love (The Slow Post).

Avalanche of works by John Barnes
theherald.com.au 

Gallery 139 presents drawings and paintings from two graduates of the old Fine Art course at Newcastle University, Kristian Glynn and Colleen Hoad who headed to Melbourne 10 years ago and have returned to Newcastle with a collaborative exhibition Sodamolly. This is a high-energy, irreverent post-punk, anarchic romp mixed with a healthy dose of cynicism and self-deprecating humour. Over many hundred works a dialogue has been created between the artists and, though many of the subtleties remain private, the commonality of the sentiments expressed and the boldness of their technique ensures immediate connection with the audience. Until December 4.

WED 2 NOV - SAT 20 NOV 2016

EXHIBITION NOW STAYING OPEN TIL SUNDAY 20 Nov 10am - 2pm

OFFICIAL OPENING: Saturday 5 November, 2-4pm

MEET THE ARTIST in the gallery every Thursday between 2-4pm

The first solo exhibition in the gallery by Gallery 139 Artist Peter Lankas.

Peter's unique and often humorous take on the everyday is what sets his work apart from other artists who paint the Australian suburban landscape. His works skate close to poking fun at the everyday but instead somehow wrap a hug around the people and the familiar. 

The last five years I have been preoccupied with experimentation and research in painting without the use of chemicals or solvents as was originally done in the early development of oil painting during the Renaissance. This led me to exclusively make all my own paint and not rely on any industrially or commercially made paints or mediums. All paints, mediums, glazes and natural varnishes are produced in the studio, where I have been the happiest I remember, fully in charge of the alchemy of painting. Like a chef or sometimes a mad scientist the process has been one of total absorption and joy.
~ Peter Lankas

Small wonders by Jill Stowell
theherald.com.au

PETER Lankas must be one of Newcastle’s busiest and most visible painters. But the large number of small paintings at Gallery 139 until November 19 is his first solo show for many years. 

He has long made complex images, with perhaps even more complex messages, from the built environment, a lively and invariably interesting subject. Service stations, shopping centres and back yards appear here, but a wall of works relate to plein air sessions on the beach, moody and romantic. 

He is one of the artists threatened with losing a studio at NCAC, where he is also a dedicated teacher and strong advocate for his rediscovery of pre-industrial paints and painting mediums. 

Will he next move towards abstraction? Or will working more closely with the figure prove a new passion? His many coming exhibitions will tell.

IMBUED

WED 12 OCT - SAT 29 OCT 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Saturday 15 October, 2-4pm
gallery crawl with Acrux Art Gallery (12-2pm) 
and Gallery Sixty One Revisited (4-6pm)

These 5 artists' works are imbued with an intuitive sense of colour which is celebrated in this gallery-curated exhibition

Exhibiting artists: Michelle Brodie, Julia Flanagan, Ellie Hannon, Olivia Parsonage, Vanessa Turton

WED 21 SEP - SAT 8 OCT 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Saturday 24 September, 2-4pm

First solo exhibition at Gallery 139 by Gallery Artist Dino Consalvo

This exhibition is painted 'en plein air' around Merewether Beach from April - September 2016. Capturing the changing landscape and people who frequent Newcastle's busiest and most beautiful beach. 

SPECIAL EVENT DURING THIS EXHIBITION
Dino will still be painting around Merewether Beach and Ocean Baths area for the entire duration of this exhibition, find him on location ~ #dinoatmerewether

WED 31 AUG - SAT 17 SEP 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Friday 2 September, 6-8pm 

In keeping with the tradition of the master and the apprentice, The Artist as Mentor exhibition looks at the unofficial mentorship that has developed between 3 Newcastle artists and 3 of their students. 

Braddon Snape/Jo Lynch
Clare Weeks/Maisie Neale
Peter Lankas/Dane Tobias

FREE ARTIST TALK with Peter Lankas on
Saturday 17 September 2pm

Innovative relationships at Gallery 139
by Jim Kellar | 2 Sept 2016 | newcastleherald.com
 

BRADDON SNAPE/JO LYNCH

Braddon about Jo “I first encountered Jo when I was working with TAFE students to deliver a collection of Public Artworks for the Honeysuckle foreshore. She had only just turned 17 I think but demonstrated a voracious appetite for knowledge and a desire to grasp as much an understanding of the Contemporary Art landscape as possible. All the while developing a sophisticated aesthetic and sense of materiality - remarkable for one so young. Since that initial encounter I have had the pleasure of mentoring Jo at University where I have witnessed the continuation of her remarkable trajectory. Jo’s development is in hyperdrive and it is difficult to keep up although it is most enjoyable to witness her shoot past me in the fast lane.”

