I’m currently in the thick of installing work for the Hobsons Bay City Council initiative, Art in Public Places.
Three sites and I have two days left(!).
The first site, is at Mason St Newport. And outdoor site, brick wall and asphalt footpath. Once the previous artwork was removed from the wall, it revealed what I had to work with; a painted brick wall, with some damage. I painted it a pale grey all over for the base coat.
Working outdoors has presented some challenges I’m not used to. For starters, it gets dark of an evening – earlier and earlier now that we are headed to shorter days. So I have needed to work around my other commitments and daylight. But not only that, the weather has been hits and misses since the weekend, with intermittent showers.
The second site, the Transit Gallery at Substation, 1 Market St, Newport. A series of six large, square billboards, space along the side of the historic Substation building. The previous work had the boards painted black, so I have spent the morning painting them to my choice of the same grey as the Mason Street site. I will be linking the two sites, by using analogous colours and forms.
The third site is a hanging of seven of my works on board/canvas which will be available for sale at Mies Cafe, 85 Hudsons Road, Spotswood.
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Looking forward to continuing these linked site specific paintings. The sketching I did before starting the works, seems to me to be quite necessary, even if I completely disregard those plans once I’m working in the site. That can be the cause of more than a little anxiety when you have a show like this one approaching and feel a bit marooned – not quite able to start yet as they are site specfic and ephemeral works, but wanting to make good work. I stared at the blank wall for a few minutes, standing in the site and then I started to imagine how the colours and forms would unfold across the walls and footpath. I set to work, painting with the most glorious molten chocolate brown…
Hoping to be able to have a good crack at it tomorrow morning to complete it.
