Moreton Bay Art Awards

You may remember the baby water dragon I featured in a photo here a little while back?

Well, the magical version of him has been accepted in the Moreton Bay Region's Art Awards photographic/digital section. I have also had the 'Tree of Life' I made last year preselected.

All done and dusted

The last month or so have been the most stupidly busy of my entire life, I think. Aside from the exhibition and the exegesis to go with for Uni, there was all the 'nearly the end of year' stuff that goes on with home and work. Very nearly lost the plot. Anyway, the Uni stuff is done with for now...just waiting on results and in the next couple of months I will be able to put the letters MSTA (Visual Arts) after my name. Last week I drove to Toowoomba to hand everything in on a record-breaking hot day - 36 degrees in Toowoomba and 42 through the Lockyer on the way back. Was a bit worried the tyres would start to melt or something. Anyway, to mark the end of it all, here's a video of the final installation, made by Alex Brown, one of my former art students.

Next step

Have handed in my first semester assessment which was a project proposal for the installation. As I am working towards the actual thing, I am applying research to the maquette as much as possible. Most recently, I have added a model of the door to the forest, which references the forbidden chamber in fairy tales, as well as heralding the change between two worlds. I have also added mirror to the walls, which will reflect parts of the installation as well as changing spatial perception so that the viewer feels that the forest is far bigger and extends far further than it does. Little bit Tardis, little bit Narnia.

Uni Project

Things have gone a bit quiet because I am trying to get into my project for my Masters. It will be an installation later in the year and will basically be an enchanted forest, with links to feminism in fairytale and folklore. Its exciting but daunting. Today I started making my first marquette, the first decision being about how to deal with the walls. At this stage, I am thinking a mural approach with a forest background. I painted the original, then played around with different colour variations. Not sure how I will proceed in terms of overall colour, but am feeling good that I've made a start on the making (been reading for months).

Moreton Bay Art Awards

Dropped off the two pieces for the MBRAA today. You have seen the sculpture before - Swan Lake, but the digital work is new, called Stairway to Heaven. The awards exhibition opens next Friday night and then continues for a week. If you want a look, it is on at the Pine Rivers Gallery at Strathpine.

Moving On

Rock Pools has still got a week or so to go and I have to thank everyone who has a) gone to see it and then b) made lovely comments about the work. You may have figured that the works refer to real rock pools in that they are perfect vessels for tiny worlds isolated but linked, just like us in our own little worlds.

One of the good moments of the opening was when one of my friends told me about a young boy who was touching one of the pieces. As I watched him, I could see his utter fascination with the tiny worlds, and since that was kind of the point, it made me very happy (didn't tell him not to touch). Also very pleasing was watching his Dad, clearly using his son's childish fascination as an excuse to get down to floor level amongst it as well. Priceless.

Thought I might use this space to talk about some of my favourite pieces in the show. If you have been reading this blog for long enough, you know I have a developing fascination with the Divine Feminine and have been reading a lot about Goddess religions that were the norm way before Jesus arrived. The whole show alludes to this, particularly a reference to the ritual of 'scrying' - usually performed by Priestesses using a reflective surface to see the past, present and future, and a way of communicating long distance quite a while before mobile phones. Anyway, the following piece is called Swan Lake, and I'll let you draw your own conclusions. (Yes, she has the Stigmata and yes I will likely be burnt at the stake myself). I like it because I think it is quite a strong piece and at the same time a wee bit whimsical.

The Morning after the Night Before

There are times when being an artist sucks really. If you are one and you've done a solo ever, then you know what I am talking about. Lots of time, effort and of course money goes in and once its all done, there's the crash and burn. I've come away from the opening with more doubts than anything else - not enough work, space wasn't right, particularly the massive white walls, not good enough - the usual. And now I am back at home surveying the wreckage that has accumulated over the last few weeks of me frenetically trying to be ready, knowing that the weekend is going to be all about tidying, sorting and cleaning!

Anyway, a big thanks to my wonderful friends and fam who showed up for support. Special thanks to Mel for being kind enough to make a purchase. So, onward and upward, vacuuming here I come!

 

Rock Pools Installed!

My premonition about Murphy's Law (see facebook) was unfortunately correct. Things were going swimmingly well yesterday until I got to the gallery to find no one was there. Freaked out, took half the day to track someone down and the nett result was that I had to go back today in between work, picking up kids and a netball game to finish off.

Anyway, its done now. I took a few quick snaps before I left this afternoon. Hoping that it looks okay on the night, and hopefully I'll see some of you there for the opening.

 

 

 

Upcoming Exhibition

Hi y'all! This is your invitation to attend the exhibition opening for 'Rock Pools', which I have previously mentioned. Hope you can come.

