Last Days

                                                                    Olafur Eliasson, Beauty, 1993

It's your last week to catch Olafur Eliasson at the mca. The work above was my absolute favourite...and the title says it all really. I am certainly obsessed with beauty within art - what can I say - I think that beautiful things/people/images captivate, and thus draw people in for a closer look.  

Fiona Hall is the master of this. She draws you in with her incredibly beautiful images, and you cross the room to examine them more closely, only to discover there's often more than meets the eye. Which I discovered when I took my niece and nephew to see her exhibition a couple of years ago at the mca, and they saw quite a few vulva and penis representations. Hmmm, bad auntie!

The Phenomenology of Perception

So I've been diving in to Merleau-Ponty of late...or, rather, attempting to. Through a great friend of mine, I've been introduced to phenomenology, this introduction has been a double edged sword. It is definitely pertinent to the themes within my art practice. But, it seems to be a massively contradictory field, and one that requires a lot of prior knowledge, of things such as Gestalt theory. Which makes me curse the 19 year old me who used to skip off from art theory lectures to go and have coffee and smoke Kent cigarettes (ewww!). So, now, it's just the slightly (!) older me, cigarette free, and therefore no excuse to not get stuck in and read some more. Hmm, maybe I should go eat some chocolate instead, it is Easter after all...

White Rabbit

Dong Yuan

(sorry I didn't note the title)

 

Thursday night, saw a friend and I taking advantage of extended opening hours of various galleries for art month. We had intentions to see more, but only ended up browsing through the fantastic White Rabbit space. A few people had described it to me before I went, and every single one of them had used the word "amazing" to describe it. I was not led astray, it is an amazing collection, an amazing concept, an amazing physical space. Everything about it makes you want to linger. Including, I believe their teahouse which wasn't open for tea drinking when we were there.

Sick

I've been feeling very yucky with the flu...so bad in fact, it could almost be a girly version of man-flu. I've found myself whining randomly and groaning in a pathetic manner. I've been hitting the Eucalyptus oil hard, so much so that I think the excessive aroma is getting me spare seats next to my person on public transport.

Produce

Look at this beauty, our very first home grown strawberry. It tasted so so amazingly great, just incredibly rich and sweet. it had an intensity of flavour that is so lacking from supermarket varieties. I hope it bodes well for the creation of our new vegie patch that should be up and running in a couple of weeks.

Art Express

 

Persons of Perception; Avoid Things Coloured Red; One and Five Pencils; A Bunch of Paintings Containing Lessons for the Future - detail view

Tal Chodos - Mariah College

Today at work, instead of having our Monday morning meeting in the office. We went out to see Art Express instead (yes, I do have a cool job thank you very much!). I've been a bit of a regular attendee of the show over the years, from my hopeful visits in year 9, 10 and 11. To my more bitter visit post year 12 when my work didn't make the grade! ; )

Untitled (Dialogue with Average Significance)  - detail view

Tara Rose Gurisik - Wyndham College

Dragster
Joshua Warren - Barrenjoey High School
 
This year I was quite blown away by the standard of work. To be honest, a lot of years I've been, there's been a lot of coverage given to some, well, to be honest, quite derivative artworks. (you know, Bill Henson lookalikes etc). Or, they've stuffed it full of too many pieces, all crammed into a small space.

Arpeggio
Belinda Bortolin - Terrigal High

Precious Cargo

Cassandra Simonetti - Santa Sabina College

This year, it is relatively sparsely hung, and overall the standard of work was exceptionally high, and really original....then I started to look closer at the school names where the students were from. It seemed to me to be a massive representation from some of the top private schools in the state (mainly Sydney). Knox, Ascham, Queenwood etc. While not taking away from the achievements of these students, I can't help but wonder whether these entries were hung because of their gallery-standard presentation that these students could afford to do...? Is that a terrible thing to wonder?

Work in progress - finished!

Here's the finished product of the painting I posted recently from Rozelle. Would I be the only one that would attempt to post my mail in this meter box?