Gallery artist Lisa Roet has been busy of late. Since closing her first major solo exhibition in New Zealand she has been working with master printmaker Martin King and the team at the Australian Print Workshop on a suite of new etchings. The works will be exhibited and available for sale via the APW gallery. Stay tuned for details.
Rhys Lee was the feature of a Mr Blanc and Broadsheet Melbourne collaboration this week.
portrait of Tim Silver 
Heather B. SwannHBS: When I started to think about a new body of work to show at Karen Woodbury I immediately considered the rectangular space. There is nowhere to hide so I decided that the work should read as a whole, as an installation rather than a group of works. As usual I started by spending some weeks drawing. I have been making sculpture for nearly twenty years now so each exhibition is a chance to start something new but inevitably I start where I left off last time and loop back on old ideas, take the chance to refine forms that I have worked on before - I can fill a whole sketchbook with tiny refinements of just one shape. A woman’s thigh can mutate into a horse’s head and then into the barrel of a gun… A dog’s head can align with a bicycle seat and then become a Picasso bull’s head pun. A man’s exaggerated long back becomes a bone and at the same time it becomes a cock. The drawing process is messy and wild and fun. I usually take over our dining room table as well as working in the studio. This time I kept coming back to the bone shape. At the same time I was reading Suttree by Cormac McCarthy. This is a very intense novel, it is not as violent as some of his other work but the feeling is raw – down to the bone.
Pablo Picasso bull's head 1943
A working drawing from Heather's sketchbook
KWG: So the drawing is instrumental. You always draw in black ink and your sculptures are nearly always black. Is there a link?
HBS: Yes. I started making art as a printmaker – this is not as straightforward a link as it could be but I do think that working with all that rich beautiful black ink captured my soul. I started out making etchings that were very figurative and full – I was enraptured by the works of Hieronymus Bosch just like many art students – by the freedom that the visions of the Temptations of St Anthony give any artist. When I discovered sculpture I merely translated the figures that I had been drawing and etching into three
dimensions. I used colour and decoration and was excited about it. And then I was awarded a residency to spend five months in Paris – this was my first travel out of Australia – and everything changed. I spent nearly every day of that five months in the Louvre and other museums and galleries – I discovered history through objects. I found myself going further and further back in history – I started to dream of falling into shapes – those shapes were simple and refined and worn with time. I wanted to throw everything away and start again, so I did. I dispensed with colour and decoration and narrative and concentrated on form and profile and curve. I dressed those forms in black – it could have been white, but not colour.
All through this I kept drawing in black ink on white paper and gradually the drawings too became simpler, less about telling a story and more about form. I am not trained in drawing and merely use it as a vehicle to get ideas onto paper. This suits the way I work as a sculptor – capturing a black edge against white – the profile of a black sculpture in a clean space.
Heather B. Swann Hyper-text 2010
KWG: Can you tell me how you translate the drawing into sculpture?
HBS: During the drawing I eventually manage to draw something that looks like a sculpture that I would like to make. Then I start – wood, modelling clay, glue, nails etc. I never have 12 drawings of sculptures and then 12 sculptures. One feeds off another, one leads to another. There will be many drawings that simply play around with ideas and forms that can never be realized – these drawings just pile up and I go through them over and over again or pin them up on the studio wall.
This time I started by making the bone that is like the long back of a man – it became a long back to bear the weight of a monkey. I was reading around the folklore and phraseology of the monkey on your back and discovered that a monkey with a long tail is slang for a mortgage – this rang true with my current financial struggle and also suited my penchant for an elegant serpentine curve. I always work like this – a drawing, a curve, a form comes together with a situation, an idea; this will fit a line from a song, a feeling, an art historical reference, a joke or a weight and then they will fit with a making technique, a material.
The long man’s back led to making the raw woman bone that became the sculpture Equestrienne. A feeling of raw desperation but also a quiet nod to Brancusi’s Princesse X and a good old fashioned belly laugh with Bourgeois’ Fillette. The double-backed beast brought those two backs together and sees them rutting on the floor in the corner. I have been drawing these two backs for years – they used to have legs but through the drawing process they had become simpler, more connected and now they had found a place.
Heather B. Swann Equestrienne 2011
The rat and the dog are simply two more troublemakers to join in the fun with the monkey. That dog will always be waiting for a bone. The rat is a boner, a huge shunga print phallus. The bicycle thieves can also read like two boners checking each other out, but equally they are two birds, two Venetian masks, an impossible journey. I really do not have any reasoning with this one, it was a drawing and became a sculpture.
