On Saturday I assisted Tarn McLean while she undertook a marathon live painting in the Chairbiz car park in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane as part of a Brisbane Indesign event. 10 artists spent the day painting in front of the public, the results were varied and of a high quality. At the end of the day artist Nic Plowman deemed Emily Fong’s painting to be the winner and the rest of the paintings were auctioned off to the public with 100% going back to the artist.

McLean spent over 35 contact hours working on this painting with the final lines going on the Belgian linen canvas just before 4.30pm – well-played. I was proud of the dedicated artist  for standing up and putting a reserve on the stunning piece which was snapped up by a lovely couple who have recently started a brilliant collection of contemporary Australian and Asian art.  After the event we loaded the large canvas into the van and delivered the work to their home.

This 1.2m sq painting is the largest work of this kind that McLean has attempted. The image is derived from a digitally remixed version of a Victor Vasarley painting from the 1950′s, referencing the historical autonomy of painting and the historical context of painting in the present day. McLean is forging a new genre of Australian landscape painting. Obviously McLean pays homage to the Geometric Abstractionists and other twentieth century ’ist’  painters. As she puts it, “I think to be a painter today you really have to understand what has happened previously within the institution in painting, where it left off, and in a way be able to document this to somehow justify why I would even lift a paint brush.”

Happy artist, happy buyers! Great Initiative. Here are some pics of the day…

Just for the record, my choice for winner would have been Simon De Groot’s screen-printed repetitive landscape layered with acrylic lines symbolizing the pace and instantaneous nature of contemporary life. I considered his pixelated paintings for inclusion in the Interscapes exhibition I curated in Brisbane last June – definitely one to watch

Last week was the opening of my latest show titled Liminal which is on display at Sydney Non Objective (SNO) Contemporary Art Projects in Marrickville, Sydney for the next month.

I drove down with the three artists in the exhibition Tarn McLean, Ali Lawson and Grace Dewar. We piled the car high with the carefully packaged artworks and left Toowoomba on Tuesday at dawn. We had a great trip, stopping to sample locally grown delights along the way, spending the afternoon picnicking by a creek and a night by the fire in a beautiful family home on a glorious property in the Upper Hunter Valley.

We installed the exhibition in one day and just before 5pm on the Wednesday I picked up the catalogues that the wonderful Kate Bensen of Bones Studio designed for me. They are a simple folding, one cut, design that turns an A3 sheet of double-sided printed paper into an eight page booklet with a poster of images and artist biographies on the reverse. I will post photos of the catalogues soon along with the curatorial essay.

On Thursday we managed to get to about 10 galleries and eat at great restaurants for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I’m impressed with our efforts. Highlights included going down to Alaska Projects in the Kings Cross Carpark and seeing the incomplete install of the group exhibition Empty Gesture, catching up with Julian Meagher and Jasper Knight at Chalk Horse where they are currently showing Sanne Mestrom’s exhibition The Reclining Nude, experiencing an exhibition about vertical perspective as part of the Emerging Curators Program at Firstdraft and of course seeing Christian Marclay’s mind-blowing and highly engaging 24 hr video work, The Clock at the newly ‘redeveloped’ Museum of Contemporary Art. (Rebecca Baumann’s incredible Automated Colour Field, a kinetic sculpture of ‘ticking’ colour swatches that is representative of the range of emotions we experience in a day, was an apt segue into the MCA collection show of Australian contemporary art in the new gallery 1 and the Marking Time exhibition on level 3.) I also loved Glenn Sorensen’s paintings at Roslyn Oxley, the Joseph Beuys exhibition at Sydney Uni and Liam Benson and Danny Ford at Artereal Gallery.

The opening of our exhibition on Thursday night went really well. A small but engaged crowd. We received plenty of positive responses and feedback. One punter quoted that the show, which also includes the work of Ian Andrews in gallery 2 and Fiona Morgan in gallery 3, “must be one of the loveliest SNO shows I have seen in a while which is a pretty big call as I do love almost everything that SNO does show.” 

It was a treat to watch people interact with the exhibition and many people were able to take a part of the show home with them in the form of a succulent in a glass jar, continuing the dialogue via Ali Lawson’s Terrarium Project. 

See photos of the opening night above and I’ll explain more about the concept behind the exhibition and included works in the coming days.

If you are in the heart of Brisbane after twilight in coming weeks – look up. You will see some of the city’s most prominent buildings swathed in ‘virtual graffiti’ created by a diverse group of local teenagers under the mentorship of respected artists.  Highly visible red text is emblazoned upon previously untouchable buildings in the CBD and Southbank.

Writing on the Walls is an initiative of Brisbane City Council (BCC) developed to support National Youth Week objectives, empowering and celebrating youth. Brisbane-based public artist Sebastian Moody and cinematic theatre producers Brad Jennings and Stephen Maxwell of Markwell Presents were employed by council to facilitate workshops with young people from diverse backgrounds to create artworks that represent the sentiments of young people living in Brisbane today.

