A bunch of recent works.. and some explaining.

Thought I should put up clearer pics of some of the pieces from the exhibition - and probably explain some stuff. It didn't occur to me when I booked it, but the exhibition I had in May was actually my first ever show. Over the years I'd done commercial work & included art in group projects, but never put up a collection all my own. Maybe that comes from the Illustrator background - usually you produce work specifically to serve a narrative, often provided by someone else, and normally that's the person who pays you. The work is seen by others when it gets used for the author or publishers purpose & you move on. From an Illustrators point of view exhibitions can seem like the preserve of the Fine Artist. Or maybe that was just from THIS Illustrators pov & I just never compared notes enough to notice it was bollocks. And then in the last ten years I slowed the making-pics right down & didn't think about it much.. Given all that, I'm really happy it didn't crash n burn horribly.

The work in the show came partly from years of enjoying political cartoons - from Larry Pickering's endless knob gags of the 70's & 80's (although probably not his bonkers right-wing misogyny) through Geoff Pryor's beautiful draughtsmanship & general smarts in the Canberra Times, I've always admired these guys. Ron Tandberg, Bill Leak, Peter Nicholson (the brilliant Rubbery Figures man, for us fossils who remember it..), Michael Leunig, Cathy Wilcox, Mark Knight.. what a spectacular bunch. And that's just in this country. Anybody who's missed out on em should really go & have a look - they're worth it. And at a time of exclusive concentration by the media/public feedback loop on the sizzle rather than the steak, there don't seem to be many others apart from this lot quite as genuine or dogged in attempting to nail the PR stooges & wind-up toys that run everything now. Love em.

Another thing that had been on my mind for a while was stenciling - my favourites were always the ones that served the same purpose as political cartoons. I could go into detail, but you know how slow I write. Its late. Gotta keep it short! Oh, by the way, hope it doesn't sound like I'm saying my stuff is just like the guys above. I only mentioned all of that in an attempt to explain that their work inspires me - & that I really enjoy art with some reasonably well-formed idea behind it. Having said that, you can now scoff openly at how poorly my own pictures line up with that concept.

The Easter Tradition

Known Unknowns

Massive Cock

Sap

Fuckability

The 8 Arms of Highly Effective Cthulhu

Avoidance Behaviour

Must've nodded off..

Wiping away the sleepy dust & the drool, I notice it's about 3 months since my last update & at this point I should probably mention that I've never in my life been a diary keeper. The thought of expressing an idea badly really bothers me - writing an email requiring any kind of argument to be made can easily take me an entire evening. I'll often spend a half hour composing, editing & rewriting a text message. Including rewrites it just took 15 minutes to put together the last 3 sentences. Obsessive compulsive? Hush yo mouth.
 On top of this, I don't feel I've got enough of a level of expertise in, er.. anything at all really.. to start setting thoughts in stone. Still, if the twats at the IPA can have column space surely anyone can. Maybe that's the problem - I'm not sure that the principle of "if-they-talk-a-steaming-load-why-can't-I" is totally sound. Oh, and also there's the problem of today's ideas being the ones I'll  completely disagree with tomorrow. So, not a natural for diary writing, even in its interwebs form like this.
All of that is just by way of belatedly saying "Please excuse the snail's pace & assorted shite on the blog - I'm not sure what Normal Service is just yet."

To make it up to you, I now include a completely gratuitous picture of William Shatner fondling a rude & amusing object. I believe he's about to make it boldly go where no man has gone before.

And just because I couldn't figure out how to add these couple in the last post..

The redoubtable Ros & Rob Murray convincing Halley to buy in bulk.

Lindsay wonders when the boy will hod his blether.

OH GOD, JF CAN SEE FOREVER! Or it's just lockjaw, like he said.

Mr J. Burnside, lead astray by Marina & Nadia.

And we're back..

Esther, Mark & JB hatch a cunning plan. JF remains skeptical.

What a massive cock. Mark & Gus can't face it.

Two rock gods, just hangin.

