Scott Marr Time Lapse Video

Scott Marr is an artist represented by Katoomba Fine Art here in the Blue Mountains. This amazing video shows Scott at work on one of his artworks using time lapse photography.

"This image is burnt onto paper using pyrography, all pigments used in this piece are hand made from nature, most of which I have collected from the Blue Mountains Australia.

Pigments used, eucalypt bark wash, liquid chlorophyll, eucalypt sap, plane tree charcoal, ochres, lapis lazuli, malachite, coriopsis flower wash, dianella berry wash and eucalypt charcoal.

I'd like to give a big shout out to Phil at nospuds.com.au for all his help." - Scott Marr 

Making Progress

With my exhibition titled 'Second Nature II' at Lost Bear Gallery still a few months away, my studio is unusually messy with bags of coloured soil, stacked pizza boxes of artwork ready to frame and 'Pods' in various stages of completion. I finally feel like I am getting somewhere with the work.

This will be my first solo exhibition at Katoomba Fine Arts latest gallery in Leura whichhas been running as a exhibition space for artists in two week turnaround period throughout 2011. My exhibition will be following an exhibition of new work by Warwick Fuller whose luscious oil paintings of landscapes I always am inspired by.

Todays work began at 4.45am, as I could not sleep and thought I could either watch early morning infomercials on TV or do something productive. Several cups of coffee later, I was blissfully unaware of the time and several hours had slipped by and my fingers were caked with soil and glue. Below is an advertisement which Geoff White of Katoomba Fine Art has put together for the magazine 'Craft Arts International' which should feature in the next issue.

Farewell Edmund

Wednesday was described as an historic day at the Art Gallery of NSW when Edmund Capon, after 33 years as Director, held a press conference to announce his retirement. As it happened, the event coincided with a planned trip to the gallery, so I was amongst the cameras, journalists,  NSW Premier and board of directors bustling around the floor waiting for the announcement. My friend Flic, who works at the gallery as photographer, was in among the mix of media folk snapping away and got some wonderful shots.

I spent the remainder of the day soaking up all the current works on display and seeing the Kaldor Gallery/collection for the first time. One of my favourite works was that of Bill Viola whose looped projection titled 'Memoria' 2000 had me transfixed watching a disintegrating face  move in and out of focus on a suspended piece of silk.-"Shot using an old surveillance camera in low light, the footage shows a man’s face but ‘visual noise’ intermittently obscures the image. This ghostly effect is exaggerated by projecting the image onto silk cloth hanging in a darkened room. The work recalls the shroud of Turin, a piece of fabric said to bear the imprint of the body of Christ. In a similar way,Memoria explores the idea of presence and absence." - AGNSW.
On the upper level of the gallery is an exhibition of works by David Aspden (1935-2005). I was immediately attracted to a large painting titled 'Mountain Scenery' 1973. I learned that he had spent time here in the Blue Mountains. No wonder the colours sang to me.

Juz Kitson

Today I drove to Windsor to visit Hawkesbury Regional Gallery where I was keen on seeing Juz Kitson's artwork in a show on contemporary ceramics.
I was fortunate enough to meet Juz whilst on an artist residency at Hill End earlier this year and was excited to see her work in a gallery space, having only seen it in progress in her Hill End studio.
Juz's delicate and sometimes confronting forms are so exquisitely beautiful and shocking that I found myself in a contradictory state of sensual delight and intrigued disgust.  Joseph Brennan of Australian Arts Review says of Kitson's work-

"In art discourse, the sacred/profane metaphor is a recurring dichotomy. Freud used this metaphor when exploring the divide between love and desire. He argued that, in art, where we love we do not desire and where we desire we cannot love.

Emerging artist Juz Kitson challenges this view through her sculptures and ceramic installations, which seek to make sacred the profane. "I have an interest in ever so slightly repulsing the viewer at first experience," Kitson said. "They are unsettled. This uneasiness then turns into wonder and in a later stage, fascination." Working with a range of materials - including wax, latex, clay, alpaca wool, seaweed, horse and human hair and bone - Kitson is interested in exploring what she terms "uncomfortable territories", captivating her audience "by quietly shocking and seducing them". The context and properties of particular materials are also important. The use of latex, for example, is sometimes a statement within itself, "Only having a life span of less than a decade ... like ourselves it will perish"; while the locale of found objects have trapped within them a history, for example, bones collected from Hill End." 

Kitson is a 2009 ceramics Honours graduate of Sydney's National Art School and is on a trajectory to becoming one of Australia's most fertile and innovative contemporary ceramicists. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next!