Category: art opening

RMIT grad show 2019

glowing pink sphere

My friend David graduated from RMIT Visual Arts (Sculpture) recently. The RMIT graduate show was amazing, a rabbit warren of rooms in three buildings on Swanston Street. My main criticism was that instead of having labels on the work, or even numbers, there are maps of the various rooms and spaces. This makes it really hard to work out whose work you are looking at. (There’s nothing to stop students making their own labels though!)

Highlights for me were some of sculptural pieces (in particular the orange spectacular by Fiz) and some hanging rice paper works by Yanqi Zhao. I also loved a glowing red/pink sphere but unfortunately could not find the artist’s name.

Yanqi Zhao
Yanqi Zhao
Yanqi Zhao
Sculpture room

The exhibition was well worth another look but unfortunately it closes on November 27. Well done, RMIT graduates!

Art opening shoes — 1 of 7

When I was at the White on White opening  I remembered an idea I’d had before when at exhibition openings — photographing a series of people’s shoes. The idea of portraits of people’s shoes interests me, and it’s interesting how many people feel braver in wearing colourful/wacky accessories like earrings or shoes than in their clothing. I think the photos give a good sense of the event as well…

Presenting the first installment of a series:

White on White: celebrating 20 years of the Fiona Myer Award at Victoria University, 18 November 2019.

colour bomb! update

I did it!

Thanks to everyone who supported by donating to my fundraising campaign, my fellow artists who inspired and helped me, Tracey and Gasworks, and my friends who encouraged me.

finally, a solo show

I’m excited to announce my first solo exhibition! Colour Bomb! will open on November 20. I think I’m almost ready, but we’ll see how the last 10 days go. I’ve done almost all the paintings and pieces, and I’m framing them at the moment (and working on a special 3D piece).

Here are some samples to whet your appetite…

Colour Bomb! opens on Tuesday 20 November from 6pm at ARB Gallery, Gasworks Arts Park, 21 Graham Street, Albert Park. I’d love it if you could come and celebrate with me!

If you can’t make opening night, the show runs until December 9. I’ll be sitting the gallery on the weekends of 24/25 November, 1/2 and 8/9 December from 12 until 4pm. Hope to see you there 🙂

p.s. I also have a favour to ask… I’ve set up a crowd funder to help cover the gallery hire and costs of the exhibition. If you’d like to support an emerging artist, go to http://www.pozible.com/project/first-solo-show

Art show

2_art_show_sign4A couple of weeks ago, I approached a local real estate agent about some empty shops in my local area. I’d been thinking they would be great for a pop-up art show. I was thrilled when he agreed to let me use the space for a reduced rent.

I called my artist friends and said ‘We’re having a show! in Yarraville!!’ One friend immediately asked ‘What’s the theme?’ to which I replied ‘We’re not from the VCA*! We don’t need a theme! We’re having a show! Bring your work!!

The show is opening on Friday night, and about one third of the work is at the space. Now comes the challenge of curating – deciding which works to put together in which rooms. The space is large and there are 18 artists involved, most of whom I met while studying Visual Art at Victoria University. It’s difficult to get a show when you’re an emerging (unknown) artist, so this is a great opportunity to show our work. It’s so exciting!

Lo-fi: new art collective is at 130 Gamon Street, Yarraville from 1–4 August, opening 6pm on Friday 1 August. Everyone is welcome to come and have a glass of wine and celebrate with us at the opening!

*VCA = Victorian College of the Arts

The Substation Contemporary Art Prize 2013

I was excited to attend the opening of the Substation Contemporary Art Prize last month because my friend David Thomson was one of 50 finalists in the exhibition.

Overall I was disappointed with the exhibition. The three prizes awarded were all for video works. There were about 13 videos in the show. The SCAP is intended to ‘recognise and encourage innovation in contemporary art practice’.

A video work has to grab my attention or entertain me in the first minute or I turn off. We are so bombarded by video, TV, advertising,  movies, music clips, youtube, that video art has to be really clever or beautiful to stand out (and preferably short!) I dislike work with an obscure conceptual artist statement full of big words that I can’t understand, that I suspect is actually meaningless art wank.

You shouldn’t have to study art theory or have specialist knowledge to appreciate an artwork. I love art, and have studied it for four years, so if I can’t understand the concept behind an artwork, how is the average viewer supposed to understand it?