The long back bone had become so luxurious and like a weird chaise lounge, I liked it but I was not prepared to let everything settle into such comfort so I drew out the bones of the spine into a spiky barbed whip. And then I made it. And hung it. And was a little frightened.
Heather B. Swann Barb (detail) 2010
KWG: It sounds as if things can get a little out of hand in your studio…
HBS: Yes, I like that!!
Heather working in the studio
Heather B. Swann | Bone | until April 30 2011 | info@kwgallery.com
The work featured in Lisa Roet's recent New Zealand solo exhibition also part of the White Night event has been the subject of the Art on a Saturday morning programme on Radio New Zealand National, a segment of Saturday morning with Kim Hill.
We are pleased to launch the highly anticipated exhibition of works by Heather B. Swann this evening from 6-8pm. The show will be officially opened by Professor Sasha Grishin AM, FAHA The Sir William Dobell Professor of Art History, Australian National University.
John Pule: Hauaga (Arrivals) is the first solo exhibition of Pule’s art to be shown in a public gallery presenting a landmark survey of work by a living contemporary Pacific artist. The exhibition actively demonstrates the reach of Pule’s work, varying art forms and cultures, drawing from the historical and contemporary across the Pacific, New Zealand and further afield.
White Ape II 2011Documentation of human/nature relationship
What are you working on now?
I am currently working on a series of etchings based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, The Murders in the Rue Morgue as part of an Australian Print Workshop Scholarship.
work in progress at the Australian Print Workshop
And I have been working a series of sculptures for Karen Woodbury Gallery, based on the palm lines of a particular chimpanzee that I worked with, and it’s called lifeline. It’s been a very complicated process what I am trying to do is extract those lines through a digital process and turn them into three-dimensional objects so these works will be quite abstract pieces but based on this individual line / palmistry of one ape. Was that while you were in Borneo? No it was from a zoo in Atlanta. It has been interesting as it is technically challenging but we’re getting somewhere. I think it will be quite an interesting work that fits both in my practice but is also going in a different direction as well. What type of materials will you be using? Not sure. I haven’t worked that out yet – I’m still working on the technical side of it... it could be bronze.
untitled 2011
And the third project? I am working on finishing off a series of monkeys [sculptures], which are based on putting together pieces of information that I have been collecting at the Melbourne Museum and other research - of extinct and near extinct monkeys. I have already made three and there are three more to do.
Melbourne Museum archives
Grizzle Face Langure 2009 (shown at the 2010 Melbourne Art Fair)
Who / what inspires you to keep making your work?
That’s a really good question. Every time I stop I want to start again. So it’s always good to stop to get that feeling of desire to do it again. It’s just a necessity I have been making art since I was a teenager. I don’t know how to do anything else to be honest! I think when you make art it isn’t necessarily for a tangible reason but rather a physical thing.
I do see things that really inspire me. I really love the documentary work of Werner Herzog. Every time I see one of his documentaries I get really inspired. I feel like he is totally on the same wavelength as what I am doing with what he is doing with his docos and his weird dark sense of humour.
Tell me about your background. What path led you to become an artist?
My mother and father used to collect art and they always liked to show me art. My mum used to take me to a lot of galleries and my father used to take me to museums. So it was in our family, an interest in art. It really came down to an art teacher who encouraged me to take it more seriously and she basically pushed me into going to art school. I did want to study some kind of science like zoology but I did badly in physics at school stopping any further education in science. It’s amazing you can end up doing what you want to do in a roundabout way? My stepmother gave me about a year or so ago this IQ test they had done on me when I was about 11 (roughly 1978) and it said I should do something that’s in between art and science. I don’t agree with those tests but isn’t that bazaar? The things it said about me were so true. I’ve got this really selective interest path and I show no interest in general knowledge or Hollywood stars names, etc and I can be quite focused, I suppose.
studio
What does a typical day in the studio involve?
A typical day in the studio involves basically just turning on my CD’s getting into it. I tune in quite quickly to what I am working on. I have to go across town a lot for foundry and production so there’s quite a bit of that and I also go to the zoos and museums so there’s a crossing of being in the studio and research. How often would you go to the zoo or museum? Quite often depending on where I am at with a project I would spend half a day. Sometimes I would do the whole week of just research if I’ve got something.
ham (astro chimp) #40, 2010
(part of an ongoing series available from Karen Woodbury Gallery)
What is your dream project?
