Fungus meets Ferrite exhibition

My exhibition, Fungus meets Ferrite is now hung and open at the Firestation Print Studio at 2 Willis Street Armadale until November 9th. The opening is tomorrow Saturday October 26th from 2 - 4 pm.

The Firestation has produced a film clip to promote the exhibition. I think it is great and really worth a look. I supplied photos of bushwalking scenery, close ups of lichen and some photos of work. The rest was filmed at my place and all put together by a Firestation volunteer. The clip can be seen on the home page of the Firestation's web site i.e.: http://www.firestationprintstudio.com.au

Is there a cure?

Some two years ago I contracted a sad case of “lichenitis.” It happened when I was out bushwalking and looked closely at what I had previously just thought of as coloured “blobs on rocks.” After that I was possessed. Every blob had to be examined, photos taken with the macro lens and the many different shapes and patterns marvelled at.

Lichenitis took a hold of my thoughts and I began to create art based on the many shapes and patterns I saw.

I think that the process of making the art must be part of the cure because now that I am ready to share my images in an exhibition I suddenly find that I can think of other things again.

It won’t last of course. I already have ideas for the theme of my next body of work and no doubt once macro photos are taken and the obsession takes hold I will be a sad case yet again. The disease may have a different name but the symptoms will be the same.

Meanwhile, I can savour this brief lull while I enjoy sharing the results of my Lichenitis with others. Come to my exhibition at the Firestation Print Studio Gallery at @ Willis St in Armadale (see invitation below). It runs from October 23^rd to November 9^th. I am having a casual opening on Saturday October 26^th from 2 – 4 pm. Everyone is welcome.  

Still mad about fungus

As the title for the solo exhibition I am to have at the Firestation Print Studio in Armadale in November is “Fungus meets Ferrite” it is unsurprising that my art has been preoccupied with blobs of colour on rocks lately. I have done drawings inspired by the blobs, prints from blobs and now I am doing paintings using the blobs.

I am sure that, should they find themselves in the bush surrounded by rocks covered in coloured blobs, most people would hardly notice, or if they did would just comment, “Oh, there is a lot of lichen on the rocks around here.” I, on the other hand, examine the blobs closely and extensively, taking photos from many angles and getting really excited when I find a new “species” of blob.

As one walks past they do indeed look just like blobs but from close up there is an amazing diversity of forms and patterns, all of which I am bringing into my art.

The paintings are either oil on canvas or impasto gel applied to the primed canvas to create texture over

 whole or part of the canvas which is then painted in oils.

Almost completed, oil on canvas, 70 x 70 cms

                              The beginnings of part of an impasto gel and oil on canvas work

Dreaming in squares

My latest experimentation with ways to “recycle” prints that I am not satisfied with is to juggle lots of little squares of paper about. It started with a collage of irregularly shaped pieces of print that I put together in my visual diary. Then I tried the idea at a larger scale, as a piece of art, but wasn’t really happy with the result.

I’ve always been attracted to the concept of patchworks, fragments of lives and histories joined together in a regular pattern. I’m also drawn by the idea of pixels, each square with its own particular information. So, I decided to combine the two thoughts, though with real pieces of my art history forming the “pixels” of my patchwork, rather than digital information.

As a result I have been playing around with many small pieces of paper. Cutting the squares is slow and tedious (guillotine strips, then place a few one on top of the other to cut small). I have done both 2cm squares and 1cm squares, which makes for a lot of squares. The 1 cm squares were particularly excruciating, but when I get an idea it takes me a lot to give up, even when I realise half way through that what I am doing it is pretty insane. Keeping the squares in order led me to fill lots of little, labelled zip-lock bags with the different colours and patterns.

In both cases I have firstly planned the work in my visual diary then attached the squares with blu-tack and lastly glued them down when I am satisfied with the composition. While working on the 1cm squares recently I suddenly looked at my grid of blu-tack blobs and thought that they looked interesting…… I can feel another “idea” coming on.