Eastern Suburbs Art Group

There's something familiar about Elabdin's small rough textured paintings. It's like you've seen them before somewhere but I'm not trying to say they are derivative. Just something about them that hit me. Maybe it's the colours. Ochredfern is known for its colourful artist gatherings. I dropped by when I had time free expecting to see a different artist. At least a diffrent artist had been advertised.  But then this. You'd probably say that Elabdin is a very spiritual artist. He paints not what he sees, or at least not what he sees from his worldly eyes. he seems instead to paint what he sees with his hidden eyes. 

This month I did a bit of community work. With the Tree Veneration Society, that is. It included a couple of street appearances in support of nature conservation. The TVS had sent in a proposal for an installation in Kandos but we weren't successful. There are more such efforts pending but in the meantime in light of Labor government inaction on protection of old growth forests we hit the streets. A man I spoke with named Michael suggested 1000 people but there was no way to verify from my vantage point. Everyone shouting except me. I calculated that just staying upright for three or four hours would sap all my strength and I was right, I collapsed when I got back home. No I didn't shout. The people about me seemed to enjoy the shouting which was enough, I decided to participate in vocalising vicariously. Rap, speeches from politicians (Greens). The day had it all. Actually the rapping was good, but again I didn't dance. Energy conservation yes that was it, gosh it's bo...

Connolly has an easy facility with the medium, the works on paper mainly. Some more ambitious than others (see below) the colour and line are competent and interesting if not inspiring. When I visited the gallery Connolly was on the phone so I had no chance to discuss the ideas with her. I felt like Connolly represents a distinct and important stage in Australian art, the primary consideration being one of gender. Other works had evidence of this and while the smaller works were nicely priced I didn't need to see more.  Humour can be important in art. In Connolly's case works that reached beyond the routine political tropes of popular debate successful.

The name of the show is 'Burgeon' a sort of synonim of "growing' or "expand", a more poetic solution to the problem of communication. The sculptures are really great, I went with mark a friend and we found we were talking a lot more as we were standing among these large objects than we had at the other shows we went to. Abstract yet with an anthropoomorphic cast. There is something direct yet subtle about the works. While we were standing there the gallerist put a little black sticker near one work. I asked Mark where you could put one of them in your house. Probably  you'd want a back yard, somewhere outside but secluded.

Getting recognition as an artist is a slog. You have a solo show or a group show, take down the works that are unsold, and put them away in storage or else hang them on walls at home. Pack  up your creations and go to ruminate, think possibly deeply, or else you just move on and make new work. Some time ago I decided to be a sustainable artist. It's only recently that the word came to me but I understand looking back that this was what I had in mind from the start. Of course this also has to do with lifestyle. Eating regular meals, seeing friends, keeping in touch with family. All of that, sure. But it's more about not piling up tons of work that never gets seen. Earlier this year I gave some works back to a colleague. We had had a show two years before and for some reason she left her work in my garage. In the end I contacted her as I want to free up space for my own things. Two years. She came by with a van and collected the paintings and drove off. Another way to use work, o...

Last week during the customary gallery crawl mark and i went to see Dean Bowen's paintings at Arthouse Gallery. I'm not so much a fan of Bowen's sculptures as it is his colour that is so wonderful. Many of Bowen's paintings had ladybugs on them, these plant protectors with their black sopts and red wing casings. Not the painting above, obviously, but many of the paintings had ladybugs on them. One that didn't was titled something like "barking up the wrong tree" giving the ladybugs a benign force. I have seen Bowen's paintings before and he always delights. The gallery was quite full on the night. Mark and I stayed for a while and moved on to a different outlet.

Arranged to meet Mark to gether a few images at the Rushcutters Bay open evening, we started at M Contemporary which has the evocative photos of Simone Rosenbauer. These were themed "Japan" but apart from the misty photo of Fuji san in clouds near the entrance I didn't see the speciic connection with that country. Perhaps this is my failing I can't say, but nevertheless I liked the photos though perhaps they are slightly too large?