Eastern Suburbs Art Group

Smith took a 2.5 month residency organised by Randwick Council. She would go down to the beach. She took photos of underwater features - rocks, steps - through the shallow water. She said normally the water was clear. For the first time I had spoken with her Smith revealed to me an influence, Berenice Abbott. This photographer had made photos of evidence of frequency by visiting scientific labs. On the other hand Smith herself uses the natural environment. The show is titled 'Precious Water' and is closed now. The day I met Smith there it was raining, I had some lunch from a small cafe nearby.

Had to go to the conservators wo while up north I popped into Manly Art Gallery. This show is a bit of a mixed bag. There are some items more interesting and others less so. Jennifer Turpin's sculpture is quit vivid, made also from seaweed derived materials (see above).  Danielle Creenaune's striking print (see above) has a looseness that is at odds with the form.  For personal reasons I liked Georgia Macfarlane's Poppey rendition of the suburban oasis (see above). Often it's Aboriginal artists who adopt the naive style in paintings, but not here. Louise Fowler-Smith's extraordinary paionting of a flower (see above) really stood out however. THere's something powerful and ambiguoous about the rendition of a flower.

 I was down in Melbourne for a few days. I popped into No Vacancy which is in like a shopping centre, surrounded by restaurants. It's a novel experience. These works are nudes and they are rendered in a delicate style with an excess of form. The semi sharp angles of the legs, torsos, arms, heads combine with a realistic palette. It's difficult to find analogues and I haven't really seen anything like this though obviously Lucien Freud comes to mind. Feeling tired from all the walking and not liking too much socialising I left before the opening began. Spoke with the gallerist for a while though as she was putting out wine glasses.

I was in the area to meet Natasha and we had a coffee then dropped by the gallery. It was a rainy day. The walls inside the gallery held colourful embroideries. Leslie Lockwood's minimalist works in soft colours are not big but they seem to burst out of their frames. See below. Joanne Steele's abstract designs are also forceful and solid (see below). The gallery is staffed. It's a bright and airy space. There are lots of windows to enable the outside light to filter in. Parking in the area is a bit difficult at times, the train station is close by.

To get to this show took weeks of effort. Things kept cropping up. Events got sheduled. At last a friend agreed to go with me and I was able to find two days running. These larger paintings are huga and really probably will only work in a public setting. I have seen Dober's smalol works up close before but this was the first time in a while I had seen the multi panel works in real life. I think I had seen some in Windsor years earlier. They shimmer and dance. They seem to move. They are engrossing and complex. They do more than an artwork is ucually expected to do. They entrance. There was a small group of people there when I came to the front entrance from my car. The people asked if I was in the drawing group. I said no. Many Australiuan towns have a big something. Taree has the big oyster in the Kia sales yard. I thought about my ruthless will in organising the trip. In fact I felt like a big oyster. But I made it happen. Actually the big oyster is grotesque. As if the builders ...

Somehow this artist's works manage to be figurative, the mass of brushstrokes culminating in an image taken from the natural world. It's sort of like a revelation. I have seen his work at this gallery for years, many years ago I thought of buying one. Maybe it's the next stage of figuration after Fred Williams. What is it about the landscape in this country that drives artists to such depths of expression. I think Jun Chen who shows at Nanda/Hobbs sits on the same spectrum. Whatever it is it's great. I really enjoyed looking at Pennock's works this time. No doubt he'll be back again next year for another showing.

This was another stop on the Rushcutters Bay gallery walk. The works seemed a good fit for the particular gallery. It's not unusual to find a show like this with similar items for sale. Apologies if I'm not being clear. What I mean to say is that these items look similar. But this is normal in Sydney, and probably elsewhere. In fact the titles of the works are as interesting as the works themselves. Grounded, carved by memory, holding the story. I wondered who the artist was. Is. The gallery walk is worthwhile. Visiting commerical galleries is good fun, well if you're a little weird. Or if you don't mind wasting time. I usually go with friends.

The drawing is excellent but the meaning is hidden in the gloss. Something about gay airmen, fighter planes. I couldn't make it out. But the drawing, wonderful. Reminded me of this guy, I think name is David Salle. I think New York in the 90s, but really not sure. Anyway I liked Fuller's work.

This show is closed now but I went along on the opening night to see. I had bought one of the artist's works before at a different show. They are linocuts, large ones often. Sometimes they are coloured with paint and sometimes they are just the black ink. But the work below is a painting. There were a few people at the opening and I chatted with Susan and Vincent.  The linocut on the left in the top photo is striking. It is a scene of tress and nature, in a very dramatic phase. The trees seem to move. The leaves are dense and the execution is brilliant. A coloured version of the ame print was in another room.

I'd heard of this painter before but hadn't had the chance to see a group of his works together in one place like this before. These are from the 30s. There is something like contemporary illustration here, I mean they are very modern, ahead of their years. They look like they cd've been painted in 2019. Shades of El Greco. I quite like the simplicity, the reduced palette, the conception. The above is a portrait of Spencer done by a different artist. The Biblical themes of Spencer's works also suggestive. Old debates. An enduring spiritucalism. Questioning. But over all the works not flashy. They are as they should be. Communication, just getting the job done.

The heart of the city is remarkably empty esp on a weekend. You see all these security guards, from shopping centre owners, from the city government, and of course police. Because there's nobody around. Anyway i spent a bit of time in the gallery near the train station. Pushpa Kumari There was nobody in the gallery either. I sort of bobbed around like a fishing lure. Ryan Presley There seems to be more of a focus in WA, at least in the gallery, on contemporary Aboriginal culture, for example the painting above. Vincent Namatjira I loved the portrait of Gina Reinhart (see above) by possibly the most famous contemporary Aboriginal artist. So refreshing and real. Naturally mining is viewed differently in WA compared to the rest of the country (with possible exception of regional Qld). Revel Cooper The above painting beautiful with super saturated and almost cartoonish colours. Remainds me  of a painting granny bought when we were small, granny's painting hung over the dining table...

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...

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.