I was commissioned to review this exhibition. Find the full review under Reviews at the top of the page.

Last Friday night local artist Damien Kamholtz staged a one night only exhibition at Raygun Contemporary Art Projects.

I walked into the gallery as Tarn and Damien were doing some last-minute tinkering with lights and projections. I was blown away. His new series of works are incredible and the exhibition was so sensitively installed. The relationships and conversations between the works were almost audible as the works ‘talked’ to each other through the ways in which they were displayed within the space.

A little painting resting on the top of a large framed drawing. An object-based painting with LED lighting sitting high on an electrical fuse box as if it were a ready-made shelf. The animation of a puppet dancing on the ceiling from the crown of the protagonist while the physical body secretly sat, legs swinging above the front door. The protagonist bought to life from the paintings through sculpture and video. A sequence of birds flying toward each other, not intended as a finished work but used to make the stop-motion animation, projected onto the protagonist’s chest in the film. Images of  Cowboys and Indians printed on the wings, the original book-covers rest on the floor below. Above, a pretty face, mirrored, looking into oneself. Objects from the film, a bird skull, bought from the studio to the gallery. The most treasured work, where the ideas are born, the visual diary. On display for all.

Dualities. Narrative. Circles.

By 6.15pm the two small rooms were packed and the effect of Damien’s works on the audience were immediately apparent. The crowds entered the second room and fell silent. An intelligent and enthralling video work. A first for the painter. Many guests stood in awe and watched the 15 min composition more than once. It was beautiful to see the way the video work informed the layered and deliberately ambiguous paintings.

Time. Growth. Innocence.

I took Damien out for Turkish coffee later this week to speak about his practice and gain a little further insight into this incredible series of work as I intend to write a review for publication. We had a really enjoyable chat and I realised just how focused and considered his prolific practice is. He shared and impressed.

Although it was almost sad that such a beautiful show had such a short life at Raygun, it was planned and for very good reason.

Last night I attended the opening of Damien’s show Remember This at Anthea Polson Art.

It was a very successful show. Exhibiting about three times more works than at Raygun. Damien carried many visible elements derived from the install at the little ARI in Toowoomba to the commercial space of the Gold Coast.  It’s a nice idea for an artist to be able to preview some works before a major show. A test run with all the freedom in the world in his hometown. Something he hopes to do again before his next solo show in Sydney in July. The layout was not quite as considered as Raygun, with other artists’ works on display all around. The two galleries are just totally different beasts. I was amazed by the stacks of significant works by blue-chip artists that casually leaned six deep against all the walls in the other galleries.  Guests pawed through the open stockrooms. Blackman, Cummings, Frank, Knight, Zavros, Arkley etc. …

Dr Janet McDonald gave one of the loveliest and most insightful opening speeches I have heard. Explaining to guests the performative aspects and inspirations of this recent series, from Shakespeare to Butoh and sharing the transfer of ideas and input that occurs between artists working at the University of Southern Queensland.

I look forward to writing critically about this series over the coming week.

Tired now, can’t really think straight, a big weekend of great art – just wanted to share some pics really. (no snaps from the Gold Coast show though sorry)

the creativity is flowing, the parameters are shifting, the ground is moving

big things are happening in Toowoomba this year

So now that I have returned from my 6 month overseas sojourn, I have been officially invited to be on the Board of Directors of Raygun Contemporary Art Projects, alongside respected professors, doctors and academic teaching staff of the University of Southern Queensland. I am honoured and I am looking forward to the rewarding role of helping shape the brilliant gallery.

Raygun is run by artists Tarn McLean and Ali Lawson and is situated atop the Great Dividing Range in the big old town of Toowoomba. The not-for profit gallery and project space sustains a monthly program of exhibitions by established and emerging, local and international artists, which is a real treat for regional audiences. The online raygunlab is a democratic dialogue generator as it encourages and facilitates the sharing and spread of ideas across physical borders.

Raygun has become known for its refined and minimalist aesthetic and interest in ‘social practice’ art forms as well as the Skype sessions that are staged at the openings of non-local artists’ exhibitions. It is wonderful for ‘overseas’ artists to be able to give real-time artist talks and see how audiences on the other side of the world respond to their shows.

The most recent exhibition to be presented at the (soon to be relocated) Annand St gallery space is Sarah Ryan’s Two Worlds, One of Them Being Ideal. A stunning exhibition in the vein of German artist Wolfgang Tillmans; a show that is made up of work created at different times throughout the artist’s career. It is a simple exhibition with seminal works from across several years of the artist’s practice. This approach of presenting old and recent works alongside one another creates new associations between the works and ‘lets older works have a life beyond their initial showing’.

Untitled 2008-2009 is an unassuming yet captivating photograph of an unoccupied building that the artist used to walk by each day whilst living in Berlin. The installation of the large photograph on the floor of the gallery draws the viewers’ gaze down to ground level and makes one aware of the captured space and the particularly low windows and basement edifice.  This is exactly what the artist tries to achieve within her works, ‘slowing down the process of looking – of looking at what’s there – and dwelling at length on detail.’ (Coincidentally, this space has since been occupied by a commercial gallery.)

