Exhibition opening 6pm Thurs 27 Oct

Mande Bijelic’s Plugholes and Other Paintings is testimony to Bijelic’s ability to identify visual merit in the everyday. Overlooked by most, the common place is reframed by Bijelic, and presented to us as scenes and objects of great intrigue.

This exhibition spans 20 years of Bijelic’s practice, combining a retrospective selection of paintings with new works from her series of Plughole paintings. In this series, bathtub plugholes from around the world are lovingly rendered in paint; each an entry point to a global network of connectivity though a vast web of unseen plumbing.

Bijelic’s Plughole paintings present the bath plughole as a universal object, one which confronts us as we shower and bathe, acting as an equalizing and unadorned experience. Text plays an important role in Bijelic’s compositions, and each painting is labelled with the name of the town or city where that particular plughole is located. The plughole images originate as photographs gathered internationally by friends, contacts or even by un-introduced requests, each with its own unique story.

Making use of bold colours, symmetry and repetition, Mande Bijelic’s Plugholes and Other Paintings transform the seemingly ordinary into visually powerful experiences.

Bijelic’s paintings are held in public collections by TMAG, ART BANK, The SCHICK Collection USA, and in private collections in Europe, NZ and Australia. She was a finalist for the Glover Prize and is also a published poet.