Liverpool City Art Prize Entry

The Liverpool City Art Prize entries are closing Friday, October 2. I'm entering a series of paintings. I've been working on these for awhile. I had 5 paintings planned, but have only finished the 4 which I'm entering. I wanted to show the whole series when I finish the last one, so for this post I'm showing preparatory sketches for the paintings.

The first one is a work I showed here when I included it in a Match Box Project show. It's called The Artist Renounces His Decadent Profession.


This work is He's a Rebel.

This work changed from the sketch, mainly because I thought the writing was too small to paint. It's a reworking of a quote from Jenny Holzer (Abuse of power comes as no surprise). Even though the quote is not in the painting, the title is still Abuse of Children Comes as no Surprise.

This is, not surprisingly, Curb Your Animal Instincts.


The four works above are the ones for which I have completed paintings. The one below is still in progress. The title, Scouting for Boys, is also a book by Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scouts movement. No-one seems to have noticed the ambiguity of the title at the time.

Sock rope

In this post I'm showing a work which I proposed as an exhibition in Sculpture by the Sea. It was rejected by SbtS, so I thought I'd use this to reiterate the philosophy of this blog. I'm not trying to show my best work here, or the most successful, or my favourite; I'm showing ALL my work. I've destroyed some past work not because I'm embarrassed by it, or because it might weaken my brand, but because I haven't had enough space to store everything. I'm the artist I am today because of the evolution of my work, because of the work I've made as well as the work I haven't made, the artistic dead-ends, and the works that have sold and gone to appreciative homes. I'm also quite happy for someone to look at some work and say, "Meh, I don't like it," or even, "That's terrible!" I'm not editing the work, just presenting. I'm trying for an autobiographical display, rather than an aesthetic one.

So, given that caveat, what's this work all about? Part of the reason this was rejected is because it's not that well thought out. I'd been collecting socks from people for part of my MFA (click on the Socks link at the end of the post for various sock works), and still had hundreds on hand after making the work. This was an attempt to find some way of using them up. I've plaited them into a giant braid (or have I braided them into a giant plait?). The idea was that this braid would encircle Marks Park at Bondi, one of the locations for Sculpture by the Sea. I guess part of the idea was that these were socks which people had been walking in which were now to be used to delineate a walking space. Or something. I really didn't think it through too well. And the presentation wasn't that great. How was it to be held down? What would happen when it rained? Would people trip over it? I'm still hoping that I can resurrect the idea of the sock rope at some point in the future, not for this location, but in some other form, maybe a lot of shorter ropes hanging from a ceiling? The rope is chunky and colourful, but I'm not really sure what it would mean, which is why I'm blocked with the idea!

I think I stole the idea from Janine Antoni. At the end of the images of my work are two photos of Antoni's work Moor. Here's an excerpt from my book about her work:

Janine Antoni has also used items donated by individuals, but her work is concerned with the individual and the group. Antoni’s Moor, 2001, is a rope made from objects that family and friends had donated to her, all of which were listed during the exhibition. The items include
clothing, hair, Christmas lights, extension cords, towels, etc. Antoni and her assistants cut the items into strips, twisted them, then let strands of these materials twist back onto each other to create a thick rope. The work is a metaphor for connectedness. Antoni says, “A rope is an umbilical cord – it’s something that connects two things. Which, sort of, is what Moor is about. It’s about all these people, you know, my life sort of connecting all these people. The idea was to take all these very different materials, but also lives, and sort of bring them together through the rope-making process.”

