Eastern Suburbs Art Group

I booked a ticket to Perth and got there, got into the hotel, and drove to Wanneroo to see the Antipodean Manifesto exhibition but it was shut. Google said it was open but the gallery site said the opposite. From Wanneroo it was a quick 50 minute drive to Fremantle. This small port town is not far from the Parth CBD but anyway the motorways are so amazing in the western capital there wasn't a traffic light for 100km. I had some quick food then wandered a bit. The Shipwrech Museum is free to enter and I had time  so dropped by. For some reason these empty shells are in the display, something about making buttons from moother of pearl. I didn't spend a lot of time looking. There was also part of the hul l of a wrecked slave ship (see below). I think the ship had been a prize captured by the Navy following outlawing of the slave trade. Fremantle is a small town but it is sort of like Maroochydore or Manly,  pine trees and apartments. On the way back to the motorway passed Murdoch...

I wore a new shirt (see pic). The shirt was made from art show cloth, my tailor did a good job putting it together. The art show in question in Surry Hills. The show had one of my works. The work was picked up from the printers the same day I delivered it to the gallery, so ddni't really have time to check it out beforme hanging. Kate Riley did a good job with the hanging as usual. The opening event really packed (see pic above). Will go to collect unsold work this weekend. Some really nice works featuring the colour yellow. I particularly liked one linocut of a sun by Stephen Westgarth.

Anglo women and Chinese artists the standouts in this show. I went there recently one evening. I was alone and this didn't bother me as it allowed me to conentrate more on the drawings than might otherwise be the case. Sally Simpson Amelia Carroll They had a separate room for the contributions by Chiense artists. Whereas all the local artists seemed to be coming from one place -- don't get me wrong their work was often really excellent --  the Chinese artists offer a different perspective. Some surprising insights and new ways of seeing. Li Jiaman Anyway a good show. One issue with the curation is that with the Chinese names it's completely impossible to know if the artist is a man or a woman. Again the works are good enough to stand alone but this small item of information can be critical to the viewer's resonse to a work.

The artist is clever in introducing Instagrammable elements, pieces of signage, furniture, entire shopfronts. I mean people like to get photos to put online and the artist obliges. It's sort of cool and quirky as well as considerate. Maybe good busienss too, but the extra elements must increase the cost of showing. The above photo illustrates what I mean. Actually the major part of the show is in two movies. The movies are the primary method of conveying meaning. The viewer hunts for referents in the movies that he or she can relate to. The paraphernalia is just like extras. The above photo shows a movie on an outside screen, but there is also like a small theatre where a longer film showed. Much of the material relates to China's industrial development, but of course being China it's interlaced (not so much with romance but) with ideas to do with family. Underpinning the story from a plot perspective is technology transfer from Russia, China's old friend. Yes where rom...

Origianlly this show was to happen in May. Actually the planning started earlier in december when i  signed up for a residency. The outfit was in Brooklyn. It took the form of Zoom calls, sometimes very late at night. In fact early morning most often. But the residency fell apart. I pulled the plug when the convenor said, "In any case you have to eat chist." You're going to eat shit anyway. It was the last straw. I told the organisers I wanted to brainstorm the May show during the residency, I got about five usable pieces of information. Apart from the exhortation to "eat shit". I wondered if they would like it if they were told to eat shit. I still wonder. It's strange. Like what kind of art consirtium uses this sort of language. Uncool. Maybe that was the point. Ok so I missed the point. I didn't find out about this point until the residency was almost over, there were like two or three weeks left to run. I did get a partial refund but basically lost t...

Something tells me I saw this person't work at Peach Black in Chippendale some years ago. Having a distinct memory of the same types of works. The memory is definitely years old because I haven't been to Peach Black for a long time. The works themselves are quite entertaining, Poppey, light. But they have a certain knowing grin. I guess that this is something remarkable. I mean the works are remarkable because they visit places people seldom go to, which is the ways in which popular narratives (say, such as those contained in a novel) inhabit everyday life. I look forward to seeing more work by this artist.

My first impression of these dreamy landscapes was that they look like the covers of 19th C novels. But there must be some method in the artist's replication of almost exactly the same pattern in canvas after canvas.  And I'm not saying that I have seen precisely the same paintings elsewhere. What you are left with is this basic sense of something having been experienced. Perhaps that's the  point. Not a statement. Not a call to action. Not another sad complaint. Just a faint green smeared across linen. A gap between trees.  A far horizon. Faintly yellow air. While it seems facile it's surprisingly not. Actually not at all. It's not easy.  This is not to say that I thought about the paintings long after leaving the gallery. To say this would be to lie.  And I don't lie. What I can do is recall the company I was with. The types of conversations. The faces. The words, or at least some of them. Even my own. In Vlavianos' works you don't see the paint brushs...

So quiet around Mary Street you cd practically hear a leaf hit the pavement. Crash. Playoust has a nice line and great colour sense. It was sort of Rees meets Whiteley, but also Claes Oldenberg as a detour. Playoust added de Stael for good measure.  Playoust is very precise, but of course he's an artist. I told him about a street where we lived growing up. We would skateboard diagonally back and forward  across the descending face of th street then shoot across the busy road at the bottom, zip, heading down another street that then went and angled to the left. So sure he said but my scenes are in the countryside. Just look at the colours! A few people came into the gallery while I was there. I picked up my umbrella and left. The car parked on Oxford Street.

When I spoke with Graham he said he wanted to take photos but he wanted people to look at them like they were paint ings. What an amazing idea, I thought.  If you wanted to find the word that most easily epitomises the works perhaps 'atmospheric' would work well. Some of the prints are large. There are also sets that are designed to go in a triptych. They quickly grow on you. The immediate impact is there, but if you spend even a few minutes with one of these photos it's sort of like meditation. Obviously there's the influence of the Impressionists, Graham said. I saw a photo of tree leaves on a body of water. But, I thought, this could be anywhere in Sydney. I've seen this before. I guess that the only thing to do is to enjoy the works. I think the show is closed now unfortunately.

'Fork' has a stunning catalogue with the two artists' names in different inks. Kate said that she came up with the idea. The two lists are intermixed. Normally in shows with two artists the lists are kept separate. Kate and Felix run the gallery together. The two works above are Kate's, I think they would work really well  framed as a pair. Felix makes prints (see below) in a sory of Poppy style with bright colours and writing. I stayed til the end, there were a few people sitting round  chatting and just shooting the breeze. I also met Mark Elliot-Rankin who I've met before, but he wasn't among the oysters. Mark is a great conversationalist however. This show has unfortunately already ended.