Creative Monsoon: australian art

Redbubble

On - Tuesday 28 July 2009

We're on redbubble! Now you can easily buy our images as prints, cards and canvases. Check out the site here.

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A few weeks ago I was flying over Lake Eyre which was actually flooded at the time. Looked like an amazing place to take photos. Sydney-sider Murray Fredericks has been photographing the area since 2003 and his latest pictures are just beautiful. So simple but so stunning.

You can view his latest exhibition 'salt' on his website

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australian art

Fire Water Festival

On - Saturday 13 June 2009

Friday night we went down to the harbour to check out Fire Water. Part of the Vivid festival of music lights and ideas. The Sydney Opera House was beautifully lit with abstract patterns along with the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) and few other light installations. If you can get to Sydney to check it out you'd better hurry, it's only on until Sunday.

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australian art

Happy Birthday Eiffel Tower

On - Wednesday 20 May 2009

The Eiffel Tower is 120 years old today! Happy Birthday! To celebrate Im offering free postage on my 'Love Paris' fine art print for the rest of the month! You can buy at my etsy store here.

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australian art

Archibald People's Choice

On - Friday 15 May 2009

Im really pleased to find that Vincent Fantauzzo's amazing potrait of the young actor Brandon Walters has won the Archibalds People's Choice award. I voted for it. Yeay!

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australian art

Lionel Bawden

On - Tuesday 28 April 2009

'The Roving Eye' image from Gigantic Artspace

'The amorphous Ones' image from GrantPirrie.com

You might need to look twice at the work of Lionel Bawden. These aren't just any old sculptures, they are made entirely from pencils!

His work 'The amorphous ones (the vast colon of our being)' won the Wynne prize for landscape recently.

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australian art

Archibald and Wynne Prize

On - Saturday 25 April 2009

"Motherland" by Joshua Yeldham

"Oyster Leases -Indigo Island" image from ArtHouse Gallery

"Half Moon River"

The Archibald and Wynne Exhibitions are coming to a close in Sydney so we made a trip to the gallery this weekend to see them.

By far my favourite work was 'Motherland' by Joshua Yeldham. It reminded me in some ways of a combination of Japanese silk painting and an Aboriginal artwork. Lines and marks were carved into it, and in places it has little piece of wood poking out which in certain light cast shadows that look like trees seen from the air.

The Archibald is on at the Art Gallery of NSW until 24 May.

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australian art

Outback patchwork

On - Monday 20 April 2009

A little sample of something new Im working on based on the outback, more to come...

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australian art

Art Gallery of South Australia

On - Sunday 19 April 2009

We checked out the Art Gallery of South Australia while we were in Adelaide. It's a good sized little gallery, enough to keep you busy for a couple of hours or so. But, warning... the gallery attendants are more than a little overzealous. Grumpy uniformed grouches that would seem more at home in some Eastern European dictatorship. But I digress...

My favourite work in the gallery I think has to be 'Rhinoceros' by James Angus, just for its total randomness. You turn the corner and there it is - a life sized fluorescent yellow rhinoceros. What makes it even more weird and wonderful is the fact that its attached sideways to the wall.

Photos from the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.

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australian art

More butterflies

On - Tuesday 7 April 2009

Butterflies are so popular still. I love this work by artist Mami Yamanaka called Continous Dream I. Its a very similar idea to the illustrations by London designers Kapitza that I mentioned a few months ago where the image is seen through a cutout. But I like in this instance the way the image doesn't fill the whole cutout.

Mami Yamanaka's work is available through Flinders Lane Gallery.

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australian art

Recycled art

On - Monday 30 March 2009

I caught the end of this piece on a program called Collectors this evening and was immediately struck by the beauty of these artworks. Lucia Usmiani uses recycled drink cans and bottles collected from household bins and transforms them into amazing works of art. Above the work is created by cutting up small pieces of aluminium drink cans, while below titled 'Wallflowers' is made from the bottom of PET plastic bottles pinned to the wall.

Images from the Despard Galery, Hobart.

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australian art

Latest work: Kookaburra collage

On - Sunday 22 March 2009

Just finished this weekend: a Kookaburra collage.

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australian art

Art Express: Brodie Murray

On - Sunday 8 March 2009

I love aerial views, photos or paintings. I think its the way it gives such a totally different perspective on an otherwise ordinary scene. Brodie Murray's work 'Urban complaxity, rural simplicity, innate automatism' are a bird's eye view on landscape.

There was something about them that reminded me straight away of John Olsons paintings, in particular '5 Bells' at the Art Gallery of NSW. Olsen's paintings often implied an aerial view.

If you're in need of some inspiration then check out Earthsong by Bernhard Edmaier. It's full of stunning aerial photography.

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australian art

Art Express: Angus Hardwick

On - Wednesday 4 March 2009

More from Art Express: I was very interested in some of the materials Angus Hardwick used to construct his work - 'Traces: stains, processes, memories' . I've used perspex in the past for my own work. It's a tricky material to work with, especially if you need to drill it, it cracks so easily.

I thought Angus had an interesting idea to cover the canvas with a delicate trasparent material and then sew into it. I can think of all sorts of interesting works to try this out on.

Don't forget Art Express runs at the Art Gallery of NSW until 9th April. Check it out if you can!

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australian art

Kookaburra sihouette

On - Sunday 1 March 2009

I thought I'd try this simple idea of painting a bird silhouette onto a material background to get back into some artwork. It's really easy to do, but pretty effective.

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australian art

Art Express: James Daly

On - Tuesday 24 February 2009

James Daly's work is a depiction of the mind just waking up from a dream - an amazing mix of colours, symbols, images and patterns. Just love it! See more from Art Express at www.insideartexpress.com.au

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australian art

Art Express: Elsie Brown

On - Wednesday 18 February 2009

Elsie Brown's beautiful combinations of illustration and collage explore the concept of memory and confabulation - the formation of false memories or the confusion of imagination with memory.

You can read more on the Art Express website.

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australian art

Art Express: Prudence Bell

On - Monday 16 February 2009

I'm so pleased that being back in Aussie means I'm around for the Art Express exhibition.

Art Express features the work of HSC art students from around NSW. There is always so much variety and so many ideas, its well worth a visit. Currently its showing at the Art Gallery if NSW until 9th April. I was so impressed with this years exhibit I thought I'd take some time and go through looking at each artists I particularly liked. Starting with Prudence Bell:

Her work is based around fractals and she has created some really beautiful images. Some of the work seems to have a resin or a thick orange/brown varnish underneath that has then been painted over. Other than that I dont know how she did it, but they are lovely to look at.

You can see more on art express here.

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australian art

Jeannie Mills Pewrl meets Monet

On - Wednesday 19 November 2008

There was something about the work of aboriginal artist Jeannie Mills Pewrl that reminded me of a Monet when I first saw it. So carrying on from my experiments last month I've combined the two and put a painting of Monet in the background.

We took some photos last weekend for out friends of their children. Despite falling in the pond before we'd even started - a quick wardrobe change - and we got some nice shots.

I've also been busy this week hunting the net for interesting things.... could these be jellyfish? shells? I like the idea for a painting. Love it when a blog post is colour co-ordinated. :)

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australian art

Jacaranda tree

On - Monday 3 November 2008

You've got to love a place that has purple trees! We're starting to settle into our new home in Sydney and I've started to get back into some artwork. These are a few tests for a series of work I'd like to do on Jacaranda trees. They are flowering at the moment and Sydney is covered in purple patches.