Siren Call
3D Play
Although it has been and gone this show has occupied a sigificant portion of my life for the last 9 months. It was a concept that Niki and I developed and put to Light Square Gallery last year. We made a wish list of artists whose work we thought would be fab in the show and then asked them. And they all said yes!
The exhibition ran through May and I feel it was a geat success. We had a brill opening with Dr. (!) Julie Henderson interviewing each of us for the audience. It was a bit different, but Julie was keen to show people the passions that drive artists to make their work.
The idea for the show was that we play with Western ideas about 3D representation in a playful and thoughtful way. I made a series of drawings, origami stars and a video all intended to be viewed with anaglyph (red/green) glasses. My inspiration was my own experience of not being able to see 3D movies easily and suffering a migraine when I do. So it was a journey about yearning for transcendance...
Constellation 1 (detail)
Swing (video still)
This week I had a follow up interview with Michael Shirrefs of the ABC about my mentorship with Dianne Gall. It's strange to think two years ago I started on this process with Dianne and we had a tentative interview back then right at the beginning. Now with the exhibition at Kensington finishing up this week I need to reflect a little on the experiences and see what I've learnt. I hope I'm more confident now, and maybe a little more savvy thanks to Dianne's wisdom and shared experiences of the life of an exhibiting artist. She really made quite a difference to how I perceive myself as an artist, personally and professionally.
At art school they are so careful not to tell you the crappy stuff about the journey ahead and it's so useful to have a heads-up about how galleries deal with artists and what I can reasonably expect and more importantly what I should not consider.
For example, part way through the mentorship process I was approached and pressured by a new gallery to show work with them at the last minute and they also wanted me to pay $500 for the privilege of screening a video - which had a value of $600. Dianne was really clear that it wasn't acceptable to be pressured in that way and that as a gallery they wouldn't even have time to promote my work in the show and that it would not be an effective career move. I politely declined the gallery their offer. It's was a tricky decision as it's just so hard to get your work seen and every opportunity has to be considered seriously. Dianne was able to guide me through a real world situation and make clear the questions I need to ask of a gallery, or any exhibition opportunity, for that matter to make pragmatic, business focussed decisions. The gallery went under around the time of this proposed exhibition and it became apparent they were canvassing for artists to pay their rent.
The original interview and follow-up can be found here;
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/creativeinstinct/the-art-of-mentoring/4071486
A Year of Crazy
It has indeed been a super busy year. I'm currently doing my strategic planning for the coming months and realised that I have managed to get a lot done!
I've just taken down an exhibition at Light Square Gallery, 3D Play, in which I had some work and also co-curated with Niki Sperou and I still have my long-awaited exhibition of paintings at Kensington Gallery showing until the 17th of June - very chuffed!
So what's next? Well another video for this year's SALA to be filmed around and later screened at the Festival Centre and a new body of paintings - more about that in a later post.
art news org
art review magazine online
australian video art archive
CoUNTesses
NOVOREALISM
This Painting Life
In The Real Art World
Madame Lamb
shaun gladwell
lorelei siegloff
dianne gall
james ainslie
kate lehman
claire bridge
david michael bowers
erika gofton
james guppy
jeremy geddes
will wilson
marion peck