Mat, Shauna and Wayne bring you the latest gossip on the arts between 4 and 6pm every Sunday on Edge Radio.
Listen Live, post a comment or text us on 0427 EDGE FM.
Arts Tasmania
Arts Tasmania is part of the Department of Environment, Parks, Heritage and the Arts. It administers several grants and loans programs along with a number of industry development programs, such as Design Island and Amplified.
146 Elizabeth St Hobart the place to go for arts funding advice, professional development advice, commissioning services and much more.
A great exhibition space has been set aside at 146 Elizabeth St to support local artists and curators. Displays in this space will also provide an insight into many of the Arts Tasmania and arts@work projects and programs, such as Design Island, Tasmanian Living Artists’ Week and the natural and cultural residencies.
arts@work
arts@work is the business unit of Arts Tasmania. It was established to develop employment, commissioning and export opportunities in the arts and cultural sector within Tasmania. arts@work delivers the Arts for Public Building Scheme along with many other programs including the Corporate Art Scheme, Tasmanian Living Artists’ Week and Tasmanian Living Writers’ Week.
Australian Business Arts Foundation (AbaF)
AbaF works with businesses large and small, arts organisations of all types, individual artists, trusts and foundations and provides advice, professional development, volunteering and networking opportunities. It administers the Premier’s Arts Partnership Fund in Tasmania, which doubles the value of new cash partnerships between business and the arts.
TMAGgots
The TMAGgots are a not-for-profit volunteer run organisation with the sole aim of connecting more young Tasmanians with arts, culture, history and science through the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. We hold monthly events which are based on exhibitions or happenings at the TMAG, and sometimes events outside of the TMAG. Anyone between 18 and 40(ish) years old is encouraged to join us after work some time for some hearty cultural gluttony.
Tasmanian Museum and art gallery (TMAG)
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery aims to provide, promote and facilitate interaction with, and understanding of, the cultural and natural world for present and future generations.
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery collects, preserves, researches, displays, interprets and safeguards the physical evidence of the natural and cultural heritage of Tasmania, together with relevant material from interstate and overseas.
Contemporary Art Spaces Tasmania (CAST)
CAST, standing for Contemporary Art Spaces Tasmania, is a not for profit membership-based organisation dedicated to supporting and developing professional contemporary art since 1992. CAST is an active participant in the creative community, providing opportunities for artists and arts professionals via an annual program of high quality exhibitions, off-site projects, professional development initiatives, publications and the provision of studios.
27 Tasma Street, North Hobart 7000. (03) 6233-2681.
Inflight ARI
INFLIGHT is an Artist Run Initiative (ARI) based in Hobart, Tasmania. It is the aim of members to foster relationships between artists, audiences, critics, curators, dealers, writers and other ARI’s. INFLIGHT is centered on a dual gallery exhibition venue, which hosts projects by individuals and groups, as well as other collaborative activities and events. The programming preference is towards experimentation. Projects include a diverse cross section of contemporary art practice.
237 Elizabeth Street (behind Kaos Cafe), Hobart 7000. gallery@inflightart.com.au Wed-Sat 1.00 to 5.00.
Six_A Inc
Six_a inc is an artist run initiative in North Hobart, Tasmania.
Six a inc. provides a supportive environment for artists to take risks and experiment within their practice, to receive constructive technical and curatorial assistance in their attainment of conceptual resolution.
Six a inc. encourages its raw, fresh, process-driven vision by encouraging artists to engage with evolutionary development between the stages of initial conception through to installation and exhibition.
6a Newdegate Street, North Hobart 7000. six_a_ari@hotmail.com www.myspace.com/six_a Thurs-Sun 1.00 to 5.00.
Bett Gallery Hobart
369 Elizabeth Street, North Hobart 7000. (03) 6231-6511 fax 6231-6521. dick@bettgallery.com.au www.bettgallery.com.au
Criterion Gallery
12 Criterion Street, Hobart 7000. (03) 6231-3151 fax 6224-7973. www.criteriongallery.com.au Tues-Fri 10.00 to 5.30, Sat 11.00 to 3.00.
Despard Gallery
Salamanca Place, 15 Castray Esplanade, Hobart 7000. (03) 6223-8266, 0419-355-758 fax 6223-6496. www.despard-gallery.com.au Mon-Fri 11.00 to 6.00.
Handmark Gallery
77 Salamanca Place, Hobart 7000. (03) 6223-7895. www.handmarkgallery.com Open daily 10.00 to 6.00
Plimsoll Gallery
University of Tasmania
Centre for the Arts, Hunter Street, Victoria Dock, Hobart 7000. (03) 6226-4309. Open daily 12.00 to 5.00.
The Salamanca Collection
91a Salamanca Place, Hobart 7004. (03) 6224-1341. art@salamancacollection.com.au www.salamancacollection.com.au Open daily 10.00 to 6.00. Feb 5 to March 2
Entrepot Art Gallery
Centre for the Arts, 37 Hunter Street, Hobart 7000. (03) 6226-4313. Mon-Fri 9.00 to 4.00.
www.artstas.com, Lenah Valley Rd, Lenah Valley TAS 7008
(03) 6228 0076
Church Studio Franklin
www.churchstudiofranklin.com.au 3408 Huon Highway, Franklin, Tasmania 7113, 03 6266 3347, 0421456656.
Devonport Regional Gallery
45-47 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310. (03) 6424-8296. www.devonportgallery.com Free entry. Mon-Sat 10.00 to 5.00, Sun and public hols 12.00 to 5.00.
Burnie Regional Art Gallery
Civic Centre Precinct, Wilmot Street, Burnie 7320. (03) 6430-5875. gallery@burnie.net www.burniearts.net Free entry. Mon-Fri 10.00 to 4.30, Sat-Sun and public holidays 1.30 to 4.30
Name: Damon Bird
Medium: Prints, Installation, Music, painting, drawing, film.
Website: http://www.myspace.com/transcriptionoforganmusic
http://www.myspace.com/birdtreerecordings
Podcast:Listen to the Interview with Damon Bird
Damon Bird
“We had guided our captors around our land for many years,
over the hills, over the mountains, and through the moors.
Led by the hope of resolve to this current state of war.
Where once we were many now we are few.
