‘aXolotl’s Happiness’ - Diego Ramirez (VIC)

Opening - 6:00 PM - Wednesday, 4th of March

Artist Talk - 5:30 PM

Running - 4 Mar 2015 - 21 Mar 2015

aXolotl's Happiness is a single channel video revolving around the figure of an anthropomorphic axolotl (a larval salamander endemic to the lakes of Mexico) performing banal domestic activities. The work draws upon Julio Cortazar's short narrative Axolotl (1952), a Kafkian narrative about a man that transforms into an axolotl.

Diego Ramirez (b. 1989, Mexico) is an artist and writer living and working in Melbourne.). His work has been included in local, interstate and international group exhibitions such as South curated by David Corbet (Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Sydney), Unco curated by Ian Haig (Torrance Museum, LA and NCCA, Darwin), The Return of Ghosts (Hong-Gah Museum, Taiwan), The Substation Contemporary Art Prize (The Substation, Melbourne) and The Incinerator Art Award (The Incinerator Gallery, Melbourne).

In 2013, he participated in the WRO 15 PL), Currents Santa Fe New Media Festival (New Mexico, USA), The Substation Art Prize (The Substation, Melbourne) and the Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize (Sydney).

His video work is regularly shown in international screenings that take place in galleries, museums, artist run and alternative spaces including FILE 2014(Sao Paulo, Br), Nervous Tensions curated by Anabelle Lacroix (Careof, Milan), Festival Miden (Kalamata, Greece), Stuttgarter Filmwinter (Stuttgart,De), MADATAC 05 (Madrid,Sp), Videoholica (Varna, Bg), International Video Art Review (22 cities, PL), Antimatter (Victoria, th Festival Les Instants Video (France, Italy and Argentina), Ca), 25 and Channels: The Australian Video Art Festival (Melbourne, Aus). He is represented by [MARS] Gallery in Melbourne, Australia.