Jo Lynch
The remediation and morphing of language as it adapts to contemporary contexts fuels Jo’s practice. Her cross-disciplinary work takes text, voice, image, objects and spaces as instances communicable exchange to be combined, opposed, and interrogated. For The Artist as Mentor exhibition, the idea of sculpture has been peeled back and supplanted by a performative interaction with material. A process of collaboration between maker and matter have been undertaken to present the co-extensive nature of making. 

CLARE WEEKS/MAISIE NEALE

Clare Weeks is a Photomedia artist and is currently enrolled in a Doctor of Philosophy (Fine Art) Postgraduate Degree at the University of Newcastle. Since 2008, Clare has been employed as a Photomedia Teacher at the Newcastle Art School TAFE and for the past 2 years has been Maisie Neale’s Photomedia teacher. Maisie has managed to annoy her way into Clare’s heart.

Both artists draw from similar aesthetics in their work but from different worlds of life experience. Their works in this exhibition is an artistic collaboration between two like-minded individuals who inspire each other to push themselves and to explore new ways of individual expression.

Maisie Neale is an artist and has been a student at the Newcastle Art School since 2013. Her practice encompasses the mediums of photography, video and sculpture which often interconnect throughout her work. She has exhibited in several local exhibitions throughout her studies.

Working within the themes of the human form and nature, I attempt to explore the familiar in an out of context and provocatively appealing way. By transforming the everyday object, the works aim to test the viewer’s notion of attraction and repulsion.

PETER LANKAS/ DANE TOBIAS 

Peter received his Diploma in Visual Art from Alexander Mackie CAE, Sydney in 1980 and a Masters in Fine Art (painting) from the University of Newcastle. Peter has been a passionate dedicated teacher of painting and drawing for almost 20 years. His beginnings in Newcastle were at the Ron Hatree Art School and he has continued Ron Hartree's tradition, teaching life drawing classes for the past 15 years. Peter currently teaches at Newcastle Art School, Hunter TAFE and private classes at Newcastle Community Arts Centre. 

Peter about Dane 
I met Dane Tobias through Susan Porteous, in 2010. Susan was working in the art room at ConnectAbility, where Dane was a class participant. She told me she had come across a young man who had an amazing drawing talent. When she delved into Dane's skills and interests, it became clear that he was passionate about real estate, his bus journeys through the suburbs and google maps. He had a keen eye for design and an intuitive colour sense and spent time investigating ‘Home Beautiful’ magazines. She introduced him to Howard Arkley and Dane was excited to find someone who also had a passionate eye for detail in the suburban landscape. Dane has a photographic memory and recalled the places he had stayed in, visited or saw on his bus rides and started painting a series on suburbia.

That is where I came in, as Susan thought it may be good for Dane to work with an artist that also had a keen interest in suburban/domestic imagery and Dane started to attend my art class and continued his association with Susan at ConnectAbility, where she continues to be pivotal in Dane’s development and his interest in Art History. Dane has always been very independent and resilient in his artistic development, always doing his own work and developing his concepts, with me and Susan acting as beacons to point him to artists, genres and techniques that would help develop his working methods and contextualise his visions. Dane has reached an independence with his work doing his own library research and formulating his ideas with a strength of conviction of how he wants things to be.

*ConnectAbility Australia is a not for profit incorporated association that provides a broad range of personalised supports to people who identify as living with disabilities.

Dane Tobias 
Since 2013 I have been mentored by Peter Lankas, which has significantly developed my artistic skills and increased my confidence and independence as an artist and as a person. It has helped me to embrace the various aspects of the art process, including finishing my artworks to a high standard, assisting in the hanging and installation of exhibitions whether they are my own solo efforts (of which I have had three since 2013), or group exhibitions involving multiple artists. I now also give interesting titles to my artworks, and I have developed a pricing policy for exhibitions. My three solo exhibitions have received positive recognition from the local arts community, which has been very valuable to my profile as an artist.

My works are strongly influenced by the vast diversity and culture of the man-made suburban environment, which are similar to the works produced by my mentor. 

COAL DUSTED: Helene Leane

WED 10 AUG - SAT 27 AUG 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Saturday 13 August 2-4pm

A solo exhibition of monotypes, encaustics and paintings based around the Coal Town of Carrington by Gallery 139 Artist Helene Leane .

Works from this exhibition are still available for purchase please contact info@gallery139.com.au for details. 

