Gavan FENELON
BIO
My early Arts training covered a number of disciplines. These included Acting, Film and Media, Music and Visual Art. I have been professionally engaged in each of these at different stages throughout my working life. My contributions have been valued and documented as such.
My professional engagements have been with the following:
*State, Alternative and Community Theatre companies ( Acting, Co-writing, Directing, Designing Sets and costumes and Mentoring )
*Film and Television companies ( Acting )
*Community Organisations ( Leading workshops in Visual Arts and Theatre with individuals experiencing physical and mental disabilities and social disadvantage )
State and Private schools and Tertiary Learning institutions ( Teaching Visual Art and Theatre Skills )
*State and Local Governments and Non Government Organisations ( Producing numerous *Sculptural Public Artworks located throughout the greater Brisbane Area )
*Private Sector Clients ( Producing Sculptural and two dimensional Artworks and Illustrations )
Although I now work primarily as a Visual Artist I draw constantly on approaches learned and implemented previously in other areas of Arts practice. I feel this has added a depth of layering to my work that may otherwise not have existed.
Inspired by 1980s Brisbane agitprop theatre…
Tall Tales from the Altered State – Order By Numbers and The Closest Thing
Street Arts Community Theatre Company was founded in October 1982 in West End, Brisbane, by Denis Peel, Pauline Peel, Steve Capelin and Andrea Lynch.[1] Street Arts was preceded in Brisbane by the agitprop ensemble the Popular Theatre Troupe. While continuing in the Popular Theatre Troupe’s tradition of satire and radical political commentary, the Street Arts approach was to create theatre and circus by enabling disadvantaged communities. This became the dominant community arts methodology in Queensland in the mid-1980s, attracting funding from Australian arts boards including the Community Arts Boardand Performing Arts Board. [2]
Beginnings
In 1982, after returning to Brisbane, Steve Capelin and his partner Andrea Lynch formed Street Arts with Pauline and Denis Peel to give a focus to their community arts activities. Pauline and Denis Peel had been involved in community arts projects in Edinburgh public-housing areas, Scotland, in 1980. In the same year Steve Capelin was a member of WEST Community Theatre’s clown troupe in Melbourne
Art Practice Keywords:
Installation, painting, drawing, collage, assemblage
Artist Role Keywords:
Visual Artist
Collaboration/ Collaborator names Keywords:
Artworker’s Union (Qld), Qld Artworker’s Alliance, Order by Numbers, That Contemporary Art Space, The Observatory, The Demolition Show
Collections
Various Private Collections
CV
“Nat’s Rant” (1985)
An excerpt from the show “A Few Short Wicks In Paradise” recorded in Sydney in 1985.
Performed by “Order By Numbers” (Nat Trimarchi, Penny Glass, and Gavan Fenelon).
Presented in Sydney by the “Queensland Democracy Support Group N.S.W.”.
Directors: Dee Martin, Michael Cummings.
Sound recording: Kieran Knox.
A reference to the 1985 SEQEB dispute starts at 4′ 23″: “Yeah, fifty-thousand big ones is what you’re gonna pay if you are a power worker and out on strike these days. And if you join a picket you could be down a thousand bucks. And if you tell them stick it, they’re gonna make you bankrupt. It’s no good throwing you in prison, that’s just bad publicity. That’s the price you pay for your electricity.”