opening nights are always charged with a little bit of frenetic energy. the artists are nervous, exhausted and excited in equal measure. the supporting family and friends are full of admiration and pride. people mingle, meet and talk while glasses clink and cameras flash.
on a particularly lovely saturday afternoon in november a bustling crowd came in to check out the art of Eliza-Jane Gilchrist, Jason Hartcup and Darcey Bella Arnold. get an inside peak into the scenes with our little launch video below (and come along to the next one - it is going to be MASSIVE):
Showing posts with label drawing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drawing. Show all posts
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Meet Your Maker: Ross Taylor
i'm pretty much in love with Ross Taylor's work. you can read my thoughts on his show Phatland here, where i've written a review of the show.
so, with no introduction now needed, here's Ross submitting to my barrage of curious querying ...
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Ross Taylor, Phatland
Kent:
First up, the meticulous detail in your work is mesmerising. How is your eyesight and what's the status on carpal tunnel syndrome?
Ross:
I have to say that until now, the hands haven’t given me too much trouble… although I did get a minor blood clot in my arm a few years back from drawing standing up! It’s a pretty intense process on the eyes, but working that closely allows you to kind of drift off into the flow of it.
Kent:
It must be meditative working like that. Do you have a plan when you start your drawings?
Ross:
I never have a specific plan, I pick a spot on the paper where I feel comfortable to start and go with that. I often have an early sense of how the composition will work in relation to where the eye should be drawn to next, but it always inevitably changes. You can see the repetitive gestures throughout the drawing, I use them to start a dialogue with the surrounding space, they may end up forming into a rock or some other matter, but it is the process of repetition that allows me into the drawing if that makes sense. I suppose that it’s the closest I get to a form of meditation.
I never have a specific plan, I pick a spot on the paper where I feel comfortable to start and go with that. I often have an early sense of how the composition will work in relation to where the eye should be drawn to next, but it always inevitably changes. You can see the repetitive gestures throughout the drawing, I use them to start a dialogue with the surrounding space, they may end up forming into a rock or some other matter, but it is the process of repetition that allows me into the drawing if that makes sense. I suppose that it’s the closest I get to a form of meditation.
Ross Taylor, Which way the wind
Kent:
There's a couple of figurative drawings in the mix here and they have the body, especially the head (which we associate with the identity of a figure) dissolving into fragments and forming into landscape. What's your thoughts on the blurring of landscape and portraiture? I mean, I read some of your landscapes as quite psychological in nature, like 'inner' portraits.
There's a couple of figurative drawings in the mix here and they have the body, especially the head (which we associate with the identity of a figure) dissolving into fragments and forming into landscape. What's your thoughts on the blurring of landscape and portraiture? I mean, I read some of your landscapes as quite psychological in nature, like 'inner' portraits.
Ross:
I made a series of works involving figures to test the specifics of what I was trying to achieve within the drawings. The general idea was to have a greater control of the narrative, but through this I have learnt that I am not necessarily the best ‘interpreter’ of the drawings in their completion (nor do I want to be). I have found that because I work from nothing, the negotiation from one mark to the next interrogates more of me than the depiction of a figure ever could in the landscape, so I now leave the figures out. I think it’s more interesting that way.
Kent:
There's a really subtle inclusion of colour in the work, that's only noticeable at close inspection. What's going on there?Ross:
The colour is a new thing, parts have been rubbed away to take the edge of that kind of 'illustrated' look, but it also works as a kind of visual pit stop in the composition. I hope that it affords the eye a little breather and then you can re-address the drawing again once more.
Kent:
What's next on the horizon for you Ross? Do you have another body of work on the go or a plan for your next direction?
Ross:
I have a series of smaller works on the go for my next show at the end of September, then I plan on taking a month off for research (not master chef). I would like to develop new imagery and start to work on a new body of ideas that play around with the notion of how everything is interconnected. I guarantee that there will be more rocks...
- - - - - - -
brilliant! we'll keep you posted about Ross's upcoming shows and in the meantime you should get down quick to see the fantastic drawings on show here. there's some large-scale works and some medium-sized, deliciously framed works. they look amazing, they are loaded with invisible ideas and connotations, and they keep offering new experiences each time you look at them. plus, Ross is clearly heading somewhere and you can both be a part of that and help make it happen. buy art! (editor's note: bias? what bias?)
