How to approach an Artwork

Posted on April 22, 2010 by admin

This guide is for reference only. Try these procedures in art galleries in order to assimilate. Like a dance you should parade around the gallery, flirting with the art. Start by:

Choosing an impressively large piece of art preferably a painting.

Approach the artwork with confident strides.

Look convinced about how you must appreciate the artwork’s subtleties, especially if there aren’t any.

Put both hand on your hips and lean slightly back, observe the ‘workmanship’.

Remove your right hand and gently stroke your chin, as if to question your presupposed arrogance of your first appreciation.

Then walk forward and peer into the depths of it

Make a deep nasal noise that denotes an interest.

Then stroke your chin again.

Make a comment about preferring his (the painters) earlier works being less constructed and quote something from a book.

What is an Artwork?

Posted on April 20, 2010 by admin

Breakfast Club!

What is an artwork?

How do you formulate a constructive argument?

What makes you an artist?

Why make art?

What do you receive when discussing art?

When is an artwork finished?

How do you become an artist?

Does art have to be clever/ quirky to be good?

How do describe a practice, when you have tried to run away from a practice for so long? My ideas are based in the creation of an exciting environment where art can be understood and discussed. The first hurdle that I have had to overcome is that fact that in the discussion of artwork you must start with generic ideas in order to engage the audience. They seem to feel that we have art school inside joke where we can laugh at the uneducated. However I have found in discussion that we all fall foul of the “fear”.

Did I say the wrong thing? Did I insult the artist? Should I have drunk that fifth glass of wine?

I believed that I could dispel all these notions of the inside art joke by propagating the understanding that if one could easily describe a personal experience, then they can decipher the artwork of others through their own experiences. Which I thought would enable people to go into a gallery ‘situation’ without feeling intimidated. This I may add did not however improve the quality of the work!

I would like to describe my work as collaborative. I believe in the idea that two heads are better than one. Also the idea of having a working partner enables you to discuss your ideas openly instead of having a raging battle in your head (that never seems to go away). I have found that the artwork produced is always slightly bi-polar.

If you go to the pharmacy you are looking for a solution to a problem, usually an illness. The formula seems simple. Artists problems however have no simple prescription.

My work is a synergy between what is seen and the conversation that creates the work. I am less interested in the actual finished aspects of the final works. I more interested in the process of creating the artwork. The investigation gives rise to an organic process which usually is born out of the two dimensional field and grows into three and four dimensions. Ultimately I want the viewer to encounter an experience

The Nothing at West Space

Posted on April 20, 2010 by admin

http://www.westspace.org.au/images/stories/previews/20100401.jpg However, ‘The Nothing’ at West space, was a delight, trying to explore ‘the unknown and potentially unknowable aspects of human understanding’. The concept of the group show was to engage in the discourse of dissecting minimalism through construction and destruction of art objects and their materiality. The artwork was both mocking and reverential. It ranged from; simply playful and inviting work like E.T. made from a lamp projecting the shadow of a pair of scissors onto the wall with two tacks that created eyes, to the considered and delicate drawings of Daniel Price, to cinematically engaging media work of Damiano Bertoli. Where you are taken into the quietly serene, richly decorated show homes of what I presumed were Los Angeles. One engrossed you gradually you start to notice discrepancies in the visuals, a shark sticks out of a storage box. Some shots are sterile and still hallways with bold stairwells. Others pan around a bedroom, clothes strewn; you start to question why these anomalies weren’t corrected. Then moved quickly onto a bold piece of modernist furniture. Most importantly I appreciated the show was trying to throw up questions, not answers in a time when we always need to know the answer.