30th September, 2011

breadtag world

These are certainly one of the most bizarre pieces of art I have yet to encounter. Some people create art with clay, canvas or paintbrushes, but artist Beth Taylor uses a multicolor cascade of bread tags. She’s created a solar system out of these pieces for her exhibition, Breadtag World. She has used over 12,000 tags to create amazing worlds and astronomical pieces.

She has collected the bread tags from all over Australia, from WA, ACT, NSW, SA and Victoria to New Zealand, Hong Kong, USA and Canada. USA has lovely orange and pink ones that she is unable to get in Australia. Green ones are found on vegies in NSW, while a lady from WA has been sending her ‘whopper’ tags from potato bags for years. The easiest colors to get (in order) are: white, blue, red, yellow, brown, green, orange and pink. They are all sourced from Australia.

Beth works for a government agency, which consists of 200 employees, in Canberra. They have all been donating their tags to the cause.

Her friend’s husband works for a Spots and Rec. camp for the Department of Education and he gets all the kids to save the tags for her too. She has accumulated several hundred from this source alone.

All here family and friends get behind her and help her collect them. At one time, every second day she would find some in her letterbox or on her doorstep.

To make the sculptures, Jo painted styrofoam balls where the different colors would go, then clipped the formed units together and melted them in the oven. If she was missing an exact colour, she painted each tag individually with plastics dye. She then proceeded to attach the melted tags into place with a hot glue gun.

Jo stated to collect the tags in 2003 and has been making things out of them since 2006. She is (possibly) the world’s only Breadtag artist. Jo has said that she finds making the sculptures really “meditative” and that they “fit together so beautifully. It’s just like re-scaling a fish, or putting a jigsaw puzzle together”.

Other creations have included magnets, brooches, necklaces and earrings. She has also made cards and CD covers. Jo and her husband have a family crest and there is a breadtag on that. She also used them to make her wedding invitations and used them as bonbonniere's.

The Breadtag world exhibition finished on the 20th July, 2011 with not future dates set.

Jo says that she already knows what her next project is .. but she is keeping it a secret!

23rd September, 2011

splash

This is one of my favorite pieces of art. Fittingly named 'splash', has a selling price of $86,000. It is made of stainless steel and painted steel. Splash was on display, from 28th Oct - 14 Nov 2010 amongst the 14th annual Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi. This contemporary piece explores the dynamics of a moment in time.

Artist Tomas Misura arrived in Australia in 1999. He was born in Slovakia, 1979. He graduated from the School of Artistic Crafts in Bratislava as an artistic blacksmith. His has had exhibitions in Italy, Austria, Czech Republic and Sculpture by the Sea (2007).

When standing next to this magnificent sculpture you feel a great admiration for Misura. This larger than life sculpture sits at 350cm x 350cm x 450cm. It is simply remarkable up close.

Misura, who'd spent more than 1000 hours on the piece, took out the NAB Kids' Choice Award.

MAJOR AWARDS:

2001: Australian National Ferrier’s and Blacksmithing Championships
1st place - Non traditional Blacksmithing,
2nd place - Non traditional Blacksmithing,

1st place - Traditional Blacksmithing,
2nd place - Traditional Blacksmithing.

2001: South Australian Blacksmiths and Ferrier’s Competition
1st place - Freehand Forging.

DEMONSTRATIONS AND EXHIBITIONS:

2007 – Sculpture by the Sea [Twisted Reality], Sydney, Australia.
2005 – Australian National Blacksmithing Championship, Brisbane, Australia.
2005 – Hrad Helfštýn, Czech Republic.
2004 – Ferracullum, Ibbisitz, Austria.
2003 - European Biennale Di Arte Fabrile, Stia, Italy.

16th September, 2011

This particular piece was one that stood out as being among the top five that I admired. It certainly caught your eye along the Bondi to Bronte coastal walk. It was wonderfully positioned and with the sea as it's background it formed a picturesque setting. This unique little treasure was constructed from timber furniture, hessian, soil, sand and grass seed; I was instantly attracted to this piece of art imitating life. Designed by Sally Kidall of NSW.

at the table: are we sitting comfortably?

The intention is for the work to respond to its surrounding environment during its display and cultivate over the exhibition. Sally describes the table and chairs as a cultural symbol for the sharing of meals, a family meeting place, or a place to present, discuss and review ideas and opinions. Phrases such as 'on the table' or 'turn the tables' emphasize the metaphorical use of the word table. Sally is inspired by famous table scenes such as Miss Havisham's decaying wedding feast in Great Expectations, or the Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice in Wonderland, King Arthur's table of wisdom, the Round Table, or Jesus' Last-Supper (Allens Arthur Robinson, 2011).