That was meant to be a short blog break while I got organised so naturally its now about 2 months since the last entry.. and, happily, the exhibition has opened! Last Friday night. Phew. And it seemed to go pretty well - a good turnout of fine Melbourne locals plus Mum, Dad & sister Nic, the occasional smile at the stuff on the walls, one sale & plenty of booze. Sweet. Nic had been in town the week leading up & was a huge help - so good to have an experienced fine artist close at hand! She ran around town picking things up, gave the Officeworks photocopiers a workout, primed canvases, talked to gallery people, sent emails.. generally did all manner of beyond-the-call stuff & was indispensable. In short, she rules. That's really what made it come together in the end - very generous people helping me out. Does that sound like The Waltons? Bah! It's still true. (But don't get me wrong, yes, The Waltons suck.) Flatmate Angus had good advice, quality picture-reference hunting skills & top stationary provisions, Kristin Guley trusted me with her car, John Foulkes was a tiptop dealer of Japanese Black Black caffeine chewing gum, and family & friends were always encouraging or smacking me back into shape when I was ready to quit. What a top bunch. Thanks to you all. I'll put some details in later on individual works, techniques used and various fiasco's in their making, but for now here's just a few pics from the opening.

Look, an eagle..ish thing!

Yes, it might seem like a distraction from the actual point of this blog, but given that I'm STILL trying to finish up the aforementioned Russian poultry pic, & that reading solely about prep for an art exhibition might not be the most exciting passtime you could imagine, I figured I'd add an occasional sideline of Really Interesting Cool Stuff. This one's courtesy of librarian & all round renaissance man Angus Hamilton. A while back he sent me some photos of.. well, basically what Dr Seuss got up to in his spare time in the 1930's. He called it "Unorthodox Taxidermy", and combined his own sculptural forms with real animal parts provided by the Forest Park Zoo, where his father worked. The collection includes the "Andulovian Grackler", "Semi-Normal Green-Lidded Fawn" and "Two-Horned Drouberhannis". Enjoy.

Exciting news!

Nah just kidding. Makes a good headline though doesn't it?
So, it's been a fortnight since my last confession. Sorry for the delay, but the sound of News Radio's Parliamentary broadcasts had me lost in a swoon of depthless adoration for our representatives inspirational rhetorical sweep & breathtaking vision for a boldly egalitarian future. I imagine you're enjoying the afterglow yourselves. So to recap - previously I looked perilously close to actually finishing a painting. This time? Done. Genuinely done! Couple of tricky things on the way - air compressor rusting inside & with a valve so leaky it couldn't work the airbrush (fixed for now by winding masking tape around the screw-thread, high-tech is everything), followed by the receiving of a phone call that work was going back A WEEK EARLY. Not totally a dream come true. That was meant to be the down-to-business week. Now it just means I can buy groceries.. Anyway, crossing off the first picture makes me happy, but it's also a bit weird - finishing paintings is not something I've done a lot of in recent years, so the urge to go "Whew, thank Christ for that, lets celebrate, see friends again, go pubbing, bugger off to a movie" and so on is strong. However I need nine more works. At least. Definately not time to make pub my friend.
Next - Russian poultry fancying. No, really. Talk about cliffhangers.

Seven fun-filled days later..

Nope. Nearly, but nope. The clock has struck for the first deadline and.. I'm not quite done. Normally I'd not call that a newsflash, but I REALLY need to keep these deadlines! And this painting is the easy one! Close though.
So where did that extra time go? Well.. apart from having to tinker with my original image to balance it up a bit, I also had to go spray paint shopping. And when I couldn't get my hands on a can of lime green spray paint I did what anyone would do - I dusted off the ol equipment sitting in my bedroom cupboard and PUT ON THE MASK, as they say in the classics. I know what you're thinking, "Thank god thing's are finally getting interesting - this freak's about to bust out his Blue Velvet routine! Let the wild huffing begin!". But no. Sorry to let you down, but the compressor & the medical mask are for airbrushing. And everyone's heart sinks. Airbrushing? That panel van cheese with unicorns & hot chicks hanging ten under a full moon? I know, I know.. But I promise you, this is a tool that can be used for good as well as shite. Now I just have to resist the temptations.. OF ITS DARK SIDE. And not get sick or stoned off paint fumes. Wish me luck.