art warms the air

in the dead middle of winter, with rain and wind and chill biting at your bones, there's few things as heart warming as dozens and dozens of people turning up to look closely at the creative work of talented people. artists who, more often than not, work at multiple jobs, pour funds into projects that offer limited hope of financial return but plug away obsessively producing beautiful and captivating sculptures, paintings, drawings, photographs and sounds just for us to engage with.

i know i have vested interests in this, but it still always amazes me. sitting in studios, sitting in bedrooms, standing at easels, investing time into creating work. making art is not working for a wage. you can't clock in and claim $25 an hour for your time. and then, to add more tension to the process, putting themselves and the public opinion of their work on the line, for anyone to come and stand in front of and say, 'my kid could do that'. but .... hopefully... you'll get the occasional 'wow, that's amazing' or 'shit, i never thought of that' or watch someone stand in front of your work mesmerised, saying 'what? you made that video of an exploding stadium out of still photos? and the plumes of smoke are pyroclastic gas from volcanoes? holy fuck that's cool'.

so, last night, with freezing central highlands air driving all and sundry for the comfort of their doonas, a happy, warm and excited crowd milled about the spaces of the galleries, talking about the artists and their work, and noone even noticed it was cold anymore. it's so accurate that in our language we use the term 'warmth' to describe relationships between people.

we warmly invite you. that warms my soul. you warm my heart.

anyway - last night was great fun. i managed to get some snaps of the event, in between chatting about the work and catching up with people. and while i'm here, again with confessed vested interest, if you want to put some warmth into your life, put a little warmth into the life of others too, i can show you some seriously amazing creative work, by some amazingly creative people, that would look amazing in your house or workspace. seriously. some of these guys are going to be huge.

end of rant.

start of photos.

Ross Taylor

Sally Blenheim 

Nicholas Ives

 

Michael Needham

John Barter

Ross Taylor