Statement: challenging the predictability of expectations and 'cultural homogeneity', informed by issues relating to human ecology, consumption and materialism.
Sally has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, and completed her MA in Art Design and Media at Portsmouth University in 2007. She is an International environmental artist who was born in the UK and has been practicing for 30 years. At present she works in Australia.

Sally has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, and completed her MA in Art Design and Media at Portsmouth University in 2007. She is an International environmental artist who was born in the UK and has been practicing for 30 years. At present she works in Australia. Sally says, "Through site-specific environmental installations and photography she seeks to challenge the predictability of expectations & ‘cultural homogeneity’”. Her art practice is inspired by the complexities, equilibrium and fragility of the natural environment and by the ways in which our man-made systems work within, or in opposition to, those natural systems. The focus of her practice is the concept of transition, including notions of unpredictability, vulnerability, deterioration, transformation and ephemerality. “My work is informed by issues relating to human ecology, consumption and materialism" (Kidall, 2007).

This artwork can be re-created for an artist fee.

Other sculptures by Sally Kindall include:
Affluenza: are you sitting comfortably?
Staying Afloat: is enough enough?
Survival
The Experiment
The Experiment II

9th September, 2011

Driving over the Harbour Bridge, as you enter the city, an amazing piece of Artwork once stood tall. "Almost Once" (1991), Domain, Sydney, a sculpture located behind the Art Gallery of New South Wales on the edge of the Domain, overlooking the Cahill Expressway as it connects to the Eastern Distributor.

Almost Once

The sculpture was created by Brett Whiteley in 1968 and was presented as a gift to the art gallery in 1991. Made from black butt timber and fiberglass it depicts a redhead match alongside a burnt match. It stands at 8 metres including the plinth and 6.6 metres without it (sydney-city.blogspot.com).

Although it no longer stands in the city, I always remember it and I always reminisce of it when I drive over the bridge.

Brett Whiteley, (7 April 1939 – 15 June 1992) was an Australian artist. He is represented in the collections of all the large Australian galleries, and was twice winner of the Archibald Prize. He had many shows in his career, and lived and painted extensively in Italy, England, Fiji and the USA.
In the late 1970s Brett Whiteley, one of the most famous Australian painters of the twentieth century, won the Archibald, the Wynne and Sulman twice. These are considered the most prestigious art prizes in Australia and are held annually at the Art Gallery of NSW.
His wins were:

• 1976
  • Archibald Prize: Self Portrait in the Studio
  • Sulman Prize: Interior with Time Past
• 1977
  • Wynne Prize: The Jacaranda Tree (On Sydney Harbour)
• 1978
  • Archibald Prize: Art, Life and the other thing
  • Sulman Prize: Yellow Nude
  • Wynne Prize: Summer at Carcoar

1978 was the only time that all three prizes have ever gone to the same person.

Whiteley's remarkable achievements throughout his life will continue his legacy via his mother, Beryl, who set up the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship. Winners will receive $25,000 prize money to spend while taking residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris.

It's a great feeling to know that a very talented artists legacy carries on.

2nd September, 2011

Campbell's Soup I

It was 1999 when my sister had asked if I would like accompanying her into the City and checking out 'Art Express'. It was an art exhibition displaying "a selection of outstanding works from the 1999 HSC Examination in Visual Arts" (Board of Studies, 1999). I had always possessed a passion for art. Something about seeing painted images on canvas's struck a happy nerve inside me that I felt drawn to. In the coming years I would make it a yearly event to go to such exhibitions like The Archibald Prize and Sculptures by the Sea. I can recall the below image, Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup I (1968), to be the very first piece of Art that I purchased. It was a postcard-sized print that I framed, and hung in my kitchen. I remember thinking how cool it was to actually own a piece of art from a famous artist. Andrew Warhol, Jr. (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987), known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, avant-garde filmmaker, record producer, author, and member of highly diverse social circles that included Bohemian Street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy patrons.
Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. He coined the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame." In his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, The Andy Warhol Museum exists in memory of his life and artwork.
The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is US$100 million for a 1963 canvas titled Eight Elvises. The private transaction was reported in a 2009 article in The Economist, which described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market." $100 million is a benchmark price that only Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Pierre-August Renoir, Gustav Klimt and Willem de Kooning have achieved (Wikipedia, 2011).
There have been many variations created from the original text.  His "Big Torn Campbell’s Soup Can (Pepper Pot), (1962)", was also a favourite of mine, it would be a perfect accompaniment to hang along side my other framed print... and a few months later it was!