NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize and John Lewin at the State Library

XX Mon. YYYY

I spent a delightful few hours this wintry afternoon at two exhibitions in Macquarie St Sydney. The Australian colonial artist John Lewin is being showcased at the State Library of NSW in a huge exhibition of his work. Lewin is considered to be the first Australian professional artist, with a keen eye for seeing the natural world as it is and the skill set to convey that vision into beautiful works of art. Lewin was collected by Governors and his works gifted to dignitaries around the world. With only a week to go (closing May 27th) this exhibition is well worth getting to.

The detail in Lewin's works on paper is amazing. As a former artist for Taronga Zoo I know just how difficult it is to portray a platypus as an interesting artwork. As for wombats, they have no shape at all! But it is John Lewin's portrayal of the Doryanthes Excelsior (Gymea Lily) and Telopea (Waratah) which are the standout works. They are stunning illustrations of beautiful plants. And the naturalist's detailed pencil drawings of the plant's segments at the bottom of each picture give the works an interesting context and depth.

Just next door to the State Library is the NSW State Parliament. The 2012 Plein Air Prize for Painting is the 5th such prize and makes for a beautiful exhibition. Some well known names are included, such as Tom Carment, Geoff Harvey and Guy Maestri. I absolutely love Tony Hulls' "Looking South from Coledale Hills" and Rachel Ellis' "Eglington Landscape 11" which was Highly Commended. But the stand out for me was Amanda Penrose Hart's "Hill, Sofala NSW". Hart captures the essence of the Australian landscape with economy and verve, her vigorous painting technique enlivening the canvas with dark passages of eucalypt leaves dancing across the composition.

UPDATE: The NSW Parliament Prize for Plein Air Painting held its last exhibition in 2018.

I was lucky enough to walk in on an artist's talk by Brigiat Maltese who made a most enjoyable presentation and spoke eloquently about the space that an artist inhabits while painting "en plain air". Her book, "Capertee Valley Diary", which was taken out of it's glass case for us and laid out on the floor of the House for close inspection, is made up of a continuous, concertinaed sheet with smaller pieces of paper collaged into the landscape to produce a beautiful panorama of the Capertee Valley, west of the Blue Mountains. Measuring over two metres long, the viewer's interest is maintained throughout the work. In fact one gains an insight into the artist's working method by examining the detail contained within the various sheets, produced over different times and lighting conditions

Artist Talk: Richard Tipping at Australian Galleries

XX Mon. YYYY

In conversation with Glen Barkley, curator at the MCA, Richard Tipping gave a lively address last night at his solo exhibition at Australian Galleries. I found it interesting to learn of his early work as a concrete poet: it made so much sense and put the more recent body of work with signage and urban intervention in context.

In conversation at the conclusion of the talk a member of the audience commented eloquently that Tipping's work expresses "the triumph of the human spirit over the banal". This is evidenced nowhere more clearly than the double signage intervention piece photographed at Bondi that read "SING HUM". Inspiring work.

Richard Tipping at Australian Galleries

XX Mon. YYYY

I would be surprised if you don't recognise this sign. One of the most iconic urban art interventions ever made, this is Richard Tipping.

Richard's exhibition at Australian Galleries in Roylston St Paddington continues until May 6th. The hilariously confusing red warning sign at the entrance says "Sorry, We're Open" But do go in! This exhibition is definitely a must see. One of my favourite works has to be the blue "AIRPOET" with an arrow pointing upward: actual street signs to the airport, surreptitiously reconfigured and photographed in situ.

Find and Arrest Joseph Kony - NOW

XX Mon. YYYY

There are many, many pressing human rights issues around the globe; God knows there are many right here in Australia, with the Intervention policies of the Federal Government wreaking havoc within Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.

But the horror stories comning out of Uganda where Joseph Kony is abducting children to train as guerilla soldiers has placed this man at the number one position on the United Nation's list of wanted living war criminals. It would appear momentum is building within the International community to actually do something to bring this man to justice.

