New Work

I've started back at grad school this week at the Victoria College of the Arts in Melbourne. I was asked to do five drawings for the next class and these are three of them. For those of you that follow my work, you'll know I have two definite styles, one geometric and patterned using the primary colours only and the other biomorphic abstractions with no colour restrictions. These works are attempting to merge the two styles, just to see what happens. so far, im happy with the results...
There are another two finished drawings in this series which I did take shots of, however I have mislaid my camera usb cord. We had a huge storm in Melbourne this week and my studio was flooded. Luckily I was there when it happened and managed to get everything above the waterline but in the chaos I've no idea where I've put it. When it surfaces I'll post them....

Here's a link about the Melbourne storm
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/an-organised-beast-of-a-storm-belts-city-20100307-pqnw.html

art plans

I've been back in Melbourne full time for almost six months, and I starting to find my feet in the art world here.
Apart from the two major solo shows I'm putting together for next year, I'm planning to write a curriculum for a series of art workshops. These will focus on the creative act, creativity itself and explore such concepts as the artistic muse, spontaneous creative practices and put into practice the creative art theories of others. I'm planning to run these as a day long workshop from my studio in Melbourne. They will consist of some formal training/teaching but still plenty of room for discussion and workshop activities.
I'm also planning to give away a series of 9 or so small oils of canvas I painted a few years back. More details on this later via twitter. @virtuejofern

Predicting people again.

It occurred again today, I dreamt all night about someone and the next day this person appeared in my life unexpectedly. OK, this is a regular occurrence for me. Dream it and it happens, although not every dream does this. Probably about one in every fortnight does. It makes me wonder why my mind does this? It seems to working in a non temporal manner, it gets time backwards. Mostly, when I dream something, then it happens the next day, it’s not really a significant event, it doesn’t really have a deeper meaning, I’ve predicted some really stupid stuff in my dreams.

E.g. I once dreamt I could see this strange blue water behind glass, I had no idea what it was. The very next day I walked into a room and was face to face with a fish tank that has a light that made the water exact blue. It’s like my mind just got the time round the wrong way but what a stupid thing to predict.

Although this still doesn’t explain how I can sometimes know what people are thinking, I don’t think I can explain this at all. I do wish I could harness this ability but I can’t control it at all. And when I try to do it I can’t. I really think it just comes with my creativity, my creative mind is very unique and weird thing, compared to the way I think on an everyday level.

This is the plan!

This first piece in the Repetition Triptych series and show. (This may eventually be called the Repetition Game Series, I'm still thinking about it)

Basics
There are nine pieces similar the image above.
There are 3 red, 3 yellow, & 3 blue repetitions representing the primary colours.
Each Repetition has, nine round collage pieces.
The collages pieces are numbered 1 -9 and have lines of poetry or prose written by myself.
Each set of 9 collages pieces are named; the seconds, minutes, hours, days ,weeks, months, years decades, & centuries.
The ink work between the collage pieces and coloured squares is repetitious but draw by hand.

Multiple Hangs
1 The temporal order hang: Pieces are hung in order of of seconds to centuries
2 The primary order hang: Pieces are hung in a sequence of red, yellow, & blue x 3
3 The primary order hang 2: Pieces are hung 3 red, 3 yellow, & 3 blue.

What does this do? It produces different narrative flow in the written elements of the works, catapults the colours to produce new ways to interpret this series. Each hang should create a new narrative and new colour interpretation. I'm planning to exhibit this show over three weeks and change the hang every week. I'm really interested in art in exhibition spaces that are not static and not completely still. I like the way this show can be viewed 3 different ways.

Analysis, meaning and ideas about content

Non-organic, bio-morphic with movable parts.
Uniform & repetitious juxtapositioned against the unique and the original.
The repetitious elements become more expected and familiar as they repeat, which make the unique & original expressions even more specialized and out standing.
The act of repeating is an attempt to industrialize, to make the work mechanical, but at the same time it automatically suggests an endlessness, the eternal, and a universality.
The human, the man made and all industrialized human activity within the endless, eternal, ongoing state of nature.
The repetitions mirror nature's repetitive creations- we are all the same structure, body parts, & beings, but we are, at the time, individual, unique, and original.
Words are the voices and the vulnerabilities of the human condition and the human struggle.
So it becomes the mechanics of life in a universal endless flow where every body just goes on talking as time passes.
This series is a Neo Romantic vocal abstraction.