Artist Statement
An artist often uses their creativity to celebrate or comment on the environment in which they live. This is apparent in my exhibition about Carrington. I have only lived there for 9 months but never has such a place had such a significant impact on my imagination. Covered in a layer of coal dust, it still manages to breathe life.

Carrington is a modern day enigma – it is basically still an industrial hub – almost a wasteland on the weekends, with a grid of residents, some with fantastic stories to be told about the history of their suburb. Amongst the industry lies the “belly of the rainbow serpent”, Throsby Creek, with its magnificent mangroves. The mangroves are home to such a variety of animal life – bats, crabs and birds.

The fascinating combination of a vibrant animal habitat with the coal, industrial and port activities has allowed me to place seemingly contradictory images in the same exhibition. It is a tribute to the resurgence of a habitat which has an improved ecological balance compared to that of 100 years ago. The debris left in the mangroves as the tide recedes still indicates that we have still much to change, but the vibrancy of the life within as you walk the mangrove boardwalk, shows the ability for nature to bounce back, with just a small amount of awareness. But as long as we export coal from our port, Carrington will always have a sooty layer, an an avoidable fact in an intriguing suburb.

"After a run of group exhibitions Gallery 139 presents COAL DUSTED,  its first solo exhibition for some time, from prolific artist Helene Leane. This is a well-balanced presented exhibition where the artist’s new home in Carrington has provided the stimulus for these suites of prints and paintings. Four series of monotype prints, photo transfers, acrylic and encaustic paintings are linked by shared imagery and a similar colour and tonal range.  Silhouetted images of frogs, dogs, skinks, bats and birds are juxtaposed against an abstracted vegetation and a stylised, industrial landscape. While painting is a relatively recent expansion of Leane’s practice and appears a little hesitant, her close-toned monotype prints are much freer and lively." 

John Barnes
Newcastle Herald 19 Aug 2016, 1 p.m.

WED 20 JUL - SAT 6 AUG 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Saturday 23 July, 2-4pm

A gallery curated exhibition of sculpture and painting that build upon the theories of Abstract Art. 

Exhibiting artists: Toni Amidy, Eira Chidgey, Justin Lees, Joanna O'Toole, Lisa Pollard, John Sorby, Julia Flanagan. 

John Sorby

"In Abstract + at Gallery 139 the simple, organic, blackened, wooden forms from prolific sculptor Joanna O’Toole are set against the paintings of six artists whose individual interpretations of abstraction have combined to produce an engaging, bright and colourful exhibition. In his first exhibition in several years John Sorby has pared down his harbour references to confident, gestural marks using an effective, limited palette in small paintings that sit comfortably alongside Julia Flanagan’s loosely patterned, playful works and Lisa Pollard’s more formally arranged pieces. Toni Amidy’s bold and expressive sweeps of thick paint and Justin Lees’ high energy celebrations are calmed by Eira Chidgey’s landscape-inspired soft fields of bleeding colour in this well considered and balanced exhibition."
John Barnes
Newcastle Herald 5 Aug 2016, 2 p.m.

Julia Flanagan 

WED 29 JUN - SAT 16 JUL 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Friday 1 July, 5.30 - 7.30pm

The Subject is a group exhibition curated by the gallery to explore portraiture and figurative painting.  

Exhibiting artists: Dino Consalvo, Nick Ferguson, Christina Frogley, Lydia Miller, Damien Slevin, Pablo Tapia. 

A Portrait Demonstration by Newcastle artist, Pablo Tapia will be held in the gallery on Saturday 16 July from 10am - 11am. Gold coin donation
Bookings essential please contact info@gallery139.com.au

GALLERY 139 SUBJECTS

Gallery 139’s latest exhibition, The Subject, offers a similar mix of portraits and figurative works with confident drawings by Christina Frogley and some strong portraits by well-known local artists Dino Consalvo and Lydia Miller along with Nick Ferguson who recently won the painting section of the Muswellbrook Art Prize. 

The fact that most of the sitters are friends of the artists adds a personal dimension to many of these works and a risk element that is often missing when celebrity is paramount and big prize money is at stake. Unfortunately, the dark, urban nocturnes by Damien Slevin are out of place in this exhibition and do not fit with the other works. Until 16th July.

review in newcastleherald.com by John Barnes 8 July 2016.

WED 8 JUN - SAT 25 JUN 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Saturday 11 June, 2-4pm
JOIN THE FACEBOOK EVENT HERE

The second gallery curated exhibition based around the fundamentals of drawing. 

