A Moment of Insight Exhibition Opening

A Moment of Insight is the name of my upcoming solo show which is opening on Sat 21st July.

The show will include around 30 works ranging from early paintings up to my most current. The show hope to describe the journey I have taken towards gaining greater insight into myself and how to express this through my work. From a political and activist position in the late 80's  to the more interior world where I explore what it means to gain a greater sense of self and identity. Also the gradual but determined shift towards a more minimalist and abstracted depiction of the human form to represent the self as opposed to the more literal and narrative work I used to do. There are sudden throwbacks, such as the work 'A Fair Exchange' which was the last work I completed. This work is in response to the recognition that we have to give back to Nature, as she so enduringly gives of herself to us in order to sustain our lives, so that the cycle can continue. I express this by showing a bird rescuing a person whose boat is sinking due to the rising seas, but in a fair exchange he returns clean water to the oceans so fish can be regenerated. So it seems when I am thinking about an external experience I create characters in a scene to depict the story, yet when exploring an internal awareness the form is more abstracted and stark such as in "Listening to the Dreaming.'

The show will be fun, opening from 5.30pm until 8.30pm, there will be refreshments and good company. Margy Gibb will open the exhibition and I am in the process of making a short film so there will be lots to see, hear and do.   Bring your friends and I look forward to seeing you.

You'll find it at the Gallery Space, Insight Building, 89 Wellington St, St Kilda VIC 3182 
Exhibition open:  Sat 21st July 5.30 -8.30pm
Sun 22nd, Sat 28th, Sun 29th July 11.00am - 5.00pm.

This is exciting, managing to add a video to my blog.. well what is this? As i paint I often revise the original work and often end up with a totally different image to what I started with. In this case I was motivated to paint a work in response to an essay I wrote around sustainability of remote Aboriginal communities that rely on the production of artwork as their main means of financial input. I thought about how through artwork, Aboriginal people have been able to communicate and transcend so many of the barriers to engage on a dynamic and equal footing with the larger Australian community, well at least the ones that look and buy their art. I have been very much inspired and moved by Aboriginal art and the final work that I arrived at is an acknowledgment of how this way of seeing and interpreting the world has been communicated to me and changed my perception. And this to me is what great art does, challenge and change ones perceptions. The lines that radiate behind the 'white' head are reminiscent of the artwork that some Aboriginal artists use and it gradually metamorphoses to represent the sound waves or energy waves that we understand is ho energy moves through space and into the cosmos.

LIVE LOVE LIFE Exhibition Opening

Fortunately I am involved in an upcoming exhibition, LIVE LOVE LIFE which is being put on by the Ovarian Cancer Australia as a fundraising event. Myself and a few other artists are showing our work with the connecting colour of 'teal' running through all the works. So this will be interesting to see how this will come together. I am entering The Four Elements of the Domestic. If you would like to come along and support a really good cause, it'll be great to see you.

Where is it ?  Box Hill Community Art Centre, 470 Station St Box Hill.

When is it?  Thursday 7 June 2012. Time. 7.00 - 9.00pm

The Four Elements of the Domestic
oil on canvas

 Dreaming as One Exhibition

Already a year has passed since the last Project Dreaming Tracks show, Reconciliation Week is here again and it's great to be a part of it again. So I have a couple of paintings in the show, it opened last week but the official opening is Tuesday 29th which is tomorrow.
I'll be there from 6.00 until closing at 8.00. Project Dreaming Tracks are a really worthwhile organisation that currently operates from Thornbury, Melbourne. Supporting local people through offering courses in Art, gardening and community gatherings.

So stay tuned and I'll be onto an appraisal of how the show went as soon as I can. But if you want to drop by that'll be great.

The show is on at St Francis Pastoral Centre,
326 Lonsdale St, Melbourne. 

Mon -Fri 9.00am - 5pm

Sundays 9.00am - 3pm. 

Exhibition is open from 22nd May - 5th June.

I'm showing two works, Endless Opportunities and Clearing the Mind. Both available at a very reasonable price as proceeds from the sale to support Project Dreaming Tracks and their good work.

Endless Opportunities
oil on canvas
100 x 76cm

Clearing the Mind
oil on canvas
100 x 76cm

Absence makes the heart grow dimmer

it has been a drought. Attention spent in other places, gathering new ideas and feelings about the way the world is turning for me. I have been attempting to gain acceptance into galleries and it has been a fraught one. I had hoped by now the passage into a place of fairness, good business practice and positive endeavour would be on my cards but still no, the paintings languish in my overcrowded studio, wishfully dreaming for the opportunity to hang on a different wall in a new space with new eyes feasting upon them for a change. I have been studying a difficult course in a field so far removed from my usual preoccupations, one of International Urban and Environmental Management. It has opened my eyes to a myriad of real life concerns and dealings as we try to come to terms with the rising overcrowded populations of cities, the threat of peak oil on our whole livelihoods and the best practice way to engage communities in addressing their concerns in the way they see fit. How does this work with being a painter I ask, well my painting is about what I see in the world, what I know and what I understand. I try and unravel the complexities of being, as it affects me and others, who are we really? How does where we live and what we have to contend with, affect how we interpret and react to the world around us. Whilst reading about the struggle of millions to survive on the fringes of burgeoning cities and seeing how complicated and complex the problems are at trying to sort out the 'mess' of the mass habitat, I felt that no one really knew what to do and how to get there and in the end it was jsut a case of The Blind leading the Blind.  Hence the painting below was my response. 

The Blind Leading the Blind
100 x 76cm
oil on canvas
SDobkins 2012