My new etching debuts at Trocadero this month!

Two of Footscray's galleries, Trocadero and Five Walls, have teamed up to present Allot, a unique exhibition/fundraiser. A cross between a lottery and an auction, you buy a $100 ticket and win an artwork. !!  And there is some really great work to be won!
The big draw is this Saturday 14th, 6-8pm.















Here's an image of the etching I have up for grabs in this show!

Victoria's Blindspot, etching/aquatint, 2013, 20x20cm

Reflecting on 2013

Well! It has been a ridiculously long time between posts!

2013 proved to be a pretty big year for me. There was a fair bit of artwork made, lots of research and even a few important exhibitions. And there were all the usual life challenges, but also a few unexpected health encounters.

So now I am in a slow process of recovery, renewal and reassessment.

So I thought it apt to look back at some work I created almost 18 months ago. It is a series of 7 screen-prints, one for each day of the week, entitled, A 365-day Conversation  (dies Lunae, dies Martis, dies Mercuri, dies Jovis, dies Veneris, dies Saturni, dies Solis).

It explores the conversations I have with myself as I undertake my daily routine in self-managing my chronic pain. Each day I stretch and strengthen, do hydrotherapy and handstands, and worry about as well as celebrate my life. Spending several hours a day ‘managing my condition’, has led me to turn pain management into an area of personal research, bordering on obsession and sometimes an art form. (For example, after 9 years, I can now even free balance a handstand!)

I have also been noticing how that certain headspace with a balance of concentration, thinking and creativity that is required for my art practice, feels like the same headspace as when I practicing my pain management. And sometimes it all works and flows beautifully and sometimes it doesn’t!

Practicing art and managing pain are both about a state of constant learning and unpredictable change. Ah!! Creativity!

Each of these screen-prints is approx. 17cm w x 17 cm h.

They were shown in August 2012 at the Collingwood Gallery in Melbourne, and later, in a MREAM exhibition in a pop up gallery at Big Fish in Footscray.

Number 6 & 7 in the Train Track Linocut series

I have been waiting for my new camera (to replace mine that was stolen in January this year) so that I could properly document the last two linocuts in this series exploring ideas of train tracks as metaphors for life journeys....But I am still waiting... so here's some less than perfect documentation...which turns out to be fine after all!

This beginning is just the start of my journey to another beginning 
Linocut 2013 Edition of 9 13 x 30cm

My life as a journey where this station is just a stop not a destination
Linocut 2013 Edition of 9 13 x30cm

Both these new linocuts will be part of my new solo exhibition, Urbanscapes, in Williamstown, in April. It is very exciting!!!  Here's the Invitation! You are all welcome to come along!

It was a lovely surprise to recently find some of my artwork featured on this great website 52 suburbs around the world .
This Sydney based photographic artist, Louise Hawson, spent the whole of 2012 with her young daughter documenting different suburbs of the world. Her number 50 suburb was Footscray (where I live). She explored many of the streets of this corner of Melbourne, took some lovely photos, and shows some of the depth of history and culture that makes up Footscray.
For her front page, she photographed a corner of some of my street art. You can find this in the Footscray Mall, (which, incidentally, for lovers of trivia, was Australia's first street mall!). My art work was part of a commissioned street art project in 2012.

Front page of the 52  Suburbs website

It is part of a stencil of a girl doing a handstand on a street wall.
Indeed, I have a small obsession for handstands. I have been doing a handstand everyday coming up for 9 years! I even made a short film about my daily handstand practice in 2011, to celebrate the way handstands bring wellbeing into my life (and to try to find out why I do them!). You can see the film by clicking here The Point of the Handstand. (It is only 3 mins...)

2011 Photographs used in the film The Point of the Handstand

The Train Track series!

Since I can remember, I have always had a liking for all things involving trains. It might have started with walking an old track behind my primary school that once carried the Outer Circle Railway of Melbourne. Built in 1880s, and boasting 11 stations in its peak, it was finally closed and the tracks pulled up 1920s. But the romance of a steam era rail system drew me in. Since then I have taken many train journeys, been a public transport activist, and still today don’t have a driver’s licence.

Then in early 2011, possibly inspired by a pending and rather daunting overseas trip, I made my first small linocut of some train tracks.

Sometimes the wrong way is the right way

And during the summer of 2011/2012, I made 3 more. They are all around 15cm x 15cm.

I will stop wherever the ground will listen

Travelling forward, there's always another way

The Meeting Place of Our Life Lines

And over the summer 2012/2013 just gone, I have been carving 3 more blocks of lino. Here's number 5, that I posted earlier.

The paths of our future are made and not found

 Stay tuned for the final 2 train tracks. They are bigger than the last (30cm x 15), almost finished, and each is an edition of 9. 

And what's more, these final 3 will be in my upcoming solo show in April in Williamstown!

And then I think I am done! 

Seven train journeys for seven days of the week??

But let's see how I feel next summer 2013/2114!!!

Editions Exhibition

I am very fortunate to be one of the artists in this current exhibition of Melbourne printmakers.

The show opened last Tuesday 12th February with great fanfare, and is on for the next 2 weeks. As you can see I am in some great artistic company!

Whilst this gallery is not new itself, the exhibition opening was also the grand opening of TACIT Gallery in its new location, just a stone's throw from Vic Park station.

And well done to Stephanie Jane Rampton for curating such a great show.

Here's one of my new copper plate etchings that is in this exhibition.

The Plastic Gyre of Port Phillip

There were quite a few people at the Opening night who were confused by its title and meaning. It was inspired by idyllic summer days in Altona, looking back across Port Phillip Bay to the (partially imagined) city of Melbourne. It also references the great oceanic gyres. These oceanic currents have in recent times trapped manmade ocean debris into huge floating islands of plastic rubbish and have come to be known as the Great Pacific or North Atlantic Garbage Patches. And I just learnt today from my friends Helly and Helen, that Port Phillip Bay does indeed have its own mini gyres. Hopefully this is food for thought about where we put plastic in our lives.

Under the Bolte

This is another new etching in this exhibition. For those trying to spot the location, it is the Upfield train line, next to the Moonee Ponds Creek, in West Melbourne. I have a little thing about bridges (and train tracks)! 

Welcome

How exciting! This is my first post on my first ever blog! Welcome to you and me!

And what's more, here's a pic of one of my most recent linocuts!



The Paths of our Future are made not found.

This is one of the latest works in my ongoing series of linocuts exploring train tracks as a metaphor for life journeys.

It is number 5!!

Look out for number 6 and 7 that are almost done!

And stay tuned for the story for how this series first came into being, back in April 2011! And I will show you pics of all the train tracks. But that will be in another post!