Exhibiting artists: Melissa Bull, Sarah Cockroft, Christina Frogley, Vanessa Lewis, Tanya Matas, Jay Muldoon, Susan Ryman, Greg Slevin, Robyn & Eric Werkhoven, Matthew Tome, Toni Amidy. 

ART: Immerse yourself in a wild world

JILL STOWELL
June 17, 2016, 2 p.m. Newcastle Herald 

Drawing at 139

ANOTHER rewarding exhibition is Fine Drawing at Gallery 139 until June 25. It covers a varied field, from the obsessive detail of Greg Slevin’s fish and Vanessa Lewis’s oak tree to the computerised drawing machine programmed by Matthew Tome, producing delicate, virtually invisible tracery, unnerving messages from the spirit world.

Robyn Werkhoven draws her quirky figures with characteristic assurance. Tony Amidy’s life drawings deploy expressive charcoal. Tanya Matas draws with the sewing machine. Surrealism lives again for Susan Ryman. Jay Muldoon’s ink fantasies grow organically. Melissa Bull applies botanical illustration to clay pots. And there is more.

TUE 24 MAY - SAT 4 JUN 2016
The Depot Gallery, Sydney 

Opening event: Saturday 28 May, 3pm

The Depot Gallery 
2 Danks Street
Waterloo, NSW 2017

Gallery 139 is committed to developing the professional art practice of it's Gallery Artists outside of Newcastle. This exhibition is scheduled for 24 May - 4 June 2016 at The Depot Gallery in the Danks Street complex and is the first of many exhibitions, Gallery 139 plans to present outside Newcastle. This exhibition will be curated by Gallery Director, Ahn Wells. 

"My current body of work continues the fascination with the ordinary and the everyday. I have made a conscious decision to return to the human form within the suburban/urban landscape. The nature of the imagery is from anywhere, as long as a visceral or a heart connection was made and had room to develop a familiar narrative. This body of work feels like a new beginning of my painting process, not only due to a complete painting technique change but also the return to figurative representation. There is a new excitement in my studio."
Peter Lankas

"I have begun to explore the details within a larger subject, zooming in and focusing on the painting's composition, surface texture and colour palette. “Empty pool” is the first completed painting from this approach. Painted at Merewether baths in the middle of a cold Autumn night, I was drawn to the starkness of the pool edges and the reflection of the wall within the water. " 
Dino Consalvo

"I’ve been painting this section of our urban coastline since about 2009 looking North and South.  Limiting myself in this way has allowed me to accumulate a collection of imagery and compositional components developed into something original and pertinent. Every time I draw this landscape it is new, I see it for the first time again.  I never get bored with making new images because as a society we’re always changing; as is the environment; and so does my take on it. "
Paul Maher

PRESS

Seasoned trio make push into Sydney
Newcastle Herald May 20, 2016, 5:15 p.m.

Newcastle artist Peter Lankas features in a new Gallery 139 exhibition at Waterloo
Newcastle Herald May 22, 2016, 8:30 p.m.

WED 18 MAY - SAT 4 JUN 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Friday 20 May, 5.30 - 7.30pm

This will be by Flynn Doran's second solo exhibition at Gallery 139. His first exhibition refracted was exhibited in 2015. Works from this exhibition are still available for purchase via the gallery. Contact info@gallery139.com.au for details. 

Rumination is about the process of deconstruction, removing all unnecessary elements of a design. The works are inspired by the poetry and the personal debris we leave in the wake of life. Layers of history occupy the sculptures fasacde. The forms become expressions of life, unencumbered by the necessity of traditional construction.

WED 27 APR - SAT 14 MAY 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Saturday 30 April, 2-4pm

The gallery curated exhibition, Beyond COLOUR reveals the different way in which the four exhibiting artists capture and remove colour in their practice. 

Exhibiting artist: Matthew Tome, Sieglinde Battley, John Heaney, Lynette Bridge.

Matthew Tome colour etching series 2016

FOUR FLAVOURS AT 139

Newcastle Herald 
Jill Stowell May 6, 2016, 2 p.m.

THE latest exhibition at Gallery 139 until June 4 brings together four very different artists.

Sieglinde Battley’s four paintings layer images from rich deposits of imagination, part literary, part autobiography, part exotic visitations from the subconscious. Unravelling context takes time in pleasurable puzzling. She is a self-generating artist with a reputation for the unexpected both in Australia and in Europe.

Matthew Tome is also widely represented. His series of small multiple-plate etchings plays theme and variations on an electronic subject with sophisticated simplicity.

Lynette Bridge, at a different stage in her career, deploys many mediums in cloudy nuance, while John Heaney’s sculptural stoneware pots ape metal, marble and cement in bold folded forms.

