Limitless Play - No Vacancy

Limitless Play is the group show currently on at No Vacancy. The title does not disappoint; the show is full of joyful, playful work that feels a bit like a party. The work feels whimsical yet well matched, with a cohesive visual style that works well together from all five artists. I imagine the opening would’ve been even more of a party with live music and movement performances over two nights, as well as a magazine launch (HOISZN issue 007) in the space on a third night. Also notably drinks sales on Performance Night and from the HOISZN launch event, plus some merch sale revenue (totalling $550 so far!) is to be donated directly to the Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency. This is admirable, especially when considering the whopping gallery hire fee which totals over $2k per week, in addition to the 20% commission No Vacancy takes on artwork sales. I didn’t manage to make opening night or any performances for this show, but maybe that’s for the best considering Charlotte’s dry cleaning bill after the red wine incident at the last opening Lowbrow attended at No Vacancy.

One of the other main reasons that this exhibition is a party is due to the great big star cake by Annabel Le that sits atop a plinth in the space. I instantly recognise Le’s work because I own a beautiful necklace made by the artist (under her Egg Soda Studio moniker) that I bought at Finders Keepers Market maybe a year ago. It’s always a joy to accidentally stumble back into the path of an artist that you’re already familiar with. The cake is bright and colourful and would be delicious if only it were real. Le’s work is some of my favorite in the show, aside from the cake she also presents three mixed media paintings and an aluminium sculpture. The metal object is hinged like a book, but the decorative curls that frame the drawings are at odds with the form, they would stop you from handling this in the way you would a book.

My other favorite artist on display is Felix Pear. The soft fleshy Banana Butt airbrush painting (which also features on the front of the catalog) has a tongue in cheek, distinctly playful humour to it. The almost alien figure reaches around to their own back to peel a banana so that their butt remains in frame. The other work by Pear that really draws me is Felix Pear TV, which is displayed on a CRT TV (I had to look up that CRT stands for cathode ray tube, which gives me more context for the excellent song by Folk Bitch Trio) and has a pair of equally vintage over ear headphones that snake out and invite the viewer in to connect further with the work. The small flickering screen displays a series of cartoons. In one a little spikey character spits out bubble letters that read “Fuck me” before falling over and fading away. There are other videos that show characters similar to the one we see in the Banana Butt painting, and there are dicks dripping bubble letters made of pee? These cartoons are funny and silly and playful and don’t take themselves seriously and I really like them. They embody the title of the show and the artists’ collective sentiment for the intuitive skill of play.

The show also features paintings by Tim Sta-Ana made from saturated warm reds, with flat graphic cartoonlike characters interactive with technology; laying on their back scrolling a phone, or head resting atop a table while the same phone charges connected to a portable charger. These paintings are so distinct, and recognisably related to one another. I wish these were presented as a triptych, displayed together in the space to create more of a dialogue and pull on the thread between the works. Joshua So’s work has a similarly distinct style. Let’s Ditch the Phones and Start a Commune sees bold blue lines on textured white canvas, a style mirrored in 順其自然, which consists of four 15cm squared paintings on wood. I really like that I can easily tell which artist is responsible for which work in the show. It shows how solid in their voice these artists are and how developed their visual language is. I love Lae Um’s soft sculpture Cutlet that greets visitors through the windows of the gallery. The teddy sits behind a screen that invites viewers to COME CLOSER, with a delayed video loop of the street outside the gallery itself. The work is by Nick Marriott from Touch Collective installed by Platform Presents into the space alongside Limitless Play. The collective is having a pop up workshop on interactive art this Saturday (November 15th) in the space. I’ll admit with all the performances and workshops and artists and sales part of this exhibition it’s been a little hard to keep track of who is who and what is what while I’ve been writing this review.

Limitless Play is on at No Vacancy until this Sunday, November 16th.