Fish Orient

Fish Orient
Encaustic & Image Transfer

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The art abyss

Since the show three weeks ago I feel myself falling into the art abyss. I have been here before and if you have had an exhibition you will probably know what I am talking about.
I haven't been in the studio other than to tidy up and scrape wax off the floor. I am sort of lost as where to start now. I want to be inspired and find a new direction but i am just waiting for it to happen. Well I have been to see some exhibtions and did see some great work but I am not sure where I need to go in my work. I know it will all nut out in the end and I will be better for it but its kind of frustrating at the moment.
I can feel inklings of ideas but nothing solid as yet.  I went and saw this show last week at Dominick Mersch gallery in Waterloo ,Sydney
'Becoming Oceanic' Caroline Rannersberger
encausitc on cedar panels

'Becoming Cyclone' Caroline Rannersberger
encaustic on cedar panels
These were pretty inspiring pieces and unusual in that encaustic is not big here in Australia. She lives up  in Darwin.
I have a feeling I may need to work from my photographs that I take whilst away on holiday and am still trying to work out how to do that and make something interesting and textured.
Something using one of these maybe

  
I am not sure what I will do yet, but there must be a reason I take all these photographs of textures and rocks that I love. I almost can't believe they are made by nature they look so strange and interesting. I usually find something on every beach I go to that I want to photograph.
Also on my last holiday in febuary we had a couple of days of wild storms and the colours of the sky and sea were amazing. I would like to try and use these colours maybe

I really like the colours of the sky the water, the reflections in  the sand. All moody blues(good name for a band)and stormy greys and then those highlights of light yellows and oranges.
Now there's my inspiration!!!
Maybe my art abyssness is over!

Saturday, July 3, 2010

The Show At The Watch House,Balmain

I recently had a weekend show a the Watch house gallery in Balmain with two other fellow artists. Dee Mc Millan and Judith Wilson. We were all fellow students at Hornsby a few years back and formed a really storng connection and friendship over our time together as art students. We have been throught many things together and given each other support and care through the good and the bad times. We have formed a close enough friendship that we can critique each others work and be honest about it. Our exhibition 'Connections' looked fantastic in this beautiful national trust building in gorgeous Balmain. A trendy and posh suburb of Sydney. Nice restaurants here, galleries shops with lovely things in them that we probably can't afford. You know those designer dress shops!
The Watch house was an old police station and lock up when Balmain was a mining town and there were pubs up and down the street. One of the officers lived here with his wife and 14 children, goodness knows where they all slept.
Anyway after a lot of work we got our work on the walls and it looked great, we had a fab opening night. and all sold some work, so it was pretty succesful. Here's what the rooms looked like.

All these rooms were cells at one point in the life of this building. the walls are beautiful sandstone. The original doors were still there too. Great big massive iron doors that were so thick there was no way you were getting out of there once you were in a cell.
We put this show together in 10 weeks adn the worrk all seemed to go together so well even though we hadn't planned it that way.


A selection of Dee's work, which are acrylic paintings and fabric and fibre pieces


A selectin of Judith Wilson's work which was alternative photography pieces and acrylic painting and dyed silk and  paper.

A selection of mo godbeer's(me) work. Encaustic on plywood and glass.
Its a bit hard to convey the atmosphere of the rooms and the building but it was a nice few days we had there and great to see all our work on the wall.