Our homes now but a memory,
with the freedoms we once knew,
we been starved of our life and livelihood.
And there are those who look upon us,
with their patronising stares
and bug-eyed moral values brimming with disdain Oh we have lost our refuge,
to be godless animals,
in the eyes of our tormentors we are depraved.……”
Excerpt from the song ‘One day everything you see here will be ruins’ by Damon Bird.
Damon Bird is a Tasmanian artist, printmaker and musician. His music Transcription of Organ Music has been described by many as haunting and atmospheric. However Damon is best known for his work as a printmaker. His practice explores the relationship between self and place, nature and culture, contemporary experience and understanding of ‘landscape’, ‘wilderness’ and the ‘Tasmanian Gothic’.
“Essentially it’s all different ways of looking at the same thing, whether it be though music, prints or doing video work. It is this central interest in exploring relationships with place and history that I am fascinated with, especially some of the darker colonial history that affects contemporary experience of place.” says Damon.
I first came across Damon’s work through a limited released CD, delivered kindly to the hands of Edge Radio studios. I was immediately struck by the intense beauty and workmanship of the album cover. Hand printed paper, softly stitched together, layer upon layer. A truly visual and tactile experience – the music soft, dark, rich and ambient…haunting and chilling to the bone.
“When I started making the limited releases I had no ambition to be making or selling lots of albums, and I didn’t think anyone would be interested in the music I was making anyway, so I thought I might as well make it a small limited edition, like I would a print and even make it a print. I feel strongly about the art and the music being together…”, Damon explains.
“Being a printmaker I like the idea of editions, and having been a musician and a visual artist for a long time, I like the physical album or release as an object, and how the art relates to the music. When you are listening to the music you get to hold the cover, look at the art, read the liner notes, its all part of the experience…something I worry a lot is being lost these days, because of digital downloads and things. You can download an album and you just get a file. It’s not anywhere near as exciting, sure you can listen to the music but you have nothing to have and to hold.”
Damon’s prints are just as dark and sombre as his music, complimenting each other beautifully. His prints capture a dreamlike moment where supple light between dawn and dusk occur. Sepia tone browns and soft blues bleeding into black shadows cast by the twisted braches of the cider tree. Common motifs of cider gum trees entwining, gnarled body and branches are used. Cider Gum’ or ‘Gunnii” is an endemic species of eucalypt that has evolved to grow almost exclusively in frost hollows around the southern shores of the Great Lake. The most severely twisted of all gums, Gunnii produces sweet sap that ferments into an alcoholic cider-like liquid. Damon told me about the significance of this tree personally and cultural.
“The work I have been doing lately is about a particular type of tree…the cider gum tree, that is really culturally important historically for the Tasmanian Aboriginal people, as well as the early trappers and shepherds on the central plateau, in the mountains above were I grew up. It is a tree that is suffering die back, so it is really rare now. It is completely unique in that it is the only tree in Australia that produces its own alcohol. It’s the only pre European alcohol known in Australia.”
The cider gums finger-like tentacles wrap around each other, in full embrace. Vine like intestines bulge and bleed. Pareidolia is unavoidable.
“Something I have been fascinated in for a long time is the idea of the anthropomorphic and how the limb of a tree looks like the limb of a person or something. There is this similarity in form between the human and non-human things. The trees look incredibly sensuous, and if you stand underneath them and look up they look like bodies, similar to a baroque ceiling painting…the tree itself is like a cultural ruin, like an old cathedral or something”
The Tasmanian landscape speaks through Damon’s work, emotionally buried within his blood and his soul. However his work is not the clichéd, romanticised picturesque postcard from Tasmania we are all familiar with. Rather he takes on the styles and characteristics of the paintings of the Flemish Baroque era, integrating and translating his relationship with the land, unveiling the dark history of Tasmania along with it dark parts of himself.
“A place becomes a part of you through living in it your entire life” Damon explains.
In 2007 Damon spent two months alone in the remote region of Liawenee. During this time he produced a stunning body of work as well as an album “Songs from the Great Lake”.
“I was able to soak into the place and explore the place. I took a bunch of books up about the history. I was completely immersed in that landscape and its history…I would paint, draw or take photos each day and at the end of the day I would go back to the hut and there was no TV, I would light the fire and play guitar at night to entertain myself, work on music at night work on art during the day. The “Songs from the Great Lake” is the result of that…. the songs and the visual art, is all still coming from that, all of the prints I am doing now with the cider gums. It all has its source from that experience. I keep going up all the time, ever since. I have created a bit of a relationship with that landscape; I have to keep returning there now, I can’t see myself doing visual arts about anything else.” Damon admits.
Recently Damon’s song, an ‘Eye for an Eye’ from the album “Songs from the Great Lake” was reinterpreted by Fran Drescher (yes, the nanny played by Fran) heard his song ‘Eye for an Eye’ through MySpace and went on to release it as her first solo effort. I asked Damon how he felt about someone reinterpreting his song.
“I had this really big sinking feeling (laughing)…it’s a partially personal song for me and it seemed really odd hearing someone else singing it. It wouldn’t matter if it was Fran Drescher or someone else, I found it really uncomfortable, yet at the same time I was completely amazed and blown away that it was actually Fran Drescher singing my song. I was very conflicted about the whole thing in a lot of ways.”
As I look down at his studio floor I can see sheets of aluminium being prepared for his next piece…cider gums are being fleshed out in preparation for his dry point prints. His studio is completely isolated from the rest of the art school, were he is currently completing his Ph.D.
It occurs to me that Damon Bird makes art and music to please no one but himself, doing it for the love of creating and self expression. Incredibly demure, Damon can sometimes look uncomfortable in the presence of people. I am sure that he would be more pleased spending time with the landscape, the cider gums and his guitar than answering the many questions I bombard him with. I left Damon to his work, and leave you, the reader with a poem from W H Davies;
“Under this tree, where light and shade speckle the grass like a Thrush’s breast, here in this green and quiet place I give myself to peace and rest. The peace of my contented mind, that is to me a wealth untold when the Moon has no more silver left, and the Sun’s at the end of his gold.”
