I visited the NGV St Kilda Road today with a friend from Adelaide and we spent some time lying on the couches in the Great Hall admiring the leadlight ceiling by Leonard French. The hall is a beautiful cathedral-like space bathed with light and the coloured glass mosaic reminds me of a kaleidoscope. It’s the largest stained glass ceiling in the world (according to Wikipedia).
Kieran Stewart was our Context and Culture lecturer at VU and his enthusiasm for art is infectious.
He’s also a visual artist who works across the mediums of video, image making and sculptural installation. Kieran explores concepts of labour, systems of commercial promotion and gross capital production.
Kieran makes inflatable sculptures and his Occupy Nothing is a wall that deflates when someone approaches. The work re-inflates when is stops sensing movement. Kieran’s work often has a playful and unusual quality that I like.
Powered up and broken was a modified ATM placed in a gallery that printed the title and description of work on a receipt when you attempted to withdraw cash. This is one of Kieran’s favourite works and I love the craziness of it. More about Kieran here.
Fauxtopia, ACAB Collective, 2012, mixed media
I went to the opening of the Substation Contemporary Art Prize on 21 September, and revisited the exhibition last Saturday.
There were 50 finalists who had produced sculptures, installations, video works and paintings.
The winner was Ash Keating, who did a video about his mother’s death, A New Lifelong Landscape. I liked paintings by Dane Lovett (who I voted for in the People’s Choice Award) and Hamish Carr best, and an installation by ACAB Collective, a group of young artists who turned a basement room into a crazy fairy grotto.
Yayoi Kusama has designed Louis Vuitton’s new window displays! Thanks to my painting teacher Marina for tipping me off. I’d actually seen a photo of LV Kusama windows in Bangkok, but didn’t realise they were also in Collins Street, Melbourne.
My latest painting uses geometric shapes again. I based the composition on a random arrangement of cut-out shapes then added new layers with transparent paint. Next I think I’ll add some drippy sections as a contrast.
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…
I was using fluoro pink paint in the studio yesterday and reflecting on the start of my fascination with fluorescent paint… my first big pink fluoro painting was completed in 2012 while studying art at Victoria University…
Might be time to break out the fluoros and glitter again 😀
#throwbackMonday
My first very large painting (168 x 173 cm), Psychedelic Pink Coral, is finished and stretched. I was inspired by Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Infinity Net’ paintings I saw at Brisbane GOMA earlier this year, and experimenting with patterns and abstract forms. I painted a fluoro pink background and the organic shapes just grew out of the small cells. Then I added some fluoro lime dots and dabs.
Last Wednesday 30 May I attended my first Prince concert in Melbourne. It was AWESOME! He played for nearly three hours, was witty and charming, looked amazing, and played guitar and sang like a m*f*cker! We love you Prince! XOXO
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