rubik 7 + Streamer Monster

James Lynch, Andrew McQualter, Ricky Swallow and I started rubik in 1998.We wanted to try a different kind of operation to the quasi-institutional model of the artist run space.

We made photocopied books of artists' drawings, and also had a few shows in different places, with ourselves and other people we liked. We were all interested in drawing, and we felt they were an aspect of artists' practice that didn't get shown enough. There were some people we felt were very rubik  and others we thought were totally not rubik.

In 1999 when Ricky, James and I had studios at Gertrude Street, and Andrew lived down the street, we had this party.

I don't know if there are any photos around from the actual party. It wasn't super crowded, but it was fun.  I was supposed to hand out invitations at the VCA, where I was working, but I felt really shy and ended up just leaving them on the students' desks at about 4.30 on the afternoon of the event.

We hung streamers all across the big  windows, and I took these photos at the clean  up.

I showed them in this format at the Gertrude Street studio artists's show that year.

I did some paintings of the pile of streamers as well, and I almost put them in the show, but decided on the photos instead. There were 5 of these paintings and they hung in a horizontal line.

All photos Kenneth Pleban

Years later Blair Trethowan told me he really loved these photos, and that he wished  I'd show more of this kind of spontaneous photography.

For the show at Uplands organised as a tribute/fundraiser for Blair in 2008 I made a short video on my phone of Sam and the kids playing mini golf at Inverloch. I liked it because the kids keep walking and jumping through the course as Sam is trying to take his shot so he can't see what he's doing and they are oblivious. The idea was to text it to whoever wanted it. I don't have a copy any more - it was on my phone which got wet going through the George River at Lorne a couple of years ago.

I am heading to market!

I am taking my brooches to the Blackbird Market,  this Sunday the 18th November,
from 12-5, at the Perseverance Hotel in Brunswick St, Fitzroy. Are you are on the lookout for a unique and very reasonably priced Christmas gift?

Let x=x

Geoff Newton curated this show at  Rearview a couple of years ago. My work is adhesive vinyl on banner vinyl. They were one metre square. The other  artists are Pat Larter (the glitter painting on the end wall), Liang Luscombe had a painting but she had to take it out before the photos got taken, and the jewellery is by Diedre Hoban.

Photos courtesy of Geoff Newton

Remember this from a few months ago?

Does anyone want it?

I had it up at Arc 1 but now it's back.

 I can come round and install it if you like.

I've been making some brooches

Deep Secrets

I did this show at Uplands in 2003. This is the only photo I have, I think Jarrod took it. 

These drawings are vinyl on water colour paper. There were four of them in the show. They were really hard to do, because I had this big roll of heavy paper, which I cut into  large sheets, but the paper desperately wanted  to stay rolled. I had to put all my books and boxes and hammers and any heavy things I had to hand on the ends to keep them flat enough so I could apply the vinyl. Also, if I made a mistake with the placement and had to pull the vinyl up it tore the surface of the paper, so it was stressful to do. I was pregnant with Charlie at the time, and the huge stomach contributed a lot to the difficulty.

One of these got sold, but because the paper never really flattened out, the vinyl ended up pressing against the perspex of the frame, leading to a bad plastic + plastic encounter. I had to make another one for the collector, which I dreaded, but by that stage I wasn't pregnant any more so it was quite easy. All the other ones got wrecked in the frames too, but I didn't bother remaking them.

The moral of this story is...? I don't know.

Julia

This was a show above the Carlton Hotel, in Bourke St. Mark Feary was the curator. There was me, Damiano Bertoli, Rob McHaffie, Matt Griffin, James Lynch, Tony Garifilakis, Sue Dodd, Pat Foster and Jen Berean. It was February, 2007.

Each artist got a room in what had recently been a  boarding house. The spaces were really dirty. I had planned to clean mine up, do a floor/wall drawing and hang a cardboard sculpture from the ceiling, basically, my usual work, but after a few hours in there, I felt silly about it. It  felt like the art was sitting very precariously on top of the unhappiness of the space.  The idea of writing my name on the door in children's painted wooden letters just came to me as a way to represent the absurdity and bravery of trying to  name a space your own  in that situation.

I put the bits of cardboard and the rolls of vinyl in the cupboard.
Some people told me they'd looked for my work but it had been stolen. Not sure if they were joking or not. Other people thought I had battered the walls and smashed up sink myself as part of the work.

James Lynch's work "Chinese Laundry' was a particular highlight for me. So was Rob McHaffie's "Machine not working" which now hangs above my computer. 

