OVERDOSED ON CONFIDENCE
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Fear of failure
When was the last time you saw a video or read a blog post that made you sit back and take a breath because it was so moving or powerful?
Saturday, March 30, 2013
DAINE SINGER GALLERY
Daine Singer is a new commercial gallery for contemporary art, opening in June 2011 in Melbourne’s gallery precinct, Flinders Lane. It is co-owned by two 30-year old Australian women.
Daine Singer will represent contemporary Australian artists including Kate Just, Kate James, Simon O’Carrigan, Michael Needham and Andrew McQualter. The gallery will also include curated projects and the work of international artists on a project basis. The initial program includes video by Netherlands-based Hedwig Houben and two curated exhibitions inspired by Byron and Bronte. The first curated project is about the apocalypse and the second explores our cultural ideas of passion, obsessive desire and the heady, and at times destructive and pathological loss of self that comes with loving another.
Prior to establishing her eponymous gallery, Daine Singer was an independent curator as well as working in commercial galleries.
Her recent curatorial projects include Experimenta Utopia Now: International Biennial of Media Art (curatorium, touring Australia 2010-2011), Dream Weavers (CAST Gallery, Hobart 2010), Draw the Line: the Architecture of Lab (National Gallery of Victoria 2009), The Nauru Elegies (DJ Spooky and Annie K Kwon, Experimenta at Blindside 2010) and Big Screen Shorts (Federation Square 2010). Daine has held positions including Gallery Manager at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Associate Curator at Experimenta Media Arts, and Curator at the Museum of Chinese Australian History. She has a BA (art history and history), Grad Dip in Arts Management and Master of Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne, and is a member of the advisory committee at Blindside ARI.
The gallery is co-owned with Kate Dinon, a Swiss-based Australian. Kate is Group Manager Corporate Communications at Nyrstar, the world’s leading producer of zinc. Kate has a wealth of experience at an executive level gained within the natural resources and industrial sector.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Collaboration 2011 Sara Tatai and Gonzalo Ceballos
written by Sara Tatai 25 March 2013
Gonzalo and I met at a show he was having with a mutual friend of ours. His work was bold and confident and I had a great admiration for his unique style. At this point I had produced few works since finishing university a couple of years earlier and had little motivation to make more. I had however been contemplating starting a new project based on my life drawings which were my one constant artistic expression over the past 10 or so years.
We bumped into each other again a few months down the track at the same mutual friend’s wedding. By this time, I had begun my first painting based on two life drawings of two girls back to back. I had laid down two colours of paint – the background which was yellow and the girls which were in pink. I liked the direction of the painting but was lacking confidence to take the next step with the piece.
At the wedding, Gonzalo discussed that he was curious to see my work. I figured there was nothing to see and nothing to hide so I agreed for him to come to my house/studio and to check out the beginning of my first painting. I had no expectations for this visit. I certainly didn’t expect what was to come.
Gonzalo’s response to my painting was something to the affect of “Wow, I want to draw all over that”.
This was in no way offensive, though it may have sounded that way to anyone else. It was a funny thing because I had had a graphic design studio director tell me something of a similar nature not too long before. I had approached the design studio for a design internship and had shown my portfolio. At the end of my design portfolio were some paintings and photographs I had made during university. The director had said nothing while quickly flicking through my work, seemingly unimpressed, and finally stopped at the art section and said “Oh I see now. You're an artist not a designer”. This was a really reassuring thing to hear despite my strong ambition to get into the design industry, and little confidence as an artist. In fact, I don't think I had ever called myself an artist and began to do so after this encounter. Gonzalo’s words had a similar effect on me.
I agreed that Gonzalo could draw over my painting and he immediately pulled out a handful of Posca markers and didn't hesitate to begin. At first I just watched him work. He had a confidence that I did not. And after a small amount of time we began to pour out blobs of different coloured paints, mixing them and intuitively marking the canvas and the girls that existed within it.
We worked on the same canvas at the same time with no game plan. And within about two or three hours we stopped and pulled away from the painting.