To listen to Damon Bird’s music jump onto his MySpace site:
http://www.myspace.com/transcriptionoforganmusic
http://www.myspace.com/birdtreerecordings
Name: INFLIGHT ARTIST RUN INITIATIVE
Website: http://www.inflightart.com.au/
Podcast: Listen to the Interview
Inflight Art Gallery
INFLIGHT ARTIST RUN INITIATIVE
Article By Matt Ward
Inflight A.R.I was created by a group of Hobart artists in late 2002 to address the serious lack of gallery space available to exhibit emerging and experimental art. It held its first exhibition in February 2003 showcasing the work of its founding board in a space at the Letitia Street studios in North Hobart where many of the artists worked. In the six and half years since its inception Inflight has held more than 100 exhibitions featuring the work of local, national and international artists.
Inflight’s mission is to provide affordable and professional gallery space and arts related opportunities to young, emerging and experimental artists and curators, it is funded by the Australia Council and Arts Tasmania and run by a board of volunteers. Inflight works closely with other artist run initiatives in Hobart and elsewhere in Australia and has over the last 3 years facilitated an exchange program with mainland galleries, bringing artists from the mainland to Hobart and in turn offering the chance for Tasmanian artists to exhibit in other Australian cities. 2009 saw Inflight’s first international exchange, sending two local artists to Spain and Germany. 2010 will see the return leg of this exchange when European artists exhibit at Inflight’s latest gallery space in Elizabeth Street North Hobart.
The continuing success of Inflight is a result of its dedicated board members who work for free and provide every service to its exhibiting artists including assistance in exhibition installation, publicity and promotion and critical feedback. The board regularly changes members, keeping it fresh and energetic. Being on the board of Inflight provides its members with invaluable experience in the arts industry and many of its board members have gone on to become prominent players in the national arts scene. Inflight calls for exhibition applications twice a year, more information can be found at inflightart.com.au. Its gallery is at 237 Elizabeth Street ( behind Kaos Café), it is open to the public from Wednesday to Saturday from 1pm to 5pm.
-
- Inflight Art Gallery
Name: Tom O’Hern
Medium: Painting, Drawing, Sculpture.
Podcast: Listen to the Interview
Were the Wild Things Grow
By Shauna Mayben
Tom O’Hern sees himself as a weed. A little misplaced plant that grows and blossoms in the cracks of pristine pavements, between the manicured roses and flowers. He is scruffy, gruff and refreshingly honest, and like a weed he is growing with vigour in the local arts scene.
“There is this prickly pear cactus that grows along all the train tracks in Melbourne and when it was introduced to start a dye industry it destroyed a ridiculous number of acres of bush and pasture each year. I thought it was a nice little token for me I guess, a feral species or something, like a weed”
Although Tom is in his early twenties he has already featured in numerous exhibitions, collaborations and publications, his murals well acquainted with Tasmanian and Victorian walls. Gigantic penises, naked screaming self-portraits, exploding heads and a three-meter tall corpse of a Tasmanian tiger are just some of his many murals. Planted to the side of the Alley Cat Bar in North Hobart you’ll see his brightly coloured, rigamortis Tassie tiger, stripes bleeding the ground.
“I guess drawing on walls there is something really nice about no one being able to own the work and the fact you’re putting in all this effort only for it to be destroyed, that impermanence. But everything deteriorates and falls eventually, it’s a bit of a reflection that nothing lasts forever, a memento mori kind of thing. Remember you’re going to die, but I don’t know how serious I am.”
This memento mori style of work is a theme that features strongly in all of his current work. Violent, crude, and somewhat repulsive, he reduces himself only to skeletons, rotting flesh, melting heads, oozing pustules and projectile vomiting, floating amongst beer bottles, cigarette butts and other bits of trash. Hideousness has never been so beautiful. Meticulously hand drawn with felt tip pens, his drafting style and intricate application is impressive and incredibly humorous to say the least.
“I want the work to come across at first as light hearted. I spend so long over each piece, like three or four days on each piece, probably in reality a lot longer, so there’s actually really a dark thing underneath I want to get at, the silly thing is a little facade I guess… maybe.” Tom explains.
Tom peels back the fake glossy surfaces, stripping them to the raw and somewhat gruesome portrayal of reality. Like a geologist he digs into history uncovering the layers that have been buried and forgotten.
“ I’ve been living in Melbourne for about two and a half years and I got a bit home sick so I started reading all these books on Tasmania and started getting into history, and kind of thinking about the really dark and brutal things that happened just beneath…like where I grew up poses as mundane suburbia, but round the corner there was a massacre of, I’m not sure how many people, but people didn’t live in the area after that, and know it’s just posing as bland suburbia as well as thinking about how all that historical stuff has shaped what’s actually happened now, its really not that long ago.”
Tom has finally returned back from Melbourne to Tasmania. His experiences in living in Melbourne, homesick for Tasmania, helped produced an incredible body of work that was on display at CAST (Contemporary Art Spaces Tasmania) as a part of the Three Into One exhibition showcase for emerging artists. Piece and Prosperity was a mixture of sculpture and collections of intricate drawings, among them a drawing of his house in Richmond burning. Flames engulf the building, decorating the windows like curtains. The story behind this is so incredibly frightening and highly amusing at the same time, you won’t know whether to laugh or wince. To hear it you will have to listen to the Edge Radio podcast online (yes I’m a tease, but trust me it’s worth it).
“It’s weird being away – it exposed my little nationalistic roots to the place. I didn’t think it was important when I left and then I realised having spent twenty odd years here, it kind of has an influence on your character, and you feel a bit sad if you’re not here, or something. It’s kind of nice being here, it’s nice to be out of Melbourne,” Tom admits.
Is Tom here to stay in Tasmania? Well he couldn’t say. I asked him what his plans were for the future, he said he has none, paused then smiled cheekily and said it’s a secret.
For someone so young, it is incredible he has achieved so much, not to mention produce enough work to last a lifetime.
“It’s a bit weird, you kind of become a workaholic, with art, which is a bit counter productive or something. It wasn’t a conscious decision I kind of ended up that way by doing it all the time. I can always change my mind. I might go and do geology or something…”
Immensely talented without the arrogance, he is definitely a breath of fresh air in the overtly conceited arts world; we can just hope that he continues as an artist, gracing us with his idiosyncratic and insightful perspectives, thorns and all.