It is fitting then, that an artist so preoccupied with ‘time’, ‘looking’ and ‘seeing’ would choose to work with lenticular imaging techniques. Untitled 2011 is one of the most commanding works in the exhibition. It is a large, dense and almost monochromatic  lenticular photograph of a crumpled object upon bare wooden floorboards that moves and changes dimension as the viewer moves past the frame. (The lenticular process gives an optical three-dimensional effect and presents the flow of motion within an image) What is the object? Is it hiding something under its angular legs and shiny cover or about to spring out of repose?

Hint: Sarah won the 2011 Art & Australia / Credit Suisse Contemporary Banking Art Award with a similar photograph of this obscure… gold umbrella.

She is one of the many established artists who choose Toowoomba as their home base for the flexibility and freedom it affords their practice.

I have a feeling that Ms. Ryan is going to become hot property very soon!

So the cat’s out of the bag! YES!

I have been in conversation with the directors of Toowoomba’s leading 5 Artist Run Spaces in relation to staging an Artist Run Initiative Festival and the ideas are zooming around. I am working on BARI festival 2012 (Brisbane Artist Run Initiatives) and have decided that it is ridiculous for Toowoomba not to stage a similar event.

What began as a discussion with the Brisbane organising group about using the Flying Arts live webcast equipment and organising a bus trip to Toowoomba during BARI week, to give city based art lovers the opportunity to experience the rich happenings up the hill has exploded into an exciting and bold decision to throw caution to the wind and spend the next six months in my good old hometown. …

Something that once felt suffocating now feels goood due to the fact that there are many incredibly talented creative people doing amazing things here.

So I have applied for RADF funding for the concept development phase and will receive a response in about a month.

In the meantime we are also in conversation with staff at Creative Regions about linking in with Crush festival in Bundaberg. I hope to coincide the week-long events associated with TARI with the Sydney Film Festival  Touring Program, I have recently received a positive response from them.

I truly believe that Toowoomba has alot to offer. Stay tuned.

Peter Madden, Perfect Storm, 2011. Detail. Found photographs, acrylic paint and archival glue on uv Perspex, 65 x 65cm. Courtesy the artist and Ryan Renshaw Gallery, Brisbane.

One of my all time favourite artists Peter Madden is on the cover. His macabre yet exquisite show at Ryan Renshaw last year was delightfully intoxicating. I have a goal to one day be able to treat myself and add a Madden collage to my collection! For now though, I’m just happy to be published and sharing the pages of Eyeline with respected writers, artists and gallerists.

PETER MADDEN Teaching Mountains to Fly (2011) Found photographs, archival glue on hand made paper, round timber frame, 90cm diameter Courtesy the artist and Ryan Renshaw Gallery, Brisbane

As a result of the exhibition I curated in June, one of my artists was interviewed by Louise Martin-Chew and featured as an emerging artist to watch in Art Monthly. Congratulations Tarn McLean!

Whilst traveling through Mexico, I was fortunate enough to stay in the enchanting, historically and culturally rich city of San Cristobal de Las Casas in the Chiapas southern highlands. In this amazing city and its surrounding villages I engaged with the history and syncretic religious customs of the indigenous Tzotzil and Tzeltal Maya people,  witnessing first hand the bewildering blend of pre-conquest Maya customs, Spanish Catholic traditions and subsequent innovations, especially in the neighboring autonomous villages!

As I spent my days wandering the cobblestone streets of San Cristobal, marveling at the impressive Colonial architecture that stands alongside brightly painted adobe homes, I  discovered a truly inspiring indigenous printmaking collective, Taller Leñateros. I returned many times to speak with the artists and learn the techniques they employ to create beautiful naturally dyed paper made from recycled agricultural and industrial materials including the fibers of the plants in the surrounding garden. These artists are master printers, producing exquisite prints and artists books that incorporate etchings, woodblocks, lithographs, linocut prints and solar screen prints and document the ancient songs and stories of the Mayan people.

The publishing collective was founded by poet Amber Past in 1975 and ‘the workshop has created the first books to be written, illustrated, printed, bound (in paper of their own making) by Mayan people in over 400 years.’ Through their work, the group has rescued many endangered techniques, such as the extraction of dyes from wild plants, as well as translating and therefore conserving Native American languages.

“Over wood fires, in the patio, big kettles are boiling full of corn-husks, gladiola stems, heart of maguey, palm leaves, recycled women’s cotton huipil blouses, banana trunks, and who knows what other raw material to make paper. There are baskets full of papyrus, liana vines, lichen and moss. We beat the fibers in a mill which spins by bicycle power. We spread the paper in the Sun, and while it dries, we print poems on oak leaves and pansy petals.”  http://www.tallerlenateros.com/ingles/about.php?ira=about

I hope to return again one day.