MCA

I went to see 'In the Balance: Art for a Changing World' at the

Museum of Contemporary Art

yesterday. In the Spring 2010 events guide it reads about the exhibition: ' ... more than a 100 works explore a variety of environmental themes including waste and recycling, water shortage, fossil fuels and energy, and urban regeneration and sustainability. This exhibition presents a range of perspectives from over 30 artists and art collectives both inside and outside the gallery'

My favourite installation was Lauren Berkowitz's 'Bags 1994' Walking through the columns of plastic bags I was in mindful battle with the juxtaposition of feelings stemming from the lightness and beauty of the plastic bags alongside the cumulative knowledge of what dangers these bags present to the environment.   

The other thing I got from the exhibition was a link to a blog which interested me called  'The artist as family'.  You can read about one of their projects Here, from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald.

​Lauren Berkowitz 'Bags' 1994

Blake Prize 2010

Yesterday I was in Sydney and visited the National Art School where I went to see the 2010 Blake Prize exhibition. My favourite works were Linelle Stepto's 'Possible Futures- Creative Cosmology' and Janine Mackintosh's 'Above and Beyond'. For obvious reasons, they resonated with my own practice and referred to nature and the surprising forms found in nature.

Janine Mackintosh 'Above and Beyond'

It has been 8 years since studying at the Art School and I noticed many changes around the campus. Even locating a loo had me asking the sentinel at the security box for directions!  

​Linelle Stepto 'Possible Futures-Creative Cosmology'

Anne Wilson

I love it when you stumble upon someones work which resonates. It's curious to me why some work speaks volumes and others dont. That is why I was happy to come across Chicago based artist Ann Wilson-  'who creates sculpture, drawings, internet projects and DVD stop motion animations that explore themes of time, loss, private and social rituals.'  These images are from her work titled 'Topographies' In her artist statement she writes; 

'Textiles, in their expandable and accumulative structure, can be seen as metaphors for such a matrix. In this new project, the webs and networks of found black lace are deconstructed to create large horizontal topographies, 'physical drawings' that are both complicated and delicate. This work is a constantly unfolding process of close observation, dissection, and recreation.' 

At the beginning of Ann's artist statement pertaining to the work, architect Douglas Garofalo states-'While our society faces a growing fragmentation and specialization that seems at times to alienate us all, we have also started to view our world as a series of integrated, even entangled networks. One way we can begin to understand this contradictory state is as a matrix of field phenomena - repetitive patterns of texture, growth, turbulence, sound, light, etc., within a given system or space.'

Knowing when to stop

After two and a half weeks in total working on an artwork that was plainly going nowhere, it was time to concede defeat. Needless to say, after trashing the work, I needed to get out of the house for a while and settle the frustration. Nothing like a walk in the mountains on a freezing day under dressed! Wisdom comes from knowing when to walk away from an artwork and not laboring over it; hoping that miraculously it was salvageable. Not so this time. Even the wincing and tentative suggestions from my partner initially contributed to the delusion that I was on to something with this piece despite the comments and awkward critiques. It just feels like S**T to have put so much time into something and for it to end up in the trash. Onwards and upwards.... I was forwarded some images rephotographed at Katoomba Fine Art of two of my larger sand vessels which made my day. Graeme Wienand from Katoomba Fine Art has done a fantastic job of  documenting them. Now I only have about 24 more to make before December! Better get back in the studio..