Name: Tricky Walsh
Medium: Sculpture, Installation, comics, painting, drawing, film.
Website: www.trickywalsh.com
Podcast:Listen to the Interview
Watch out, she’s Tricky…
“When I grow up I want to be an artist…. The End”
Tricky Walsh, Grade One
Most kids when they grow up want to be a fireman, astronaut, nurse, doctor or entomologist, but not Tricky Walsh, no, she wanted to be an artist, much to the dismay of her parents and school teachers…
Tricky Walsh puts on her best teacher/parent voice.
“That’s not going to work, you go and do something else”
Well, Tricky is making it work, and as the recent recipient of the 2009 Hobart Art Prize, she is having the last laugh. With her idiosyncratic perspectives and multi-disciplined approach, she is fast becoming an outstanding representation of the talent that is emerging from Tasmania. As well as being an exceptional artist, Tricky contributes her time to improve and enrich the Tasmanian Art scene through Six A artists run initiative, collaborations and of course, her passion for the debate.
Much to the relief of her parents, Tricky started off by studying architecture at Deakin University. Inevitably she succumbed to her passion in the arts. Architecture now resinates strongly in her work, however her artistic approach is never stagnant or restricted to only one material or style. You’ll often find Tricky playing around with anything she can get her hands on, scribbling down drawings for comics and paintings, or collecting bits and bobs for her installations and films.
“I’m a bit of a hodge podge I think, because I have come from so many different backgrounds everything comes into play. I have a drafting sensibility that has come from architecture, film, lighting theatrical things are all influences….
I have done a couple of animations… the first one, well you know when you’re first learning about film… (I have a tendency to try and squash every possible, conceivable, thing into something. This is something I have learned not to do)…well it was like every single issue I was feeling passionate about at the time, put it into a six minute film, it was a little bit abstract, actually… it was an inconceivable mess”
It could be said that Tricky’s work is a visual explosion of layered ideas. Spectators are usually confronted with an ocular overload that can be challenging and intriguing. The judges of the 2009 Hobart art prize all agreed that this is what makes Tricky’s work so strong. The Wasp Project No 1 The Factory 2009 took out this years prestigious Hobart Art Prize and created quite a bit of interest, and curiosity.
This magnificently large sculpture is an interpretation of a turn-of-the-century sewing loom she encountered on a recent residency in Paris. Parasitic wasp’s nests cling to the sides of the machine like a structure reminiscent of growths on a tree. Upon closer inspection the parasites are constructions housing human figures, going about their daily business of building and consuming, blind to the effects their busy toil causes. The Wasp Project No 1 is a subtle yet insightful comment on today’s social and environmental predicaments.
“I got a lot more questions than comments” Tricky explains,
“It’s been validated so that’s really nice…. It’s good, a bit weird ….The main thing for me is that I could actually make a large scale piece, because we live on an island if you want to make any work that’s going to travel anywhere it has to be small or portable like video…so making something big is really enjoyable to do. So the ability to do that was as important as everything else, the money is nice of course… “
“Once I made a piece, I was being a bit cheeky so it’s total karma probably, and the size limit was a cubic meter, so I made a cubic meter worth of art and couldn’t get it out of my damn studio… so I crushed it”
Tricky has a quirky and dark sense of humour that comes through in all aspects of her practice. She seems to be able to pick out the ridiculousness of society, making sarcastic and insightful statements about the human condition. Her independent comics are a great demonstration of this. No one is safe from her biting wit as she dissects scenarios of her life and social observations. You laugh along with her dark sense of humour,
“It’s soap you stupid filthy hippies, those patchouli baths are not an alternative to actually washing…scabs”
Exert from the comic ‘Dogman’.
Tricky’s comics are reinterpreted into her paintings that resinate a familiarity and charm that will draw you in. Brightly coloured canvasses of girls riding bikes, animals and other comic characters seem innocent enough, but lurking just under the surface lies her irony waiting to strike.
“I like giving one bonafide meaning, but then almost contradicting it with symbols or things in the work so it upsets that established meaning. I like texts and words a lot so I use them quite a bit, you can pin something down and you can undo it very easily through text…I am interested in story telling thought an interconnected network of elements, using the symbolism of things to infer other meanings, which is a bit vague (laughing) , but that’s what the hole practice is about, my 2D stuff is derivative of comics and that kind of culture, and my 3D stuff is general architectural and psychological in a funny way”
To keep things interesting, Tricky incorporates ongoing collaborations outside her arts practice. Tricky and her partner Mish Meijers, an equally talented artist, work together on a project called the ‘Superfiction Project’, featuring a strange fictional character called ‘Henri Papin – The Collector’
So who is this strange little man called Henri Papin?
“ Ahhh Henri’s a funny old man, he came about largely through literature and film, he is everyone’s worst nightmare, or the thing that they do when nobody is looking, Henri is kind of that. Lots of people think he is a serial killer but he is not that he is just a blown out obsessive compulsive manifested in a fairly lonely figure…people can’t conceive of someone going to that level of obsessive weirdness or compulsive voyeurism without the next step of course that being he is storing heads under the basement floor or something, but he is not, he is just that little dark part in all of us blown out of control.”
As if she wasn’t busy enough with collaborations, exhibitions, residencies and her own pursuits, Tricky is actively involved in the arts community by giving up her time to Six A, an Artists Run initiative (ARI), housing emerging and experimental work.
“I think ARI’s are fundamental, not only to bridge the gap between art school and the rest of the world, but they are the place you’re allowed to experiment. I think as artists you have to work and you make these things and you have to get it to a stage were it is kind of acceptable. Often along the way you lose a little bit of rawness that is usually more interesting, for the artist at least. ARI’s are a really good place to nurture that rawness, I think that your raw edges and sharp corners get ground off too quickly in the art world, so as long as you can have some longevity in that, and maintain it for as long as possible… I think we’re making better artists”
Six A is always a hive of activity with quirky and experimental exhibitions in the gallery and studios buried in the back, there is always something happening. If you haven’t heard of Six A, it’s worth checking it out, located at Six A Newdegate Street, funnily enough.