Remember Me?

Yes, it has been a while...again. Not that I think that anyone is anxiously waiting for my next blog, but you never know. Anyway, things are very slow on the creative front just now, due to a whole lot of work going on. I have given notice that I won't be keeping on with the curriculum leader thing next year, which will hopefully free up some time and mental space to focus again on my work. In the meantime, I am trying to prepare for a planned exhibition in November. It will be entitled 'Rock Pools' and below are some of the pools I have put together so far.

 

 

The exhibition will be an installation involving a minimum of at least 50 separate 'pools' and some associated creatures, mainly birds. So far I have 14 pools and three birds. Going to need to get cracking!

 

 

New York

Right in amongst a particularly hideous school day (note I said particularly - all the days now seem to be varying degrees of said hideousness), I received an invite to do a solo exhibition in NY, NY. So in the second half of next year, I will be doing just that. This time I hope to go with.

More news as it comes to hand.

What else at GoMA?

Of course the big ticket gig is the Matisse exhibition, which was also rather wonderful. Aside from marvelling at the man's brilliant economy of line and formidable drawing skills, it was very encouraging thanks to a number of things:

1.  His early 'college of art' drawings were alot like mine were in those days. Did you notice he didn't quite gain confidence in drawing hands and feet until a few years later? To begin with they were nebulous shapes or behind the back etc. I wonder if his art tutors rolled their eyes, like mine did?
2. As I tell my students all the time...practice, practice, practice. Matisse developed his talent through 'just doing it'. Remembering that this exhibition of 300 drawings is a fraction of the drawings he did, which in turn represents a fraction of his overall body of work, he was obviously very productive. I am looking forward to making that point yet again to my senior students!
3. I loved his detailed charcoal drawings.
4. Also loved the way his forms became even more economical as time went on to end up as flat shapes and a change in media to screen printing.

After all that, it is just delightful to enter the drawing room, where you can sit quietly with lovely things and draw to your heart's content, (broken up by the odd cup of coffee overlooking the river, of course). I will be more than happy to buy another ticket just to have that experience again, though I must try and pick my time to avoid the madding crowds (and school kids). This is the drawing I did on the tablet in the drawing room!

Forgot to mention...Matisse was a cat man, which always raises a person in my estimation. Many artists of all kinds choose cats as companions; I think it is the enigmatic quality they exude. He had two cats, Minouche and Coussi, living in his Villa Reve in Vence. It is said that Minouche had an 'M' for Matisse on his forehead. The cats kept him company when he was confined to bed due to poor health.

Current GoMA exhibits

As I said before Christmas, I would do a couple of blogs about my latest visit to GoMA, so here is the first installment:

One of the installations I was really keen to see was the 'we miss you magic land' installation in the children's gallery. I wanted to see it, because I am thinking of an installation for my next exhibition and Pip and Pop (artists) seem to have an aesthetic not too dissimilar to mine. It certainly was the lolly-coloured fairy land I had envisaged, but overall I was quite disappointed. Perhaps that is because it was aimed at children, but there lives a child in all of us, and this exhibition failed to interest mine all that much. Perhaps again it was that the space was filled with children that stopped me from feeling immersed, but I somehow doubt that. I know this is terribly picky, but the exhibition included numerous little plastic animals, but they were all included as they were - straight out of the packet, which at times made them seem very out of place and incongruous. Given the effort it would have taken to do the sugar part of the exhibit, I would have thought a quick coat of metallic pink paint or something on the animals would have been worth it. Again, we (I) need to bear in mind that the exhibit was meant for children, but given the title, I would have liked it to say something...I don't know what, but it just seemed...well...decorative, pretty, an amazing attention to detail, but a wee bit pointless.

By contrast, I loved the installations by (clearly slightly bonkers - and I mean that in the nicest possible way) Japanese Artist Yayoi Kusama in the exhibition: Look Now, See Forever.  Her installations were completely immersive, possibly by virtue of her brilliant use of mirrors, saturated colour and dynamic forms, but I could feel the buzz in my head that happens when you know you are witnessing something important, even if it is just challenging your concept of reality. My favourites were Reach Up to the Universe, Dotted Pumpkin and Dots Obsession, both pictured below.

The artist freely admits her obsession with dots, a problem that has plagued her inner life since childhood. You get to join the obsession by participating in the interactive exhibition The Obliteration Room where you can add coloured dots to any part of what was once a white room. The room virtually hums with the vibration of colour and shape. Her video installation featuring the artist singing her own composition: Song of a Manhattan Suicide Addict is fascinating in a train-wreck kind of way and what prompted my original comment. She certainly sees life in a refreshingly 'dotty' way - should be more like her.