I'm not sure who took the photos - let me know if you do!

Paintings 1997

I've always wanted to be a painter, like a real painter that goes to the studio and paints, and has all these different paintings on the go, and you stare at one for ages, then you catch another one out of the corner of your eye and you realise what you need to do, and you jump up and finish that one. I like the idea of having everything contained within that space of the canvas. Ideally I'd be like Brice Marden, with a Summer studio in the Greek Islands. He paints in the morning, then  has lunch, he rides his horses, and/or goes for a swim. His paintings dry quickly in the heat, so he comes back and does a bit more on them in the late afternoon.

Here are some paintings I did in 1997. The first lot are from a show I did at Grey Area in April that year. (The ends of the long paintings got cut off in the slide scanner.)

These ones below are from a show Andrea Blundell and I did at Linden later that year, called 'Dialogue'. I don't have any photos of Andy's work - being a rampant egomaniac I didn't think to take any at the time. I asked Andy recently if she had any and she said they were at the bottom of a pile of boxes. We had that double room on the left as you go in. I was at the front and she was at the back. You can see her work a bit in the fourth photo down. 

My concept was to have an MDF box  sitting  on top of the mantlepiece, with the depth matching the depth of the marble, with the front painted in basic, screen-inspired shapes using a nice can of blue enamel paint I had found in the mis-tints pile. The side closer to the window was lighter green, because that side was closer to the window, so it was lighter - get it?  Once the box was made I realised how heavy it was. Not only how was I going to move it, but also that it would probably break the mantlepiece, which would be embarrassing, and expensive to replace. So I painted the four side parts following the theme of lighter  towards the window. Two were open shapes, giving the feeling of extending off the support,  and two were enclosing space within the painting.

Invented Forest

This is a work I did in a show called "Wall Power" which was curated by Jenepher Duncan at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 2005. Me, Andrew McQualter, Rose Nolan, Robert Owen, James Angus, Kerrie  and Helen Smith.


The first pic is of the original drawing, then the install, final work, and floor talk. Robert Owen took the install shots.

Da Da!!!!

Me surrounded by admirers - makes it all worthwhile...

Also in St Kilda

This is a work I made back in, er, was it 2006? It's a pretty big wall drawing I did in the stairwell of a large Victorian House in St Kilda. Danny Lacy helped me install it, and basically ended up installing it himself after I got a massive migraine and the pattern on the tessellated tile floor was swirling around and around in my head mixed in with the lime green and pink vinyl. It was a pretty stressful install - it felt quite dangerous because it was very high up and we were in a hurry.

I've taken these photos off various design blogs, but the bloggers have scanned them from Vogue Living. Funnily enough it gets used as an example of an easy and fun way to pep up a wall, and something you could do yourself!!  Don't try it at home people!!!

I spotted this on the way home from Mum and Dad's yesterday

In the window of the rug shop "Tsar" at St Kilda junction. I have mentioned in previous posts that I would like to design rugs, but there appears to have been a serious misunderstanding. I meant that I would like to design rugs, not that I want rug shops to start doing my stuff with vinyl!! Also, if you want vinyl, I am available for that too!! I'm right here in Melbourne, ready to go, with lots of ideas. My work is really very reasonably priced and I have to say, would probably look better than this effort.

The Pinnacle of My Success

The year was 1999, things were going well in my  art career. I had run an artists run space, I had a studio at 200 Gertrude Street, I was in an artist run initiative with cool people, I had a teaching job at theVCA. I had finally cracked a show at first floor. Well then, you know what had to come next don't you? Yes, of course, Primavera. Me, Andrew McQualter, Nell, David Noonan, Darren Sylvester, Tim Silver and Matthew Bradley.


Rachel Kent was the curator, and it was a really great, well organised show. She had in mind one of the linear works I had been doing around that time, like "Last of the Big Spenders" at 1st floor, or "Gladiator" at Grey Area, but I had this really strong idea for a new work where a sneaker would be able to regenerate itself and would shed its own skin to reveal its new form. Everyone was mad on sneakers back then, and from 1998-99 the style had changed from this kind of organic, curvaceous type of shape to this hard edged but bulbous, space age type of thing. So I was extrapolating from that that the sneaker itself mutated into something else in a kind of techno/organic evolution. I used the transparent contact from Nylex for the shed skin part (on the left of the picture) and close up below.

It was a big success! And Monash University bought it for their collection, when Linda Michael and Jenepher Duncan were there. You can see it today at the Art and Design Building at Monash Caulfield Campus in Dandenong Road.

Photos by Andrius Lipsys