st kilda artists: annual exhibition

never mind that full time job that gets in the way, it’s time to get ready for the summer show season in melbourne! first up is my studio’s annual exhibition in November. Since this is also my birthday month, it’s a nice treat to have work on display. I suppose this birthday has me reflecting about our place and time on this earth and what my contributions will be… hence the themes I’m exploring for this show.

St Kilda Town Hall Gallery, Corner of Carlisle and Brighton

Opening: 6 Nov, 6-8pm     |       Show: 5-26 Nov

Here’s a preview of a couple in the show:

st kilda artists: open studio day

Summer is coming and tradition is our studios hold an open house in October. This year is also the 10th anniversary of the gardens and studio so lots of folks turned out. I was pleasantly surprised to sell two pieces and meet some great peeps during the day. But about the time the band started playing ‘rollin on a river’ it was time for me to go – oy!

Here are the 2 that sold to a great south african couple:

beer garden

One of the local St Kilda pubs sponsored an art competition, theme of ‘beer garden’. I used this as an excuse to make art from some of the beer labels I collected while traveling. This is the first piece created out collage materials I collected from the road. It’s time to start telling that story…

ibid: your documents please

I sent off a piece to this travelling exhibition that starts in Japan, then hits Hungary, Germany, Slovakia, Mexico and whatever else gets added to their schedule between now and 2010. The theme was “travel/identity documentation”, the submitted pieces had to be small and pack flat as they ship the show around the world. I may not ever see this piece again which is too bad ’cause I like it. But no worries if that’s what happens.

singled out

williamstown opening

I’ve been accepted into the williamstown contemporary art show! saw some of the other works when I dropped mine off this saturday and they were impressive. pleased to be involved with something so high caliber.

the opening is this thursday 7-9pm at The Substation Arts Centre, 1 Market Street, Newport. stop by if you can!

this is the piece I have in the show:

30 days 30 pieces

in the month of march I’ve been posting a work of art a day to the 30 days 30 pieces site. it was started by my good buddy and ex-coworker dave schell as a way to still produce art in and around his gig as an art director. lucky for us he invited a few friends into the project.

this is the second time we’ve done this site – last time I was backpacking around aus (coincidentally) and making art in cars and hostels. this time I’ve got a studio and loads more time to devote so things are a little more ambitious.

a few days into march, I started series of pieces around the 2 years I spent backpacking. I always said I’d write a book about those years, but as an artist, painting my experiences is probably gonna happen a whole lot sooner. the ultimate plan is to turn this into a zine and/or published book but for now I post a piece a day (‘cept currently I’m hung up on a nasty sinus infection so not much of anything is happening these days…)

related to this illustrated book idea, I just stumbled across an awesome zine collective here in melbs, sticky institute. they run a sweet shop in the subway crammed FULL of mostly black and white zines. with any luck I’ll start volunteering with them, at the very least, can’t wait to get my first zine done to start trading.

until then, check out the digital version on the 30days site. here’s a sneak peek:

 

24 hour art blitz

I entered a show through the Kingston Art Center – they announce the theme and 24 hours later you deliver the work. Not a bad idea except when you work in oils. I’m glad Petros could drive me there because it was all I could do to keep the fingerprints off.

The opening was the next day, I was late and missed most the awards presentation and I was sort of bumming about my submission (needed more time, too wet to work with, etc et). So imagine my surprise when I walked into the gallery and saw that I got 2nd place! Lucky for me the judges didn’t agree with me and suddenly I was glad I entered afterall.

The theme this year was ‘free’. My entry is titled “I’m freeeee”, 20×30cm:

By the way in other good news – I sold my piece at the Community Spirit opening. I’ll miss my “Another chance…” monkey but I got to meet the buyer and she was really cool! Go monkey power!

my first juried show in oz!

happy to report I got into my first juried show: Fear, Masks & New Beginnings – an exhibition of emerging artists and part of my entry even made it onto the invite. the opening is next week – we’ll see what happens…

first paintings of 2008

while I was traveling for those 2 yrs I created a mini-calendar – mostly because I was too cheap to buy a real one. somewhere in south america, I started adding one sketch per day into my homemade boxes. this became a cool counterpoint to the written journal I was keeping – and got me to visually capture at least one significant thing from the day. ironically, these sketches now provide some of the richest memories of my trip.

I picked the 139 days I spent in SE asia to translate into this painting. it’s a little busy, but it was so much fun to work on! and no other painting has had more people stop into my studio to get a closer look. I never intended to do more paintings like this but I do have over 12 other months to pick from. and I really enjoyed the process – so many great memories it brought back! I’ll live with this piece for a while and see what happens…

details:

the second piece I’ve been working on is called ‘if wishes…’ (I’m really into the ‘……’ in my titles these days – must be from all the uncertainty in my life right now :). I’m addressing that irritating trait of longing to be somewhere else – of when you want life to hurry up and ‘get here’ without realizing it IS here and what’s happening right now is what really matters.

poor mr deer’s ship has sailed big time but there’s still hope for us.

sticker art

here’s a few of my favorite stickers from around the city (and no, petros doesn’t get ‘free’ bar code stickers from work. and I had nothing to do with this ;).