This video will tell you the story. Watch the movie. Then decide what you can do to make this happen. The apparent and very public breakdown of the founder of this movement to galvanise public opinion (you've all seen that Youtube) in no way diminishes the urgency or importance of taking action to find and arrest Kony.

72 Hours of Art; Relocation of Stasis

XX Mon. YYYY

Over the weekend April 1st - 3rd the former Knot Gallery celebrated the opening of their new premises in 107 Redfern St Redfern, with heartfelt thanks to tthe City of Sydney's generosity. They have taken over the disused fire station, empty for a very long time, given it a coat of paint and turned it over to artist's studios and gallery space.

To the accompaniment of beats by Monkfly for the Sunday night opening, the crowd got to see the results of an open house situation where all and sundry were invited to participate in painting, drawing, building and playing golf. I spent a very pleasant hour and a half early in the afternoon taking the psych test... I have no idea whether I passed, or what it all meant, but it was fun.

Over the Easter weekend I visited the Renaissance exhibition at the NGA (absolutely beautiful!) and took the opportunity to deliver one of my works which was sold to a dear friend some time ago: it has been hanging in my studio window for the duration, illuminated each night as advertising, mainly visible from the Aurora Hotel opposite. Stasis now resides in its new home in Westgarth St O'Connor.

Australian Designers on Show

XX Mon. YYYY

The Australian Designers and Creators exhibition, which grew out of the Australian Craft Show at Fox Studios in Sydney has morphed into Australian Designers on Show. The exhibition at the Masonic Hall in Turramurra over the weekend of 23rd, 24th and 25th March 2012 was the fourth exhibition of it's kind and the first time I have taken part.

The fine timber craftsman Dave Jones had to pull out of this year's Designers on Show so I was very pleased to have been invited as his replacement. While the number of visitors wasn't huge it was a good show for me. I sold several of my abstract leadlight mirrors and had many worthwhile conversations and some very positive leads for future commissions. It's been quite a few years since I have exhibited on the Northside (was a member of the North Shore Craft Group for many years when I lived at Lane Cove) and I'll definitely have a presence at Turramurra in 2013.

Holy Cross Catholic Church, Woollahra

XX Mon. YYYY

For the past four weeks I have been restoring a damaged stained glass window installed by Ashwin and Company in the 1930's. Once again I had chris Wellwood and Clive Hillier assisting on the excavation of the window and boarding up. After initial hesitation with the St Jame's Catholic Church project at Glebe, Clive has embraced working on scaffold with gusto.

The difficulty that presented itself with this paarticular restoration project was the obvious severe paint loss ocurring in almost all the windows in the Church: not on all the glass however, only the flesh- all the faces, hands and feet. Many of the faces have lost their trace lines and now appear as ghosts. When I eventually got the window into the studio I discovered that the paint on these pieces of glass was so flaky it could be scraped by a fingernail: very unusual.

It's a matter of conjecture as to why this might be the case. Other stained glass windows I've seen showing paint loss tend to suffer across most of the glass and I assume that the cause of this was not adequate firing in the first place. And it is possible that with the Holy Cross window the faces, hands and feet were fired as a differnet batch of glass to the remainder of the window. It would be unlikely that a different paint was used to that of the drapery and foliage. But I am convinced that it is to do with the chemistry of the particular glass, an unusual shade of pinkish/yellow brown, and a possible incompatibilty with the glass paint.

The window is booked for re-installation next week and the scaffold will come down before Easter celebrations begin the following weekend.

Restoration at St Peter's Anglican Church, Cremorne

XX Mon. YYYY

Today I've just re-installed the Gabriel window into St Peter's historic Church at Cremorne after carrying out some extensive restoration over the last few weeks. I did manage to see in the New Year in style but also spent many hours laboring over some quite challenging paintwork to achieve the best result I could in matching the old painted glass.