Tricky Walsh does what she wants, when she wants, the ways she wants to do it, freeing herself from the stereotypes and clichés of what an artist should be, never limiting her artistic expression to one medium. To say she is a comic artist, or sculpture, or whatever would be, well, wrong. She’s a girl who likes to make stuff for a variety of different reasons, depending on what day it is, and that’s the way it should be.
“I wish I had more time, I wish there was more time in the day, but there’s just not”
Says Tricky nervously laughing, while looking around at the half finished pieces scatted through her studio, all waiting to be finished for the upcoming exhibitions at Handmark gallery, as well as the first episode of “The Holy Trinity”, a collaboration between artist Mish Meijers and Alicia king, on at the CAST Gallery (Contemporary Arts Services Tasmania) at the end of the year.
Check out the Edge Radio web site were you can listen to the Arts On Edge interview to find out what that Tricky girl is up to.
Location: Sidespace Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre
Date: 23-29th June
Podcast: Listen to the Interview
I heart craft
By Shauna Mayben
When you think of craft you probably conjure up images of cross-stitched flowers, wicker baskets, doll toilet roll covers and other nanna crafts.
But think again. Craft is being reinvented by artists, turning country (CWA) craft on its head, redefining its possibilities and meanings.
In her exhibition Crafty, Cat Badcock shows Tasmania what’s going on in the new wave of indie, urban and craft activism that is branching into the streets, the arts community and our hearts.
As a part of her Masters, Cat Badcock investigates the importance of this trend that is occurring all around the world, putting on a show I’m sure will not be forgotten (and not because of the fresh cupcakes that were available at the opening). Mmm, sweet cupcakes.
Crafty draws from local and interstate street art and craft artists Tara Badcock, Monique Germon, Ghostpatrol, Lovelyduck, Jess Lillico, Kirsty Madden, Miso, Tom O’Hern and Cat-Rabbit.
“I studied the new wave of craft that has come about in the last couple of years, exploring new ways of using the medium for voicing my personal or political ideas and the possibilities of craft in general” Cat explains.
Cat wanted this exhibition to not only respond to the confines of the gallery space, but to wander and frolic into the streets, parks and laneways to allow a social and personal resonance that can often be lost in a regimented gallery setting. Each artist responded to this politically, personally and philosophically and placed their objects in the urban landscape accordingly. This was documented through photographs that accompanied each of the art works.
“This exhibition is a culmination of my Masters degree, it was a master in a specialization so I chose gallery practices, it’s a two semester project. I did a placement at CAST which was extremely helpful, I curated the show, researched the idea and brought it together and created a catalogue to accompany it…I machine stitched all of the bags for the catalogue …there were only one hundred made” she says.
It was immediately obvious that Cat Badcock put this exhibition together with so much love and care. The intricacy of the hand made details really made this exhibition stand out from so many I have seen, a stark contrast to the graphically designed and clinically slick vinyl signage that dominate so many shows.
From the moment I entered the gallery I was welcomed with a soft pink Crafty banner that has been hand constructed especially for the exhibition, a visual summary of what the exhibition is all about.
Straight away I was blown away that everything in this exhibition is made by hand, even down to the intricately hand embroidered placards…Cat Badcock either really loves to sew or is fixated to put this much work into the details (her fingers must be sore).
These fine details make the exhibition cohesive, allowing a flow between each artist’s work, without overcrowding or confusion.
After entering the exhibition I find myself in a bit of a flutter, so much to see, a visual feast…I almost don’t know were to start.
Immediately I am drawn to Cat Rabbit’s work, a montage of soft sculpture, drawing and photographs. I am familiar with her work, and have always admired its soft playfulness, yet cheeky undertones. Her plush friends are captured in the photographs and drawing on street walls…“peep”…I suddenly giggle imagining what Cat Rabbit would say if she was caught… “Really, it wasn’t me officer it was the toys…”
Next to Cat’s work is an ephemeral installation of found cupboard doors and paper cuts of aged Ukrainian woman. The work of Miso is well known to the Melbourne audience, her work featured in galleries and on street walls alike. Although I do not know much about Ukrainian myths, folklore and craft traditions, it still strikes a cord, taking me to a place of childhood nursery rhymes. Like the weathered cupboard doors, her paper cut women talk of time through decay, beautifully worn with cracks, pealing paint and paper.
Another installation of felted toys and photographs by Ghostpatrol fill the gallery wall. However in these photographs it appears that the felted creatures have come to life – have become dancing figures around the fire – forest nymphs, both innocent and evil.
“Deathtron Mountain is the underlying place for dreams to come true, and also a way to make all this possible,
“This is a trap” reads the catalogue.
Ghostpatrol’s creatures are based on wisdom and fantasy. They sit silently guarding the books “out run the dark” and “ancestors”. These felted wood nymphs seem dark and worldly…all the while the big bad wolf lurks in the smoke and shadows. His work recreates memories of dark cold nights around campfires, burning marshmallows, telling stories that scare, only to catch yourself looking over your shoulder…just in case.
Jess Lillico’s work, New Shoes, sits softly, quietly and gentle. Fragile trees made from wallpaper cling to the gallery’s walls, their faces staring at each other not sure what to make of all these people looking at them. Like a comic from Leunig, you expect them to say something witty. But akin to trees they stand silent. I am interested in the juxtaposition of the indoor material wallpaper used in the outdoor.
From seeing her accompanying photographs I feel her work is better suited to the suburban walls of the street, rather than the gallery.
Monique Germon’s “Tell my wife I love her” takes a fresh and much needed approach away from nostalgic and romantic aspects of the crafts and looks at the contemporary Australian society, the working class and the tradesmen who spend years perfecting there craft, in things I can barely comprehend, like fixing cars, carpentry and building.
By taking the iconic flannel shirt and coving a one-seated couch in a mosaic of red white and blue she addresses the issues of loneliness, isolation and class stigma.
Well known Tasmanian artist Tara Badcock uses her craft techniques to communicate complex and intimate concepts of war, conflict, religion, and human social nature. The simple tea cozy is transformed into a vessel for conversation and debate.
The words “Don’t forget” are hand embroidered onto the tea cosy, along with a skull decorated with locks of her golden blond hair. The tradition of using hair, fabric and photos has long been used is remembering those who have passed away and is deeply embedded in Victorian craft traditions.