Saturday, July 21, 2012
taylor made mark making
Ross Taylor had an amazing drawing in a group at c3 Gallery in abbotsford that i saw and loved. it was delicate, full of open space and intricate, detailed penmanship. some time later, through a series of odd coincidences, he landed in kyneton (his girlfriend at the time came to buy a Lucy James artwork) and after i showed him a photo i took of his work that i had kept in my phone (filed under 'shit-hot artists i need to contact') he agreed to put on an exhibition with us.
i love a good set of coincidental connections.
the project space is now lined with a series of fantastic drawings for his solo exhibition - Phatland.
on the rock-like walls of the space, meticulously drawn landscapes float amid a silent white void. there's a few signs of life, appearing sporadically throughout the vast open planes. mostly, it's these wonderful little rock formations, the impact of erosion and time sculpting them into totemic formations - like ziggurats.
look a little closer and you can see the laborious effort of mark-making. miniscule little lines build up to create the elements in the landscape. there's hours of detailed, focused concentration poured into every large sheet of paper. and yet, although made from the tiniest of thin little lines and dots, vast and sweeping expanses are created and we hover, as if from a bird’s eye view above the world.
this could all be seen as a reflection of natural processes, where infinitesimal increments in growth and decay accrue over years, centuries and millennia. where micro processes produce macro results. in an eternal dance, biological forms create landscapes and landscapes create biological forms. It's a reminder that all life started long ago as rocks. rocks break down and dissolve, becoming sand and soil and the building blocks of biology. and then life itself liquifies, petrifies and turns back to sand, soil and rock.
Ross's work throws up all this ideas in the simple act of making marks on sheets of paper. it's quite compelling. he has a way with the composition of his pieces too, where the spaces he leaves become just as important in the work as the very carefully placed ink marks. so much effort put into the drawing and so much power emanating from the blank parts untouched.
i've heard people refer to them as post-apocalyptic. as if most life has been swept away by catastrophe and the barest elements remain. alternatively, they look like planetary maps or moonscapes. either way, they read like the potential for life. you can't help but look around for signs of it. you can't help but read into them a sense of hope. is that little rocky outcrop actually a little tower? what's being built here? who populates this place and where the hell are they?
on that last point you can't help but be reminded that it's you that populates these landscapes. it's your ideas pouring into the vastness, it's your wandering thoughts making stories about why it looks the way it looks. what a lovely gift from Ross, to provide this playground of ideas for our minds.
thanks Ross!
- - - - - - -
come see these works in the flesh, where they do their best work. exhibition runs until 5 August.
i love a good set of coincidental connections.
the project space is now lined with a series of fantastic drawings for his solo exhibition - Phatland.
Ross Taylor, Phatland (detail)
on the rock-like walls of the space, meticulously drawn landscapes float amid a silent white void. there's a few signs of life, appearing sporadically throughout the vast open planes. mostly, it's these wonderful little rock formations, the impact of erosion and time sculpting them into totemic formations - like ziggurats.
look a little closer and you can see the laborious effort of mark-making. miniscule little lines build up to create the elements in the landscape. there's hours of detailed, focused concentration poured into every large sheet of paper. and yet, although made from the tiniest of thin little lines and dots, vast and sweeping expanses are created and we hover, as if from a bird’s eye view above the world.
Ross Taylor, Phatland (detail)
this could all be seen as a reflection of natural processes, where infinitesimal increments in growth and decay accrue over years, centuries and millennia. where micro processes produce macro results. in an eternal dance, biological forms create landscapes and landscapes create biological forms. It's a reminder that all life started long ago as rocks. rocks break down and dissolve, becoming sand and soil and the building blocks of biology. and then life itself liquifies, petrifies and turns back to sand, soil and rock.
Ross's work throws up all this ideas in the simple act of making marks on sheets of paper. it's quite compelling. he has a way with the composition of his pieces too, where the spaces he leaves become just as important in the work as the very carefully placed ink marks. so much effort put into the drawing and so much power emanating from the blank parts untouched.
i've heard people refer to them as post-apocalyptic. as if most life has been swept away by catastrophe and the barest elements remain. alternatively, they look like planetary maps or moonscapes. either way, they read like the potential for life. you can't help but look around for signs of it. you can't help but read into them a sense of hope. is that little rocky outcrop actually a little tower? what's being built here? who populates this place and where the hell are they?
on that last point you can't help but be reminded that it's you that populates these landscapes. it's your ideas pouring into the vastness, it's your wandering thoughts making stories about why it looks the way it looks. what a lovely gift from Ross, to provide this playground of ideas for our minds.
thanks Ross!
- - - - - - -
come see these works in the flesh, where they do their best work. exhibition runs until 5 August.
Monday, July 9, 2012
the long shadow cast by a needham
michael needham's a lovely chap. and he makes amazing things, amazingly well. he'll be one of the artists in the next show, which is being hung quite literally as i write this. he also has a big solo show on over at the La Trobe Visual Arts Centre in Bendigo - 'the VAC'. it's everything you want from a great show - clever ideas, executed skillfully. he can draw like nobody's business and he can produce sculptures you can't help but return to, your mind captivated with questions and engagement.
i was at the launch where it was opened by australian painting icon, Euan Heng who made some salient points about the development of an artist and the long road to achieve success. and the wonderful folk at Das Platforms have just published a review i wrote of the show. click on the image below to go on through:
i was at the launch where it was opened by australian painting icon, Euan Heng who made some salient points about the development of an artist and the long road to achieve success. and the wonderful folk at Das Platforms have just published a review i wrote of the show. click on the image below to go on through:
Michael Needham, Unmarked #3. 2012. Dental plaster, steel.
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