Judy Darragh ‘s exhibition at Two Rooms Gallery, Newton until 1, Aug. 2009.

Judy’s art practice has been distinctive as she consistently works on the margins, railing against conventions and expectations. From early works in the late 1980s made from op-shop materials and ready made material. She uses cheap material to DIY and remake into colorful objects with luxury visual effects. It’s quite different to the simplicity style with France’s although they both use non-valued material to make something from nothing. Judy reflects that “The maxim of the Bahaus, which I loved studying at school, was ‘less is more’, So when I started out I took the opposite approach of ‘more is more’ and embarked on making things with a passion, teaching at secondary school during the day, getting up at 5am on a Sunday to go to the markets and plugging in the glue gun at night.”



“Art news New Zealand, autumn 2009”

Rita Angus- Life and Vision, Auckland Art Gallery, 1, Aug. - 1, Nov., 2009

Rita Angus- Auckland Art Gallery, 30, Aug., 2009

Rita Angus, 12, Mar., 1908 ~ Jan., 1970, New Zealand painter, is well known for her portraits and landscapes.

Her drawing with the combining aspects of her western heritage. She painted as she wished.
' Everything I paint has the sense of being alive', ' My pacifism and my painting are all closely linked.', 'In my will to work is my will to live'-said by Angus.
For Angus, art was often a very private activity. She contributed all her life to serve the arts. She is also a keen gardener. I was attracted by her delicated water color drawing. A series of irises, the flowing texture with fine details on the petals. The variations of heart-touching color changings. Her drawing(Iris) presents the elegance and beauty interested in Iris history symbols in arts and leterature. Traditionally, the Iris is associated with faith, wisdom and courage. She grew irises at her Clinton home and painted them many times. To create this watercolour, she carefully observed them from bud to bloom, paying attention to the texture of petals as they caught light. For me, Iris is also one of my favourite flowers. I once tried to paint iris into porcelain. A porcelain painting can be removed or corrected if any errors on the plate before firing. I admire Angus drawing skills, the composition, the light catching and the gesture of lines, water color drawing is absolutely more challenging.

Peter Lambert in Flagstaff gallery ,13, Aug - 7 Sep., 2009

Flagstaff Gallery : 30 Victoria Road, Devon Port, Auckland 222, Aug., 2009

Peter Lambett was born in Howera in 1945. He has been exhibiting for over 30 years. He has been exhibiting for over 30 years. He once studied lithography at Elam scholl of Fine
Arts in Auckland. In recent years, Peter experienced refing his techniques and his new prints developent with multiple images.
"By paintin on small boards I can record the light, weather and features of the landscape that catch my eyes. These paintings can then be arranged in groups that have thematic elements." Peter has been living and working as a full-time artist in Taranaki since 1982.
His works with etching and enamel on boards. The fluids of linear design looks simple but powerful. The multipled images with different characters were arrange in groups on the panel. The painting " Get over it you guys, enamel on board" The gesture of hair from three subjects. They seem to confront and argue something. The viewer can feel the nervous atmosphere from the panel.

A world tour of Pressed Flower Art Exhibition by Shanshan Shiao

"Wandering Comfortably in the Floriculture" -Fo Guang Yuan Art Gallery 1 1/9 _ 22/11/2009, 23, Sep., 2009

Shanshan Shiao is a Taiwanese press-flower artist. She likes flower and has learnt flower arrangement. She felt the life of plant is termporary and tried to explore the way of pressing flower after further researching. Her art works combine the varieties of her religion, culture background and her art aesthetics. It is amazing about her delicated art works with collaged effect by pressed flowers. I feel curious about the way for making such a stunning work with vivid color from pressed flowers. How come to keep the pressed flowers so colorful and long lasting? According to the guide in Fo Guang Yuan Art Gallery, the colors come from the natural color of plants without any artificial dying process. She is a Buddhist and her religious belief is oftern reflected in her works. They usually take the form of Buddhist scroll paintings and focus on images of Buddhas and Buddist saints, while her other works depict animals and insects.
Her art pieces depict lovely images of birds and animals in Chinese ink and washed painting.
The rich and vivid colors of her works show her delicacy, grace and even the spirit of peace. The flower show with the beauty to bring joy and happiness to those who see it.
Her works are narrative an sensational. It's worthwhile to view the exhibition again.