There was no signature or date of manufacture to be found on the window but a best estimate is around 90 - 100 years. It was common of windows from this era to be very heavily painted and while they look quite good, if somewhat sombre, insitu it becomes terribly difficult to read and then re-create such dark paintwork in the studio.

Outpost on Cockatoo Island

XX Mon. YYYY

For a start, Cockatoo Island has to be the grandest venue in the world for an arts festival. Set like a jewel in the middle of Sydney Harbour, the island is home to an industrial wasteland worthy of Mad Max #4. Enter the denizens of the streets, those artists who are reviled as vandals in the corridors of power yet weirdly in this case supported and indeed lauded by Maritime Services (Sydney Harbour Trust). Following hot on the heels of "Space Invaders" at the National Gallery in Canberra (now touring the country), and with Anthony Lister gracing the cover of the very final paper issue of Art and Australia Magazine, it could be said with some authority that street art, paste-up, graffiti, stickering, skate boarding, stencils, in short contemporary street culture, has moved centre stage. And a good thing too.

As well as Paste Modernism 3, there were many individual galleries on the island and dozens of boards erected around the cliff faces and outside the old warehouses featuring graf and artwork by many well known Australian artists. Numskull, Phibs and Beastman did a collaborative TeepeeTemple. There was also an enormous exhibition of screen-printed T-shirts dating back decades and of course lots of appropriately funky merchandise.

Out of all the amazing work on display at Outpost, what really inspired me, in fact blew me away, was Kid Zoom's installation. A Perth artist who moved over to Sydney and into Hibernian House for a time, Kid Zoom's career has skyrocketted and justifiably so. He is "possessed by a vision, by a madness, by a rage to live, by an all consuming fire to MAKE ART!" Ian Strange (AKA Kid Zoom) is so much more than a street artist: his multi-media installation Home on Cockatoo was worthy of a Biennale.

In the driveway to the house, which Ian built while living in the island, were the three vehicles which star in the video projected onto the inside wall of the house. With a deafening industrial soundtrack the piece was completely enthralling. The artist takes to the cars with a sledge hammer, jumping on them, pounding them with his feet... then begins overspraying them, with flames still leaping into the air and at one stage igniting the spray can: gripping stuff.

SUNDRY ITEMS OF INTEREST

XX Mon. YYYY

The St Jame's Catholic Church refurbishment project is now complete but it's been such a busy time for me, up and down scaffold each day, getting home exhausted, that I've neglected this blog somewhat.

I did manage to visit the opening of the SCA Grad Show at the Rozelle Campus Nov 15th, although I was really there for the painting and only had a very quick glance at the glass. Some stand out works by the painters included Taylor Coyne's timber and canvas construction, Emily Morris' delightfully whimsical watercolours of such prosaic objects as wheelie bins and old soldering irons, Saffae's beautifully rendered S & M portraits the fluorescent light constructions of Tai Yi Kwok.

Vastly different in scale from Morris' petite watercolours, the oil on canvas by Teunis Van Zanten, full of drama and movement, spoke to me on a visceral level.

Running parallel with the Street Art Festival that is Outpost on Cockatoo Island is a whole swag of solo shows arouind Sydney by some of the best proponents of stencil and street art. Ambush Gallery in Waterloo is hosting a fantastic show titled Surface Tension, featuring Shida from QLD and Victorian artist Elk among others. Each of the 6x artists has worked a large piece onto the gallery wall as a backdrop to the framed artworks, with generally excellent results.

Numskull has a show on at Kindof Gallery in Oxford Street (which I have yet to see); Andros was participating with I don't know how many artists in a live art exhibition at Tortuga Studios, St Peters last Saturday night

And while I'm on the topic of street art and contemporary movements I have to tell you about a new zine that's so stylish there should be hard copies available to keep: Knock Knock Magazine. I can't recommend this highly enough! And make sure you take time out to go to Cockatoo Island before Outpost finishes 11th December.