In the book that was produced in conjunction with the installation, Antoni lists all the items that are in the rope, to whom they belonged, and a narrative around the object if the donor provided one:

Melissa’s dental floss is used as whipping to secure the beginning of the
rope and it is clasping Danielle’s red reversible jacket, which is black on
the other side and which her roommate Katrin from Germany gave to
her, and she never really wore the jacket and feels like it drifted into her
life the same way that Katrin did and Danielle’s jacket is entwined with a
green t-shirt of Pat’s that “could be up to fifteen years old and I have
worn it all that time so that it was almost completely worn away, and I
could not bear to part with it because it had made it so far” and Pat’s tshirt
is entwined with Glenn’s brown sweater from Old Navy that got
stretched out and “nothing from that store ever lasts” and Glenn’s
sweater is entwined with his friend Byron’s striped velour ‘Hang Ten’ shirt
and Byron is in many ways stuck in the seventies and he wants to be a
surfer and Byron’s shirt is entwined with his wife Lisa’s studio jeans worn
while making her paintings…

Moor not only “extract[s] the poetry that lies latent in all material,” but also shows the connectedness of humanity that has been my concern in I Am Because We Are. All people, regardless of how poor they may be, have some objects, even if only their clothing, that can be used to represent them.

















Janine Antoni's work Moor:



I also recently found this last image. It's an installation by Janice Appleton called there is something I need to tell you. I don't know anything about it other than this image, but it looks like a rope made of clothes connects these two outfits.

Applications

I've been a bit busy the past couple of weeks with various applications and proposals. Most of these applications have had variations of the same works, or at least the same types of work, mostly hair weavings. I'm still working on some textiles made with old socks, but mainly out of an interest in using all the material that I have rather than an overwhelming desire to keep using socks. I am eager to make new hair textiles, but am trying to also finish some paintings I've started, then use up a number of canvases and panels on some new painting projects, THEN get back to some hair weavings. I guess the most high-profile application was for an Australia Council New Works Grant of $10,000. I got the application in at 11:46pm on Friday, with a midnight deadline. The grants are very competitive, and heaven knows I deserve one, but there would have been hundreds of applications, so chances are probably slim for getting one. My proposal for this grant was to buy my own loom, and then work on a new series of much larger hair weavings with more complex patterns and weave structures. I gave examples of past work including the large sock installation I Am Because We Are, plus a variety of past hair weavings, some of which I've shown here before:






The sock installation shows that I'm able to work on a large scale, and the hair weavings show a variety of textile structures, size and patterning.

The Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award entries also closed last week. I showed four works for consideration: the kimono from the installation above, a new sock weaving work based on African kente cloth traditions, The Devil's Cloth series, and a panel from the Six Degrees series:







Kente cloth is made by weaving narrow strips of often (usually? always?) striped cloth, and then sewing the strips together to make a larger textile. Mine is still a work in progress as the strips have not yet been sewn together.

I've also put in an application for a show with Margarita Sampson at Craft Victoria in Melbourne. This is for a show in 2010. I've proposed an exhibition of The Devil's Cloth series, and the Violence, Abjection and Ecstasy series (all of which can be seen in this post):

Off the Wall again

I posted a while back a rejection from Off the Wall, a part of Art Sydney that allows emerging artists a chance to show their work. They've put images from the rejected artists on their site. It's now possible to see the people who were selected as well as those who weren't. My image is on this page. You can see the variety in the work they've chosen, but it's difficult to see much difference between those selected and those rejected. And it's so depressing to see so much art by so many artists! It's even more depressing seeing really bad art by really successful people (not at this site, but generally in the galleries and museums!). Still, that's the art world, I guess. Like it or lump it...

Another rejection letter

Here's another rejection letter. I've seen a book by some artist which just consists of rejection letters he has received. I tried to find it through Google, and found this website instead. It's called Rejection Letters of an Emerging Artist. You can't say this woman isn't trying to get her art out there! My application was for Off the Wall at Art Sydney, a local art fair. I submitted a number of hair weavings, but alas, to no avail. Here's the rejection:

Dear Rodney

We were overwhelmed this year with over 300 entries for Off The Wall.

The panel took a combined total of 20 hours to make their decisions.

On this occasion, your work was not selected for the event, but we thank you for the time and effort it took to make the application.

We do keep applications on file for several years though and often have dealers and curators sifting through them looking for works that their needs. Many artists have gained representation this way.

Your work will appear on our website shortly, and you will be notified when it is “live”, this is also a resource used by many dealers as they can contact you directly through your email address,

Commendations and high commendations will appear on the website also, I am unable to advise of these at the moment.

