Art Around the House: Grace Gamage

There are lots of great pieces of art all around the house but this Grace Gamage makes me purr inside. To begin with I felt a need to 'install' it - put it on a wall or special shelf somewhere somehow. It did not take long to change my mind. During the art school fundraising exhibition/auction it fell off the wall and was damaged. Then some person who wasn't Grace or me put masking tape on the back to fix it. That was the first clue that it wasn't destined for a wall. 

Grace Gamage Untiled (Horse Paradise) 2011

pictured with; top left: diamond skate, right: anonymous skip art: blue target, 

drawing materials, artist barbie, lower right : anonymous skip art: miniature monochromes

It sat on my desk and still sits on my desk. I don't think it's going anywhere else. It is held together by sticky tape. It has a little horse. It sheds glitter. I need to see it hourly daily.

Grace Gamage Untitled; Jewel Detail

Somehow it evokes a feverish sense of production and/or the brewing of a particular creativity spell.  It is a small shrine featuring an inkjet fresco of pink rubber gloves in a gem garden, heart confetti and a small plastic horse strapped to palm trees resting on a pasture of green glitter. There is a crook-shaped dried plant hovering over the horse all frail against the glowing neon orange inner-walls. The green, red and purple jewel drooping from the apex bounces off the orange and pink: simultaneously violently clashing with them and drawing them all together. 

Grace Gamage Untitled: Rose Detail

The clash of colours, the wilting dried plant, the anonymous un-sanctioned masking tape repair, the sticky-tape construction... are all outrageous. Which is wonderful. It produces a sense of liberating frailty, echoed by the constant shedding of glitter. 

Grace Gamage Untitled: Horse Detail

The piece is appealing to me for many reasons but the inclusion of the small horse makes it even better. In 2008 there was an article I read that defined an artist in terms of their ability to draw horses. Since then artworks with horses have become especially fascinating to me. Partly because of the ridiculousness of the definition but increasingly because of the many and varied implications (i.e. use, feminist things etc) of conjuring up imagery of those particular animals. 

Grace Gamage Untitled: Paradise Detail

There are some subtle thematic motifs that can be read into the piece. These may be unintentional, but because of the inspired, feverishly constructed aesthetic of the shrine, perhaps a poetic reading merely adds to the mysterious nature of the piece? On the right outer wall are images of wilderness paradise reaching out to the hand of God. On the left outer wall is the carefully arranged rose motif - the rose being one of the most highly manipulated plants. It's as though the wilderness paradise is pitted against careful cultivation with the poor horse strapped between the two, cowering below enormous pink rubber gloves. 

Grace Gamage Untitled: Hand of God

At the same time, a binary seems completely impossible in such a vividly coloured, reflective and wildly constructed thing. It is one. The little grotto offers itself as an outside but also offers it's interior. It is both inside and outside itself. It both welcomes associations with other objects by appearing open and shuns them by being self-contained. It does not need a wall to stand behind it. It is it's own world.

She-Ra in the Clouds

She-Ra in the clouds. After a vodka-esque dream about Masters of the Universe.
See also: this awesome blog: Remembered Heroes: He-Man

The Society and the Spectre

The other day we watched a 3D version of a Hollywood movie about a century-old maritime disaster. I only like a couple of scenes in the movie, I'm still not sure it needed to be 3D. The sound effects are really good, it was worth going to the cinema to hear it. I tried to sneak a couple of photos of the audience in their spectacles. The first photo is during the opening credits, the second was taken during the 'flying' scene. Trying to illuminate the darkness of the image produced a blue (oceanic?) spectre. Looks like if I wanted a new version of my own I need a flash and a whole lot of written consent. Boo.

The circle of Life

I found this photo of a drawing from 2008. The drawing did not survive. From the drawing, this means it is either plant food, giraffe feet, blue spirituality ascending to the moon or red spirituality ascending to the sun.

The New Adventures of a cat named Rin-Tin-Tin

Rin Tin Tin was adopted in January 2012 from the The Cat Haven: Where Every Cat Matters after: 1. I wanted a puppy, 2. I saw  The Future and 3. we rescued (as in ambulanced to a 24hr vet) a very badly injured dog who had been hit by a car on the highway and was later euthanised. The kitten we adopted was 14 weeks old and had spent a mere 4 days at the Cat Haven. His siblings had been adopted out and we found him sleeping quietly among others. I thought the name Rin Tin Tin would evoke in him some pride and dignity, a little loyalty and obedience. (Laugh now).

Rin Tin Tin: Kitten Kong

The kitten is good natured, laid back and obliging. Also messy and mischievous. Like a kitten. This is also the story of a Canon EF 50mm F1.4 USM Lens which was procured in the hope of catching images of this small black streak rampaging through the house and yard. I think it's love.

Rin Tin Tin with spiderwebs.
It's a great cat day if you end up with spiderwebs on your face.

Rin Tin TIn: a handsome cat

Rin Tin Tin digging a hole and then sitting in it.
Like a dog.

Rin Tin Tin.
Like a cat.

Rin Tin Tin on the first day he climbed onto the fence.
The end of knowing where he was at all times.

Art Around the House: Daniel Bourke

This edition of Art Around the House is a little different. The work here: Mustard Cactus is somewhat altered from when Daniel Bourke first conceived of it and I purchased it from one of those fundraising enterprises at art school. The work is firstly: unsigned and secondly: missing provenience in the form of a receipt. More woefully and tragically thirdly: has undergone damage and been repaired. Thus, it may be argued that it's value as an investment piece is somewhat diminished; having been replaced almost entirely by a functional affection. It's possible that Bourke might be more satisfied with this second outcome, given his comments upon handing it to me immediately after purchase. They went something like: "You should probably drill a hole in the bottom. But I don't know if that would break it."

For about a year this dilemma see-sawed about in my consciousness as I watched the original cactus shrivel up and die. Frozen in fear by the possibility of breaking the pot if I drilled the hole but without ever being able to maintain the right sometimes wet/lots of drainage conditions, I found myself incapable of taking care of the artwork in it's original condition. I tipped out the dead cactus and soil into the garden in the ever optimistic hope that if there were any life left in the thing it might be resurrected in the natural elements there. For a time the mustard pot sat clean and empty with the jovial CACTUS instructions propped up inside.

The pot never moved out of the kitchen. Gradually I learned the CACTUS instructions; each little flower and spike. How could all those different-looking plants fall under the very uninformative title: "Cactus"? It grew more and more ridiculous in my mind. I became determined to make amends and solve the drainage problem once and for all. Eventually I came across a happy flower-covered cactus who was much too large for the mustard pot but had smaller baby cacti. I modified a seedling tube to act as a liner. The Mustard Cactus rode again.

I've started reading a book by James Elkins called The Object Stares Back. In the first chapter "Just Looking", Elkins briefly mentions curators perhaps aspiring to be objective, disinterested in art. As though they don't desire images.. unaffected.. perhaps I'm paraphrasing very badly... I drifted off. I thought about the grottos of the Merzbau. Schwitters made little homes for the artworks he had from his friends. I thought about taking care of artworks, covering them with fire blankets at night, rolling them up safely in tubes. Or finding them in their places like Mustard Cactus on the window sill with other plants for companions, amongst the greater impromptu Vanitas that constitutes the windowsill. Its very important and not at all. Sometimes the cat knocks the baby cactus out and I worriedly plant it again. Perhaps it's important that it is always in peril, needing protection and daily attention.

Cat in a Bucket