Eldon Booth

Eldon Booth, 9, Oct., 2009

Eldon now is doing an collaborative work with Juddy Darrah and Deborah Crowe. In the beginning of his talk, he mentioned about film convention. And some introduction related to the film field and skills which I would like to make assortment and put into my categories. Genres
Genres are formed by sets of conventions. Sometimes the iconography in the fil m that inform us of the genre. Like Westerns usually have good and bad cowboys. The film genres are assorted into comedy, action, foreign, children, family, western, music, war, thriller, romance, horror, drama, China town, documentary….and so on which I learnt after surfing from Video shop.
Convention
‘Cconvention’, meaning the way in which something is “usually” done. We can identify recurring elements with regard to narrative themes,characters, plots, sound and visual content(iconography)
The convention of ‘China Town’ just likes the movie “Chinatown’, the film was full of power struggles, a sense of darkness and helplessness
The continuity editing
Also called as ‘Chronological Editing’, logically move camera, not sudden. One event follows naturally on another. A story from start to end continuously happens. It is a linea of movement. Seamlessness is a key effect of continuity editing.
Cross cutting
The camera will cut away from one action to another action. The shots occur one after another, cross cutting is used for different actions happen in the same time. Cross Cutting was created by “Birth of Nation by D.W. Griffith-Trailer(1915)
The Kuleshov Effect
1910 and 1920 Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov used the experiment to indicate the usefulness and effectiveness of film editing. The viewer brought their own emotional reaction and attribute to actor.
Montage(French word means putting together)
Image A, image B without any relationship, bring them together and create a third meaning. Montage is seen to operate in several ways, opposite colors, light and rhythmic tonal. Sergei Eisenstein was known as the father of Montage. It’s amazing that Eisensten used the creative Montage method to combine the scenes to make the film with special meaning in it. The movie“Battleship Potemkin” in 1920. Sergei Eisenstein noted that montage is “the nerve of cinema” and that to “to determine the nature of montage is to solve the specific problem of cinema”.

With reviewing the contextual content from Rebecca’s moving image which we just completed last term, I had a further understanding about movie making. It is related a conventional drawing, the illusion of reality -the form is visible, using editing techniques to do camera editing, cut and paste format.

Eldon Booth’s representative documentary film-“Withdrawal” , 2001 and “Five Good Reasons”, 2006
In “Withdrawal”, I find the use of two two frame within the picture very appealing as a device that raises the viewer awareness the editing and the filmmaking process The contrast living style from the environment between an elderly man and a young people.“Five Good Reasons”, a long dialogues between 2 characters, a man seeks his identification for his thoughts and observation on society. Focusing on stories relating to the human condition and social concerns in New Zealand communities.

I just learnt very basic concept and editing techniques from Rebecca. It was challenging for me especially using the film editing with the software of Premier. During only 5 weeks course, I had a refreshing idea about film making. Film making is a fantastic creation as an art form. Comparing Elton’s 2 short film, obviously, the later one had much professional editing. The indentification, I might experiment to depict indigenous images into my practice from my culture. I would be mostly based on the visual imagery rather than the thinking of identification. The work I intend to focus on the impact of the visual effect instead of the implied meaning of identification.

Fran Allison, 16, Oct., 2009

Fran Allison-16, Oct., 2009/10/17

Collaboration and Collectives
Collaboration : Work jointly esp in a literary or artistic production. Oxford Englishi dictionary.
Collective: Collectives have become a main stream production.
1. Formed by or constituting a collection.
2. Taken as a whole; aggregate.
3. Of or from several individuals; common.
4. Any cooperative enterprise.

In the last 10 years , collaborative art practice has become a main stream production. It could exist whether in the music, drama, cooking, film making drawing, social activities………, it is happening all the time and growing extensively in the art world. Collaboration is largely extended as a kind of art form which artists can operate. The artists can get benefits from the relationship of collaboration to obtain more skills and inspire each other during the engagement. The effects will reflect on their art practices helping the artists to explore and develop new concept
and creation.
Fran introduced some her collective practices on her jewellery, objects making. The exhibition 'Random Findings’ in ‘Fingers’, 2004, her works is about a process of rediscovery. She chose to produce for the exhibition by working randomly. Through re-using and re-looking at exist-objects kept on boxes or shelves she collected. She seems having a lot of fun with a kind of liberation for the objects and material that excite her.
After finish random pieces, she felt want to make formal project with jewellery making. She started the project related to the weeds in 2005. ‘Weeds’ jewellery in terms of her experiments about the garden varieties, from house to garden with a kind of collaborative way. The weeds group, Fran Allison, Andrea Daly, Shelly Norton and Lisa Walker. She is inspired from the collaborative work and has a lot of fun during the experiments and exploration each other. Different member with different idea and tartget about their works. Like Andrea gets more serious about market, money…. She doesn’t matter so much about the successful or not. Some resolution within the discussion, it’s about something share and organize. She found it’s really good thing from collaboration and the dialogue is helpful.

Basically, art collectives come in various sizes and formats. The art collaboration exits in the life, not only in the gallery. Rirkrit Tiravanija, Untitled(FREE), 1992. – share the meal that he cooked. The participators talking and eating in the space-is an art work. He can set up the place but can not control the final work from collaboration. As Joseph Beuys’s famous phrase - ‘ Everyone is an artis’.