I can't speak for Gonzalo but I was amazed that this painting had emerged from such an intuitive process. It captured moments of his style and of mine. It had a sense of life that I didn’t think I had the capacity to create alone, and I felt surprised that I had even contributed to it. I’m not trying to blow my own horn here. I feel that there is a great thing about making work with someone else. That ‘something great’ is that you can admire something you create in a very different way. This is because your perspective of the work is challenged in a way that combines the insight of your own creation and the curiosity of staring at something that is foreign and contains mystery. This juxtaposition is wonderful in so many ways.
We continued our collaboration during that year. We had intentions to work together each week but this pushed out to two-weekly and sometimes monthly. We made allot of work in a relatively small period of time, maybe 10 pieces all up. Not all the pieces were as successful as others but there were several pieces that clearly stood out to me as strong pieces of art with natural expression.
I feel like I learnt allot about painting while working with Gonzalo. I gained a looser style, letting go of my inhibitions and slowly learnt to let my mind flow through my hands and onto the canvas with less hesitation. We both had a strong sense of colour already however we did introduce certain concepts to one another. For example, I used to find that sometimes the canvas would become a little heavy and would insist on leaving a “breathing space” somewhere on the canvas. Gonzalo used to laugh at this concept but more and more came around to the idea that when your eyes roam around a canvas and absorb each mark, colour, line, character, shape and pattern, that you needed a moment within the painting where you could take a break, process and then continue the visual journey. The breathing space was a concept that focused on controlled visual discovery. I didn't want to overwhelm the subjects of the painting nor the viewers of the painting. I don't know how or why I came up with this concept but it was something that I felt very strongly about.
Drinking wine and munching on junk food, Gonzalo and I spent a unique time discovering our-selves as artists, collaborators and as individuals. This was a very important and influential time in my practice and I appreciate the development of friendship and visual confidence that occurred as a result of my collaboration with Gonzalo Ceballos.
Gonzalo and I met at a show he was having with a mutual friend of ours. His work was bold and confident and I had a great admiration for his unique style. At this point I had produced few works since finishing university a couple of years earlier and had little motivation to make more. I had however been contemplating starting a new project based on my life drawings which were my one constant artistic expression over the past 10 or so years.
We bumped into each other again a few months down the track at the same mutual friend’s wedding. By this time, I had begun my first painting based on two life drawings of two girls back to back. I had laid down two colours of paint – the background which was yellow and the girls which were in pink. I liked the direction of the painting but was lacking confidence to take the next step with the piece.
At the wedding, Gonzalo discussed that he was curious to see my work. I figured there was nothing to see and nothing to hide so I agreed for him to come to my house/studio and to check out the beginning of my first painting. I had no expectations for this visit. I certainly didn’t expect what was to come.
Gonzalo’s response to my painting was something to the affect of “Wow, I want to draw all over that”.
This was in no way offensive, though it may have sounded that way to anyone else. It was a funny thing because I had had a graphic design studio director tell me something of a similar nature not too long before. I had approached the design studio for a design internship and had shown my portfolio. At the end of my design portfolio were some paintings and photographs I had made during university. The director had said nothing while quickly flicking through my work, seemingly unimpressed, and finally stopped at the art section and said “Oh I see now. You're an artist not a designer”. This was a really reassuring thing to hear despite my strong ambition to get into the design industry, and little confidence as an artist. In fact, I don't think I had ever called myself an artist and began to do so after this encounter. Gonzalo’s words had a similar effect on me.
I agreed that Gonzalo could draw over my painting and he immediately pulled out a handful of Posca markers and didn't hesitate to begin. At first I just watched him work. He had a confidence that I did not. And after a small amount of time we began to pour out blobs of different coloured paints, mixing them and intuitively marking the canvas and the girls that existed within it.
We worked on the same canvas at the same time with no game plan. And within about two or three hours we stopped and pulled away from the painting.
I can't speak for Gonzalo but I was amazed that this painting had emerged from such an intuitive process. It captured moments of his style and of mine. It had a sense of life that I didn’t think I had the capacity to create alone, and I felt surprised that I had even contributed to it. I’m not trying to blow my own horn here. I feel that there is a great thing about making work with someone else. That ‘something great’ is that you can admire something you create in a very different way. This is because your perspective of the work is challenged in a way that combines the insight of your own creation and the curiosity of staring at something that is foreign and contains mystery. This juxtaposition is wonderful in so many ways.
