art

Mechanized animal structures

Fish3Vladimir Gvozdariki is a Russian artist who makes whimsical figures, animations and images. Some are pleasing in their simplicity, but I particularly like his complicated drawings of mechanized animal structures. They are in numerous places in his galleries, like here, here and here and here. I also like how some, like this fish, have made the transition from drawing to sculpture. I could imagine them being used theatrically, and some aspects -the whimsy and the technical details – remind me of some of Shaun Tan‘s creatures in The Lost Thing.

I also like Gvozdariki’s interest in snails and miniature worlds. How would you like to live here?

(via the wonderful BibliOdessy)

Laura Zindel ceramics

bowl2

Laura Zindel ceramics: “Crazy old Uncle Larry bought that peculiar spider platter, and we just can’t seem to part with it”, I would like to be a part of that.’ Lovely ceramic crockery patterned with snakes, spiders, insects. I love these bottles.

(via whip up)

Updated links 2015

Cutflat: Tim Raupach’s photographs

omarama

This wonderful photo of a hill somewhere near Omarama, South Island, Aotearoa/New Zealand is from Cutflat, Tim Raupach’s new photoblog site. His photos were previously here.

Tim takes some breathtakingly beautiful shots, as well as looking at things from unusual angles and with a humorous eye. He is also a rockclimber, and – a disclaimer! – my son.

Uopdated links 2015

Oona Tikkaoja’s sculptures

oona

I love the look of the sculptures that the Finnish visual artist Oona Tikkaoja makes, in particular her wolf creature (fourth pic along) and lizard robot killer. They are soft sculpture.

I also think her wooden horses are spectacular. They are beautifully jointed, and immediately conjure up thoughts of the mythical Trojan Horse. Take a look at the photo showing the construction, with all the clamps!

(via Extreme Craft)

Updated links 2015

Computer bug box

Computer bug

This is one side of my ‘computer bugs’ traffic control box, done for Colour-in Canberra. It’s on the corner of Corrina and Callum Streets in Woden. If you’d like to see the other sides and top, there are a few more pictures here. I think people are likely to interpret them as gremlins, but to me they are about becoming involved with the intricacy of the internet, and how rich an experience that can be.

Colour-in Canberra: The Suburban Duck

The Suburban Duck

Fox close-up

Crow

At the moment I am painting two traffic control boxes in the Urban Services project ‘Colour-in Canberra’. The first one, The Suburban Duck, is on the corner of Yamba Drive and Kitchener St in Garran, just across the road from the Canberra Hospital. It tells a story from my back garden: about how foxes are an ever present danger to ducks in the suburbs, while crows have the place staked out and steal their eggs given half a chance. Its been really enjoyable painting out in the sun on and off the last few weeks.

The Salmon-Thirty-Salmon

The cost of painting a king salmon on the fuselage of an Alaskan Airlines 373 has been roundly criticized, but the image is pretty cool. The designer was Mark Boyle, a Seattle-based wildlife artist who is also a recognized leader in the livery design of commercial aircraft. Alaskan Airlines has some pictures that show the painting in progressive stages, which took a crew of 30 painters 24 days.

Salmon

The image above was taken by Ted S. Warren for Associated Press, and shows airbrush artist Chris Coakley at work on the painting.

I was just then reminded of this wonderful image of Aragorn. It takes a second to work it out. It appeared on the side of a NZ Boeing as part of celebrations around the release of the last of the Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies.

Updated 2015: broken links. Also, there is a second version as of 2012, called the Salmon-Thirty-Salmon II:

Margaret Olley & Maxine McKew

Maxine McKew (7.30 Report) did a lovely interview the other night with artist Margaret Olley. Part of the charm was non-verbal, the smiling eyes, expressions, gestures, the unsaid knowingness, on each side. But this was my favourite part of the verbal :

MAXINE McKEW: You’ve said you paint for yourself. Is that right?

MARGARET OLLEY: I do. Who would you paint for?

MAXINE McKEW: So you don’t have a particular market in mind or?

MARGARET
OLLEY: Oh, perish the thought! No, the only reason you have an
exhibition…is really, that moment when they say “it’s up”.

MAXINE McKEW: The book also documents…some dark moments and one of them of course is your battle with alcoholism.

MARGARET OLLEY: Oh, yes. Whatever I do, I do it to excess. (Laughs). Whatever I do, I do it to excess.

(via Articulate)

I’m fond of Maxine McKew. She is an astute political interviewer, a feminist, and an excellent presenter, and then occasionally you also get to see her conduct a more relaxed personal interview like this. Another I particularly remember was a conversation with Yasmine Gooneratne, an English literature academic, about the rash of Jane Austen adaptations. It was obvious from twinkling eyes that McKew appreciated Andrew Davies’ 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

Incidentally, the Gooneratne family run Pemberley House, an International Study Centre in Sri Lanka, which I think is essentially a retreat. I’ve always thought it would be fun to visit there. Thinking about the attraction now, I’m wondering if there is something about the look of it – perhaps a similarity with Natal? – that triggers some memory from my South African childhood. I only lived there until I was 7, and don’t think of myself as rememering much about it, but I was listening to J. M. Coetzee reading his South African book Boyhood on First Person recently, and was astounded at how evocative it was for me. I instinctively understood words that I had not heard since I was little, and could see again scenes that I had forgotten I knew.

Updated links 2015

Artforce designs

turtle

I’m thinking again about the Colour-in Canberra traffic control box designs, as entries are due by the 23rd. The idea is based on a similar project, Artforce, an initiative of Brisbane City Council managed by Queensland Urban Ecology. They have a gallery of their images, and you can see which are regarded as most popular.

Among my favourites is this one by Annique Goldenberg:
‘On the way to the waterfront at Manly – a traditional turtle migration area’.

Updated links 2015