Open Sesame ~ Close Sesame

Converge exhibition has come and gone in a flash of five days only. It was a wonderful experience! I met some fabulous people, made great contacts and thoroughly enjoyed being in charge, with Julia and Natalie, of how the exhibition looked and what was included.

We had about 30 people to the 'opening'. Everyone had a great time and the three of us got fabulous feedback.

Here we are, the artists, Natalie Bateman (left), me (in the middle) and Julia Morrell (right). Behind us you can see Julia's triptych "Kingfisher Message" (digital prints on canvas) and Natalie's "Abstract on Lovers" (acrylic on canvas). In the blurry foreground are 4 little artist books by me.

Uncle Martin Ballangarry helped open the show and welcomed us to country. Here he is with his grandson looking at my books. He is such a fabulous guy! I enjoyed meeting him enormously.

Another shot of the crowd. It was a good size. I got to speak to just about everyone I think.


I took this shot the next day so you had a better look at my "bootiques".

Tonight ~ tonight

The 'official' opening of our exhibition is on tonight. I'm not fussed with the term 'opening' and prefer 'soiree' because the exhibition actually opened on Wednesday. But who wants to go to an exhibition opening on a Wednesday night in Gladstone? (A: no one.) So tonight is by far the best time to have it, however, the term 'opening' has confused quite a few people. And so our exhibition soiree is on tonight! The wine is already in the boot of my car, I'm packing cds and making nibblies and it should be very very good.

Deep Thought (Pink Henna)
Mixed Media on paper, 10cm x 10cm

We have had some good response to the exhibition so far and today I am heading down there earlier to spend time in the gallery. I'll also be there all weekend if you are thinking of coming for a look.

Next week I should be organised enough to show more images of the works you haven't seen yet. So "cheers" to you if you can't be there tonight. I really appreciate all my readers and thank you very much for the support you give me!

Hanging the exhibition - conVerge

What a day we had yesterday! Exhibition hanging day was long but a great team effort by us all has resulted in a fabulously exciting exhibition. The Macleay Valley Gallery at Gladstone (NSW) is situated at the side of the community hall. It is a wonderful space. This is the view of our exhibition "conVerge" from the front doors. If you would like to know what each bit of the photo is, click on it and you will be taken to it's Flickr page where I've annotated them. It's almost like being there! Ha. Not really. You still need to come if you can!

It was a long day and I took these photos at 9pm (before my 1 hour drive home). I thought my eyes were blurry but no, I did something wrong with the camera and the photos are blurry. I promise better shots later in the week. This is the view when you turn and look back at the front door.
Yes, we have a little "shop" area thanks to Julia acquiring the spinning card rack at bargain price! It's full of Julia and Natalie's cards, my hand printed cards, notebooks and unframed prints. I've also got some small blank books and hand stitched patchwork pouches.

These are my recent mixed media works on paper (below). All female faces layered with book pages and patterns.

I'm so excited to show you this little work, my "Portrait in 5 Parts". They are tiny oil on canvas paintings in found frames. Some of the frames have very old curved glass and the cluster on the wall looks great, with just a touch of something spooky. Do you like it?

These are the first works of my Paris series. Oil on canvas they glow richly under the gallery lights. I kept looking at this little corner of the gallery all day and thinking "ahh, Paris!"

The back room of the gallery is filled with Natalie and Julia's works. It has an entirely different 'feel' to that of the front room. It is an exciting feeling, adventurous even. Click on the photo (as with all in this post) to visit the Flickr page to see whose is what. The plinth in the centre has 4 small artist books by me and another of my "booquets".

Natalie Bateman is an indigenous artist and has large paintings on canvas in the exhibition. Natalie currently lives in Nambucca Heads and the beautiful coast there as well as her tradition home on the south coast have influenced these works. Julia is exhibiting mainly photographs and she is a powerhouse of skills. She is currently setting up a business that will assist artists with promotion, publishing and much more.

