Happenstance is delighted to announce that we’ll be having a stall at the third annual MCA Zine Fair this Sunday 23rd May 2010! The Museum of Contemporary Art in collaboration with the Sydney Writers’ Festival presents guest speakers, bands and a zine fair in the MCA’s Foundation Hall. The event has seen astounding growth in recent years, attracting Sydney’s finest zine makers to showcase their work.

You will all be able to sell, buy or trade zines, listen to live bands and enjoy free guided tours of the exhibitions. Remember to come by the Happenstance stall, say hello, have a yarn and of course, pick up a copy of the magazine! You will also be able to pick up a copy of Happenstance from the MCA gift store.

When: Sunday 23rd May 2010
Time: 11:00am – 5:00pm
Where: Museum of Contemporary Art
140 George Street, The Rocks
Cost: FREE

Hope to see you there!
The Happenstance team x

Photograph by Rozie Wong, courtesy of Flickr

Jin Hien Lau is a pretty cool guy.  He illustrates Happenstance’s Versus and doesn’t afraid of anything.  One of the most interesting illustrator/animators in Australia at the moment, his first solo exhibition opens 6pm to 8pm this Thursday April 1 at Books Kinokuniya.  You’d be a fool not to check it out.

The Uncanny Visa runs from Thursday 1 April to Thursday 14 April at Books Kinokuniya.

Kinokuniya Gallery
Books Kinokuniya
Level 2, The Galeries Victoria
500 George St, Sydney

Anne Nicholson is a celebration of originality. Creative from a young age, her artistic endeavours have spawned an impressive body of work. The willowy, ashen beauty from Wollongong belies her 24 years as she speaks of her fervour for graphic design.

By day, Anne works as a graphic designer and stylist at a small design studio in Wollongong. She escapes the daily grind by immersing herself in eccentric DIY projects such as zine making and, what she dubs, “functional art”; think canvas totes, bookmarks, greeting cards and envelopes, key rings and stationary. Most recently, she has added photography to her repertoire.

Similar to her personality, her creative aesthetic is colourful and light, with a hint of sarcasm. She explores her penchant for art via illustrator, photoshop, cheap acrylics, felt-tip pens, lino stamps, off-cuts of paper and fabric, watercolours and stencils. “My love for each is varied but just as strong as the next.”

After graduating with a diploma in graphic design, she collaborated on her first zine which was brilliantly entitled ‘My Feet Were Dirty but Now They Are Clean’. Experimenting with a montage of colours, it was jam-packed with clever thoughts and delightful drawings.

‘Mr. Over Achiever’ was her first independent zine, so it comes as no surprise that it is one dear to her heart. She goes on to reveal that the inspiration for the comic zine was a fellow zinester who was always trying to trump her. Well, she sure showed him!

Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for her numerous fresh zines in the works including a brief comic about an unnamed, peculiar delivery driver and an innovative sketch-fest of her closest friends.

As a proudly independent publisher, she appreciates the importance of local zine fairs in getting to know who and what is out there. Describing zine-ing as rewarding, she revels in its creatively diverse nature; “whatever you are into, you can find a niche for it”.

Anne is hard at work building herself a career in the graphic design Industry. But what is her advice to fellow up-and-coming artists? “Use social networking to its complete advantage” by means of blogging, networking or becoming a contributor.

Check out all her great work on http://www.wemakezines.ning.com/profile/AnneNicholson

Contact her on  annemakesthings@hotmail.com

The month of May kinda seems a long way off, but that’s not stopping us getting excited about the launch of the gorgeous (and nicely typography-heavy!) 17th Biennale of Sydney website.

Get in on the ground up: hurry and apply for the last of the volunteer positions, or register online for the first week festivities by 28 February.

This time, the Biennale is based on the curatorial theme “THE BEAUTY OF DISTANCE: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age”, and will once again take over Sydney’s public spaces with a showcase of new and recent works from local and international artists.

Internationally-acclaimed artistic director David Elliot curated the biennale specifically for Sydney as an iconic modern world city, and to explore the nexus between visual and other art forms.  Presenting highlights on the website, Elliot says: “I’m very excited to be presenting the 17th Biennale of Sydney. The aim of this Biennale is to bring together work from diverse cultures, at the same time, on the equal playing field of contemporary art, where no culture can assume superiority over any other.”

And that sounds pretty damn alright to us!

The Bieannale of Sydney runs from 12 May until 1 August 2010 across a number of venues and in a number of different forms.  Check out the website for more details.

Looking for Gaffa Gallery? Don’t worry they weren’t a casualty of the whole financial crisis…

You may remember Gaffa as a quaint little artist run gallery tucked away in the streets near Central Station. Well with their Inaugural Relaunch Exhibition taking place this Thursday night, you’ll see just how busy they’ve been over the last few months to come back bigger and better than ever. Expanding into a multi-level gallery with 3 separate floors as well as a cafe and shop thrown into the mix, this is going to be one of Sydney’s finest new art spaces.

Gaffa Gallery still remains as dedicated as ever to nuturing cross-platform collaboration, collectivity and cohesion within the contemporary arts community. Pop on down this Thursday night to check out the future of arts in Sydney.

