Halinka Orszulok is a painter and occasional curator living on the South Coast of NSW. Since obtaining her Masters degree from Sydney College of the Arts in 2002, she has regularly shown her work in both group and solo exhibitions.
A finalist in the Fleurieu Biennale, Fishers Ghost, Sunshine Coast, Paddington and Sulman art prizes, in 2018 Halinka was the winner of the Glover Art Prize with her work ‘Ponies’. In 2019 she was the curator of ‘Uncertain Territory’ at Artbank, an exhibition examining our multi-layered relationship to landscape as a conceptual space. Her solo exhibition ‘Black Bob’s Creek’ was shown at Wollongong Art Gallery in 2020. 2021 saw her curate ‘False Sense of Security’ for the Lockup, an exhibition questioning ideas and structures that underpin our sense of safety in contemporary Australia. Halinka’s contribution to the Cementa22 festival was titled ‘The Great Divide’. Her work has been collected by Artbank, Gadens Lawyers and the University of Wollongong.
My work is created by painting from photographs which I take at night. Night-time darkness activates the subconscious rendering the familiar strange and introducing elements of the uncanny into the landscape. The paintings deliberately reference the photographic, creating the sense of a stilled moment within a larger narrative.
With an interest in examining the role our individual subjectivity plays in our perception of place, my work investigates spaces that blur the line between nature and culture, the domestic and the unhomely, history and the present. Increasingly ecology, cultural identity and ownership are themes that I like to tease out in my paintings. The scenes that I choose to paint engender a sense of displacement, challenging our preconceived ways of reading the landscape.
Inherent in my representations of the landscape is an acknowledgement of the fact that there is very little of the world left untouched by humanity and that the word ‘nature’ has been redefined in the age of the Anthropocene. There is also an understanding of the important role that our connection to place has in reflecting and forming who we are.
Education
2001-2002 Master of Visual Arts, Sydney College of the Arts
2000 Honours (first class), Sydney College of the Arts
1995-1999 Bachelor of Visual Arts, Sydney College of the Arts
Solo Exhibitions
2020 ‘Black Bob’s Creek’ Wollongong Art Gallery
2018 ‘Night on the Outskirts’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
2016 ‘Bad Things Happen to Good People’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
2015 ‘Swamp Motel’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
2014 ‘Don’t Fall Asleep’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
2012 ‘Wisdom in Hindsight’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
2010 ‘Phantoms Of Suburbia’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
2009 Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
2009 ‘Springwood’ Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney
2007 ‘Melrose Park’ MOP Projects, Sydney
2005 ‘Unhomely’ MOP Projects, Sydney
2000 ‘Outside’ Newspace Gallery, Sydney
Group Exhibitions
2021 Artist/curator ‘False Sense of Security’, The Lock Up, Newcastle
2019 Artist/curator ‘Uncertain Territory’, Artbank, Sydney
2015 ‘Exhibit A’, curated by Carrie Miller, The Lock Up, Newcastle
2012 ‘Black, White and Colour’ Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney
2012 ‘330’ Gallerysmith, Melbourne
2011 ‘Composite’ Flinders St Gallery, Sydney
2010 Sydney College of the Arts, Painting Alumni exhibition
2008 Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney
2008 Toyota Emerging Artist Exhibition, Melbourne
2007 ‘Off the Wall’ Art Melbourne
2006 ‘Nigredo’, G & A gallery, Sydney
2006 Drawing group show, G & A gallery, Sydney
2004 Affordable Art Show, Melbourne, (with Bungay Art House)
2003 ‘Axis’, Bungay Art House at Shapiro Auctioneers, Melbourne
2003 Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Sydney
2002 Sydney College of the Arts, Postgraduate Show
2002 ‘Dark Spaces’ Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney
2002 ‘Young Artists @ Mary Place’ Mary Place Gallery, Sydney
2001 ‘Alone, but not just alone’ Newspace Gallery, Sydney
2000 Sydney College of the Arts, Honours Show
1999 Sydney College of the Arts, degree show
Publications
2021 Arts Hub, ‘Exhibition review: False Sense of Security’, Andrew Frost
Newcastle Herald, ‘Suburban Nights of Peace and Danger’, Damon Cronshaw, 6th Feb
2020 Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend, Visual Art July25-26, ‘In the Neighbourhood’ John McDonald
2019 The Art Life ‘Penalties Apply: The Landscape of Uncertain territory’ Andrew Frost, March 4
2018 Art Guide July/August, interview Varia Karipoff
The Tasmanian Examiner, March 9
The Tasmanian Mercury, March 9
Artist Profile, March 10, issue 42
2016 The Art Life, New Work Friday #207
2014 The Artlife, Andrew Frost – http://theartlife.com.au/2014/halinka-orszulok-2/
2012 Exhibitons, Nov 16, The Art Life, www.theartlife.com.au, Carrie Miller
2012 Metro – art, Sydney Morning herald, Nov 30, Andrew Frost
2012 ‘Halinka Orszulok’ Strobed, Nov 16, www.strobed.com.au
2010 ‘Phantoms of Suburbia’ Open Gallery, Sydney Morning Herald, Dec 4-5
2009 Sydney College of the Arts Handbook, Pub Sydney College of the Arts,
2007 Turnrow, Pub by Desperation Press for the University of Louisiana, December, p65-72, Ed Bill Ryan
2007 ‘Melrose Park’, Clara Iaccarino, Open Gallery, Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald, June 30-July 1
2007 ‘Shit Hot or Not’, Carrie Lumby, artlife.blogspot.com, July
2006 ‘Discovered Artist’, SCAfold, Aug
2006 ‘Halinka Orszulok’, Pilar Arevalo, Russh magazine, Aug-Sept
2006 ‘Undiscovered Artists’ Carrie Lumby, Australian Art Collector issue 36, April – June
2005 ‘Special Effects’ Andrew Frost, [email protected], July
2003 ‘A Shot in the Dark’ Alison Barclay, Herald Sun, July 23
2002 ‘Critics Picks, Young Artists @ Mary place Gallery’ Sydney Morning Herald, Jan 18-24,
2002 ‘Sweet Birds of Youth’ Sun Herald, Jan 16
2002 Profiles, Art Almanac, December 2001/ January 2002
Prizes
2019 Fishers Ghost, finalist
2018 Glover Prize, winner
2018 Sunshine Coast Art Prize, finalist
2017 Sunshine Coast Art Prize, finalist
2017 St Kevin’s Art Award, finalist
2014 Sulman Art Prize, AGNSW, finalist
2008 Fleurieu Biennale, finalist
2007 Paddington Art Prize, finalist
Collections
Private
Gaden’s Lawyers
Art Bank
Wollongong University