More Exhibitions

Wallace Art Awards-Aotea Centre
I went to see the shortlisted ones that didn't make the final before moving on to the main ones I guess you would call them. Its a shame they weren't displayed in a bigger gallery, Amy's work was up so high on the wall that I couldn't see any detail, the same with other works which had awful lighting or were just overshadowed by other works. Who cares, i saw works from a lot of my old lecturers which was awesome! Jim Cooper, Michelle Beevors, Peter Cleverly AMY POTENGER! yeah! I loved the painting of the little boy with his arm cut off, the lighting and colour were tumeke. There were heaps of paintings come t think of it, in comparison to how many of my peers are painters anyway. I loved the lego tree made of pine, and the...rest of it, the paint skeleton was cool!! go and see the exhibition.

Forget me-Unitec
well... It really shined through that this was photography and not Fine Arts. I was a little disappointed with the exhibition not being enough like an exhibition, I can see now why we put so much emphasis on resolution and presentation. All of the photos were great, but they were all A4 sized so you couldn't see any detail, they looked amazing when a few of them were being projected but other than that they really didn't have much impact. Technically the photos were brilliant ron, and after talking to one of the students who explained the course I could see why the exhibition was the way it was. They are not encouraged to extend beyond the use of photography, presentation has to be in the same format obviously and this was so restricting!!! I also found that the images didn't really relate to each other or flow a lot of the time, they just pick a few technically beautiful photographs and put them on A4 mount on a shelf. i blame unitec and its air of insane asylum and wahine written on the toilet door. oh and the catalogue.... it was ll green!! it did look cool but i can understand why people were poo poo about it, why have it green when its a showcase of technical photography? What about the poor guy that spends hours getting colours right only to see it apple green and white in the catalogue???

Dust 1.2- AUT Gallery
Stopped in here passing by, there was a thing made from pig stomachs which i found FOUL, little shrivelled gloves made from piggy insides, no thank you.

'aren't these great?!'
'oh, the little globes inside the glass houses, yeah.'
'what do you like about them?'
'ummm, the glass is cut really nicely, it can be hard to cut glass straight'
(thinking back to cut feet in first year)

'aren't these great?!'
'no, they're shit. The paint job on those globes looks ridiculous, and the glass houses look manufactured they are so perfect'
'what do you like about them'
'nothing, it's a one liner... much like the inverse dog house from Site06'
*shit eating polite grin*

Gallery Visits

I spent a day in town last week looking around galleries in the central city and there were some amazing exhibitions on.
John Ward Knox 'Toward a still Life' was showing at the Tim Melville Gallery and was outstanding for me. I remember his work from one of the graduate catalog, that little ripple in the linoleum, so subtle that I didn't see it at the show!! When I walked in to the gallery I thought he had painted fabric on to the wall but it is actually carved straight from the wall. READ ALL ABOUT IT and see photos on his BLOG<----(click it) His drawings with biro pens are stunning!! dreamy detailed feathery not all there blobby fluffy strokes. yums. I visited Fingers and saw a lot of the same jewellers I had seen at the NZ jewellers show a couple of months ago. Maybe its just me but I always see a lot of NZ influence in jewellery, maybe its just this gallery and every other gallery I have visited but the influence seems to be very strong. There were some things i liked but I've lost the piece of paper I wrote the artists names on. fork. There were some really nice embroidered pieces and things that used a lot of textiles and sewing techniques which was good to see. Amanda likes this. Sandra Bushby is one of these artists, i love her embroidery and felt work! You can see some of her photos on the fingers website, I'm too scared to post pictures of NZ artists work because it's probably breaching copyright and it won't harm you people to click the link.

Oedipus Rex Gallery.. well, i loved the paintings in the second room, not to say I didn't enjoy the paintings in the first BUT the second room reminded me of Emma Catastrophic so naturally I was drawn to that. The Paintings were by Lorene Taurerewa and are muted colours and very simple figures. The empty space around them gives them an eerie ethereal feeling.Lorene Taurerewa

Story 3 (Detail)
Oil on canvas 122 x 122 cm

listening to kasabian and its so frickin sweet

I posted on Stitchin Fingers asking for help making lace and got responses within a couple of hours! The ladies are all so helpful and encouraging :) Here are a few tips i picked up
-Use jewellery crimps and wire for the spangles
-Use hat pins for separating bobbins when not in use
-Print the prickings on to light blue paper and cover with clear contact
-12 bobbins is not enough! I need 24-30
-A round pillow of 18-24" is the ideal size, and can be made from polyethylene, felt, wadding (old woolen blankets) and cotton with a plywood base

worth your time?

