AMILTON D E S I G N G L A S S The artwork of Jeffrey Hamilton

The Other Art Fair @ Barangaroo

XX Mon. YYYY

Like all such events this was a real mixed bag. There was some terrible art on display, I mean really bad, but also there were many brilliant pieces on display and some truly outstanding new artists. As would be expected, it is a very eclectic mix in terms of genre and technique, with probably something like 50% very attractive and affordable abstrsact and realist paintings.

The Australian-Russian artist Yulia Pushtoskina was there with her beautifully rendered works of fantasy; there was a special display of contemporary ceramics, an intereactive light wall and see-saw by ENESS, and a plastics recycling factory shredding, melting and moulding rings and other objects.

Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize 2015

XX Mon. YYYY

Took time out of the studio last week to catch the 2015 Small Sculpture Prize exhibition before it closed on Sunday 25th. I try to see it every year because I enjoy the show so much and while it couldn't be called the best ever I certainly wasn't disappointed.

Two sculptures I particularly enjoyed were the abstract aluminium construction by Yioyios above and the very whimsical ceramic totem by Stephen Bird, a regular contributor to the show. Another work I found particularly beautiful was Lines by Titania Henderson

Father's Pencils by Wendy Black struck a particularly strong emotional chord with me. Probably the smallest piece in the whole show it definitely had the most profound impact. Wendy explains that while her father constructed modest dwellings, the work alludes to skyscrapers, but it was her acknowledgement of communing with him while making the piece that resonated so strongly with me

Tom Moore at The Hughes Gallery

XX Mon. YYYY

South Australian artist Tom Moore is showing an exhibition of his trademark quirky characters at the Hughes Gallery (since closed) in Devonshire Street, Surry HIlls. Walking up the road from my studio in search of a cheap lunch I happened to wander into the gallery and was greeted by a lively display of glass sculpture, instantly recognisable as Tom Moore's.

Robert Cooke, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Photography and Design, Art Gallery of Western Australia has written an eminently readable essay on the exhibition, titled Prehistoric Restraint, for the Gallery's room sheet.

For me personally the most exciting aspect to the show was the inclusion of Tom's preparatory drawings. Being such a process-driven artist myself, these works on paper had enormous appeal both as artworks in their own right and as evidence of the thought processes involved in the production of the sculptures.

Garth Knight at .M Contemporary

XX Mon. YYYY

Thursday 14th November saw the opening of a new exhibition of work by Garth Knight, the first Australian artist to show at M Contemporary Gallery in Ocean St Woollahra.

The Director of Head On photo festival, Moshe Rosenzveig, delivered an excellent opening address, describing Garth as an engineer, which I found very interesting. Moshe went on to discuss the dichotomy between 'real' and created or manipulated imagery and, ultimately, the validity of both. Garth's manipulated images depend completely on the real: to create 100 Breaths (illustrated above and below) he wrote a program, took 100 photographs of smoke from burning insence and applied that program to all 100 images. The variation in the results is stunning; the beauty of the geometry breathtaking.

The exhibition was curated by independent curator Angeline Collings

Vale Aziz Ulas, 1952-2012

XX Mon. YYYY

Australian-Turkish artist Aziz Ulas died 22.05.12, losing his battle with lung cancer. He left a huge body of work and a young son, Joscha, who is living in Berlin with his mother. On Saturday night (July 21st) Tap Gallery in Darlinghurst hosted a memorial exhibition celebrating Aziz's life and work. Proceeds of sales are to benefit Joscha.

Aziz embraced life fully. He was one of those characters that makes an impression on everyone he meets. And his work demonstrated this passion. He explored his chosen medium of resin casting with admirable dedication but was continually frustrated with a lack of acceptance amongst the 'Art Establishment' in Australia, despite being well-recognised and supported in Germany where he lived for some years.

After several warm and uplifting addresses on the night the MC announced that a box of studio experiments, photos and paraphernalia were available free for guests as a momento of the artist. I now have a beautiful little resin piece in brilliant scarlet and cerulean blue to remind me of Aziz.

Sign of the Times

XX Mon. YYYY

Nov. last year a friend named Steve McLaren curated an exhibition at TAP Gallery in Darlinghurst entitled Not Only Black and White. It was an interesting theme to work to and I got excited and began a new collage/mixed media work on a black background, working with shades of black and all the various grades of white. The meta-meaning of gradations of black and white in a moral sense came to the fore as I was working with the piece. The exhibition came and went (I hung several pencil and charcoal drawings) and the new work languished for a time, until Brendan Penzer's call out a month ago for submissions in At The Vanishing Point's annual "show of the year", entitled Sign of the Times.

The image below is the result. Quite rich in content it engaged members of the audience for long periods, which is about as much as you can ask of an artwork at an exhibition where there is lots going on; ATVP's shows generally comprise a substantial performance component and are quite significant events. UPDATE: ATVP in Newtown has closed.

It constantly amazes me the diverse ways in which artists will interpret a particular theme. I was very taken with the two posters of an atomic explosion over Marshall Island, by Jason Wing vs Mini Graf, superimposed with the words "REFUGE ISLAND".

Ganbeld Lunaa presented a wonderful mixed media work entitled "Endless Bullshit Cassette Series" comprising a series of cassette tapes bound wildly in wire and screwed to painted canvases. I recognised a sympathetic sensibility of materials here, combined with a very Dada aesthetic. Each tape was labelled in various modes of bullshit.

The main gallery contained three sets of sculpted busts on plinths; the most prominent being, of course, Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott in painted reinforced latex by Kassandra Bossell (below): an impressive likeness and eerily disturbing. Shown above is a wonderfully lighthearted installation that appeared on the awning of the gallery over King St. creating new meaning from truncated signage. And just inside the gallery door, down on the floor, was a delightful altar piece by Coris Evans set up on an amplifier and two speakers with looped chanting filling the gallery space.