Fracture Below – VCA Graduate Exhibition

The VCA Grad Show took place on in late November.  Here are a few shots from the work I made there.  It covered a great deal of space, including a long hallway and a small space on the floor below which was connected by the lift, hence the title Fracture Below.  The work downstairs was the last work you saw, before taking the lift to the next floor and coming out inside the work.

I attempted to narrow my colour palette in this work.  Focussing on a more traditional landscape colours like blues and greens.  I found myself still quite attached to the contrasting colours.  I perhaps allowed a few too many in, I had wanted to include just a few contrasts but mainly focus on the blues and greens to evoke more of a landscape feeling than before.  In my next large scale work, I think I will focus more still on a narrow selection of colours.

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Fracture

The past month has been full of stuff.  I completed my research paper and submitted it, which was to discuss the issues present in my work and situate my work within an historical context.  It was quickly apparent that five thousand words wasn’t going to allow me delve too exhaustively into all aspects of my work, but I was able to cover part of it.  It was a great opportunity to learn about my practice and what drives it.  I may post a few excerpts in future posts.  Alongside this research paper submission, was my major project.  This was a major artwork installed so it could be assessed for half an hour and then taken down.  Ohhh the days it took to create for half an hour!  Actually, it was probably alive for 3 or 4 hours in total.  It now lives on in jpegs.  Oh those jpegs!  I’m still rather mourning it – it is the occupational hazard of the artist making ephemeral installations.

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Gesture Cut in Window

For quite some time, I’ve been pondering the possibilities of installing work onto glass, thus having no visual barrier between the inside and the outside, but also approaching it as two-sided depending on the site.  I was pleased to be included in a recent group show at D11 @ Docklands, an ARI (Artist Run Space).

Applying large sheets of vinyl to glass without leaving creases and bubbles behind can be incredibly difficult.  Using a water sprayer liberally (very liberally) usually does the trick, but it’s still very hard especially if you’re doing it with only one pair of hands as I was.  So, like any awesome person with lactic acid flooding their arms held aloft, I enlisted the help of my head on more than one occasion.  Quite the sight, I’m sure.

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Homemade Festival 2013

The Homemade Festival wrapped up a couple of weeks ago.  Dancers/performance artists, visual artists and a photographer came together over the space of about almost a year to develop works for this show.  I found the experience fantastic, especially being exposed to how artists in different disciplines (particularly dance and movement) spoke about their work.  I was surprised by how similar their creative process was, in many ways, and found even the vocabulary they spoke with was similar too.

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Span Shapes Becoming Something

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Today’s studio time was quick but fruitful.  I had done all the thinking already, so when I arrived, I was woman on a mission.  I stuck my span shapes up, overlapping and crossing a corner (of course) and set to work cutting out some purple brushstroke silhouettes, without a brushstroke for a guide.  With all the time I’ve been spending ‘studying’ brushstrokes, this was a surprisingly easy feat.  I then painted off the vinyl and directly onto the wall.  I’m trying to be a bit looser in the way I’m using vinyl.

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Span Shapes

Today I am in the studio.  I have been writing my research paper, or worry about my research paper a lot lately, and it has kept me from making.  Today I am making.  Having had some feedback recently where a few things were brought to my attention, which I was not seeing, I am trying to begin to change.

I am toying with the idea of not cutting out the brushstrokes exactly as I have been.  Maybe giving them more room.  Maybe even changing up the order of doing things.

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Pink Aurora

At the end of July, I was fortunate enough to be included in Luminescence, a group exhibition at the Hotel Windsor, with a $10,000 prize for the winner, to celebrate the 130th year of the hotel.

Here are a few photographs of my play with a few ideas beforehand.  I was painting into photographs and imagining the lobby of the hotel with my broad strokes swathing across its ornate vaulted ceilings and walls.

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Twins

With very late notice, I was included in the VCA Honours show and I had to put together something very quickly.  I have been experimenting with using two different colours as vinyl backing, sticking them to each other before painting on them and then cutting them out and applying them.  This has proven a very tricky process.  Sticking vinyl onto vinyl which hasn’t yet been adhered to a hard flat surface is incredibly difficult, but I got there (after a fair amount of wasted vinyl).  Purple and green backing, with yellow and fluro pink ‘swept’ over the top.

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Brooming Brushstrokes

Sometimes posting unfinished work or work in progress online is daunting.  Exposing ideas and work that aren’t complete or even work that isn’t quite sure where it’s going.  It is perhaps part of the reason why I haven’t posted much lately.  It’s cool though, I’m big and brave – here is some of that work.

Using actual signwriter’s vinyl instead of book covering contact makes a huge difference to the possibilities of the work.  With contact, the vinyl paint doesn’t adhere very well and ends up peeling off – unwanted paint skins.  It’s also a bit rubbish at adhering to walls and floors.  It was good for testing ideas early on though.  Now I have been able to stretch out in my studio, rolling out metres of vinyl, pouring great globs of paint and then brushing it around with a broom.  Yes.  A broom.  I found one with lovely long bristles and I can push the paint around from a standing position with it’s long-enough handle.  Painting onto the floor arose out of need, to avoid runs and drips in my brushstrokes.  This way, the paint stays where I put it.

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