adelaide festival time

each year in february/march adelaide goes crazy with festivals and more festivals.

it is overwhelming, and sometimes i just stay away from it all but this year my good friend tom moore is in the adelaide biennial, and i wanted to share some of his amazing work.

 

at the art gallery sa he has a whole huge room to himself

 

it took him weeks to get this installation complete

 

and it showcases some amazing piece of art.

its way better in person but this gives you the idea

 

then top top this off he also has an exhibition on at the botanic gardens

with some more installations

 

exhibition is "watch glass grow" 

there are some really good pieces

 

and then to top it off even more the art gallery also has had some projections created that cover the whole building

 

they are animated versions of toms artworks

 

it was very successful and made the building come to life

 its been great to see his talent celebrated and his artworks being enjoyed by so many people.

GRIT

for the past 6 years there has been a collective group exhibiting in the port adelaide area as part of the fringe festival. deb and i have been a part of it each year. this year the theme of the show was GRIT.

but instead of exhibiting in a gallery space, we ended up exhibiting in the old packing shed of the old flour mill. its a great old space, that just needed some work to get it ready for a public event.

the old walls, peeling with paint are beautiful

 

and some of the shadows and surfaces were artworks in themselves

Aside from cleaning out debris and left over stuff, there was a hole in the floor, with random stuff in it. instead of cleaning it up and filling it with timber Deb and i decided to make an artwork installation

with a thick piece of glass, it safely shows visitors what lies beneath

although that does mean it is very very hard to sell.

then there was this bit of floor along the edge of the room. It was not safe to leave it like this with the public entering the space

 

so Deb and i took photos of the grim and dirt and dust in the gap and then covered the gap with wood. We printed the images from before and had them printed to scale and installed a photo collage on the new timber

 

it looks really great, and was a nice artwork in itself

 

again hard to sell.....

 

and one other bit of floor that needed fixing, again we documented it before covering it up and then created a poster to show what it looked like before.

 

but all those artworks happened once we were in the space and inspired. our original idea was to use the grinding grit we normally use in glass cutting and polishing and make a giant gritter ball.

 

it really is better in person, but the grit sparkles, and of course the disco ball motor keeps it turning. not bad for a over sized beach ball, paper mache and some grit and glue!

more on the rest of the exhibition can be found here.

oh and we won an award, more on that here.

knot

deb and i were again part of a group exhibition for the fringe festival. this is the fifth in a series of exhibitions where tony the organiser comes up with a theme/title and all the artists make work in response to that word. this word also relates to the port, which is where the exhibition is held, at the black diamond gallery. there are more images and info for this show here.

the show is called knot. and for this deb and i came up with a large loose timber knot.

we had some timber veneer lying around in the studio and we were able to fashion the layers into the knot and then stitch them in place.

 

best of all the box used to carry the knot also became the plinth!

here are some other works from the show, but for full details please see the link at the top of this post.

 

this tree has a knot tied in the stem of the tree, it is a great piece

this show has won an award best fringe exhibition last week and is now in the running for overall best fringe exhibition. not bad for a loosely curated and loosely organised group of artists that pull the whole thing together as it happens!

wonder wall

back in january port adelaide had a festival on called wonder walls. more info on it here.

but basically a bunch of mural, or street, or graffiti artists we organised to paint a bunch of murals on some walls around the port. 

there were quite a few walls done. i did not make it to the festival itself but went with a few friends a couple weeks ago to check out some of the finished work. they are very impressive. with 2 large murals being commissioned, on an unused building pretty close to the center of the port. it has made that building which most people think of as an eye sore (even thought i quite liked the concrete building before) into a bit of a landmark now. i really like this piece with the rat and what i guess to be band musician.

on the other side of the same building is this mural. with aboriginal language written in the background.

here is borris and kumi in front of a mural that i also really liked. this one is kind of off the beaten track a bit. i like the realism of it.

and i really like this one. the style of the painting is very different, and the feeling a bit whimsical.

 

again the walking tour borris, kumi, john (in the background) and otto

the view down the street, gives you a sens of how big these murals really are and how much work and time went into organising the event and making the artworks happen. i like this idea very much and hope to see it in action if it happens in this area again next time.

pegboard exhibition at the wheatie

my studio's annual SALA exhibition opened this week at the Wheatie, our favorite local pub. the opening was fun, lots of people showed up to check out the artwork and enjoy a drink or two.

the theme of the exhibition was pegboard. we were each given a rectangle of pegboard to use to make whatever we wanted.

this is my pineapple pegboard cross stitch. it turned out really well, better than i thought it would when i started. i really enjoyed making it too.

 

the back is almost as beautiful as the front. 

this is the show set up at the pub 3 wall pieces, and the peg board light

 

and along the other wall the light and 2 more wall pieces

here are some photos of the artist with their artwork

 

 

the exhibition is up for the month of August, so if you are in the area check it out!