Eastern Suburbs Art Group

 When I waas down in Melbourne in January I saw this show, which sort of bookends the 'Dangerously Modern' show in Sydney at the same time. One show specifically about women photographers, but with a global perspective. The other show about women in Europe in the 1st Half of last century.  Writing about the Sydney show I said it was comprehensive, actually it was enormous. The guard knew how many works were on the walls. Aat the NGV I tried the same trick but the guard was not able to tell me. At the NGV there were many different subjects, as they were in the Sydney show. The photographs were sometimes portraits, urban landscapes, photos of children. A range of different things. The diversity of subjects was proof of the intensity with which the artists worked. And they were aware they were making art. The NGV show is still running if you want to see the works. When I was there it was sunny and warm and I stopped at a food van outside to get lunch. There was a fashion show on ...

These wall sculptures are evocative of space, they sort of create space but of course they are just sitting on a wall so they also do not. But the intent is there I think. At least this is what seemed to me to be going on. At one point in our discussion the artist referred furthermore (Ihadn't mentioned anything rleated at the time) to negative space. Mainly when I think of this phrase I think of a particular Romantic poet whose intent has never been fully understood even by most of the Elites. Also in this regard I think of Chinese painting, and because Pollard's work is mainly black (and since the gallery walls - most interior walls actually, these days - are white) my mind raced to pictures in ink of, say, carp or perhaps a wren on a slung branch. One day I will be in a position to revisit this misunderstood phrase alongside the artist, we both belong to the Tree Veneration Society. In the gallery I stayed talking for a while, probably most of an hour. THis is a good way to ...

 These luminous organic abstract works play with colour and texture. Colleen says the impasto ground goes on first, making shapes of texture suggestive of geological formations. Bright red or vivid green the canvases string colour along a wall. They are like Christmas decorations, unchallenging and intuitively interesting. I haven't worked out what it is about colour, but it is central to who we are. Humans live in a wold of colour, we use colour to communicate, to survive. Frances uses colour to entertain and this is perhaps the most rewarding use of colour there is.

Organised or at least publicised through a community art society I belong to, this show was only up for a few days. I dropped off the work on Thursday and the main event was the Friday, then I picked up the work on the Saturday. There was a talk in the church about Van Gogh's religiosity (his father was a Protestant pastor) which was very interesting because most of contemporary commentary on such painters is rigidly secular. The truth is that Van Gogh was alive 150 years ago. It's so amusing how we can easily give credence to the outdated ideas of Marx and Engels but willfully ignore the completely comprehensible ideas of people living even later than them. It only takes a few seconds to see the reason in this view. Marx was publishing in the 1850s and Van Gogh was painting in the 1880s but somehow Marx is more contemporary than Van Gogh. The absurdity is astonishing. But unfortunately this is the commonplace we worship these days. I was incredibly lucky to bump into two frien...