I bought these four place mats with tatted edges at the op shop on Khyber pass. A lot of what you find is machine made but these are authentic crafted one of a kind masterpieces. I feel so sorry for women...

Victorian Gilt

For the past six months i have been travelling through Epsom on a bus every single day. The bus stops right outside a shop called Victorian Gilt,(<----Don't go to their website it uses comic sans) it looks like an op shop but you can tell it's expensive so I never went in there until yesterday.

THE LACE!!!! oh my fucking god was there some lace. every kind you can imagine in varying stages of decay, completion and skill. From handkerchiefs to table cloths, tatted collars, shirt cuffs, e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. It was intense. The shop looks a little bit like my bedroom, masses of organised piles of amazingness, The lady who owns it knew exactly where to find everything which was amazing you can't even see the walls and only small sections of the floor.

Looking through the piles of lace it was a little overwhelming, hundreds of thousands of hours of work were right here in a jumbled pile in Epsom. $8 for a little irish lace doily that would have taken weeks to make with a skill and neatness that would have taken years to perfect. $8? It's not art is it? One lady in the store who was looking at a hand made lace tablecloth was shocked when told it was $250. If you were to pay someone what they were worth to make that i hate to think what it would cost. She probably then went to living and giving and bought a mass produced pile of synthetic prettiness that was oh so not contemporary. I wonder how much machine made lace can be produced in the time it takes to make a lace handkerchief? One particular one i saw was made for a wedding, the thread was finer than strands of my hair and I could barely see the stitches it it was so elaborate. Dizzying. I tried to think of this handkerchief while i was stitching with hair earlier today and the hair was breaking and catching on things and i was frowning and fuck fuck you-ing. Ladies don't swear. I have realised I have absolutely no patience.

I want to go back to the shop and ask her if I may photograph some of the laces because they are just tooooo beautiful for words. There is also an unfinished piece there which would have been huge, it had many different styles of lace within it and i would bet $8 that the woman who was making it was too blind or too dead to complete it. It was great to see the process involved, the outine, the backing on the lace, the drawn pattern template. awestruck

Andres Serrano

Pretty, reminds me a little of the colours in Nicholas Lampert's work, the surreal landscape that is formed from extreme close ups of objects. I wish he had come up with a better title. I would have suggested Fecoids. The titles of the individual works are awesome though; evil shit, Freudian shit, mother shit, self portrait, Hieronimus Bosch Shit... the list goes on.
His photos are quite intense and involve a lot of bodily fluids and rude bits.

Ever heard 'rude box' by robbie williams? ridiculous.

Serrano does not digitally manipulate his photos, they are all technically excellent and he is right to say that 'effects are always better when they're real'-source


Andres Serrano on Artnet is the best place to see images and find information on this BC.
This article is also what i would call ka pai, 'The interpretation of Dreams'... gives a good description of his latest works and what it is like to see them in real life and larger than a computer thumbnail.

Melanie Bilenker

Melanie Bilenker

Brooch (2004)
1 3/8" x 7/8" x 3/8"

Materials: Gold, sterling silver, ivory piano key laminate, epoxy resin, hair
Thanking you Emily!
I love the everyday MUNDANE AS scenes depicted in Bilenker's works, and the delicate thin lines of hair make them delicate and liney. You don't realize how thin hair is until you try to weave or sew with it using singular strands what a fucking mare i may as well sew it in to my fingertips i prick them so often.

In Bed: Brooch (2004) Still In Bed: Brooch (2004)
7/8" x 1 1/8" x 5/16" 7/8" x 1 1/8" x 3/8"

I prefer her earlier works to her more recent ones from 2008. I'm not such a fan of the faces and portraits in her work i think the more abstract ones appeal to me. This woman must be so incredibly patient as would be the case with any jeweller. I think her hair is straight which would make things 100 times easier. maybe i should straighten mine then try and work with it? I think the curliness is important because if i am adamant that i use my own hair i may as well incorporate features of it. The curls make it form wicked swirly patterns, fluffy ball and crazy 3D chaotic shapes. My hair is so not mundane maybe i should make trippy ridiculous patterns with it. so art.