Constance ARI

'Tasmania: Explore the Possibilities' is an exhibition of alternative parliamentary portraits by Hobart artist Jamin. The work explores the bizarre and often disturbing links between politics and business in Tasmania, and questions whether or not the arts have a role to play in these issues. In a state where the Premier makes jokes like: 'Tasmania: the Conspiracy State', and business leaders like John Gay would like it noted that 'it was Mr. Lennon had who rushed to see him... and not the other way around' - it is appropriate to be alert and alarmed.

In these alternative Parliamentary portraits, Jamin has broken from his stencil-based practice to create free-hand aerosol works, continuing to appropriate and re-present images sourced from the mass media. Jamin's practice engages with the production of 'political' art in an age of rapidly decreasing tolerance for dissent and critical opinion. Through a hybrid of street and gallery based work, Jamin explores ideas of power, complicity, duplicity, ambivalence, corruption, greed and privilege as being indicative of both personal and collective contemporary experience.

Jamin is a candidate for an MFA at the University of Tasmania School of Art, Hobart, where he completed his BFA in 2004 and BFA with First Class Honours in 2005. Jamin has had three solo exhibitions including A.K.A. (CRITERION@Amulet, 2005) and Common Ground (Bus Gallery, Melbourne 2006). Jamin has also been involved in numerous group shows including Hatched '06 (PICA, Perth 2006), Group Action 2 (Criterion Gallery, 2006) and the Melbourne & Sydney Stencil Festival (2005, 2006). He is a founding member of the Die Laughing Collective (Jamin, Paicey & Empire) who have had several 'solo' exhibitions together including; Dissent Disrupt Desert (Entrepot, 2004), Die Laughing (Earlyspace, Melbourne 2006) and MAY's (Sydney, 2006); as well as several group exhibitions, private and public commissions and workshops with school groups (including the Youngtown Underpass with Youngtown Primary, Launceston 2006). Jamin has been on the Board of INFLIGHT Gallery since 2005 and Red Wall Gallery since 2006. Jamin is represented by Criterion Gallery in Hobart.