Sunday, December 22, 2013

Wham, Bam, Artbank you ma'am

Hey pal, hope you're well, here's two things I'm really excited to talk about. 

The first is that my car now has antlers and a red nose. Here's two goofy photos of me installing them.
Attaching the nose was pretty tricky, it's a good thing I had these instructions.
And so if you hear of any reports of reindeer sightings on the roads of Melbourne, although there's a good chance it's the real Rudolph, there's also a chance it might just be me.

The second thing I'm really excited to talk about is that a 1000-word writing / image art work type of thing I was commissioned to do has officially been published in the very first issue of Sturgeon

Sturgeon is a new publication that's being put out by Artbank Australia. (Artbank is a government support program that helps contemporary Australian art by buying artists work and allowing companies and individuals that might not be able to actually buy art the opportunity to rent it.)

Here's my name on the Sturgeon list of contributors page, just below the great Patricia Piccinini. Sadly I can't help but feeling that her bio is just slightly more impressive than my bio.


Also appearing on Sturgeon's list of contributors is Tim Flannery, an "internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist" who in 2007 won Australian of the year, ha, so nobody's bio can compete with his.

Anyway so basically for my piece I was invited to look through Artbank's collection and pick out a handful of works to respond to, in a similar way to when I've done things like putting my painting of a newspaper into a newspaper stand
or taking my sculpture of a Macbook Pro to the Apple Store.
The piece is titled 5 hours, 10 Artworks, and the title is pretty much the entire concept for the work; I documented the process of giving myself exactly 5 hours to photograph 10 artworks. 
I'll write more about the project later but for now I just kind of wanted to mention it so that if you want to you can get your hands on a copy and hopefully it can just speak for itself. (Click on this sentence for a link to see all the places you can find it.)

But so yeah, a huge thanks to Daniel, Maria, and the entire amazing team at Artbank, as well as Mark from Chapman and Bailey. I'm really lucky and proud to have had the opportunity to work with these guys, it was so much fun, and also I'm really grateful for being given so much freedom, trust and encouragement to do what I do.

I also really want to thank the artists whose art I had the privilege of working with. (Howard Arkley, Jon Cattapan, Marcel Cousins, Greg Creek, Anastasia Klose, Colin Parker, Adam Pyett, Lisa Radford, Victoria Reichelt, Darren Sylvester and Ben Taylor.)

Oh and I also wanna say thanks to the team that designed the layout of Sturgeon for doing an awesome job in presenting my piece in such a unique and effective way.

And so yeah, that's about it, I'm really happy with the thing and hope you get a chance to check it out.

Oh and so lastly, the publication's called Sturgeon because it's named after the founding director of Artbank; Graeme Sturgeon, however it's also called Sturgeon because sturgeon is a type of fish that produces caviar. I've never tried caviar before so I figured what might be a fancy way to wrap up this blog post would be to go out and eat some. 

The cheapest restaurant I could find that has caviar charges $170 for a serving of 30 grams. Ha, obviously that's out of my price range, but alternatively I discovered you can buy caviar in a jar for $5.50 from Woolworths.

I didn't really know what to do with the caviar once I got it home, but it looks a lot like Vegemite so I just treated it the same; butter some toast and spread it on top.

It tasted pretty yuck, but not as yuck I was expecting. It was just an overwhelming fish taste, and I don't really like fish too much. It's no peanut butter that's for sure.

Even though I gagged and teared up on the first bite I got used to the strong flavour pretty quick and, partly due to the fact that I was really hungry, I ate every last bite of the toast.

But ok that's all I wanted to say, thanks so much for reading, I Ho Ho Hope you have a very merry Christmas and I'll see you soon.
On a side note, while driving home from buying the caviar one of the antlers fell off my car, so if you happen to see a red nosed reindeer going in circles around and around a roundabout this holiday season, either the real Rudolph has lost an antler as well, or it's probably just me in my lopsided car.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Duck in the middle with you

Hey grown up how's it going? I'm a little bit closer to being a grown up myself now that school's out for ever. No longer am I an art student, now I'm just an art ist. 

