art

Bunjil

Posted by hil

In late 2002 on a train in Melbourne I caught a such a fleeting glimpse of this amazing massive eagle sculpture that I almost wondered if I had imagined it. Its air of keeping a brooding watchful eye over the docklands was arresting and exciting, and it was one of the the things that made me want to blog. There was little information and fewer images of it on the web at the time. Tim was down in Melbourne last weekend and had a similar experience, but was able to stop and take this cool photo of Bunjil the Eagle by  the sculptor Bruce Armstong.

In between then and now my desire to blog Bunjil had been assuaged by reading Lucy Tartan’s excellent post about it in 2005, in which she  writes about its appeal much better than I could. The post is one in a very enjoyable series which explores statuary in Melbourne.

Cutflat photography exhibition

Posted by hil

Tim Raupach’s first photography exhibition is now at The God’s Cafe at ANU. It opened last Thursday and runs until mid July. Tim is my son. He takes both urban and country scenes and landscapes, with a finely observed sense of colour and composition. Walls, bicycles, mountains, grasses and pattern are some of the recurring themes; take a look at his photoblog, Cutflat.

That’s the dispassionate report…! The truth is that it’s wonderfully exciting to see my kids stepping out into the artistic world, expressing themselves in such different ways, and I am so wildly proud of what they are doing!

Now playing – strange trajectories

Posted by hil

Now playing – strange trajectories, the 2007 ANU School of Art Emerging Artist Support Theme (EASS) award exhibition currently on at the Alliance Francaise in Canberra, is featuring the work of Michal Glickson (painting) and Anna Madeleine (photomedia). Anna is my daughter. She has two cool new video art pieces in this exhibition. She has also recently done the album art for Casual Projects new CD, No Rest, and is showing one of those images at PhotoAccess’s Open all areas 2008.

Previously:

Joan Baixas’ Terra Prenyada at Unima 2008

Posted by hil

Joan Baixas

(Joan Baixas’ keynote at Unima 2008)

Gary Friedman has a small clip and description of a secret performance of Terra Prenyada (The Pregnant Earth) by the master puppeteer and Spanish artist, Joan Baixas, at Unima 2008. You can see it full screen if you watch it at YouTube. I wish I had seen the show; it looks wonderful, a fusion of painting and theatre, done on a big sheet of back-lit plastic. I gathered from Baixas’ keynote talk that he often uses ochres that he finds locally for this, and that he began doing so when he spent time in the Australian desert, collaborating with the Arabanna community in the outback of South Australia to design and make masks for the Naidoc Festival in Maree. He also mentioned that he has a new show called Toast to Zoe, improvisations of painting and piano, with jazz pianist Agustí Fernandez.

The painting reminds me of how kids sometimes tell the story as they are drawing or painting, so that it almost becomes a live animation. For example boys of about 8 or 10 draw action scenes of battles and talk through the action: one plane turns into a flight of planes, they will be given guns, which then burst into fire as marks raining down to earth, and then a plane might crash and burn; the whole narrative on one page. It also reminds me of the kind of print where you ink up the plate and make marks on it for a one-off print.

Baixas ran a masterclass at Unima 2008, too, the Great Laughing Mutant Project. The participants presented a performance on Carnival Day, using these lovely minimalist shapes in lots of different ways:

Puppet Carnival Day

Afterwards they gave them to kids in the crowd, and the little boy in front of me was having fun with his:

Puppet Carnival Day

Puppet Carnival Day

My attendence at Unima 2008 is supported by the ACT Government.

actgov.jpg

Do you dare to eat a peach?

Posted by hil

peach sculpture

There’s a giant peach sculpture in Sydney at the moment; it’s really an advertisement for Ella Bache skin products. They are real peaches, but only skin deep, being supported by a steel armature and polystyrene, as you can see from the short making of video. I wonder what kind of glue sticks peaches and if they had to use industrial strength botox to preserve them? After all it looks as if the peaches were attached before the piece was moved into place. LPlater saw the peaches being spray-painted and touched up after a week. I’m not sure whether to think that ironic or true to the nature of the advertiser’s business. Both probably. Has anyone or any creature taken a nibble? It doesn’t look like it. All very bizarre.

peach sculpture

Kicking up my heels

Posted by hil

Amophoid

Playing around after discovering the wonderful drawings of Jim Woodring.

Amenoid2

Amophoids3

From big things little things grow

Posted by hil

Bigthingsx

(photo credit: Australia Post)

Today Australia Post is issuing a stamp set featuring five of the 150-or-so Australian Big Things, large roadside attractions that seem to occupy an odd little corner of our national identity. The legendary Reg Mombassa is the artist, an inspired choice, as his style reflects the quirkiness and humour with which the big things are regarded.

The big merino about an hour up the highway from us in Goulburn was moved a few weekends ago. It’s an almighty concrete ram nicknamed Rambo, but has a souvenir shop nestled between it’s hind legs instead of rambo-ishness. It used to be on the Hume Highway to Sydney, until Goulburn was by-passed, but now it will be again. Sadly it seems that after all the effort, it is visible but not exactly predominant.

There are a few pictures of the move:

IBN News slide show
Newspix gallery
Tiscali News: On the rig

Merino

(Photo by Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images)

The ABC NSW also has a photo of the ram being built, and details of its construction. It actually is a light glass-reinforced concrete skin. Like a number of other big things, it was made by an Adelaide based company, Glenn Industries.

Merino3

Big Things: Australia’s Amazing Roadside Attractions by David Clark is also a good source if you are interested in how the big things were made, although from my point of view they never give enough detail. I like the stories of those that were made just by one or two people, eccentrics with a bee in their bonnets.

Back to Reg to finish off. This postcard has been on my fridge door since some campaign in 2002. I love the title as much as the drawing:

The Model Family

Posted by hil

Model family kit

A 1956 family in model aeroplane kit form, Guy Bottroff’s cool sculpture The Model Family, at the Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition in Adelaide this last March. A few more photos here.

Model family kit