Synopsis

Stay or Go - video             (Tun Tan Cheng Lock Centre)

Filmed during the drought in 2010 on the vast, empty Lake Hindmarsh in SE Australia, Stay or Go references this new official bush-fire warning mantra as a metaphor for bigger questions of occupying body and land. The culmination of a ten-year overlay of illness and drought, the artist plays out the vulnerability, disorientation and near-lunacy of existence in a conglomerate of red and maroon op-shop clothing.

Biography

Born 1960 in Horsham in North West Victoria, Anthony Pelchen studied Economics at Monash University and a decade later painting at the Victorian College of the Arts.  Common to all his work is an overriding interest in the fine lines and shifts between physical and psychological states and how a dominance of one inevitably points to the absence and potential of another. This involves work across media - painting, drawing, photography, video, sculpture and installation - all incorporating elements of repetition, austerity and subtle change within set structures.

Throughout the 1990's he lived in Melbourne and exhibited widely in artist-run, institutional and alternative spaces, including 200 Gertrude Street, the Project Space - RMIT, Temple Studios, talk Artists Initiative and St Stephenʼs Anglican Church. He has exhibited twice in Osaka and has been represented in various surveys of painting and drawing over the past twelve years. Residencies include 200 Gertrude Street (1995/6,1999),  Bundanon Trust (2001,2003), Parks Victoria (2002) , Nou-Machi, Japan (2005,2007) and Malaysia (2010). He has been a recipient of Arts Victoria grants for New Work, Presentation and International Cultural Exchange.

Since 1998 he has periodically collaborated with Melbourne-based performers Yumi Umiumare and Tony Yap in gallery, church, landscape and performance environments in Australia, Japan and Denmark. In 2001 he was nominated for a Green Room Award for Design for Dance and, between 1999 and 2007, jointly conducted Butoh/drawing workshops at his base on the Wimmera River, west of Horsham. In 2007 he continued a biennial use of the Natimuk Lutheran Church as an installation space, collaborating with 222 local and Japanese children.

In 2008 he participated in Drought – Cross Cultural Collaborations, curated by Lella Cariddi and involving solo and collaborative work with writer Andrew Lindsay, filmmaker Sean OʼBrien, performer Tony Yap, singer/songwriter Kavisha Mazzella and sound engineer Ian Kitney (presented at ACMI, NGV, Federation Square and Punctum, Bendigo). In 2009, his installation Spent and video work Well were commissioned for the Murray Darling Palimpsest #7 in Mildura, in conjunction with Lauren Berkowitz, Domenico De Clario and Elizabeth Presser. These were later presented at the Ballarat Gold Mining Exchange Building and Jubilee Hall, Horsham.

In  2009 and 2010 he presented installations at the Melaka Art & Performance Festival (MAPFest), the latter following an Asialink residency at Rimbun Dahan. His collaborative artist book with writer Andrew Lindsay, Difficult Majesty, was selected for the 2010 Mackay Artspace, Libris Awards. In 2011 he participated in the Lake Hindmarsh Project at 27 Gipps Street Gallery, Melbourne and Revisitations at the VAC, Latrobe University, Bendigo.

His work is represented in collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, John McBride Collection, Australian Print Workshop, Bundanon Trust and Artbank.