Saturday, January 16, 2010
Journal entry Jan 2010
This is a large work that is unfinished relating to the other portrait totem stories. Painting your dead mother as a tiger is a strange experience and I am having trouble returning to the work although I am sure that I will.
Jan 2010
These women are close to my heart even the little known but recognisable images from history used.
Who were we then
Who are we now
Who were we then
Who are we now
In total I have ten inteviews with women from China and ten from Australia still to be edited, so this is still a work in progress, however I have completed an animated collage which will be projected in an exhibition later in 2010.
Works evolve over time and themes and concerns develop as with life lived.
Works evolve over time and themes and concerns develop as with life lived.
Portrait is a long standing genre and ever changing. How is it likley to work in a fast changing technological society and who should we look at. I think vidoe and film have become leading tools for expression in such a time although classical methods still hold their own. i dabble in both and extend my own knowledge base in so doing.
Video and animation Portraits have been my focus in 2009 although I still have storyboarded an ongoing record of the women who I know and love.
Its ongoing and ever evolving
Take note all storyboard images works on paper are for sale at $400 a piece unframed
Video and animation Portraits have been my focus in 2009 although I still have storyboarded an ongoing record of the women who I know and love.
Its ongoing and ever evolving
Take note all storyboard images works on paper are for sale at $400 a piece unframed
Journal entry July 2009
And the storyboards keep comming, meanwhile in China I am interviewing women and thinking about ways in which we can re interpret the portrait in an age of technology. I start interviewing women Chinese and otherwise about their lives.
July 2009
My concerns alway move toward the environment and in July 2009 I take a residencey in Baigou a small village on the outskirts of Beijing. It is hot 44 degrees smelly as the sewage is a raw mix running down drains in the dusty streets and I dont stay long as I get ill from the sewage emerging up and into my bathroom. I change my plan , hire an interpreter and head for Shanxi Provence in the North West of China on the border of Mongolia. Some images for you
Thursday, January 14, 2010
A Tibetan Tale
A lifelong dream of mine has been to travel the highlands of Tibet and view the extraordinary landscapes and rugged lifestyles of the peoples there.
Lhasa and its surrounding area has long been viewed as the Shangri-La of sorts with its grassy plataeu (only in summer mind) and tribal peoples who have lived of the land for centuries. However there has been trouble in Shangri -La and the Han Chinese invaded five decades ago the Deli Lama fled his own sanctuary and left for India never to return home.
For many years Lhasa was closed to foreigners but in 2006 the Qinghai-Tibet railway opened on July 1st and many have been flocking ever since, including myself.
The experience of travelling for two days and nights accross China and up onto the Tibetan Plataeu is an amazing one and the landscape changes dramatically from Chinese peasant life and farming communities to rugged inclines and an icy glazier that trangresses the plataeu in front of the many famous mountains including Everest past the enormous Blue lake and through the original source of the four famous rivers of Asia.
The altitude sickness is addressed through oxygen pumping into the train which by day two is a complete mess and the toilets are not for the faint hearted. We pull into Lhasa to the sound of piped Tibetan Music and the Adventure continues.
Lhasa and its surrounding area has long been viewed as the Shangri-La of sorts with its grassy plataeu (only in summer mind) and tribal peoples who have lived of the land for centuries. However there has been trouble in Shangri -La and the Han Chinese invaded five decades ago the Deli Lama fled his own sanctuary and left for India never to return home.
For many years Lhasa was closed to foreigners but in 2006 the Qinghai-Tibet railway opened on July 1st and many have been flocking ever since, including myself.
The experience of travelling for two days and nights accross China and up onto the Tibetan Plataeu is an amazing one and the landscape changes dramatically from Chinese peasant life and farming communities to rugged inclines and an icy glazier that trangresses the plataeu in front of the many famous mountains including Everest past the enormous Blue lake and through the original source of the four famous rivers of Asia.
The altitude sickness is addressed through oxygen pumping into the train which by day two is a complete mess and the toilets are not for the faint hearted. We pull into Lhasa to the sound of piped Tibetan Music and the Adventure continues.
During my time in China I travelled to Xian, Lhasa in Tibet and Shanxi Provense in the north west. I also spent a considerable amount of time in Taiwan and travelled with a friend Ann Chan who assisted me with many things and journeys. All of these journeys have influenced my work which often talks about how past , present and future collide and conflate to create a reality the slips between worlds, memories and facts.
Except from China Diaries 2006
"A peasant must stand a long time on a hillside with his mouth open before a roast duck flies in and the movements which work toward evolution in the world are brne of the dreams and visions in a peasants heart on a hillside"
This is an old Chinese proberb Im not sure who from but when I recieve my first Australia China residencey I feel that this could not be more true.
The midnight flight sees my way clear to 24 hours of movies, contorting my body so as to fit in the seat allocated and circumnavigating Singapore airport at early hours of the morning until my connecting flight arrives for the final leg of the journey.
I am meet at the airport by a charming man named Brian Wallace who is my contact in Beijing. Driving to the apartment Brian tells me Its his 15th anaversary in Beijing and at the Red Gate Gallery which is one of the only two remaining Watchtowers from the original wall of Peking in the Ming Dynasty.
The flat is small and modest, the stairways to the fourth floor are dark and dingy and I am informed that I am the only non Chinese person in the building. Brian leaves me with the bare essentials, alist of phone numbers, instructions as to how to set up my computer and a contact number for Tony Scott his project manager who is tio become a good friend and instrumental to a number of projects that I become involved with in future years.
This is the beginning of my China experience which has been a great influence to me for the past five years and an inspiration for many works and works still in process.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
In Beijing I co curate with Tony Scott on an exhibition titled Process/Journey
look for blog processjourney.blogspot.com and an exchange between Brisbane and Taipei called panoramaview.blogspot.com or panoramaview.com these exchanges take about two years to bring to fruition after an enormous amount of time energy and money so please look.
look for blog processjourney.blogspot.com and an exchange between Brisbane and Taipei called panoramaview.blogspot.com or panoramaview.com these exchanges take about two years to bring to fruition after an enormous amount of time energy and money so please look.
My interest in cross cultural exchange has led me to follow a path to Taiwan and China to pursue projects that had the potential for cross cultural conversations between Australia and Asia.
In 2005 I recieve an Australia China Council grant to be a resident in Beijing for two months and Taiwain for one month and from this initial visit many others have followed and friends and networks have spread to the present day where I am still projecting ideas between east and west for future and current project.
This has been an enormous resource for my works from painting to digital to video and small scale animations.
In 2005 I recieve an Australia China Council grant to be a resident in Beijing for two months and Taiwain for one month and from this initial visit many others have followed and friends and networks have spread to the present day where I am still projecting ideas between east and west for future and current project.
This has been an enormous resource for my works from painting to digital to video and small scale animations.
This work explored notions of change in the environment over time I painted a circle of trees with mud and natural pigments in the Boondal Wetlands area. The talking circle was a collaborative work with Bianca Beetson who painted flags from natural pigments and wax to form a path in and out of the circle. The talking circle highlighted and ancient tidal mark from a century previous and a sacred aboriginal burial ground of the Turrubul people.
This blog is a journey through some of the many artistic and literal journeys of mind and matter that I have taken in the last few years. I will start with my environmental works and my continued love of nature and the way in which we need to show respect and concern for the life that we live on this planet.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