Here's a photo taken of me just before I deinstalled the VCA Honours Grad Show, using a Nikon d90 DSLR to document my sculpture of a Nikon d90 DSLR.
And here I am using an iPhone 4s to document my sculpture of an iPhone 4s.
And after that, here I am eating Vegemite toast in front of my sculpture of a toaster, as well as drinking tea in front of my sculpture of a Mug, out of the mug that the sculpture was based on.
Yesterday I finally paid the overdue fine I had at the uni library which meant that I could access my results, and I'm very pleased to say that my marks weren't terrible. 

Can you believe I actually got dux?

Ha, no, I didn't really get dux, I'm sure plenty of people would've gotten higher marks than me. I don't even know if they award dux in Australia or if it's just something I learnt about from American TV. Coincidentally though I did actually get ducks. 

Two of them. 

Donald and Daffy. 

Here they are hiding in the ferns next to the duck garden ornament.
I was a bit annoyed when I first heard we got ducks, because we've had them before and gave them away because of the mess they make; ducks poo so much, way more than chooks, but then I actually saw the ducks and I didn't care about that at all.

Just looking at these guys makes me so happy.Wait, what was I trying to say before I started going on about ducks? Something about being a grown up. It doesn't matter. These ducks are cute, with their big beaky grins, quacking away as they waddle around never further than a meter apart. 

Best of all is that since we've got the ducks walking about my backyard now makes everything else in my head feel as humble, heartbreaking and hopeful as being in a Leunig drawing.
Thanks heaps for reading, hope you enjoy the nest of your day and I'll let you get quack to whatever it was you were doing.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Art Babble

Hey! So last Saturday I was in an Art Battle. That's a pretty fun sentence to say.

I covered the lead up to it pretty well in the last post but just to quickly go over it again; it was Third Drawer Down's 10th Birthday and to celebrate they had a big party. One of the main events of the party was a series of Art Battles. 

The Art Battles consisted of pairing five local artists with five Arts Project Australia artists, (an organisation that mentors and provides exhibiting opportunities for artists with mental disability).

The 5 pairings made for five separate Art Battles, in which two artists worked on back to back easel's with twenty minutes to paint a picture of the same object. The works were then put into a silent auction with all money going to Arts Project Australia.

The artist I was paired with, Eden Menta, chose a red inflatable pool ring designed by American artist Kenny Scharf as our object to paint. 
Kenny Scharf's been a big deal in New York since the 80's. He does colourful paintings and sculptures in a graffiti kind of scale and style, inspired by cartoon characters.
Another fun fact I like about Kenny Scharf is that he used to be roommates with Keith Haring. Here's a photo I found on google of the two of them with Andy Warhol. 
I hadn't heard of Kenny Scharf until I had to paint his inflatable but since then I've done some basic research and I've decided that I love him. (If I had've known about Scharf earlier I would've included him in my list of Twenny Kenny's).

But so ok, the Art Battle.

The crowd was surprisingly really big and it all started very quickly. Someone in a later battle was caught in traffic and suddenly Eden and I's battle was moved forward an hour. Having no time to get ready was probably a good thing, it meant that I also had no time to go to a public toilet and vomit up Mum's spaghetti on my sweater already, you know, like how Eminem prepares for battles.
I was nervous, but on the surface I looked calm and ready. 

Here I am mid battle.
And here's Eden and I at the end of the battle with our finished works.
Third Drawer Down put the above photo onto their instagram and Kenny Scharf himself actually liked it, how cool is that?! 

So I guess Scharf and I are pretty much BFF's now.

As well as the Art Battles though, the other awesome thing at the Third Drawer Down 10th birthday party was that if you spent ten or more dollars on the day your name went into a hat and if it was pulled out then you got a turn in the Art Grabber.
The Art Grabber is one of those things like you used to see in old tv game shows. It's a small room you go in and high pressure fans blow pieces of paper all around you and you've got ten seconds to grab as much as you can. 

As soon as I saw it I decided it was on my bucket list. Amazingly, at the very moment I was talking with someone about the idea of asking if I could have a turn in it just for fun, my name was actually picked out of the hat!

Here I am in it. 
 
