2017 Artist In Residence Announced For Adelaide Festival Centre's DreamBIG Children's Festival And SALA Festival

Adelaide Festival Centre is excited to announce emerging Adelaide-based contemporary artist Jane Skeer as the 2017 Adelaide Festival Centre/SALA Artist in Residence for DreamBIG Children's Festival and SALA Festival.

The announcement follows the success of last year's artist in residence, James Dodd's series of works including his large scale mural and exhibition A Chat with Fred.

In association with SALA Festival, Adelaide Festival Centre invited proposals from artists (or groups of artists) from across South Australia, and have chosen Skeer as its fourth artist in residence.

Skeer will work for up to four months to create a series of new art works in response to DreamBIG Children's Festival, as well as the Adelaide Festival Centre's people, spaces and architecture. During this time, Adelaide Festival Centre will assist Skeer with the creative spaces, materials and expenses she'll require.

An Adelaide Central School of Art graduate, Skeer is heavily involved in the South Australia's arts community and has been exhibiting across Australia since she graduated with Honours in 2015.

Skeer works predominantly in sculpture and installation, with found objects and repurposed materials. Known for her playful works that engage all the senses, Skeer activates these objects in some way that respects their unique material qualities, prompting us to rethink our relationship with them.

For her recent 2016 Arkaba Hotel Commission, Skeer created a large-scale, wall-based sculpture using more than 1000 CDs, which mirrors the hotel environment to create vibrant, multi-coloured, optical illusions. In her earlier 2015 work The Messenger, Skeer collected more than 6000 Messenger newspapers and, by displaying them repetitiously and methodically, gave a new and playful beauty to an object often discarded and unappreciated.

As well as working as a solo artist, Skeer has experience curating and has been part of a number of group art exhibitions.

Quiet Square was included in the prestigious Perth Institute of Contemporary Art's National Graduate Show Hatched 2016. The work was shown first in Adelaide Central School of Art's 2015 Graduate Exhibition Propositions, and was selected for exhibition in the 2016 Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition, where she won The Watsons' People's Choice Award and Hill Smith Gallery/Helpmann Academy Friends Award. It was acquired by Chester Osborn of d'Arenberg Winery, to be displayed in the d'Arenberg Cube in McLaren Vale.

Skeer is also the recipient of the Adelaide Central School of Art Fontanelle Residency, which was offered for the first time in 2016 as part of the new Adelaide Central School of Art Graduate Support Program. She currently occupies a studio space, newly named Sister Gallery, at Fontanelle Gallery & Studios, and is looking forward to exploring new spaces in and around Adelaide Festival Centre.

"The Adelaide Festival Centre/SALA Artist in Residence program allows me to dream big, even huge! It is the perfect opportunity for me to extend my practice and to take risks outside of the white-wallEd Gallery space," says Skeer.

This is the first year the Artist in Residence program will provide an opportunity to create inspiring and engaging art pieces aimed at children for DreamBIG Children's Festival (formerly Come Out Children's Festival). More than two million South Australian children have participated in the DreamBIG Children's Festival since its inception in 1974 (as Come Out Children's Festival) and it is an intrinsic part of growing up in South Australia.

Adelaide Festival Centre CEO and Artistic Director Douglas Gautier says, "As visual arts are an integral part of Adelaide Festival Centre's annual program, we're delighted to be involved with SALA Festival again this year to welcome our fourth artist in residence, Jane Skeer. We are very excited by her proposal and look forward to her works enriching our Festival Centre spaces."

Penny Griggs, General Manager, SALA Festival says, "SALA really appreciates Adelaide Festival Centre's commitment to the annual artist-in-residence project. The residency has been invaluable to the participating artists and it is great to be able to still appreciate their impact on the space. Steve Cybulka's sculptural work in the Space foyer is a wonderful example. Jane Skeer has been doing some really interesting projects over the last few years and I look forward to seeing how she will respond to this very dynamic and evolving environment."

"I believe that the public need art that doesn't give itself away straight away, art that places the audience in a driver's seat and communicates something about ourselves. I can guarantee that my work will communicate this in my usual playful way, full of energy and humour," says Skeer.

Jane Skeer's work as SALA Festival/Adelaide Festival Centre Artist in Residence at Adelaide Festival Centre can be viewed in and around Adelaide Festival Centre during this year's DreamBIG Children's Festival from 18 - 27 May and SALA Festival from 1 - 31 August.

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