Opening night celebrations, Friday September 2nd, 6-9pm.
‘Marco Polo’ is the 7th multidisciplinary solo exhibition by Daniel Breda. After being featured in the Adelaide Fringe Festival at Praxis Artspace in February, and at Red Gallery Melbourne in June; the third iteration of Marco Polo will be shown in Breda’s hometown of Wollongong at Project Contemporary Artspace.
This interactive exhibition examines contemporary space through the juxtaposition of physical and virtual spaces with Virtual Reality, installation and traditional painting. In this exhibition, Breda extends his practice through a bold, bright and fun abstract adaptation of the classic Australian swimming pool game ‘Marco Polo’.
Nostalgically a childhood game, ‘Marco Polo’ is an imaginary game where players are metaphorically blindfolded in a body of water. Traditionally, the blindfolded yells ‘Marco’ in which case the responders yell ‘Polo’ until they reach out and touch a responder. Similarly, this exhibition will see Breda collaborate with award winning leader in VR Brennan Hatton to showcase an interactive VR experience inspired by these childhood thematics. The exhibition will feature Hatton and Breda’s Marco Polo VR work, as well as their transreality Ball-pit.
Marco Polo will be on view at Project Contemporary artspace from August 30th - September 11th, with opening night celebrations and drinks on Friday September 2nd from 6pm.
Presented by Daniel Breda
Supported by the City of Wollongong
Proudly sponsored by Seeker Brewing and Crown Art & Design.
2022 Adelaide Fringe Festival
‘Marco Polo’ by Daniel Breda is an interactive exhibition that examines contemporary space through the juxtaposition of physical and virtual spaces utilising traditional painting, installation and virtual reality (VR). In this exhibition, Breda extends his practice through a bold and bright abstract adaptation of the classic Australian swimming pool game ‘Marco Polo’.
‘Marco Polo’, is a childhood call and response game, where one player is metaphorically blindfolded in a body of water. The blindfolded yells ‘Marco’ in which case the other players yell ‘Polo’ until the blindfolded reaches out and touches a responder. Similarly, this exhibition will see Breda collaborate with award winning leader in VR, Brennan Hatton to showcase an interactive VR experience inspired by these childhood thematics. The exhibition expresses Breda’s love of creating active participation in the gallery space alongside his painting practice to form juxtapositions between innovative technology and traditional art.
Breda’s painting practice romanticises the Australian landscape from a neo-futurist perspective. The subject matter is representative of organic matter, such as mountainscapes, beach scenes and waterways, juxtaposed with hard edge abstraction reminiscent of urban developments.This is inspired by the Italian Futurist’s concept of ‘dynamic sensation’, depicting natural and mechanical forms in the pictorial plane as a unified force. Painted from what have become distant memories, each of these works depict landscapes seen whilst touring Australia as a band member of the Wollongong based punk band, ‘Hoon’. The works depict the vastness and beauty of the Australian landscape between major cities, juxtaposed with geometrical forms representative of the few architectural and mechanical forms that occupy these spaces.
Daniel Breda is a contemporary artist based in Wollongong, NSW. He completed a Master of Fine Arts at The National Art School in 2016 and has since developed a multi-disciplinary approach to his art practice. Breda has been in multiple group exhibitions, art prizes and expositions including Vivid Sydney and at The Melbourne Convention Centre. He has had solo exhibitions at both Gosford Regional Gallery and Project Contemporary, and in 2019 was awarded the Young Creative Leaders Fellowship through Create NSW. In 2020, Breda worked alongside the City of Wollongong to create installations involving music and art in the Wollongong Crown Street Mall, and was most recently awarded WCC funding for his 2nd solo exhibition at Project Contemporary that was held in April 2021. Breda’s 4th solo exhibition “The Floor is Lava” was held at Sydney Road Gallery in June 2021.
‘Marco Polo’ will be on view at Praxis Artspace a part of the 2022 Adelaide Fringe Festival from February 10th - March 5th.
Opening night Friday February 18th at 6pm.
Presented by Daniel Breda and Praxis Artspace
“In terms of looking at art, it is a calculated ask by artist Daniel Breda whose work and presentations have always asked much more of visitors than mere sight or just looking. Wielding a combination of traditional painting, installation, and virtual reality technology, imbued with a wry sense of humour and a touch of irreverence, this exhibition is an invitation to dive in and play with an expansion of what painting is, and the ways and spaces in which we can actively engage with it. “ Lisa Pang