If you want to go to the gallery's website, I have put in a link on the side, and I will be back in a day or so to talk a bit more about the Gallery's fifth birthday exhibits.

2nd run at New York

My first attempt at exhibiting in New York and Broadway Gallery didn't quite work - the pieces were broken in transit. Then they came back to me in pieces. Now I am about to send new pieces over for an exhibition starting in mid October. One of them is a repaired and revamped version of one that went previously. The first version of Mother Earth was thus:

Sadly, she snapped off at the base of the stem on her trip OS. So I have reworked her and her creativity has extended somewhat. Now her 'earth' looks like this:

And a couple of close-ups:

To hopefully prevent any more injury to her, she is now also enclosed in a Perspex box. Bon Voyage (again) Mother Earth. Have a safe trip this time.

London to France

Just letting you know that the work that was in Camden Gallery in London is now being exhibited in France at Galerie64. My work has now officially seen more of the world than I have! Anyway, you can access more information via the link below: My work is on page 6 of 7.

Galerie64

New York and New Work

The gallery I have been invited to exhibit at in New York is Broadway Gallery (on Broadway, funnily enough) and the exhibition will be in June. It is the same sort of thing as the one in London - a group exhibition of international emerging and established artists. And like the London one, it is not going to make me a household name (not that I really want to become one), but it is more exposure on the Web and in the States among other places.

It is all part of the long and expensive process of establishing yourself as a visual artist, apparently. Not that I am complaining. It is only March and this is the second international exhibition I have been approached to participate in. Anyway, if you are keen on a look see, you can go to the Broadway Gallery Web Site.

By the way, I have recently updated my web site, so it is now pretty current with what's happening. Anyway, time to get back to the studio.

I am still beavering away at a piece I have been working on forever and which I hope to complete fairly soon. It started fairly small but is now huge and I haven't been able to take any photos of the whole thing yet, but here are some details:

New building, new opportunities

Since starting back at school in January, I have been finding the going pretty tough, largely due to the fact that my current 'art room' is a stinking hot demountable circa 1980s with no running water, sinks, precious little storeage and nothing much at all to endear itself. It has been particularly tough during the hot weather and having to lug stuff around including jerry-cans of water.

If this situation was going to be permanent or even long term, I am sure I would have quit by now. The last couple of weeks I have been wondering how I could hang on - I've been coming home utterly exhausted which means, of course, that along with extra hours, there is little time or energy for creativity.

But on Friday, I got a look at the light at the end of my tunnel - a great new art facility which should be ready to move into in the next couple of weeks. Hallelujah, I'm saved! The photos below are not good quality, but they will give you an idea of what I am getting excited about.



Main art room looking to the back - sinks under the window.





This is a verandah/courtyard space which will house the kiln and work with ceramics and hard materials etc.

Storeage Galore: Woo Hoo!

Also, I have just been invited to exhibit in New York, New York in June. If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere, right? More news on that as it comes to hand.



 

Invite to Camden Gallery Exhibition

Well, the artwork has arrived in London, got through customs with only a minor glitch, and now it is full steam ahead for the Camden Gallery Exhibition. If you are in London in the next couple of weeks, would love for you to stop in.

If you'd like to look directly at the web site you'll find it at: http://www.camdenartgallery.com/future.html

Exciting News

So, there are two things I need to tell you which are pretty big. Firstly, I have been invited to exhibit in a London Gallery early in 2011, which will be very exciting for an Aussie Girl. It will cost me quite a bit of money, but it is an opportunity too good to let go of. More details as they come to hand.

Also, the painting I posted when I was whining about being in a rut a couple of weeks ago has lifted my spirits by winning first place in the National WetlandCare Art and Photography competition. I painted it for the prize, Wetlands obviously being a subject close to my heart, but I didn't expect to win. So I will probably be going to Canberra, the Nation's capital in Feb to see the exhibition, collect my prize and celebrate World Wetlands Day.

New Work and Exhibition

This week is going to be another in a long line of ridiculously busy weeks. I have a group show opening on Friday night, with four other women artists. It will be a great show - very diverse and featuring sculpture with textiles, found objects, wire, works on canvas and natural fibres like felt. I will be including the finally finished Royal Spoonbill (pics below taken by fab photographer Carl Warner) as well as some of the other pieces I have already shown you, like Ceibhfhionn (which is soooo heavy, I can feel my back hurting already) and The Bower. If you live in the Brisbane district, feel free to come along to the opening on Friday (15th Oct) at the White Canvas Gallery, Church St, Fortitude Valley at 6.30pm.

To Check out more details, go to White Canvas Gallery