We continued our collaboration during that year. We had intentions to work together each week but this pushed out to two-weekly and sometimes monthly. We made allot of work in a relatively small period of time, maybe 10 pieces all up. Not all the pieces were as successful as others but there were several pieces that clearly stood out to me as strong pieces of art with natural expression.
I feel like I learnt allot about painting while working with Gonzalo. I gained a looser style, letting go of my inhibitions and slowly learnt to let my mind flow through my hands and onto the canvas with less hesitation. We both had a strong sense of colour already however we did introduce certain concepts to one another. For example, I used to find that sometimes the canvas would become a little heavy and would insist on leaving a “breathing space” somewhere on the canvas. Gonzalo used to laugh at this concept but more and more came around to the idea that when your eyes roam around a canvas and absorb each mark, colour, line, character, shape and pattern, that you needed a moment within the painting where you could take a break, process and then continue the visual journey. The breathing space was a concept that focused on controlled visual discovery. I didn't want to overwhelm the subjects of the painting nor the viewers of the painting. I don't know how or why I came up with this concept but it was something that I felt very strongly about.
Drinking wine and munching on junk food, Gonzalo and I spent a unique time discovering our-selves as artists, collaborators and as individuals. This was a very important and influential time in my practice and I appreciate the development of friendship and visual confidence that occurred as a result of my collaboration with Gonzalo Ceballos.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
"I Am (A) God," (you'll get it later)
You know how hard it is to paint a big Painting? That shit is hard. It's so hard to do. Might be one of the hardest things to ever do.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
UNCLASSIFIED
multimedia bent event Thurs 21 March 8pm sharp at Hares and Hyenas 63 Johnston St Fitzroy, with new works from Suzy Markovski, Gonzalo Ceballo, Winnie Royale, Phil Soliman, Bumpy Favell, Renuka Rajiv, Kath Duncan, Nik Dimopoulos + more. See u there!
It's just fucking Art
"'I can take this shit away from you, young man.' That was the lesson. You've slaved away for years and years and years. You've prepped your whole life. It's all you know how to do. You're a kid experiencing life in fucking Sin City, and that was the lesson: It can all be taken away. Put you in a weird place. Embarrass you."
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Child Of The Phoenix
In Greek mythology, a phoenix or phenix is a long-lived bird that is cyclically regenerated or reborn. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor.
Friday, March 15, 2013
MTV's Hottest MCs in the Game - 2013
Every year, MTV does a poll to come up with the 10 rappers that are the hottest on scene, and they tagged it- Hottest MCs in the Game. This year's list is out, and it pissed some rappers off; rappers like A$AP Rocky and Kanye West felt they were meant to be higher up the list...A$AP even believed he was meant to be number 1 on the the list.
Anyway, bullshit asides, I think the list is very accurate if you put into consideration what the rappers in the top 5 have actually done in the last 10 months or so. And the list is not about having just ONE hit song that is tearing up the charts; album sales, guest appearances and other factors are looked into. Also, this list shouldn't be confused with the most lyrical rapper list, or the top 10 greatest rappers of all time...it is a list of NOW...the hottest MCs in the game right now. I'm saying all these cos I know how sentimental people get when they don't see their favourite rappers on a list. Check out the top 10 list below-
Anyway, bullshit asides, I think the list is very accurate if you put into consideration what the rappers in the top 5 have actually done in the last 10 months or so. And the list is not about having just ONE hit song that is tearing up the charts; album sales, guest appearances and other factors are looked into. Also, this list shouldn't be confused with the most lyrical rapper list, or the top 10 greatest rappers of all time...it is a list of NOW...the hottest MCs in the game right now. I'm saying all these cos I know how sentimental people get when they don't see their favourite rappers on a list. Check out the top 10 list below-
Thursday, March 14, 2013
world domination
"My goal in the beginning was to buy my mother a house. Now I realize, Okay, if I really focus and become a key player in business, then I can build an empire. I'm thinking of a legacy that I can be proud of and wealth that my grandchildren can use to go to college. So world domination— in terms of providing for my family— is absolutely my goal."
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Success Is Revenge
“If you think about what other people say, then you have a problem. “When it comes to Art,a lot of people are worried what others think. You just gotta go with it.”
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