I want to do big big big works! I was shortlisted for a commission in Sydney, which unfortunately I didn’t get but it was my dream project with a huge budget. The work I proposed was two very large bronze chimpanzee hands where people could walk through them. I would love to do a really large bronze work - like seven metre high.
If you could live with any artwork ever made what would it be?
www.lisaroet.com
Titania Henderson has been selected as a finalist in the 2011 Manningham Victorian Ceramic Art Award. The exhibition will officially open this Wednesday March 30 with the announcement of a winner, from 6pm. The exhibition will run until Saturday April 16. Read more about the award and view a catalogue here. If you would like more information about available works please email the gallery on info@kwgallery.com
We have received and installed 6 works on paper from Del Kathryn that become part of our Basic Instinct exhibition. If you haven't yet had an opportunity to view the show you have just one more week - until March 26.
Kate Rohde’s collaboration with Romance was Born keeps on going! You may remember our Renaissance Dinosaur exhibition back in 2010 which bought together some of the signature pieces from the collection of the same name. We were excited to spy some more of Kate’s new collaborative designs in this years LMFF 2011, Runway 1.
The incredibly talented Kate Rohde has had a busy 12 months with projects ranging from fashion runway shows to a solo exhibition at the Tokyo University Museum. As an offshoot to Kate’s art practice she has been experimenting with wearable resin pieces… stay tuned for more news on this project.
We are just about to receive a new delivery of Kate’s exquisite vitrines (please email us on info@kwgallery.com if you would like to preview these works). Also new in the gallery is a display of Kate’s jewel hued crystal resin cuffs - available in 2 sizes.
We've just heard from Jonathon Nichols who has settled in Liverpool as the current Australian resident artist working from the Static Studios in Roscoe Lane for the Liverpool Biennial. You may recall we blogged about Jonathon's Australia Council Grant here?
As part of the Auckland Arts Festival galleries across Auckland will be open late this weekend with events lined up for all art lovers. WHITE NIGHT is on this Saturday March 12 with over 50 participating venues.
Basic Instinct signals the kick off of our 2011 exhibition schedule. We have loads instore for the year including solo exhibitions by Heather B. Swann, Monika Tichacek, Rhys Lee, Michael Cusack, McLean Edwards, Marie Hagerty, Michael Doolan, Del Kathryn Barton and Lionel Bawden, so stay tuned to all of our updates.Basic Instinct is a group exhibition bringing together the work of eleven contemporary Australian artists for whom drawing is an essential element of their practice.
Alongside eight of our gallery artists we have invited Patrick Doherty, Lorraine Heller-Nicholas and Simon O'Carrigan to be a part of the show which aims to locate the intrinsic, subliminal and instinctive quality that drawing holds for the exhibiting artists.
Head to our website to find out more about this exhibition and the exhibiting artists, including pricing.
Gallery artist Jane Burton and partner Fabrice Bigot have been busy collaborating on some film projects. Their most recent film Imitation of Life (a dual video installation, 3:30min) was recently awarded Winner - Best Experimental Film at the Three Minute Film Festival in Indiana USA.
Inspired by the international exhibition The Art of Chess, Bendigo Art Gallery commissioned thirteen of Australia’s leading contemporary artists make a work in response to the game of chess. Michael Doolan, Lionel Bawden and Kate Rohde were each invited to make a work for the show, Your move: Australian artists play chess, and was exhibited late last year at the Bendigo Art Gallery.
The work of Del Kathryn Barton and Lara Merrett will feature in Wattle - the first major survey exhibition of contemporary Australian art in Hong Kong. The exhibition will take place at the Cat Street Gallery and features a curator’s pick of forty-five artists currently working in Australia and includes painting, sculpture, photography and mixed media installation. The exhibition will open on Saturday February 26th from 6pm.
Magda Matwiejew's film Pretty Ballerina has been nominated for the best Experimental Film at the Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto, Canada.
Gallery artist Locust Jones along with other well known Australian artists and a group of teens from Lurnea High School will participate in the exhibition, Subtext: Art for Literacy presented by the Australian Literacy & Numeracy Foundation at Carriageworks.
Del Kathryn Barton will speak about her new series of drawings especially created for the freehand exhibition at Heide Museum of Modern Art tomorrow at 2pm.