Unfortunately I am unable to enter into correspondence regarding your application due to time restrictions.

We will be holding a free professional development seminar at Art Sydney 08 on Friday 24 October at 12 noon, you are welcome to attend and I will be holding a Q & A session afterwards.

Thank you again for your application and I wish you all the very best in the future

Yours sincerely

Cash Brown
Off The Wall Coordinator

I always like that rejection letters tell you how many entries/applications there were. Regardless of whether there were 20 applicants or 500, they still preferred other people's work to my own, which in my mind makes their ability to discern quality art questionable. Of course the artists who were selected will be praising the judges for their insight and good taste! It may not have been the work they didn't like, but the quality of the prints I sent. Here are the images I submitted:

The first three are from my Six Degrees series. Three of this series (there were ten in all) will be in the Tamworth Fibre Textile Biennial which opens in Tamworth in November, then will tour nationally for two years, and another two will be in a group show in September here in Sydney, so I'm not taking the rejection as reflection of the quality of my work. Maybe it's just a question of taste.
.
The last three are from a series called The Devil's Cloth which also uses human hair, but replicates stripe patterns from different cultures. The title comes from a book by Michel Pastoureau:

From Library Journal
Convinced that "clothing is always the bearer of important meanings," Sorbonne paleographer/archivist Pastoureau here explores hitherto uncharted territory. In this intriguing little book, he traces the negative connotation related to stripes in cloth and clothing in Western societies as evidenced by documents and illustrations from the Middle Ages until today. He begins with the Carmelites' scandalous use later banned of striped monks' habits in the 13th century and gives numerous examples of striped clothing "marking" marginalized members of society: prostitutes, mimes, domestic servants, bankers, criminals, and, sadly, concentration camp inmates. He admits that the use of stripes on coats of arms is not pejorative and that stripes have been used successfully in modern fashions. The book raises as many questions as it answers and points to further research. The examples given are from French history and culture and may be unfamiliar to most American readers, making this book suitable for academic collections only.

Waverley Art Prize

This Wednesday, July 9, is the opening of the Waverley Art Prize exhibition. It's a small local prize, but there is about $12,000 in prizes up for grabs. The Archibald Prize offers $50,000 to the winner, but I have a better chance of winning this one! Actually, it's probably easier to get into this final, but there are more finalists, so harder to win the prizes. The list of finalists is here. I entered another chopstick work from the Everything Ends series. I've been working on this series for about 8 years now, and produce something new every couple of years. I finished this one earlier in the year for the Praxis show at Kudos. The opening is from 6:00 - 8:00 at the Waverley-Woollahra Arts Centre. 138 Bondi Rd, Bondi. The exhibition continues until Sunday July 13, every day 10:00 - 4:00.


This was the first work I made in this series. It was for an undergraduate sculpture project. I don't remember what the brief was, but my inspiration was scaffolding on building sites. I equated this with the buildings themselves, and later, to the skeletons of buildings. It was about 30cm high, and i placed it under a concrete walkway. It was meant to evoke a miniature city, abandoned, partly destroyed.




I pretty much destroyed the above work in taking it down. Some of the elements were still intact. I then incorporated all the elements, and all the other bits of chopsticks into this cube below. This shot is from a finalists' exhibition for the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Scholarship (2000?), which I didn't win. Always the bridesmaid... It's on a square of sand. It's very rough and ready, and was just slightly too large to be practical to store and handle. So I broke it up, too.
After that the works became more contained and controlled, more rigidly geometric and staying within the boundaries. I contrasted the two below, where the one on the left is a simple grid, and the other is the same anarchic, chaotic style as the one above.


It looks similar to the new one at the top, but this one has pieces going through the middle, and the joins aren't tied together. The new one was actually made from the one on the left above. After making a number of other works, I decided that I didn't like the simplicity and openness of it, so I covered the surface with a random pattern of pieces. The one below (the same work as on the right above) still maintains right angles, even though they're no longer ordered and regular like the one on the left. The new work has every join tied together with string and acrylic binder medium for extra strength. All the new works have been tied together.