Operation Rizzeria Replacement

Posted on March 21, 2012 by

The folks at Rizzeria are crowdsourcing via Pozible to buy a new Riso machine. Apparently the old one had a BAD accident and can’t be revived.

To donate towards the new machine click here: Operation Rizzeria Replacement

Last year I did a workshop with Rizzeria and they are a fun, interesting, creative, and lovely bunch of people. And Riso machine churns out lots of crazy stuff.

PS: There are lots of very attractive “awards” available for those who donate. Put in $1000 and you could get your portrait printed, have a lesson on the machine, and printing to the value of $200. Wow!

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Artists Who Matter (according to The Sunday Age)

Posted on November 15, 2011 by

Raymond Gill, of The Sunday Age, asked six experts to choose Australia’s 10 most influential artists. It’s an interesting list:

  • Brook Andrew
  • Richard Bell
  • Daniel Crooks
  • Simryn Gill
  • Fiona Hall
  • Bianca Hester
  • Callum Morton
  • David Noonan
  • Mike Parr
  • Stuart Ringholt

Writing it out I was struck by the predominance of double letters, 4 double “l”s, 3 double “o”s, and one double “r”. (Maybe this is a sign that if I pull my finger out and do some work I’ll be mega successful.)

The list was put together by:

Lots of things to research here: people’s ages, background and education, who represents each artist? are there correspondences between the works? where have I seen the works and what have I thought about them?

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Gerhard Richter: Panorama

Posted on October 30, 2011 by

Tate Modern is currently showing a survey of Gerhard Richter’s work, see:

Gerhard Richter: Panorama

The great thing, for those of us unable to get to the exhibition, is that the Tate has put the room notes up online so that you can read what the curator, Dr Mark Godfrey, has to say. It gives a very good idea of the sweep of the exhibition and the works that are on show. I think it’s a great resource.

* * *
Works by Gerhard Richter at the AGNSW

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Reading about Sean Scully

Posted on September 21, 2011 by

I’m in the Research Library at the Art Gallery of NSW reading about Sean Scully and looking at pictures of his work, and his studio.

His work is so beautiful. It makes me want to paint, to deal with colour and the texture and viscosity of paint myself.

“Life is banal until it is invested with a commitment …”
p 126 of Sean Scully: Body of light, National Gallery of Australia, 2004

and,

“I’ve said repeatedly that painting is a refuge or antidote to the spiritually flattening and depersonalising tendency of the virtual technological world. The more artificial the world becomes, the more one is forced to experience the world and the world of relationships through a TV or a computer screen, and the more extreme is the need for a human surface. Painting is uniquely placed to offer that.”
p 23

Ah! Very good.

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Inspiration

Posted on September 10, 2011 by
In the beginning - Lynn Cook

In the beginning - Lynn Cook, 2011

This work went on display today in the Ultimo Project Studio group show. I’ve been thinking back on the various influences that inspired me to make it. Talking about it to people I realised that I’d made small icon type paintings way back when I lived in Adelaide. I’ve got one on my desk based on the story of Jacob’s Ladder. And I wondered what was I looking at then to prompt me to attempt to make icons? Anna S was very interested in iconography. And the Art Gallery of South Australia has some beautiful renderings of St Francis:

St Francis receiving the stigmata

Unknown - St Francis receiving the stigmata - Italy, Venice, 1320 - 1350

So this is the starting point. Icons, drawings in paint of sacred images. Later on in the mid-1990s I visited Barcelona and went to the Museu Nacional d’Arte de Catalunya – it has an amazing collection of Romanesque murals, the works physically removed from their churches in the 1920s and placed in replica naves, vaults, apses in the museum. Phenomenal! This was also an influence.

Apse of Sant Climent de Taüll

Apse of Sant Climent de Taüll - c.1123 - MNAC

Then last year at the Art Gallery of NSW I saw a retrospective of Justin O’Brien’s work. He was completely new to me, very beautiful images, strong colour, distinct shapes, a real, but other world.

Justin O'Brien - The miraculous draught of fishes no2, c1978

Justin O'Brien - The miraculous draught of fishes no2, c1978

I’m not sure what made me choose Genesis. I think it might’ve been the step by step creation of the world, the process through word, creating part from part. I almost gave up because upon examination the text is very complex. Too complex to paint on a slightly less than A4 piece of ply. In fact I did give up but I came back to it. I treated it as an interesting problem rather than a necessary assignment. How can I do this as simply as possible?

I also heard recounted a story about Werner Herzog talking about his film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, he remarked that the people that made the cave paintings were inventing God as they drew. I don’t believe this, but I find it interesting, everything folds back upon itself, where do we all start? Can I really say what inspired me to make this piece?

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Guardians

Posted on September 8, 2011 by

On Friday night we went to a slideshow put on by Otherwise Productions at the Red Rattler. It was great, a curated selection of work from Australian and overseas photographers.

Particularly apt for the slideshow format was Andy Freeberg’s collection Guardians, photographs taken in Russian art museums of the women guards and art work. Beautiful juxtapositions and the bonus of getting to see a lot of new art.

I was telling John Dennis about it yesterday and he said that his mum, who has just come back from a tour of Russia and Eastern Europe, had taken a photo of a museum guard, slumped asleep, in their chair. Art imitates life imitates art, without knowing it.

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Drawing stones with felt tip pen

Posted on August 28, 2011 by

Today I went to the Art Gallery of NSW for a drawing class with Jennifer Keeler-Milne, she has been running a series called Drawing from the Collection working in different parts of the gallery. In today’s session we drew works in the Contemporary Collection.

It was great. Jennifer outlined the premise for the session – artwork in the C20th was produced with a wide variety of materials, often in series, often dealing with transformation. Because of this explosion in materials used in artwork we’d be drawing with felt tip pens, a technology, an implement that was invented in the C20th, that is ubiquitous, that is associated with play. We then did a quick tour around the collection with Jennifer stopping at several artworks, talking about the artists who had made them and how they might relate to our project today.

I decided to draw Richard Long’s stone circle. In the end I made five drawings.

20110828-074003.jpg

Here I am in front of my easel, behind me is Richard Long’s wall work.

www.jenniferkeelermilne.com

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a still life

Posted on August 20, 2011 by

There’s a competition for Still Life that Margaret Olley was going to judge, along with one of the curators from the Art Gallery of NSW. I should enter that. Put in one of the works for the 10 Objects exhibition. It’d be nice to tie in some of the work in the Margaret Olley exhibition, the portrait of herself with the postcards, the multiple images of Manet’s painting of Berthe Morisot on the balcony, the objects.

What would I use?
- David Aspden’s Brazil
- some cumquat
- the small blue and white pot and the pewter pot perhaps
- the piece of drift wood
- the Richard Long piece
Oranges, greys, blues, browns.
Oil or watercolour.

National Trust Harper’s Mansion Still Life Art Prize

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Present

Posted on August 14, 2011 by

Today is my birthday and Tim gave me a beautiful book of Cy Twombly’s sculptures. It’s in German though, which is funny because I was only thinking the other day that I don’t know any German and have never had cause to learn. So here is my prompt.

20110814-015450.jpg

Cy Twombly sculptures at MOMA

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10 Objects

Posted on August 3, 2011 by

I’m beginning work on a new series of drawings and paintings based on 10 objects from my mother’s house. The objects are various: three glass jugs, a pewter vase, a stoneware vase, two glass vases, a Chinoisery sweet bowl, and two containers of blue and white china. I’m interested in them as shapes but also as reminders of the past. I’m interested too in the fact that, as a group, they have no meaning to other people.

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