WED 6 APR - SAT 23 APR 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Saturday 9 April, 2-4pm

A gallery curated exhibition exploring how the natural environment influences artists in their art practice. This exhibition will include painting, drawing and sculpture by established and emerging Newcastle artists.

Exhibiting artist: Matthew Allam, John Barnes, Penny Dunstan, Judy Henry, Shelagh Lummis, Sally Reynolds, Gavin Vitullo.

GALLERY OF LANDSCAPE

Newcastle Herald art review by Jill Stowell 15 April, 2016

GALLERY 139 has collected a wonderfully diverse catalogue of works inspired by the idea of landscape. Apart from Shelagh Lummis’s multi-part painting of an arcadian scene, there is little to suggest the conventions of view-capture.

Gavin Vitullo’s imposing modulated timber poles evoke the forest. Matthew Allam creates miniature landforms in moss-filled clay saucers. The paintings of John Barnes hanker for abstraction in canvas-filling constellations of circles. Sally Reynolds’s woodcuts continue to recreate the red cliffs of Central Australia’s MacDonnell Ranges.

Penny Dunstan reverts to the camera-less photography of her previous work in a series of sepia-toned details of growing leaves and plants. This solar-powered image-making brings us the natural world, but transformed into polarised pattern, with a mysterious new dimension.

WED 16 MAR - SAT 2 APR 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Saturday 19 March, 2-4pm

CLOSED OVER EASTER WEEKEND

The beauty of flowers has been a subject matter for artists since the Renaissance to today. Works featured in this exhibition have been developed from two "Elegant Blooms exhibition workshop" conducted in the gallery.  Plus a work by Jill Orr, who is a master at capturing flowers on canvas. 
Works below by Terri Brander, Libby Cusick, Lydia Miller

WED 24 FEB - SAT 12 MAR 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Saturday 27 February, 2-4pm

A gallery curated exhibition exploring the bounds of Photography.

Exhibiting artists: James Murphy, James Rhodes, Clare Weeks, Chris Byrnes, Catherine Tempest and Maggie Hall.

WED 3 FEB - SAT 20 FEB 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Saturday 6 February, 2-4pm

A gallery curated exhibition exploring the art form created by the simple act of cutting and glueing things together and onto a surface to make an artwork. It first became recognised as a form of artistic expression during the Synthetic Cubism period. Think Picasso and Braque. Collage became an important tool for the Dadaists and throughout Surrealism and eventually found a forefather in the art of Kurt Schwitters.  This exhibition celebrates the wonderfully liberating use of mixed media used by the exhibiting artists to make their work. 

Exhibiting artists: The Strutt Sisters, Caelli-Jo Brooker, Kate Burton, Barb Nanshe, Maggie Hall, Jane Collins and Giselle Penn.

WED 13 JAN - SAT 30 JAN 2016

OFFICIAL OPENING: Saturday 16 January, 2-4pm

This first exhibition at Gallery 139 for 2016, celebrates the way dogs are portrayed in art. With 10% of gallery commission being donated by the gallery to the Hunter Animal Watch Op Shop, Beaumont St, Hamilton - Hunter Animal Watch Inc is an animal charity, a voluntary organisation, committed to animal welfare issues and to pet desexing in the Hunter Region of New South Wales Australia.

Exhibiting artists: Michael Bell, Carolyn Phillips, Nicola Bolton, Greg Slevin, Damien Slevin, Danny Sky, Dino Consalvo, Andrew Finnie, Vanessa Lewis, Susan Ryman, Peter Read, Kerri Smith, Jill Orr, Jo Shand, Lydia Miller, Shelagh Lummis, Flynn Doran, Peter Lankas, Paul Maher, Claire Martin, Catherine Tempest, Judy Henry, Linda Greedy, Christina Frogley, Tanya Matas, Cherie Freeman, Jay Muldoon, Helene Leane.  

We are proud to report that this exhibition raised $422.00 for Hunter Animal Watch Inc. Beaumont St Hamilton.

STOCKROOM works during exhibition by Damien Slevin and Linda Greedy below, available for viewing upon request in the gallery.
Below left to right, top to bottom
Damien Slevin Dog Beach acrylic on canvas 30cm x 30cm $500.00
Damien Slevin The Dog Walkers acrylic on canvas 30cm x 30cm $500.00
Linda Greedy Black dog at the antique market - Vence 30cm x 45cm $440.00
Linda Greedy Greyhound at the antique market - Vence 30cm x 45cm $440.00