If I was on The Voice

Hey, how's it going? I'm watching The Voice. Are you watching it? My Mum watches it and so I've been seeing it a bit. It's a good show, the people that came up with it are clever, it really hooks you in.

While watching two musicians "battle" over I dreamed a dream, I've been thinking about what it'd be like if I was ever an artist auditioning on this show.

Like all good television talent shows, The Voice is really just about a good sob story.

As I was being introduced onto the show there'd be a voiceover which would probably begin by saying that art is my life, and how this audition is my one big shot, the last chance I'll ever have to quit my job at the supermarket. 

The shows voiceover would transition into me doing my own voiceover, and I'd talk about how I'm addicted to drawing. They'd play music like the theme from Curb Your Enthusiasm and show how while at work I'd sketch the customers when the manager wasn't looking. 

 

Then the music would get dramatic, they'd cut to a flashback of when I had spine surgery.

I'd get all choked up as I explained some of the struggles I faced in the years leading up to it, and how scared I was that I'd wake up from the surgery needing a wheelchair for the rest of my life.

They'd play the audio of an interview with my Mum over a montage of footage from my weeks rehabilitating in the hospital emergency room.

Mum would go on about how the only way I stayed sane during the recovery was to draw and paint, and they'd show the pile of thirty sketchbooks I filled up while on morphine and oxycontin. 

The whole thing would be really cheesy and it'd make you cringe.

They'd probably have some shots of my X-Rays and they'd show how the poles and screws that're permanently in me, and the brace I had to wear, look a bit like Frida Kahlo in her painting, The Broken Column.

Then they'd show footage of me learning how to walk again.

After all this drawn out ten minute introduction they'd eventually cut back to me, and the voiceover would say "And finally, after learning how to walk again, he's now walking onto the stage."

I'd sing "I started a Joke" by The Bee Gees.

None of the judges would spin their chair around.

(Acrylic on 225gsm paper. 21 x 29.5cm)

After the song finished Seal would tell me that I just didn't "bring it", but to not give up on my dream.

I'd walk backstage pretending to smile and trying to make a face to the camera that says "well at least I gave it a shot."

And that would be the end of it. For months I'd be a broken mess and I'd stay up all night wishing I'd chosen a different song to sing, or better yet, just not sung at all.

Maybe though, who knows, just maybe, one day, twenty years later, this whole The Voice experience might make up a funny little 15 second anecdote during the introduction when I get asked to give a TED Talk. And it would've all been worthwhile.

We all lived happily ever after.

You're the voice, try and understand it.

The End.

(Ha, I guess I'd been meaning to mention my surgery on here at some point and but it's still pretty heavy for me and this seemed like the most detached way to do it. Hope it wasn't too self indulgent. Thanks for reading. See you soon.)

a PICA's worth a thousand words

Hey, thanks for stopping by. I just wanted to quickly let you know that I'm flying over to Perth today as I'm lucky enough to have been selected to participate in the upcoming Hatched exhibition at PICA, (The Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts). How cool is that?

Another thing that's really cool is they used an image of my Bubble'O Bill sculpture on the exhibition poster.

The show opens this Friday, April 19, and runs until June 9. 

I've never been to Perth before, did you know it's a four hour and twenty minute flight away from Melbourne? Pretty rad, it seems like so far to travel while not leaving the country. 

I really hope you get a chance to have a look at this show, I'm really excited about it. Thanks heaps for reading, hope to see you soon.

You've gotta be Jewel to be kind

Hey good looking, thanks for stopping by.

This is just a quick post to ask you nicely, if you're in the area, to please stop by Melbourne Uni this week, find The Old Jewellery shop, and you might be able to see a little bit of my work in their collection.

Here's the invite

 

I don't know much about The Old Jewellery Shop, all I know is that Jewel is meant for me.

                        

The Kat's out of the bag

Hey kool kat, here's a piece I made in late 2012. 

It's akrylic on keramic. 18cm x 11cm x 2cm.

The piece is now owned by my friend and mentor Elizabeth Gower. Elizabeth often works with packaging and advertising in her art, and in the past has actually worked with Kit Kats herself.

Elizabeth told me that back when she worked with Kit Kats they were wrapped in paper packaging, instead of the foil they use today. 

Here's a photo of the work called Kat on a hot tin roof.

Chipping in a little

Hey pal, great to see you. What've you been up to? Chipping away at things?

Here's a painting I did a little while back, it's acrylic on 225gsm paper, 15 x 22cm.

It's called Salt and Vinegar.

I think that's all for now, I'm not really in the mood to blog today, I've got a chip on my shoulder about it.

Couldn't be happier

Hi, here's a ceramic piece I made a few months ago. 

It's titled SD Card. It's acrylic on ceramic, 3.1 x 2.3 x 0.2cm.

I included the piece in the Funny Games exhibition earlier this year.

If you went to the show you might've missed it, I tucked it away pretty low to the ground behind this sculpture by Anna Higgins.

If you want blood, you got it

Hey, late last night these three drawings fell out from the back of the book I was reading.

I made the drawings about 4 years ago, in December 2008. They're all marker on 21cm x 15cm, 110gsm cartridge paper. 

I drew all three of them whilst donating blood at the Upwey community centre. 

Johnny been good

Oh hey, Ger-die mite. Last week my buddy Dan Petersen and I made a painting for our tutor Jon Campbell, as an attempt to show him our highest appreciation for having been such a great mentor to us, as well as just a great friend, over the three years of our undergraduate course.

Jon won the Basil Sellers $100,000 art prize this year, and so when deciding what to make him it was pretty obvious we had to have some fun with that. 

Cheque out what we came up with.

I'd always wanted to make a novelty cheque, and as Jon is such a humble guy, the gesture of presenting him with one definitely seemed like the thing to do.

We used the colour scheme from Jon's iconic yeah painting

and based a lot of the framework for our novelty cheque on a variety of other novelty cheques, including the great artist Tom Polo's.

To make our painting a true collaboration, Dan and I took it in turns painting each letter, number and line.

We were working on the tightest of deadlines and so going letter for letter made the painting process about as intimate as it gets.

We presented the cheque to Jon at the end of year Painting Party last Friday. 

When the time was right I called Jon up the front and gave him the distraction present; a large bouquet of Basil. (I offered to sell it to him). During this moment Dan swooped in from the back and we presented Jon with the painting.

(If you look in Jon's hand in the bottom left you can see the Basil Bouquet).

Dan and I are very aware that completing our Bachelor of Fine Arts isn't really the end of anything, only the beginning, and that Jon, one of the most generous and encouraging artists I know, will certainly continue to be a great friend and mentor for us throughout the years.

But even still, Jon is a legend and we did want to take a moment to say thanks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is Jon, Is Good.

Nice to meat you!

If hotdogs could talk I think we all know what they'd say;

The life-size dogs are acrylic on ceramic and made in 2012. 

I installed the ceramic 'HI' hotdogs onto a wall at uni last night just to see how they'd look. 

It was late and everyone had gone home for dinner. 

I also photographed them in the microwave.