Winner of the Hobsons Bay Arts Society 5x7 Award!!

Yay!!!

It was a couple of weeks ago now, but here's me (looking suitably flushed with excitement) after winning first prize of $1000 in this local exhibition.

It was a great honour, especially as there were some amazing artworks in this show.

My winning work was a linocut onto some hand marbled paper (that I made earlier this year) with some ink drawing additions. It was titled 'The paths of our future...'. And it also found a lovely new home!

Thanks heaps to the Hobsons Bay Arts Society for all their hard work in organising such a great exhibition (about 200 artworks on the walls!!). 

Here's a slightly better image. In the rush of recent exhibitions, I forgot to document it more professionally, so this will have to do!

And here's my other 5x7 entry, 'For a long time it seemed to me...' which has also found a new home! Lucky me!

STOP PRESS! I got a spot in the Herald Sun.!!...well it was a few weeks ago now, but still...

Yay! I got a little feature in one of Melbourne's main newspapers, about my current street art exhibition.


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/west/footscray-artist-documents-her-favourite-places-to-do-handstands-as-part-of-art-in-public-places/story-fngnvmj7-1227303566560

Larissa McFarlane performs a handstand on a Williamstown wall. Picture: David Smith.

A great place for a handstand. 

TOILET cubicles, building stairwells — when Larissa McFarlane feels the need to do a handstand she’ll turn upside down almost anywhere.

The Footscray artist taught herself handstands at 35 and has been doing at least one every day for the past 10 years.

But it’s not as though McFarlane one day felt the urge to flip herself over — the handstands have been an integral step on the road to recovery after a serious car accident.

McFarlane said she taught herself handstands with absolutely no childhood experience to draw on.

“I was always too scared,’’ she said.

“But I decided handstands were going to cure me so I practised and I practised because it felt good and I was living with chronic pain courtesy of the accident.”

Handstands have in turn inspired McFarlane’s artwork — photographs of the artist doing handstands have been pasted on walls in 16 places across South Kingsville for her “A Ritual of Handstands” exhibition.

An image of a woodcut of McFarlane doing a handstand can be seen on the wall of Snap Printing in Ferguson St, Williamstown. The original, and McFarlane’s other linographs and lithographs, are part of an exhibition on the walls of nearby Cocoa Latte Cafe.

LARISSA’S MORE UNIQUE HANDSTAND LOCATIONS: 

■ Building stairwells.

■ Lifts: “when no one else is in them”

■ Against trees: “when I can’t find a good wall”

■ Toilet cubicles in restaurants

■ Queen Victoria Market: “I usually pick places where there is no one to see but in really, really busy places, nobody really notices. People just keep walking.’’

The exhibition, part of Hobsons Bay Council’s Art in Public Spaces, runs throughout April.

I am pretty chuffed, (even if they did spell my name wrong)! My mother reckons that it is hysterical!!

'This place is marked for past and future great handstands'

This is another artwork that I pasted up on Good Friday over Easter!

It is located at the corner of Ferguson and Wellington Sts in Williamstown.

The artwork is based upon a woodcut I made last year.

As you may know by now, I do handstands! And I have been doing them everyday for almost 11 years. And I do them as part of my self management for the chronic pain and other illnesses that I live with. Simply put, handstands make me feel good. 

So I have special handstand spots everywhere I go. And several times a day, I will sneak in a quick unobtrusive handstand. In a stairwell, at the end of a hallway, down a lane way. I am mostly never noticed.

This woodcut was carved with the specific purpose of marking out these almost secret handstand spots.

During the cold months of August last year, I went out on some freezing nights, to paste up these woodcut prints in Footscray, Seddon and the CBD to mark out my handstand spots! Here's a few of the spots!

It was a great thing to do. Placing art in public places is challenging, but also very rewarding. I love it that people have such strong opinions about the art in their own space. It is so different to the way we behave in the white cube of the gallery.

This recent huge paste up (for me anyway at almost 3 metres high) is based upon this small woodcut. 

This time I got support from both the local Hobsons Bay Council and the owners of the brick wall, SNAP printing. (Thanks guys!)

It is located at the corner of Ferguson and Wellington sts Williamstown, just near the Town Hall. With luck it should stay in place for the rest of 2015!!

'A Ritual of Handstands'

Well, it has been a pretty busy time over Easter for me, installing some public artworks in the shopping strips of Williamstown, South Kingsville and Altona Meadows.

The biggest by far, is A Ritual of Handstands. This comprises of 16 large and small, photographic based paste ups on the walls and shop fronts in and around the Vernon st shops in South Kingsville.

Words in the catalogue read:

This site specific artwork reveals an ongoing investigation into Larissa’s daily ritual of performing handstands. Over the past ten years, she has performed at least one handstand every day, often in unexpected and inconspicuous places – both public and private.

