Saturday, November 8, 2008

exploration of ideas for future works



ideas formulated for my last picture "sometimes"







exploring the use of colour and random lines




exploring text




exploring the use of land pattern



exploring the use of our veins



exploring the use of text







exploring the use of text over a painting

Friday, October 17, 2008

Other works that relate to my major project



"The strangled City"
This work was inspired by the amount of people that live in the city and how cities are sufficating and how humans are tangled and entwined within the life of a city.




"Drying up"
This work was inspired by the water shortage of Brisbane 2008, where the river has become a dry bed.



"Vunerable"
This work is related to being exposed to the core and feeling vunerable.

my finished series of work



Name: 'Sometimes'
Medium: Oil, tar and newspaper

This work was the last one I did and was inspired through the processes of research on my first project. This work depicts where we are in our life, at some point we are either at the top of the tree of life but always just on the verge of hanging on and then other times we are resting at the bottom comtemplating where we are, with the metaphor of using organs and animals as symbols of life.



Name: "Silent Killer"
Medium: Oil and tar

This work was inspired on a parrell with our rivers and streams clogging up but still pushing through like the veins of life like the workings of the insides of our living bodies.



Name: "Growth"
Medium: Tar, undercoat, conte and charcoal

This work was inspired through the death of my sister and the growth one goes through to come out of grief.









Name: "Fragility of Life" Series of 3 paintings
Medium: Tar, undercoat and pen

My original work is inspired through the enviroment and our own personal lives and how life is a fragile existence, tittering on destruction as we swim along in our life plan attached to our umbibical cord through all the ups and downs but always somehow moving forward even within change, destruction or deterioration.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Proposal and time line

This proposal is for work towards my exhibition for graduating diploma students.

Through this initial stage of researching and narrowing down of ideas and accumulating references, artists influences, sketching ideas ect , I intend to work on 3 canvases in a drawing/painting method continuing across all three canvases in relation to "the fragility of life" with the use of line, movement, composition and style, limiting my palette probably in organic tones.

By week 7 I would have completed my initial work phase and exploration of surfaces and ideas and hopefully have started on my major project.

Weeks 8 - 14 worked on my 3 major canvases as per plan called "Fragility" and after being happy with them moved on to my next idea of a figure and words called "growth". This work came about through brainstorming words and then from further research of our waterways and the internal workings of the human body was inspired to do two more works, one in oil based on rivers and veins called 'silent killer' and the other in oil and tar and newspaper called 'sometimes'.

All up I produced 6 paintings going pass my expectations and am very happy with them and may continue on this theme for little while longer.

Artist Statement

...from one life giving force to another, we tumble gently through this world, winding around, screwing up, finding ourselves, breaking down, life from death, squeezing forth through this our fragile world....

Drawn to the ritual and primitive elements of life,
Drawn to the act of mark making,
Drawn to nature and the preciousness of life,
Drawn to the fragility of life, never sure, forever changing, the beautiful, the sad, the ugly, the bad, the good, the ridiculous, the world we call life.


Generally, I have always been interested in drawing, line and mark making as well as the 3D aspect of sculpture. As a child growing up, I always scribbled in the sand, on rocks, in the trees or anywhere I could scratch or make a mark. I like to have movement in my work and looking back, there are always elements of nature, the organic and figurative throughout it. I like to prepare my drawing surfaces with layers of paint, splashes, marks and stains, by rubbing, splashing and dribbling paint and am happiest with my work when it is a fast and spontaneous.


I am learning to plan my concepts more and work through a thought process and discovering different methods and techniques with paint. Through the exploration of my previous work and my interests in the fragility of our world and the environmental problems we are facing and the fact that water is our most precious commodity, that out of water grows everything and that the river and streams are the veins and life force of our world, are some areas I am exploring. Also through a personal experience with cancer and the increasing numbers of this disease and the ripple effect it causes on peoples lives, on a parallel with our environment, something lives, something dies how something always grows out of something, even in grief is another area I'm exploring.


I would like my art to be a spontaneous reaction to a deeper problem employing the use of line, texture, shape, rhythm, movement and emotion.

Some great quotes

"Art is not so much a talent as character, it's what you are the qualites of the person" J. Olsen


"There are ways of making a picture but there is no known way of making a work of art. Art is an affair of the heart - a love if you like" J. Olsen


"The purpose of drawing is to make fressness permanent" Brett Whiteley


"The application of natural beauty and the painting of landscape is a normal and enduring part of our spirtual activity" unknown


"The primordial right of an artist is to be the consciious architect of his own ideas" Picasso

Artists that inspire me











John Wolsey his delicate portrayal of the Australian Landscape
www.johnwolsey.net
www.theage.com.au



Giogio Morandi - for his limited palet, negative space and use of paint
www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibition/morandi
www.ceramicstoday.com/articles/morandi







Marisa Purcell - use of paint and movement
www.hillendart.com
www.artbeatsydney.com.au
www.lostateminor.com







Kelly Moore- abstract style and application of paint
www.kellymoore.com







Edgar Degas - use of line and movement
www.metmuseum.org
www.artst.org/degas










John Olsen - for his loose line, application of paint and storytelling
www.qag.qld.gov.au
www.clivejames.com
www.timolsengallery.com







Ian Fairweather - use of line, washes and style
www.qag.qld.gov.au/collections/australian
www.artaustralia.com/article







Guy Maestri - for his layering, style and line
www.timolsengallery.com






Caroline Magerl - for the application of paint and style
www.cmagerl.com
www.impressionsonpaper.com.au






Cy Twombley - for his love of loose line, texture and style
www.nytimes.com/.../arts
www.artnet.com/artist
www.artgallery.nsw.gov
www.abcnet.au/arts/visual/stories







Brett Whiteley - use of washes, drawing and composition
www.brettwhiteley.org
www.schubertcontempary.com.au
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au






Alberto Giometti - for his use of line and fragile figures
www.moma.org/exhibitions/2001/giocometti
www.guggenheimcollection.org

other inspiration on " fragility"













From the book "A Teaspoon of Courage" by Bradley Trevor Greive, 2006

inspiration from the twisting tree limbs