Desperately trying to catch the prizes in the Art Grabber was a lot like the time in year 12 when I hadn't yet stapled my english essay together and after putting it on top of my car to get my keys out of my pocket a big gust of wind blew the 8 loose pages onto the freeway. 

A side note, I later realised that the little boy watching me in the foreground of the above photo is wearing the exact same clothes that I do. Look!!!
So it's official; I'm exactly as stylish as a seven year old.

But so alright, what's almost as amazing as that little boy's very fashionable outfit is that here's the five things I won in the Art Grabber...



Here I am with the stuff.
And here I am again with Eden, and also another Arts Project artist, Aiden Sevo, who later battled Oslo Davis.
Oslo killed it, that guy is so damn good. Aiden's piece was great too. Their theme was banana. 

Here's me eating a banana, while Oslo and Aiden draw somebody dressed as one.
It would've been good to have taken a few more photo's but after a week of pouring rain and barely leaving the studio I was just enjoying myself too much being out in the sun. 

If you are interested in more photo's from the day though click here to see 32 more photo's taken by The Thousands.


Anyway, I just want to say congrats to Third Drawer Down for putting together a day that was not only heaps of fun, but also raised over $1500 for the very worthy cause of Arts Projects Australia. Incredible. All of the Art Battlers were great artists and great people and I feel really lucky to have been a part of it. 

One final thing to end this post is that when I got out of the Art Grabber and read aloud the list of the things I'd won I didn't know how to pronounce the Rose Nolan ruok candle. 

The three people around me all had a go at it too and we decided that Oslo was probably the closest with 'roo-ock'. 

Later that night I went out for dinner and asked my friend to google 'ruok'. "How's it spelt?" they asked, and it was only when I pronounced the individual letters that I finally understood it and felt really silly.

And so, in the Ferntree Gully Hotel with a pot resting in my new Jon Campbell stubby holder and my new David Shrigley tea towel as a bib, if you were to ask me 'ruok?' I think my answer would have to be 'yeah, everything is good'.  
Anyway I hope urok2, and everything's good for you as well.
 Thanks so much for reading.
And yes, of course, please feel free to use that last photo as the background image on your phone.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Third War Down

Hey pal, this Saturday, November 16, at Third Drawer Down, at 2.15pm, I'm competing in an art battle.

Ha, it's gonna be just like 8 mile, except that instead of trying to be better than the other person using rhyme, you have to do it with drawing. 

It's called a "Back to Back Art Attack". Basically I think the idea is I sit with my back to the other artist and we both make a drawing for 20 minutes on a predetermined common theme. After that there's a silent auction.

I don't know how they decide who wins the Attack. I guess it's just whoever's work sells for the most. Hopefully that's the case, that way even if my work sucks I can still just bid really high on my own drawing and be crowned the winner.

The event is part of the 10th Birthday Party of Third Drawer Down, and all money raised goes to Arts Project Australia.

Arts Project Australia is awesome.

Arts Project Australia a not-for-profit organisation that provides artists with an intellectual disability with both a space to create art and a gallery to exhibit it. 

Arts Project Australia also do a good job at promoting their artists, which is how I found out about them. In fact because I was able to see the rad stuff coming out of there I was able to curate an Arts Project artist who's making some really cool work, Chris O'Brien, into the Kenneth Biennale back in June this year. 

For the Biennale Chris collaborated with his buddy, and my buddy, oil painter Christina Hayes. Here's a photo of the three of us taken at one of the openings.
And here's a photo of the hilarious work Chris and Christina created, titled Chicken Coop.
The artist from Arts Project Australia that I'll be art-attacking on Saturday is Eden Menta, I haven't been told what Eden picked as our common theme yet, but no matter what it is I'm sure it's gonna be pretty tough for me to win. As I said earlier, the work that comes out of Arts Project Australia is amazing.

Having said that though, I do intend on beating Eden. Ha, so yeah, this Saturday, come along and watch me try to do that.

(here's an image off the Third Draw Down website)
All up there's five battles happening. I'm on at 2.15 but there's three battles before it, the first one starts at 12. Oslo Davis, one of my very favourite drawers, is in the battle after mine, at 3 o'clock.