These are not public performances but private moments that bring the artist grounding, pain relief and joy. They are in fact, a key part of managing her chronic illnesses. This site specific installation provides us with a playful insight into her world.

Here's a pic of us installing the works. I had a great team assisting me over the 3 days it took. Thanks to Klaus, Adrian and Matthew, and many others who have helped me out over the past 6 months in the making of these artworks.

It has been a challenging but exciting journey making these artworks over the past 6 or so months. Not only has it has been a big departure from my normal practice of printmaking, but it has been interesting as well as confronting to explore such a personal aspect of my life, and then to make it so public.

It has also been exciting to be working within the public space as opposed to the more traditional gallery space. It brings so many new challenges, but the interactions have been incredibly rewarding.

This exhibition is part of the Art in Public Places, a festival of arts across the area of Hobsons Bay city Council, during April.

First exhibitions for 2015...and they are all happening at once!

Yes, it is true! Over the next 2 weeks I am installing 4 different huge, exciting and fabulous exhibitions. Good thing I am a fairly organised sort of person! But it is still an immense challenge of co-ordination!

So for now, let me tell you about just one of them. And of course you are all invited to come, if you are in the geographical vicinity!

Yes, this is my solo show of my printmaking work, and there will be about 20 works on the walls!! 

This exhibition investigates and imagines the various ways that we attempt to navigate the increasing complexity of our contemporary lives. It tells stories of vulnerability and strength, of loss and celebration, and of despair and hope.

These artworks also represent a sort of  ‘return to my roots’, in which I have placed myself within each of these images, and each work in turn is located in a specific place and time, with many references to identifiable landmarks of Melbourne’s West and beyond, the places I call home.

In 2014, I was also I was also fortunate to undertake a long held ambition- to learn the art of lithography. This is another form of printmaking, using very old stones and various forms of greasy pencils and liquids. I quickly became enamoured with its alchemic contrariness and the dance around the stone that I found myself perform.

Here's just a few images of the lithographs created in 2014. These will all be in my solo exhibition from April 1-30. 

Contemplating the backdrop of city life lithograph, 20 x 28

At the time of making many of these works, the Hazelwood coal mine caught fire, and it burnt for 8 weeks, before it was finally put out. Hazelwood, located in Gippsland, Victoria is one of the dirtiest coal mines around, and at different times in the past two decades I have joined campaigns for its closure. The impact of this fire on the local township of Morwell was immense. I think this fire rather influenced the direction of some of these drawings/lithographs.

Looking of the point of balance in urban life

Swinging at the silos in Sunshine lithograph, 

Feeling for the balance in city life lithograph

Fortunately it was a windy day on 21 August 1991

 21st August 1991, was the day that Coode island (a chemical storage facility located at the Port of Melbourne) exploded, and covered the city with black smoke. Some of the residents and workers living in the neighbouring western suburbs of Footscray (where I now live) had to be evacuated. But we were lucky. The wind was blowing hard in the right direction. But after years of protests, Coode Island continues to store dangerous chemicals, in the heart of the city, and people now live only 100s of metres away.!

Imagining another way home

That's all for the moment. Of course, the artworks are always best seen in person. So if you can, come along to the exhibition in April!

It's been a long, long, long time...

OMG!

I almost cannot believe it that I have not written anything here for a year! It might look like there's not much been happening in my life, but in fact it has been the opposite. 2014 was certainly an intense year. Much art was made, there were many exhibitions, and an award was even won! 

But it was a very difficult year for my health, and since I always find such health crises challenge my identity, it may be that it was easier for me to make work than to share it online in any definitive way.

But, I have made a promise to myself, to be more trusting of the world and to share more willingly of myself. I hope that will mean a few more posts! And I do plan to share with you, at some stage, some of my artistic highlights of 2014. 

In the meantime, here's a very new linocut, so new that I am not yet sure that it is ready to be editioned. But I think it speaks to me of our common desire and commitment to move forward in life!

Traversing the city, linocut, 20.5 x 28cm

Well the invitations are finally heading out!
You are all invited to my upcoming exhibition Journeyscapes!

It's going to be a big exhibition, with around 20 new framed artworks on the walls.

These works explore the journeys of my bicycle across the footpaths and through the landscapes of Melbourne's West, which is contrasted with the journey of the container ship as it leaves the Port of Melbourne and travels the world.

This exhibition is part of the 2014 Art In Public Places, which is an annual arts festival in Hobsons' Bay, in Melbourne's West. 

It would be great to see you all at the opening if you can make it.

And I hope to post a few images of the artworks in situ over the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, here's a sneak peak of one of my etchings that will be included in this exhibition.

Crossing the Werribee Plains, multiplate etching