In the project, by Eric Bridgeman, was a video diary filmed during a artist residency in Canada in 2011. Bridgeman dressed up as a golliwog character and cavorted around his studio in front of a camera. I thought it was self-indulgent narcissism, and I couldn’t believe it when it won first prize and the judge described it as a ‘layered work’ about being an outsider. I don’t understand how this work has any more artistic merit than, say, reality TV footage or an amateur video diary on Youtube. I couldn’t watch the whole thing, I found it repetitive and boring.

bridgeman_in-the-project-005
Still from In the project, Eric Bridgeman, video/DVD, 2012

I think that in 100 years time, video art may be seen as a fad in modern art from the 1960s until now, especially popular since the 1990s. After several decades, the medium is hardly ‘innovative’. The art world is cyclical. It depends on what the art schools are encouraging students to do, and critics and curators are promoting, and it seems they are still pushing video and multi-media work rather than traditional painting, drawing and printmaking. Continue reading “The Substation Contemporary Art Prize 2013”

Jo Davenport at Flinders Lane Gallery

Today I went to Jo Davenport’s exhibition opening at Flinders Lane Gallery. Her paintings are large, abstract, loose and spontaneous. She uses strong colours, runny paint which bleeds into the canvas and drips, thick paint applied with a palette knife, brushstrokes and scrape marks that combine in a frenzy of colour. This series is based on landscapes inspired by a recent boat trip from Echuca to Adelaide on the Murray River. I loved the looseness, the variation of marks and the colours!

Welcome, Bruce

Melbourne has lots of ARIs (Artist Run Initiatives) which usually show different and more unusual work than commercial galleries, and a new one has popped up locally in Footscray. My artist friend Michelle and I went to the Bruce opening night last night.

We saw some interesting installations using lights, cane, a birdcage, timber and paper ‘fungus’ by Leon van de Graaf.

Welcome to the neighbourhood, Bruce! More places to show art can only be a good thing…

Kicked out of Kick Gallery

http://jewelsstevens.com/artworks.html

Last week I went to the Collingwood Arts Precinct open night, a fun gallery crawl where you can visit several Collingwood galleries within walking distance of each other. My favourite was Kick Gallery, which was showing beautiful abstract colourful paintings by Jewels Stevens. But the best part was, Kick was serving Domaine Chandon. Now in my intensive research of the Melbourne art scene over the past 2 and a half years, Chandon is the best quality wine I have experienced, so of course I had to make the most of free Chandon.

But maybe I took it a bit too far… I left Kick, did a circuit of a couple of other galleries (noted that Catherine Asquith was serving Gossips wine… bleeuuggh!) and returned to Kick. I met the lovely Jewels and asked her about her work. Then went inside to get another glass of bubbles… but the barperson politely told me he thought I’d had enough champagne. Which was actually true, I had probably guzzled down a whole bottle by this time. I was standing at the bar having what I thought was a friendly conversation with the bar person, but Jake the gallery owner thought I was ‘hassling’ him, so he came over and asked me to leave. I went quietly, and thanked him for the great night, and the Chandon.

Last week I went to the Collingwood Arts Precinct open night, a fun gallery crawl where you can visit several Collingwood galleries within walking distance of each other. My favourite was Kick Gallery, which was showing beautiful abstract colourful paintings by Jewels Stevens. But the best part was, Kick was serving Domaine Chandon. Now in my intensive research of the Melbourne art scene over the past 2 and a half years, Chandon is the best quality wine I have experienced, so of course I had to make the most of free Chandon.

But maybe I took it a bit too far… I left Kick, did a circuit of a couple of other galleries (noted that Catherine Asquith was serving Gossips wine… bleeuuggh!) and returned to Kick. I met the lovely Jewels and asked her about her work. Then went inside to get another glass of bubbles… but the barperson politely told me he thought I’d had enough champagne. Which was actually true, I had probably guzzled down a whole bottle by this time. I was standing at the bar having what I thought was a friendly conversation with the bar person, but Jake the gallery owner thought I was ‘hassling’ him, and came over and politely asked me to leave. Reader, I went quietly, thanked him for the great night, and all the Chandon, and stumbled out into Peel Street, feeling happy.