“With this tea cosy piece I am exploring a trip to Bosnia I Herzegovina I made in 2005 and the traces of war and trauma still tangible within the cities and countryside, and which perhaps may never be erased?” she explains in the catalogue.
On the lighter side Tom O’hern recreates The Yowie,“Gigantopithecus australis”, a affectionate term for an unidentified hominid reputed to lurk in the Australian wilderness. This mythological creature has a lot of similarities to Tom O’hern, a Tasmanian street artist living in Melbourne. Is this his alter ego? If there would be any way of describing Tom as a character, it would be this creature, the mischievous, elusive, but completely lovable Yowie is caught on camera in the streets of West Richmond and the Yarra…my my Tom, what a big noise you have.
Kirsty Madden and Helen Goninon’s ‘Lovelyduck’ have modest works that sit nicely into this exhibition. Kirsty constructed the words “she made him possible” from cardboard box, playing with the art of making, while ‘Lovelyduck’ is exactly that – ducks and birds, living in harmony, bringing the traditional craft aspects back into the exhibition, both simple and sweet pleasures.
A backlash is occurring in youth culture against the mainstream, the manufactured and mass produced. This nostalgic yearning for something real, something hand crafted, closer to home, something that represents the individual as well as nurturing the sense of community, there is a hunger for something more rooted and more authentic. Are the artists looking for ways to reconnect with the past and to establish at least a semblance of cultural continuity?
In a world packed with fake everything there is something comforting in the hand made. It could be the smell of the fresh muffins from the exhibition or the beautiful lovingly hand made objects that make me think of simpler times, or perhaps it’s the cheeky mythological creatures that want to reek havoc in the streets, that make me enjoy this exhibition so much.
As Tom Stoppard so appropriately states;
“Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.”
It could be said that this exhibition sits happily between art and craft laughing at all of us as we debate over the grey areas of the elusive, ever evolving arts scene.
Name: Cat Rabbit
Medium: Contemporary Craft
Website: www.catrabbit.com.au
Podcast: Listen to the Interview
Crafty Cat Rabbit
“Roast me! Hang me! Do whatever you please,” said Brer Rabbit.
“Only please, Brer Fox, please don’t throw me into the briar patch.”
Joel Chandler Harris
Cat Rabbit is crafty, very crafty, in more ways that one. A lover of the hand made, she produces beautiful soft sculptures based upon mythological creatures, animals, owls, foxes, owls and cats in rabbit suits, just to name a few. Her work conjures up the many stories we used to read and watch as a child. Made from soft materials these creatures will steal your heart and transport you back to a time where fairy-tale and other imaginary worlds were possible. Cat Rabbit invites you into her world of dreaming.
The devious animals she creates appear cute and innocent but don’t let them deceive you. They are much more then just plush pretty toys,
“They started off as toys, but they have grown into more sculptural things as I do more exhibition work…they started off very two dimensional and turned into more three dimensional things, and now I am trying to get towards free standing sculptural pieces, they evolve al the time. I watch nature documentaries and as I find new animals that I like I try and make them.”
These soft sculptures, softies, plush’s, toys (call them what you want) are beautifully crafted figurative and narrative art with a big dose of comic freak appeal, designed and handmade with outstandingly technical proficiency.
It is obvious that her work is deeply imbedded in today’s underground indie crafts as well as the current arts movement pop surrealism (also known as lowbrow art) were the art often has a sense of humour, sometimes gleeful, sometimes impish, with dark overtures. This is an honesty and aesthetic that appeals to me, a backlash against the overly academic and saturated conceptual art that is currently so prevalent.
The new movement has given birth to a new generation of artists, crafters and designers harnessing dissent in a non-confrontational way. Making works that leave the regimented gallery setting, rampaging the streets, parks and lane-ways with knitted goods, or beautiful intricately made paper cuts, making art accessible to everyone, whether they like it or not. These underground movements resinate in Cat Rabbits work.
“It’s a backlash against the really twee crafty sea of DIY, crafting book with make your own quilt or make this disgusting coat hanger. It’s an uprising of people wanting to make things their own way instead of following a pattern…a new culture coming in and making craft their own…A backlash against consumerism that’s so rampant…people like to receive handmade gifts, it’s a lot more personal and it seems a lot more ethical.”
Featured in the recent exhibition “CRAFTY” curated by Cat Badcock, aka Cat Rabbit, unleashed her furry friends;
A soft owlet has just hatched and taken flight for the first time. A young boy plays with his wild deer friend, in the winter leaves. They have been running amuck through the streets of Hobart, like cheeky school children drawing on street walls…“peep”…Peep?
Like childhood memories these stories are woven into objects which capture the spectator’s imagination, taking them to a place of magic and wonder in the simple things that can sometimes be overlooked and ignored. Whimsical, nostalgic and somewhat twisted, these melodic scenes make engrossing viewing.
“It’s not really an attempt to shock anyone. I like watching nature documentaries and animals have a really dark side, they do some evil things. You watch the characteristics of them, and it’s like ooh that’s really twisted, so I like to take that and use it. The idea at first was to take something really cute and turn it on its upside-down but I guess that’s a bit of a cliché now so I tend towards making animals I know and work on that and play with it a bit.”
Cat doesn’t just make softies, she draws, and when she has time knits mittens wile watching box sets. Her intricate drawings are transferred into wearable art/ jewellery;
“The reason I make the jewellery is because I don’t get as much time to draw as I like because I’m always sowing, its quite time consuming, so as a way to get my illustrations out there, in an accessible way, I make the jewellery ……. I like the idea of being able to wear art every day and you look down and it makes you feel happy.”
Cat is also a part of the crafty group crafternoon and collective of like-minded crafters who bake a plate and share techniques,
“It’s a really supportive collective, we share techniques and swap goods, it’s really nice.”
Odd + Even is a market of crafty goodness started off as a Crafternoon initiative. This year’s winter market included the screening of the documentary directed by Faythe Levine.
Handmade Nation – an exploration into the uprise of indie crafts in America. If you missed it fear not, I’m sure their will be lots in store in the next spring/ summer.
Cat Rabbit is a busy bee, working hard to shower Hobart and Tasmania with her passion for the art of crafting. Don’t let her bleeding fingers put you off, she is as sweet as her creations.
