Over the past couple of days, this work happened – or part of it. This is a 100cm x 45cm work on 300gsm watercolour paper.  Paper has a memory.  How I wish it would remember the time when it was flat, not when it was on a roll.  Makes it really hard to flatten out and paint on without marking the paper. 

This work is a bit of a new direction (not really) and definitely a work in progress – this is not the finished product!  Acrylic, gesso, watercolour, graphite, vinyl on paper – and off paper?  Vinyl and wool.  The plan was to extend out from the paper with vinyl onto the wall, and from the paper to the floor with wool.

I’m not sure if this is a step backward from my wall works, or an extension of the idea.  But, it’s something I’m willing to explore – let’s not overthink, shall we?  I just like the presence of some form of painting tradition sometimes (like the frame or substrate), then I can ‘do stuff’ to them.

Here it is installed, with the addition of some more vinyl and wool extending to the floor, anchored by more vinyl.  In comparison to recent work, this feels positively minuscule!  But, it’s an interesting exercise.  This is about 2m x 1.5m.  This straddles 2D and 3D, not merely a drawing and not completely an installation.  I think I’d like to see this in series.  Maybe 6 of them, along a wall.  Individual works, or perhaps linked by a common anchor point.

Now we come to the sad part.  Saying goodbye to another artwork.  I pulled out the nails, collected all the wool, peeled off the vinyl and then I painted it (at length) back to white.

Covering red is a struggle!  It took two coats of grey and I can’t remember if it was 2 or 3 coats of white – it is a blur of sore-back and watching-paint-dry, literally.  Line Drawing Extrusion now lives on as photographs.  I actually slept badly the night before I painted over it.  I was worried about losing it forever.  That anxiety doesn’t usually go away until about halfway through the painting-out process.  But at that point, I start to get excited about the next thing I can cover a once-white wall with.  And I will be sending red to the backburner for a while, it’s pretty high maintenance.

These are some of the photographs from the Dimensions of Space exhibition.  It’s so hard to photograph a work that you walk into and around.  So I’ve captured lots of angles.  I’ve also taken some video footage which I will edit together in the next little while and post up here somewhere.

I’m really pleased with how the work has turned out. The negative space in the room is as important as the work itself – the places in the work that you can walk in to and think about yourself in relation to the work.  The lighting provides additional line drawings add extra punch to the wool ‘extrusions’.  Unfortunately, the yellow wool doesn’t show up very well in the photographs, but rest assured, there was plenty of it. 

‘Extrusion’ is such a nice word to describe what I wanted to do; pull apart a painting so we could walk in.  To extruuuuuuuude the lines and shapes so we could enter.

A lot of string.  Hundreds and hundreds of metres of the stuff.  Each of the three shows at the gallery have string in common and there was a bit of ducking and weaving to be done by the art-goers at the opening last night.  But I think a good time was had by all.  Myself included.

 

Saturday – Monday CLOSED, Good Friday CLOSED

Location: First Site Gallery, Storey Hall Basement, 344 Swanston Street, Melbourne
http://link.rmit.edu.au/first_site.html

The day had arrived.  The sun rose, just like any other day, but on this day I loaded up the car and hi-tailed it to the gallery to start installing my exhibition. What’s more daunting than a blank white canvas?  A white empty room when you have people coming in 36 hours expecting art and refreshments. 

I remembered the overwhelming feeling of white from last time and knew not to be too put off by it.  The secret seems to be, just put all your stuff in the centre of the room and get cracking.  It was much more exciting than last time actually.  I feel much further along than I was back then, and more confident in the work I’m making now.  Yet, I digress…

Here are a few pictures of the work ‘in pieces’.

I planned this work to cover a certain amount of the wall.  But during the process, I realised I needed to go further around the corner.  Thus omitting work I had planned to do.  Oh well, that happens.  In doing so, I didn’t anticipate how much longer it would take me to work on something double the size.  It took me pretty much the full two days to complete the work.  Including looking time.

I worked alone, although by halfway through I wished I had someone to help me.  They would have needed to be able to read my mind, and I didn’t think that would be a possible achievement in the space of two days. 

The length of time it took to install the work enabled me to ponder the various elements and because of this, I added another shade of grey and some other shapes, which I think just finish it off nicely.

Pics of the finished product to come…

Squee!  I am super excited about my exhibition, Dimensions of Space, and it opens in just 3 days!  Not nervous.  Just a touch of the ol’ racing-mind, trying to get all the ducks in a row in my head.  And lists!  Oh, the lists I have.

Have been passing these around, shamelessly self promoting myself.  I’m sure I’d have given you one, if I’d seen you.  But do make sure you come along.

I have been looking at my lists and checking them twice (groan), and I think I’m practically ready.  Just a few bits and pieces to pick up, a tin of paint here and a roll of tape there, and I’ll be ready to start installing.  I anticipate it will be a pretty labour intensive couple of days.  Of the four artworks in the show, three don’t yet exist – I’ll be installing them Monday/Tuesday.

And in breaking news – I have decided to scratch one work, in favour of another.  Was reviewing photos of a corner of the gallery that has been causing me concern.  I just don’t think what I planned is going to work in that space.  So, I have decided to make an all new work, that’s never seen the light of day before.  Site specific, with colours I have been working on.

It appears I’m a bit of a colourist.  I play with colour in my journal, check site and go back to my journal, long before putting paint to wall.  But I also work intuitively, decide what should be added as I go – I don’t plan it all out ahead of time.

Detail is minimal in the picture, but that’s a flat aqua house paint, watercolour and wood-grain-look vinyl.

So now you’ve had a sneak peak.  Come along and see what it morphs into in the ‘flesh’.