Words

Seconds (red)
One second...Discouraged by the sycophantic
Two seconds...Disillusioned by the lack of imagination
Three seconds...Frozen by the predictability
Four seconds...Repelled by the mindlessness
Five seconds...Dismayed by the blind devotion
Six seconds....Concerned by the lack of critique
Seven seconds...Sickened by the hype
Eight seconds...Unable to reach through to the art
Nine seconds...Who knew perfection had a time limit?

Minutes (yellow)
Minute one...A study in devotion
Minute two...Completely devoted
Minute three...Part-time devotion
Minute four...Physically devoted
Minute five...Occasionally devoted
Minute six...Intermittently devoted
Minute seven...Paradoxically devoted
Minute eight...Obsessively devoted
Minute nine...Not devoted in the slightest

Hours (blue)
Still to be written

Days (red) Pictured above
The beginning...Dark creative passion
Day one...Black reflection
Day two...Wrong body
Day three....Alone we can do this together
Day four...Surging perfection
Day five...Dreaming the same dream
Day six...Is your heart working?
Day seven...Smile while its melting
Day eight...Belief without fear

Weeks (blue)
Words posted shortly

Months (yellow)
1st month...Adjusted my past attitudes
2nd month...Resigned myself to work hard
3rd month...Realised deep passion was found only in the soul
4th month...Created brand new expectations
5th month...Proved my uniqueness
6th month...Rejuvenated my commitment
7th month...Pressed the repeat button
8th month...Patted myself on the back
9th month...Attempted to wallow in his crap but failed

Years (yellow)
Year one...Surrendered
Year two...Surrendered
Year three...Surrendered
Year four...Acceptance
Year five...Acceptance
Year six...Acceptance
Year seven...Compliance
Year eight...Compliance
Year nine...End

Decades (red)
Words to be written

Centuries (blue)
Word to be written

New Assemblage

I've had the line 'One foot in the badlands" stuck in my head for the last few days. When this happens I kind of know it's either a piece of art or a poem struggling to get out.

Today I realised One foot in the badlands is a new assemblage, a style that I've been messing around with for a couple of months and I think it's finally coming together.

I've been mesmerized lately with bill posters. I love the multiple layers of them, their impermanence, and the way they are often ripped or torn in some manner. I walked past a wall that was always covered in these things and someone had attempted to clean it up but not done a very good job of it. What they had left was multiple and ripped layers of bill posts, It looked absolutely amazing and I was so inspired by it. Fucking awesome. Really amazing. So there will be some pasting and then ripping off and pasting again, of copies of selected original pieces. Can't wait....I love ripping up my art...

Further, I've been wanting to photograph drains and metal grates on the street so I think this will be another element of these pieces. These pieces will be exhibited on the floor. This one one has a "base board' but it will be an assemblage of layers of work.

And later, I was walking to the studio from work today and the thought popped into my head,
" why don't you spray paint on these". I got really excited, being lover of graffiti, I think it's going to have to happen. I've wanted to use tinned paint for a while but I could never find the right work to do this on. Guess I can now. I really can't wait.

So this will leave me with 3 styles/directions. The Repetitions, I am wreckage hear me roar series, and these.

This will be an awesome mix and a great new experiment in my art practice. I'm starting this one on Saturday.

I am wreckage hear me roar no 5 cont...

Almost finished the background paint, I'm about 2/3 s done. Next is the ink work and more detailed paint work. Anyway, I'm happy, it's a big piece but it just flowed, it was good session. Although I'm a bit drained from it. New paintings are always hard, they are so strange, new and uncharted and this tends to take it out of you. I'm not going back to Ballarat tonight, I'm just too tired, I sleep in the studio in Melbourne tonight, I love sleeping in my studio anyway...