For my future practice, I would like to work collaboratively that would help me to explore further learning with others. Collaboration might extend and broaden my individual practice. If I continue the education next year, I wish to produce an animation using LEGO or Bear Brick figures or some other toys. I wish to invite some good guys to join the collaborative group.


http://www.collabarts.org/ entered 16, Oct., 2009
http://modernedition.com/art-articles/art-cllectives/art-collectives.html entered 16, Oct., 2009

Richard Orjis-02, Oct., 2009

Captured from the magazine during the lecture.

Richard Orjis – 2, Oct., 2009

Richard’s works are varied from people, nature, still life and art photography. Mainly focuses on the element of people. Using the real visual image to create a mysterious atmosphere from his created fiction world. A series of photographs with the American Gothic boys in the wheat field, relate to the religion and sexuality. They are hiding somewhere secretly to play a game with sexuality only belong to their own world. Despite the metaphoric meaning behind the image, the composition and colors combination with an extraordinary aesthetics from the artist. I really like these art works which he created in 2004.

A male figure faces the camera. He is heavily festooned with flowers – orchids mainly. Orchids have long been known as “the sexiest flowers on earth” . Artist have exploited it as a symbol of sexual metaphor to make the art forms with different mediums. Richard uses Photoshop to do editing for the flowers and collages on the portrait. I am wondering he uses the way so boldly. Living in this century, artist might have more flexibility to utilize the scientific technology into the contemporary arts and it has become more common. The head this portrait is spreadly smudged with grey mud. The wreaths of orchids is beautiful, but with the mud-head and dark background highlights the effect of mysterious emotions. An idol as a representation of a God used as an object of worship. The emerged dark space from the origin. It means the beginning, the source of world also with the hint of “ there’s something else going on”. It inspires my curiosity about Richard’s Empire of Dirt. This image widely reproduced within 3 years only. Overall, Richard’s works might seem like working with many different things. But everthing seems come from the same source and the same concerns around him. It’s all related to the nature, cult, myth and the gothic.

Richard Orjis’s works present in both places of galleries and magazines. The art can be viewed in the magazine or advertisement become a public art and get wide range of audience. And the audience also get more benefits from the reviewing from the convenient source. The longer I looked at the images the deeper I felt addicted and enchanted into the fiction world which Richard have created. For my future pactice on my art work, I will try to exploit the methods broadly including tradition or new technology to combine my imagery into the art. Experiment and find the new way to express and display my works.

Ribecca Ann Hobbs, 25, Sep., 2009

Rebecca Ann Hobbs-25,Sep, 2009

In the beginning of the lecture, Rebecca talked about the apparatus, a still camera, and some images of art works, how the ideas interest and amuse her. “Yves Klein, Leap into the void “ 1960-it’s quite a visual things and the idea related to the subject in movement. I once read an article introduction before from an art magazine about this work. Yves Klein leaps from window into the blue sky because he likes the blue and wishes to catch and engaged himself into the blue. He created a blue which was especially known as Klein blue. The camera captured the temporary action to feeze it becoming a drawing forever. It’s the magic of photography. A series of self-portraits in 2001 in which Rebecca pictures herself with a range of creatures from different species. The photographs have been digitally manipulated to intensify the color. “The Complex Social Group”, “Flight into the Mouth”.... The isolated subject sitting in the center wearing old clothes with a certain stylish awkwardness. The chaos v.s order, things in control or out of control. The relationship between the blurred blue of pigeons and the still image of subject presents an extraordinary weird atmosphere. The series of images, a human and another species-birds, possums, a dog, a squid, a stuffed fox, snails and a spider, inspires my imagination with its metaphoric potential meaning, it’s related to a philosophy issuing-misunderstanding.

The role of research in the process of Rebecca’s work is very significant. Find the context , research and try to understand who is your friend (context) from the visual sign-art. From a starting point with arbitrary to present your idea and represent it. To construct a mind map from a point to another point. The research makes a clear pathway more in depth and more critical to her work. From research to think of the tangents and strategies and plan her art work. During the making and experiment to do the resolution. The resolution in terms of the inside/outside, imagined/real, past/present, still/moving...., to negotiate the space between these observed binaries in a celebratory manner. Aesthetics is important to her works as well. “The Continental Aesthetics Reader” by Clive Cazeaux inspired her and has made a big influenced on her cocept about the beauty. She spent a few years to get it from the book and still likes to make image with beautiful.

The final video with a black man spraying water in a green house. The Dolly moves around the subject with continuity editing. The audience travels and follows the movement of camera and subject. She spent 4 months to organize the film and 6 people to hit it with collaborative work. I can not imagine how can spent such a long time to organize a short film. She is an art worker with very careful manner to organize and proceed her work. At the moment, most of my works create by instinct or randomly. The process of her practice suggests me to make a further development more in depth and broadly. Some times I felt lost during the research for lots of tangents. Just like her talking in lesson, must constantly ask if this relates to my artwork. This is I have to do and develop from more practice and experience.