It was a long day but a good one. I'm truly excited about the exhibition. Hope I see you there!

conVerge

My upcoming group exhibition is getting close! Only a couple of weeks away now, it opens on Wednesday 17th February and runs for 5 days, last day Sunday 21st. The exhibition will be in Gladstone (NSW not Qld). If you don't know Gladstone it is a picturesque village on the Macleay River north east of Kempsey on the way to South West Rocks, a truly beautiful part of the world. Gladstone itself is a historic village, largely unchanged except that it is now a thriving creative community. The MV Gallery is a wonderful space beside the village hall.
I'd love you to come along and see us. Julia, Natalie or myself (or all of us!) will be there when you visit. We are having a celebration/opening on the Friday night starting at 6pm.

How do you get there? If you are coming from Coffs Harbour it is an hours drive (approx 100 km) south on the Pacific Highway. Don't take the first turn to South West Rocks. A couple of kilometers further along take the (left) turn to Gladstone, Smithtown and South West Rocks. Gladstone is 5 kms off the highway; drive past Smithtown (on your right) and cross the river. Turn right and you have arrived in Gladstone. (On the map below you will be coming from the South West Rocks direction.) There really is only a couple of streets in Gladstone so you won't have trouble finding the gallery. There are brown signs that lead you straight to it in Kinchela Street. There are other galleries and shops to check out while you are there and a wonder old Aussie pub for refreshments.
I'll be exhibiting some of my recent work you will have seen here and some new work you haven't. With the other two artists joining me, it's going to be a great exhibition!

Selected

Dinner Suit has been selected for the Warwick Art Prize. Yay!
It's surprisingly difficult to photograph. It doesn't look this motley in person. It's on its way to Warwick as I speak. It is in the textiles section. It is a difficult work to classify but 'textiles' seems perfect to me; it adds yet another layer of meaning to the work especially as textiles is traditionally "women's work."
I haven't entered any selected (juried) exhibitions in a long time but I'm getting back into it again and getting accepted into this one is just the boost I needed.

Studio with Thoughts finished - again

I posted a shot of this painting last week. At the time I thought it was finished. This time it really is. Studio with Thoughts.
It has to be finished because today is the closing day for entries to EMSLA. It has been turned upside down again since last week. This orientation is how it began. It has a much more enclosed feeling and is actually quite three dimensional. The thought patterns float in the air inside my small cramped studio. The colours are muted because it is what happens in the space that is the most important thing.

I am taking a big risk here. EMSLA is a selected (juried) exhibition and I will be publically humiliated if I don't get in now that I've blogged about it. But I wanted mostly to record the entry of it into the competition. I've not been entering competitions for many years for a variety of reasons. It will be good for me to face my demons and get my work out there again - even if it is only for the selection process and I miss the exhibiting part. It will be good for me.

On the weekend I...

...went to Taree.
I work in a school. Sometimes the journal writing there inspires me to write. Looks like it didn't work very well this week.

What was inspiring though was the (can I say absolutely fabulous again?) Absolutely Fabulous Neil Cuthbert exhibition on at the Manning Regional Art Gallery.
I hadn't heard of Cuthbert before but wow! I now know. I love his paintings and it is a huge exhibition. It really is a 'must see'.
I'm often a bit of a sucker for a good narrative painting anyway, but these are really remarkable. And yes, I am inspired. I am thinking figurative narrative thoughts...
The Taree Regional Art Gallery was also the venue for the latest Building Blox forum I spoke at. Once again I was thrilled with the day. I met so many interesting people and I was able to spread the word about how Etsy is a great way for artists and crafts people to sell online. And about how DUST is a wonderful support network for Australian Etsy sellers. Doing something similar in Port Macquarie in the next few weeks. I hope you will come along if you can.

Tonight tonight tonight I...

Just back from an exhibition opening. I entered 3 works into the selected (juried) exhibition and was happy with all three getting in. You've seen them here before, but as they are going out into the big wide world I thought I show you again. I put in 'The White Glove'...
...and 'Helping Hand'.
I didn't put the third one in this group because I wanted to put this one in 'Vessels'.

I sold all three!!! And then when I was talking to the couple who bought the first two I mentioned that there was a third painting. They bought it too!!!
I sold 4 paintings and I only exhibited 3! Now that is a new experience for me and one I will happily repeat!