Click here to read a write up of the day by The Thousands. Other than what it says I don't really know what to expect, but I'm sure it'll be fun and hope to see you there!

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Water relief

Hey freestylers and doggy paddlers, how've you been? I just wanted to say hi and share with you the very good news that yesterday I submitted my Honours thesis. I worked really hard on the thing and it's good to see it done.

I'll talk more about it soon but for now I'm going to enjoy this nice afternoon and go float around the pool. 

In the meantime though here's a drawing I did at the pool all the way back in 2010.
(It's acrylic marker on an A3 piece of 225gsm paper.)

Anyway I'm off to make waves, sea you soon, hope you're day is going swimmingly.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Unrelated news

Hey! I feel like I haven't written here in a while. Hi, how've you been? 

In theory class today we watched a scary movie and now I'm anxious. 

I feel like that should lead up to a joke or something, ha, but no, I just thought I'd let you know that while I'm writing this I'm a bit shaken up. It's kind of embarrassing how much scary movies effect me.

Do scary movies scare you? Is that something you can relate to? I doubt it, you're probably much tougher than me, but anyway scary movies aren't related to this at all, what I really wanted to start this off by mentioning is that I just added an "UPCOMING" section onto my website. 
So yeah, I'll keep updating that and so feel free to check in on it from time to time, if you're not yet sick of the site of me.

The first thing I've put into UPCOMING, which is pretty rad, is this group show at The Projects Gallery that opens on Saturday, 4-7pm. If you're free it'd be awesome if you can make it to the opening.
I installed my work there the other day and yeah, the show's looking great, really hope you get a chance to come down to Belgrave and see it.

In other unrelated news, on Monday I decided to draw a picture of AFL footballer Adam Goodes over the length of time I spent watching Eddie McGuire on TV.

Adam Goodes is pretty amazing.
So here's the result of that.
(Paint marker on an A3 piece of 225gsm paper).

In other unrelated news, I spent last Sunday with just about everyone I'm related to.

It was my Pop's 90th birthday. 

Here's a blurry photo I took of his hand cutting the birthday cake.
In other unrelated news, here's a photo of my third drawer down.
In other unrelated news, a couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to do a job for the shop Third Drawer Down, where I made 8 drawings that very excitingly are being used as icons on Third Drawer Down's relaunched website. 

Pretty awesome, here's a screenshot I took of my drawings in their new home.
I really love doing this kind of work. The slinky was probably my favourite to draw.

And finally, in other unrelated news, I'm still feeling a bit funny after watching that scary movie and so I think I'd better wrap this up and go watch a cartoon or something. 

Thanks heaps for reading, hope you're doing good and hope to see you relatively soon.

Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Yawn to be wild

Hey pal, this'll be a pretty quick blog post but basically I'm just very excited to let you know about an article in the current JULY/AUGUST issue of Art Guide Australia.

The article, titled An Artist Walks into a Bar and written by Sydney writer Andrew Frost, talks about the use of humour in art, and amongst some of the really great contemporary Australian artists that are mentioned, there's a paragraph or two that talks about my work. How cool is that?!

(If you happen to have read the article and you're interested in reading my Adam Cullen tribute thing that it mentions, click here).

But so yeah, if you're out and about pick up a copy of Art Guide Australia. 

To help you find it in the newsagent, here's the cover.
Actually no, that's not the cover, that's just a photo of me that I painted some text onto.

Here's what the cover actually looks like.
Here's my one and the real one, next to each other in the newsagent.
And here they are again in a big stack on the counter at the Degrave Street art store.
The image on the cover is a 2007 work by Sydney born London based photographer Julien Wolkenstein. It's from his series Yawning is Contagious, and is titled Sebastien.

To specifically try to get myself looking like Sebastien I stopped shaving for a week, (very itchy).
Then I got my hair on the straight and narrow.
And look at me now; a natural yawn killer.
Ha, but so yeah, that's all I wanted to write, thanks heaps for reading. Anyway I'm gonna go shave, and I think maybe after all this yawning I'll take a nap.
Sure it'd be nice if the world was Cadbury, but wouldn't it be ever nicer to just stay in bed all day reading Art Guide?