Her beautiful drawing, jewellery, and soft sculptures will steal your heart. To find out more listen to the Edge Radio Podcast where Shauna talks to Cat Rabbit about her work, life and love.
Name: LAB
Website: www.lab.org.au
Podcast:Listen to the Interview
Lucrative Arts Business (LAB)
LAB 1 a: a place equipped for experimental study in a science or for testing and analysis ; broadly : a place providing opportunity for experimentation, observation, or practice in a field of study b: a place like a laboratory for testing, experimentation, or practice <the laboratory of the mind
Why does an artist need to know about business? Why can’t we just make art?
For I long while I thought business was dirty word. Why as an artist I would need to know anything about that nasty, dog eat dog world? I just want to make art, and for people to buy it, so I can keep making art, and perhaps even feed myself.
Simple, right? Well not quite. Before long I was dealing with galleries, shops, invoice systems, commissions, tax, supplies, networking (sorry that’s a filthy word as well, let’s say ‘meeting people and swapping details and ideas’), so with that came business cards, web sites, grants and so much more so essentially, I was running my own business, and yes, I have to admit it was a shambles. That’s when I decided that I needed help (no, not psychiatric). Business advice.
I didn’t do the Lucrative Arts Business (LAB) Course, that is tailored to artist’s needs, but after speaking with Carolyn Coates the Project Manager and Kristen Molhuysen the Project Manager of LabChat, I wish I did.
LAB is a major project of Salamanca Arts Centre and is situated on the second floor in this lively arts hive.
“LAB was set up in response to artists either avoiding or struggling with the business component of their practice…we felt the need for a program that worked with artists over an extended period of time, in a more flexible method of delivery,” Carolyn explains.
I was relived to hear that the scheme is not just about writing a business plan, it is about creating workshops and other activities around individuals and their needs.
“We have a series of workshops which essentially follow a business planning process but within that we work with the artist, we ask them what their problem areas are and what they are struggling with and what they would like to know about, so the workshops are manipulated to meet the needs of the artists,” she says.
Right about now you’re probably thinking this article is bit cash for comment, but they are not paying me for a start, so that kind of defeats that. In fact I write these articles because I care about what’s going on in the arts.
Its pays to be business savvy in these uncertain times. The global financial crisis (GFC) has already reduced the states income by $1 million dollars.
The government has already rearranged the arts reducing its funding. This overhaul of the arts is drying up grants, opportunities, and in some cases assistance to artists that have been running for years.
If you have picked up the new Arts Tasmania grants handbook you might have noticed some changes ‘ to ensure the development of high quality applications. ‘ the implications of this will require artists to have a full understanding of their business practices and procedures and in some cases a full business plan is involved when applying for grants or other opportunities.
Because of this current climate it is apparent that the Lucrative Arts Buisness program is even more appropriate. This course will give you the skills to know how to approach your work in a professional, educated and confident way; they really seem to understand what artists want and how to make business matters accessible. But most of all they care about getting artists on their feet and on their way to being successful.
“We care and become interested in every one of our clients business aspirations so do our consultants and so do all the other artists in the group….It brings business conversation into the creative persons life” Carolyn says.
Kristen Molhuysen the Project Manager of LabChat, has just started a new initiative that is all about conversation. In collaboration with LAB, this new program aims to bring guest speakers to talk about business topics relevant to creative people.
Kirsten explains to me that LabChat will extend networks for artists within Hobart with other artists and professionals within industries thus extending the networks that already exist. The Lab Chat concept will create opportunities for people to get together and discuss issues that are of interest and relevance to creative peoples arts business and practice.
The Lab participants have an opportunity to have conversations with successful artists and business people sharing concerns and ideas about business topics relevant to creative people.
“There are so many inspiring stories out there, I started think, and how can we get these inspiring positive people in, who have already faced certain challenges” Kristen enthusiastically says.
Lab (lucrative arts business) is not just about writing a business plan, or being squeezed through a program for profit. Lucrative Art Business is about giving artists the tools they need to succeed, meeting other artists, creating ideas in a flexible and supportive environment. The workshops for 2009 have already commenced, however they tell me I can go in at any time and get help as an individual.
Caroyln reassures me
“They can access us as mentors any time …….Allot of the time when your in a small business, it can be fairly isolating, the decision can all lay squarely on your shoulders, it can be great to come in and talk to someone and just have some listen who is genuinely interested and can point you in the right direction or connect you with other people who can support them through that process”
For years I have struggled through my practice, finding things out the hard way. But it doesn’t have to be hard when people like Carolyn Coates and Kristen Molhuysen are there to help you.
To find out for yourself, why not pop in and see them at the Salamanca Arts centre, on the second floor or listen to the Arts on the Edge exclusive interview with Carolyn Coates the Project Manager and Kristen Molhuysen the Project Manager of LabChat on the Arts & Culture section of www.edgeradio.org.au.
This article was written by Shauna Swanson, Edge Radio broadcaster on Arts on the Edge.
Name: Judith Abell
Medium: Sculpture, design, architecture, arts writer.
Website: www.judithabell.com
Podcast: Listen to the Interview
Judith Abell
Artist, designer, and writer… and you thought you were busy?
It’s pouring down with rain as I meet Judith Abell on the corner of the street near her studio. Her studio is located in one of these amazing places that are tucked up in the rabbit warrens of old Hobart buildings. We climb the narrow stairs, with warped walls and series of doors, to finally make it to her studio… I find myself short of breath.
Judith is out of breath as well, but it’s not from climbing those stairs – she has been racing around all day, flat out with back to back meetings, stopping off quickly along the way to do the compulsory hunting and gathering around the local tip shops to pick up her materials.
She opens the door to her modest studio and as I enter I trip over something that looks like a TV aerial. I apologise profusely as I try to untangle myself without breaking everything, or cause some sort of avalanche. She lets me know she cleaned up for me. I laugh nervously. Judith’s studio is packed to the brim, a jungle of fantastic materials and objects that have been salvaged from the tip shop, or somewhere along the way.