What is an Artist Book? - An Interview with Sara Bowen

This question was on my mind when I recently made a journey to see an exhibition of artist books at Barratt Galleries in Alstonville. I wondered how much I actually knew about artist books, even though I have made a couple myself! The question was all the more poignant as my travelling companion was Sara Bowen, printmaker, artist book maker and friend. I knew Sara’s entry for the Southern Cross Acquisitive Book Award did not physically resemble a book although it had many ‘book’ qualities. Happily that day we were able to celebrate the acquiring of her book for the university's collection, along with others’ more book-like forms.
Later I asked Sara if she would allow me to ask her this question and others about her art practice, inspiration and the meaning of the motifs and symbols in her work - her river and her bridges. Sara arrived before me and as I walked in and scanned the coffee shop for her, at first I failed to notice her. As a newish arrival to Australia and Coffs Harbour I hadn’t expected her to be the one joining in conversations with nearby tables. Ah, but I was to learn more about her networking skills as the morning progressed.

Sara arrived in Australia in 2006, having left family and friends in Bristol, UK. She told me she came around to art the long way after 15 years of working with small businesses, setting them up and running various ones herself. She is now concentrating full-time on her art; well as full-time as a mother, wife, PHD candidate and project manager for the building of the family home can be.

JA How does your small business background help your art practice?
SB It has taken away the fear of the non-art part of being an artist. I’ve done cold calling with a suitcase of samples, written my own press releases and marketing plans and, because I have confidence that I can do those things, I don’t worry about them. It doesn’t mean I’m super confident or that I’m not terrified, but it does mean that I don’t panic about it.

JA How did you get started in printmaking?
SB In an effort to avoid killing my stepchild I was encouraged to get out of the house! I’d done life drawing and painting and I thought “Oh, printmaking that sounds good.” The little cogs went around in my head and just that whole thing about working backwards came easily. Somehow it all made sense for me.

JA How did you get started making artist books?
SB I don’t think I was really conscious of the fact that I was making artists books. I think I just ended up assembling things. I had a very vague idea of what I might do and it will just sit there in the back of my mind for ages and then something will trigger me off and it will usually be something like a little piece of cardboard or a photograph and I’ll think “that looks nice.” Tidying up the studio is actually quite often where it comes from, because I come across things I’d forgotten about, like bits of wire or a rusty nail or something and I’ll start thinking what can I do with that? And it ends up being a little exploration. That’s what starts me down the path and what the end is I’m not at all quite sure until I get there.
JA What printmaking medium do you most often work in?
SA The technique I use most often is viscosity printing where you are able to layer colours on your plate instead of having separate plates for separate colours. I change the viscosity, the runniness or thickness of the ink, and the different viscosities repel each other and instead of making a brown sludge like you might think, the colours stay separate and one top of each other. I’m interested in it as a technique to get multiple colours on the plate. This gives me the subtle colours I’m after. I also use a lot of embossing in my printing.

JA Where do you get your inspiration?
SB I love moody landscapes, bleak places where I can search for beauty. I am primarily a landscape artist. My work has an emptiness. I have a reoccurring motif in my printmaking, a swirl of river. It comes from a grainy black-and-white photograph of The Great Juanbung Swamp, which is the area at the confluence of the Lachlan and Murrumbigee Rivers. It was taken by my father-in-law from a crop-spraying plane in 1960. It is mainly a metaphor for journey.
JA You have been working on bridges in your Artist Book works. Have they always been a motif? Is it because of the river?
SB No. It’s got nothing to do with the river. It’s quite odd, but it’s got everything to do with moving countries. I moved here in October 2006 and I had my PHD started at UWE which was great because it made me feel like I wasn’t leaving everything behind, there was still some kind of connection with my old life and the people I knew and my art. But then I just didn’t have any contact from anyone in my old life. The people I felt very strongly connected to in Bristol turned out to be no good whatsoever at keeping up contact. I spent a year blogging about art and moving over here, being very up front with people about how I was feeling and I didn’t get a sausage back, no emails, no phone calls, no cards, no birthday presents, nothing! I spent 2007 feeling very, very lonely and very isolated.

