Callum Hussey & James Ramsay
Digital Dog Rock Em Sock Em Variety Hour
About the Artists and Exhibition:
Callum Hussey (1997) and James Ramsay (1989) are multidisciplinary artists. They met in Ballarat in 2016, started a band together and have been bouncing off each other creatively ever since. Digital Dog Rock Em Sock Em Variety Hour is the latest expression of their enduring and evolving artistic relationship, which they have described as an almost innate process. For both, it is their first art exhibition.
James’ work carries an immediate, commanding physical presence as Cal’s weaves through the layered conceptual, thematic foundations – reminiscent, for those who have seen them perform, of an on-stage dynamic or experience.
At it’s inception, this body of work was an attempt to have fun during COVID 19 - driven by escapism rather than a desire to directly comment on or process pandemic times. The show reveals itself as an honouring of the mundane, a tribute to everyday people and banal experiences - manifesting in both restricted and seemingly limitless forms simultaneously - all of which are liberating in their own way.
On the one hand it feels as though, out of necessity, the artists’ material is gladly broken down both physically and conceptually to whatever they had immediate access to - friends, partners, family, mirror selfies, tools in the shed and at-hand household mediums such as alfoil, butchers paper, simple colour palettes and biro. On the other, there is the unrestricted expanse of the artists’ inner worlds. And it is here that Bang Bang enters the ring.......
We held this exhibition as a silent Art Auction.
View the Catalogue for ‘Digital Dog Rock Em Sock Em Variety Hour’ here (Please note, sales for this exhibition are now closed)
For available works, please contact the artists directly:
“We were introduced to Bang Bang last year when we opened In the Skies and asked if Callum Hussey would give us some works to sell.... So by now we kinda just take Bang Bang for granted...like you might say “acrylic, ink and Bang Bang on canvas” when talking about Cal’s work ...they are just part of the process, ever present, even when not overtly depicted. Indeed, the artist’s Instagram (currently in hibernation mode) was formerly something like @bangbangescargot (Le snail) .......Anyway, point is, and given that this emerging artist is currently existing outside a social media (snail) trail, I just wanted to share a little context about Bang Bang - what I know of them...... so that perhaps you, like us, can delight in how Digital Dog Rock Em Sock Em Variety Hour reveals so much more juicy background to the enigmatic figure/motif in Callum Hussey’s work”
— Anna McIldowie