“There is so much martial out there it really bothers me to buy new. I do a tour of duty of the tip shop on a really regular basis, probably every two weeks I go to at least two of them. For years I have had this fascination with the whole concept of the junk shop. I guess, you never know what you’re going to find and there is always some kind of treasure…there is that classic statement that one persons trash is another’s treasure, it’s exciting every time I go,”
says Judith.
I compose myself, take a deep breath, and press the record button, armed with questions. “So Judith how would you describe your work?” I ask. She looks and smiles. She seems familiar with the generic art questions.
“I have a complete fascination with materials. I don’t think it necessarily matters what the materials are although I think I prefer the ordinary, the normally unseen, the stuff that passes most people by. Just looking around here, I have Venetian blinds, old shop shelfing, I have an obsession in collecting,” she explains.
Judith Able is not only a Sculptor but an Architect, Designer, and a freelance arts writer for well known art and design magazines.
“It’s busy, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. My work in architecture is really busy, stressful, and full on every day so doing the art stuff really helps it…now people are saying ‘hey Jude would you come and talk to us about this because we really like the fact your doing design and art’…What happens with my sculpture practice from my architecture experience is there is an understanding of how materials go together. The project management you need in architecture really helps for getting art projects done”.
Judith has gained so much knowledge and skill from working across all these disciplines, she tells me she feels as if she has an unfair advantage, however after working hard for ten years I think she deserves it. Her years of experience in architecture, design and writing blended with her strong sense of aesthetics and materials have helped her secure public art commissions, fellowships, residencies and this year the Moorilla scholarship for 2010.
“With things like Moorilla I didn’t think I had very much chance of winning it…. I saw a Moorilla exhibition in my first year and I remember getting excited about what could be possible with the money from that, I thought wow, wouldn’t it be great to win that”.
As I look around her studio I can see her sculptures resting, quietly waiting until they are completed. All Judith’s sculptural pieces are mainly made from recycled and salvaged materials.
“I would like to think I’m green in my thinking but we are all hypocrites when it comes down to it,” she says laughing.
Judith’s refined finishes and attention to detail create beautiful organic works that transcend the material’s previous life. Her sense of aesthetics is tightly in tune with the material she is using, always allowing the material to guide the making of the work.
What I find most appealing about Judith’s work is they way she marries her materials with space. Each sculpture responds and relates to the area it inhabits. Like a living plant her work seems to breathe, move, and respond, creating shadows, reflecting light or fluttering with the wind. Her works are never just plonked in a space, rather they are carefully considered within the sensibility and understanding of place.
This intimate understating of material and space allows Judith to create works that are both gentle and powerful.
“I’m only just beginning to hit my stride in terms of being an architect, I’m only just beginning to get somewhere in terms of being an artist. I really like thinking about how those things can come together.”
I press stop on the recorder; we have been talking for more than half an hour, it’s now dark outside. I don’t mind though, and neither does she. I finish by saying that I can’t wait to see what she makes for the 2010 Moorilla exhibition, laughing, she replies, “Neither can I.”
Name: Brigita Ozolins
Location: http://brigitaozolins.com/
Podcast: Listen to the Interview
It’s hard to know why anyone wants to be an artist. Slaving themselves for a less than adequate pay check, working in a million jobs just to pay for the love and addiction to the craft. I ask myself “why do I do it?” every day. I should have been a public servant, fire fighter, nurse (please insert ‘real’ job here)… I’m always reconsidering.
However, after meeting Tasmanian artist Brigita Ozolins, a performance artist, artist and writer, it all became clear.
Intelligent and articulate, but not arrogant, she is the sort of person I would say,
“I want to be like her when I grow up”.
Brigita has had a fascinating life. Of Latvian origin, she grew up not speaking any English until she started school, believing as a child that everyone spoke the intimate language of Latvian at home and English was language used for the “outside world”. Fascinated with her father’s books she would spend hours in his library pretending to read, sitting, gazing, hoping the mysterious patterns of black and white print would reveal themselves if she stared at it long enough.
This extraordinary relationship with words and language had a strong impact on her sense of self, her passions and her direction.
After studying the classics at Monash University she returned to Tasmania and began working as a librarian for the Glenorchy City Council. She continued there until becoming the Arts and Cultural Development Officer, and later, founder of Moonah Arts Centre. It wasn’t until a tragic accident, a fall, altered her life, and at the age of forty, she decided to enrol in a fine arts degree.
“When I went to art school I couldn’t believe how fantastic it was. I was so excited it was like I had forty years of art I had to blurt out. I couldn’t stop making work, it was unbelievable. I have a lot more discrimination about what I make now,” she says laughing.
Armed with a thirst for knowledge and a love for making, Brigita finished her PhD in 2004 and since then has not stopped making, writing and performing.
“My great passion for making art, and most of my artwork, somehow always links back to our relationship with language to books to libraries and the way we sort information as well as a fascination with bureaucratic systems,” she says.
Her most recent exhibition Codex was a powerful installation of 756 convex mirrors written in large cryptic letters on painted black walls of the Carnegie Gallery to spell out the text:
“The history of all man kind is written within ourselves”
This amazing and immersive exhibition was well received by most with some saying that it was of international standard. However, she was surprised at the more creative responses written in the comments book.
“There were a lot of people who hated the work, who cannot stand it at all…I must admit I felt a bit sad…when you have THIS IS SHIT in mirror writing…well you sort of laugh at it…I suppose at least they made the effort,” says Brigita.
If you missed this exhibition, don’t fret, her work is on permanent display in the State Library, the UTAS art school library, and if you are in Latvia she has some work in the National Library – all of which are perfect places to house the work of Brigita Ozolins.
“I think our relationship to language is really paradoxical. I think that on the one hand it is an amazing tool that enables us to describe ourselves and our place in the world and to share our thoughts and feelings to map history and all those things, but on the other hand it’s not a mirror of reality, not an accurate reflection, that language both shapes who we are but also restricts us,” says Brigita.
Her studio is testament to her love of knowledge and books. It looks like a library, with shelf after shelf of eclectic works by the great authors, artists, philosophers and poets, as well as her father’s books.
“I’m a sucker, I need to have the book as an object, and some books are so beautiful”
Brigita Ozolins makes me realise that being an artist, whether that’s a musician, writer, visual artist or performer, is all about the need to express, the thirst for knowledge and the love that cannot be tamed.