Eventually I decided I needed to build bridges, metaphorical bridges that linked me with people, with ideas. I initiated a project with an artist back in the UK to exchange artist books and the project was to be about bridges. I spent ages fiddling around with different things and I came up with the idea of physically making a bridge. I read this lovely little poem by Walt Whitman called “A Noiseless Patient Spider”. It does mention the word ‘bridge’ in the poem once, but it’s about how spiders fling out a thread of gossamer and the wind catches it and they have no idea where they’re going to end up, an act of faith. It was such a meaningful way of looking at how I was feeling about my life. I think that’s been my way of working. Sometimes I just have to take courage that I don’t have and do something, even though I don’t know where I’m going to end up. The poem goes on and is effectively about building ones own bridge, what one needs in life is to do that. So it’s very reflective of my own experience and how I was feeling at the time.

It got me thinking about the form of the book and I’d already decided I was going to base this series of books on children's building blocks (you can build bridges with children's building blocks). I ended up with the carved plastic text, which was such a nightmare to do. Originally it wasn’t about the light shining through it with the shadow revealing the text, but about making the text a kind of gossamer. It just happened to work in that other way and gave it supplementary meaning.

There are a few other reasons why it ended up being very meaningful for me. One is that I’m terrified of spiders! I had hypnotherapy at Bristol zoo before I came to Australia so I could deal with the Australian creepy crawlies. I ended up holding a bird-eating tarantula in my hand. I am quite fascinated by them now although I still find them really repulsive. I also wrote a very bad poem about not being able to say anything meaningful to my father about leaving and going to live on the other side of the world and it was couched in terms of spiders.

That book has a much more open meaning available to it than most of what I do. Practically everything I do has a lot of personal meaning to it. I have a bit of a problem actually expressing the meaning to other people. In the end I’m very glad of people who do manage to work out what a work means, but its not why I’m giving them the object to look at. I’m very happy for them to give their own meaning.
I find my self really fascinated by artists who can write out very personal experiences in their art and the reason is because I can’t do it. I don’t know how one would begin. I tried it and doesn’t work for me.

JA What is an artist book?
SB MY definition of an artists’ book is hardly definitive and is highly subjective and probably very woolly from an intellectual perspective. I think an artists’ book is a book made by an artist, that requires the evocation of ‘book-ness’ in order to function as a complete work. There is the question of why make a thing defined as a ‘book’ rather than as a ‘sculpture’ or as a ‘print’? What’s so important about it being associated with being somehow a book? For me, there is something about a confounding of expectation (e.g. a book that is part of a child’s building block, for example, and in the same example, a slipcase – usually an afterthought – that has as much of a role in the complete piece as the book has itself; or perhaps where the text, written in shadows, is actually OUTSIDE the book rather than inside). There is also something about physicality: the ability to pick something up, however gingerly! and to view it as a piece of art from more than one direction – a quality that book arts share with sculpture, I guess. And perhaps there’s something about a thing having an outside and an inside: even my ‘bridge’ book comes concealed and had to be unwrapped and assembled in order to be ‘read’. There’s something there for me about text and covers too. Interestingly I find myself drawn to artists’ books with little or no text but find myself putting text in, sometimes obscurely, because that is part of my ‘model’ of what a book or book-object is. How conventional of me! But I like to subvert it too; although the shadow-writing aspect of my bridge book was an accidental aside rather than an intention from the start it makes me snigger quietly that there IS text and that there ARE covers for it, but that the text isn’t IN the book but written outside it!
JA How do you promote your work?
SB You never know who’s looking so it’s important to get it out there. Moving to a new country has given me the opportunity to make new networks. I like talking to people and putting them in touch with others. I work on the premise that people are happy to talk to you about themselves. They are also happy to be put in touch with new people that they can talk to about themselves. I don’t mean that in any negative way. My business experience is in creating structures that allow things to happen. I see networking as doing much the same.

JA Any advice for others who want to promote their work?
SB Just get out there and do it!
***


JA I don't think she means me though. I don't think she means I should get out there and do it. I don't think so. Not me. She wouldn't. Would she?

Biennale of Sydney - Part I

The Sydney Biennale is full steam ahead at the moment and I travelled the 570 kms to see it. I’ve seen some past Biennales and found them largely inaccessible with only the odd beacon of light to show my brain, eyes and heart the way. I’m not sure if this years Biennale just seems better to me or if it actually is. I’ve got a few more years stored below deck and my studies are drawing maps in my thinking, but my companions on board were equally thrilled with our discoveries as we navigated the waters of several art galleries.

