A new exhibition by Bellingen-based artist Alun Rhys Jones that questions companies and brands that use rainbow colours to attract the LGBTQIA+ community will be one of three new exhibitions to open at NERAM this Friday.
The Winter Blooming Festival opening will be held along with the opening of Rainbow: Alun Rhys Jones; Ley Lines: Neerja Peters and Fantastical Scenes: Queering the Collection and the opening night event is free for all attendees.
In Rainbow, Jones creates a fake gift shop maximalist in its hang with bright graphics and merchandise, including t-shirts, wallpaper, and mugs, to reflect on how rainbow colours are utilised to attract the pink dollar of LGBTQIA+ consumers.
“Rainbow colours are often used by companies and brands to create products and services to attract the LGBTQIA+ community,” said Jones.
“Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell described this rainbow capitalism as damaging to LGBTQ+ communities. This virtue signalling and apparent support often disguises the fact that many companies do not have in place cultures of acceptance and tolerance and when push comes to shove discard their support over profit.
Jones said for the exhibition at NERAM, visitors will enter a fake gift shop with bright graphics and merchandise reflecting on how rainbow colours were utilised to attract the pink dollar of LGBTQIA+ consumers.
“However, they will utilise images from a series of 16 skull paintings I created called “Pantone Belief System” that reference the disjunct between well intentioned support, monetising the Queer community and the effects on the psyche of continual media and public scrutiny.”
Another new exhibition will be by New Delhi based artist Neerja Peters who finds creating paintings through geometry and colour articulation contemplative and meditative. Her distinct visual language evokes synaesthesia, perceiving beyond what is evident, leading the viewer to self-discovery, soul awakening, and divine knowledge.
Ley Lines, Peter’s first exhibition in Australia, presents several bodies of work and includes drawing, painting and artist books, that demonstrates Peter’s spiritual expression through abstract geometry.
Queer lives and artistic practices are inextricably linked in Australia in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As the third new exhibition opening on Friday, Fantastical Scenes demonstrates, the collections held at NERAM are ripe with such queer stories and potentials.
The words queer and queering are far from neutral. This exhibition seeks to counter ideas of queer as a category, label or a fixed or knowable identity. Instead, the collection of artworks in Fantastical Scenes explores queering as a way of being, discovering, re-interpreting, resisting and making. This exhibition is curated by Dr Ariella Van Luyn.
The Winter Blooming Festival weekend of activities will also kick off on Friday night with the exhibition openings. Tickets for Winter Blooming Ball, workshop and other events can be booked here
“Winter Blooming has become a signature event at NERAM that celebrates our diverse communities through discussion, creativity and social connection,” said NERAM Director Rachael Parsons.
“We are very excited to be presenting New Delhi based artist Neerja Peters’ first exhibition in Australia. Peter’s geometric abstraction works are beautiful and poignant with a deep connection to spiritual awareness through visual language.
“We don’t often show international art at NERAM and this is part of a wider project of cultural exchange that we have in progress with artists and organisations in India. Hopefully there will be more to come.”
Parsons said the rainbow had become a powerful symbol of LGBTIQ+ pride, communities and people, but it was also something that is overtly commodified.
The new exhibitions will open on Friday August 16 at NERAM at 6pm. Visit www.neram.com.au/event/30697/ to book your free ticket.
Top image: Artist Alun Rhys Jones putting up his Rainbow exhibition which will open at NERAM this Friday (supplied)
Something going on in your part of the region you think people should know about? Send us a news tip or email newsdesk@netimes.com.au.