Inaugural Relaunch Exhibition
11 February – 23 March 2010
281 Clarence Street, Sydney CBD, NSW 2000
artists // Ella Barclay, Vernon Bowden, Zoe Brand, Benjamin Backhouse, Kath Fries, Mark Gerada, Andrew Lavery, Sean O’Connell, Marcelle Robbins, Sumugan Sivanesan, Mike Turner, Geoffrey Farquhar-Stil, Rohan Wilson, Melinda Young

Whether it be your iPhone calendar, your moleskine diary, or if you prefer the good ol’ fashioned writing on your hand, mark it down: This Wednesday night our friends at MAgallery connect four emerging artists from Sydney and Melbourne at the exhibition opening of BLUE MOONS. Featuring the works of Leon Hawker, William-Guillaume Saussay and Persistently Plastic (Phil Soliman and A. West). MA’s doors will be open from 7pm.

A. WEST // ARTIST STATEMENT:

My art is a creature. I love it, yet I abuse it and I am cruel.

My art is always a rebellion. Although morbid and cynical, I occasionally rejoice in a tiny scrap of carnal empathy.

I bathe myself in contrast and paradox.

Oil and blood splatters mirror the way we cover the natural with the manufactured. We use oil to destroy environments, societies, cultures and even our own skin.

I encourage viewers to touch the works.

PHIL SOLIMAN // ARTIST STATEMENT:

The works in this show reflect my interest in how photographs of humans are looked at and interpreted.

Millions of photographs of people are taken every day, and distributed all over the world. On social networking sites, on thumb drives, in pornographic magazines, in newspapers, on billboards. They evoke the whole spectrum of emotions, from love, desire and nostalgia, to hate, anger and intense adulation.

Photography is also a scientific tool, capturing images for research, engineering and other uses. Our understanding of ourselves and the Universe has been advanced immeasurably by photographs of horses in motion, milk droplets, distant galaxies, the surface of the earth, and the interior and exterior workings of human beings.

Our skin is such a wonderfully useful organ, incredibly complex and durable, yet we only think of it in terms of its appearance. Its colour, for most of us, is of utmost importance, appealing to our deepest political and aesthetic ideas. Nevertheless, it is almost impossible to look at the surface of a human without thinking about the physical and emotional activity happening underneath. I wanted to examine this idea by capturing the surface of a man in a highly objective, scientific way, while imbuing the work with a sense of subjective beauty and sensuality.

BLUE MOONS opens THIS Wednesday, February 10 from 7pm – 9pm, MAgallery Sydney: 27 Dick St, Chippendale. (Also viewable from today through to Feb 15 by appointment only)

Some pretty great illustration work from Sydney local Seamus Heidenreich.
Especially loving the choice of colour palettes.

We can’t seem to escape James Patradoon lately. He’s moved out of his bedroom and taken residency in our studio (some of you may remember his Bedroom Safari article from our first issue). When he’s not drinking all our beer and making fashion statements with his Saucony sneakers he’s been knuckling down to get work together for his new show, Yours The Demon. Head on down to Kinokuniya on the 7th of January to check out all new works by James.

YOURS THE DEMON is an exhibition of experimental work by screenprinter/illustrator James Jirat Patradoon. A departure from his usual hypercoloured palette and superhero subject matter, this series of large scale black and white drawings take inspiration from the gothic sublime of secret societies and the occult.

James’ intense comic book noir-style images have appeared in magazines such as Nylon, Complex, Acclaim, and Empty. As well as in collaborations with Adidas, Diesel, MTV, Pepsi, Mambo and The Deftones. See more of James’ work at www.jiratpatradoon.com.

Opening Night Thursday 7th of January
Running till 19th of January

Kinokuniya Gallery
Books Kinokuniya
Level 2, The Galleries Victoria
500 George St, Sydney

Opening night drinks provided by Cascade Green.

Nothing signals the start of summer more than a bustling market on a balmy night.  And what’s a better way to ring in the glorious weather and celebrate the extended hours of daylight than by supporting local creatives, bagging a bargain, and seeing some neat artwork?  Nothing, that’s what!

Happenstance magazine is proud & excited about joining forces with the Finders Keepers to present some of Sydney’s most exciting emerging artists in a fun, market-style atmosphere. We call it the Art Mill.

The Finders Keepers is an independent art & design initiative supporting new & emerging creatives (just like Happenstance!), and their second annual markets hit Sydney this Friday 2 December.  With items on sale ranging from fashion & accessories, books & zines, textiles & homewares to arts & crafts (amongst a whole host more), it’ll be a great opportunity to bag a one-off find while supporting talented creative folk from your own ‘hood.

Pop by the two gallery areas of the Art Mill and say hello to us, while ogling some great artwork from artists like Ben Ali Ong, Lang Leav, Matt Huynh, Rebecca Murphy, Renee Anne and a whole heap more.  (See the full list of lovely featured artists here!)

The Finders Keepers Sydney markets open Friday 2 December from 6pm to 8pm, and will run from 10am to 8pm on Saturday 3 December at The Carriageworks, 245 Wilson Street, Eveleigh.  Click here for more details and a nifty map, & come along with your friends!