OK, even I think that’s enough with the maritime metaphors! What’s so watery about the Biennale anyway? Well, for the first time the best of the best of the Biennale are exhibited on Cockatoo Island, the largest island in Sydney Harbour which has been an imperial prison, industrial school, reformatory, gaol and shipyards and now a heritage site. The fact that the art works have been set up in several locations on the island adds to the idea that visiting is like an exploration expedition across the water and into the unknown.

If no man is an island, Australia certainly is. We are a long way from just about everywhere. In the past the artistic distance has been almost untraversable; three months on a ship meant only a small percentage of Australians viewed key works ‘in the flesh’. Air travel has meant many of us have now seen the real Mona Lisa but it is still 24 hours on a plane and many thousands of dollars to do so. Consequently most of my art education, and many other Aussie’s, has been primarily from books. So imagine how I felt seeing Duchamp’s first Ready-made Bicycle Wheel. It looks like he made it yesterday! Beautiful. At the Art Gallery of New South Wales I also saw works by other names I’d only read about before: Joseph Beuys, Bruce Nauman, Jean Tinguely and learned to love many new-to-me artists, especially Gianni Colombo and his Elastic Space. I was swimming in a sea of conceptual art ideas. I literally drowned (ok, not literally, but it seemed so) in the video work of an artist whose name I’m sorry to say I can’t recall. [Out of time. Going to Cockatoo Island tomorrow.]

[Overnight rain, cocktail party. Slow morning start.] The ferry to Cockatoo Island leaves from in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art at The Rocks which turns out to also be the venue for the Aroma Festival: Chocolate, Coffee and Spice on that day. The whole area was packed when we arrive so we retreated into the MCA first. The island could wait an hour or two.

The very first work you see as you enter is Leon Ferrari’s Western Christian Civilisation which I suspect the organisers where hoping would be controversial and drive the entrance numbers up. I was looking forward to seeing it. The thing I love most about art is its ability to communicate ideas and concepts that are either difficult to describe in words, or impossible. Ferrari’s Christ crucified on a scaled replica of a US FG 107 fighter plane had done just that to me when I viewed photos in books. Disappointingly not so when I saw it as it was hung so badly that all meaning and interest is immediately diffused.

Maurizio Cattelan’s Novecento did the reverse, with its materials list “leather, rope, horse” it is strangely affecting. It is in the same room with some hanging wooden sculptures, which I actually saw some people carelessly bump their heads into as they made their way to a wall exhibit. No one could approach the horse in this manner. I saw people determined to walk under it as it dangled at a great height. Unable to do so, they tried again with their eyes tightly closed, still unable to desecrate the life force around this powerful taxidermied body. Another great pleasure was spending time (not enough time, never enough time) with two Alexander Calder mobiles, one black, one white. I could have watched the elegantly unfolding motion of the white mobile for many, many hours but Cockatoo Island called.

Outside the Aroma festival had flourished into an odorous crush. The queue for the ferry was long and the time remaining until it closed was short. [Plenty of time for Cockatoo Island tomorrow.]

To Be Continued.

Biennale! Biennale! Biennale!

The Biennale of Sydney calls and I must answer.

*sings* *dances* *cheers* *screams* *dances* *sings*

Usually I don't get all that excited by the Biennale but this year I am! And I'm going for a week! And I head off tomorrow!

But why so much excitement this year? Well, there is Marchel Duchamp and Alexander Calder. Really that is almost enough. But there is also Joseph Beuys and even some living artists! But actually even this doesn't require this level of excitement.
What I am really excited about is seeing the William Kentridge exhibition at Annandale Galleries and on Cockatoo Island. Now, straight away, click over onto the Annandale Galleries site and have a really good look. Yep, that's what you will be missing out on if you don't get away from this screen and get there! Just because I know how hard it is to actually leave the internet at times, I've put some images of the Kentridge exhibition here to start your blood pumping.
Isn't he brilliant! My guess is you can see why he is my favourite living artist!

Breaking my Promise

You may recall (I hope you don't!) that I promised that my previous post about my recent exhibition, would be my final post on the subject. Well, I lied.
Click on this link http://www.hagencartoons.com/coffs_harbour.htm to go to the 'run-down' by cartoonist Christophe Granet of the opening night and the exhibitions. Thanks Christophe!

Both exhibitions are still up in the Bunker Cartoon Gallery. I will be 'taking down' my work on Wednesday afternoon. If you are nearby and can manage to get in there between 10am and 4pm in the next two days, it would be great to have you visit. I'm not sure when Christophe's cartoons 'come down'. I think you will have until the end of August still to see them.

And, what is a post without visuals? So here for the delight of your eyes are photos I took while preparing for the exhibition. Putting 'D' rings on the back of canvases. Yes, I can do maths. Yes, I can measure. But being a highly visual person means that if I don't have to read and remember, I find it a lot easier and more pleasant a process. Enter the Moleskine! In the first photo, I used my Large Sketchbook. I could be sure that if I placed my Moleskine in exactly the same spot on the right hand side, that I would have my 'D' ring in the perfectly matching spot.












In the second photo I had a much smaller canvas, so... enter my 'original' sized Moleskine Sketchbook. Perfect mearsurements again!







I figured that with my two moleskines I have between them four different measurements which should just about cover any possible 'D' ring contingency!

Last Opening Post

I promise this is the last post about my exhibition... (X) Some people said they'd like to see some photos of the night.


That's me in my 'perfect shirt' (which I did get around to making because I still couldn't find one after scouring 3 cities and one town!)



And that's Dr Leigh Summers with the shawl, officially opening the exhibition. Leigh originally booked my exhibition; at the time she was Director/Curator of the Bunker Gallery. Recently she took up the position of Director of Coffs City Gallery and Coffs Harbour Museum. We are so lucky to have her doing these jobs. She is fantastically enthusiastic and intensly interesting. The exhibition runs at the Bunker Cartoon Gallery until the end of July.

And the man holding the toddler is Christophe Granet, the cartoonist whose exhibition was also opened that night.

Exhibition Images

Thanks to everyone who made my exhibition opening a wonderful night. We had about 50 people there and we all enjoyed the evening.



Refills $3.55 Absolute Matte on canvas, 25 x 30cm


I have occasionally used Atelier Absolute Matte. I find it is difficult as the colours don't mix easily, and some colours just don't mix at all. But for some subjects this paint is the perfect medium. The matte effect combined with the way this paint makes the colours leap off the canvas with a vibrancy that is difficult to get otherwise, was perfect for this night image.




Roll-Up III Acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50cm


Always coming back to the 'double image' in my paintings, this is another wallpaper and clown image where they merge. This one evokes memories of my Nan's curtains.







Clown Skeletons I, II and III Absolute Matte and acrylic on canvas panels, 60 x 60cm each.

These were inspired by the vivid memories I have of the flock wallpaper in the "Marigold Chinese Restaurant", Bridge Street, West Tamworth circa 1975. As a child I remember 'seeing' images in the wallpaper, lino floors, tiles, curtains, the persian rugs on our floor, just about everthing held faces to me. I was also captivated by the cartoon gag (seemingly repeated endlessly in the late 60's and 70's) of the patient being x-rayed behind a screen that showed their head and feed unaltered, and a stylised skeleton in between. The flock wallpaper seemed to be all pelvises, sinuses and collar bones to me, so I turned it into 'clown' skeletons, just for the fun of it.




Roll-Up IV, acrylic on canvas, each panel 10cm x 10cm, 7 panels.

The smallest works I've ever done, capturing the sweep of the clown heads at the side-show clown game.




Roll-Up II, acrylic on canvas, 200cm x 60cm.

And a large one, again with the double image of the clowns and wallpaper.

Roll Up! It's Up!

Well, it's up! Whew! And I feel quite good about it, too. (I did have a panic attack a few times leading up to it...)


Here a a couple of photos taken during the day. The big sign with my name on it (which was a big surprise to me!) wasn't up at the time of taking these. It's funny how strange it is to see your name big and in a public place!











The long black, red and white one was a late addition, not originally intended for the exhibition. Steve, my trusty 'hanger', asked if I had anything else at home that could fit the theme as one more would improve the look of the exhibition. So I raced home, FINISHED IT!, signed it, fitted it with 'D' rings and raced back - all in half an hour!





Yes, at the end of the day I did actually fall asleep in the bath - my first time.



Check back over the weekend for better photos of the paintings themselves.