Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cups

Latest project

2011-12-08T19:01:00.000-08:00

Intercourse at Peloton 24 November 2011
A dinner party using Japanese re-cycled collected food containers, with amazing Vegan curries by Bec Dean and the most beautiful cake in the world by Mishka Borowski. Drinks served, Takara shochu; courtesy of the artist.
The installation consisted of:
1. Stolen photographs of Nishiko: 地震を直すプロジェクト Repairing earthquake project www.nishiko55.com/eq and Takuma Nakahira, a famous photographer, whose works were presented along with mine in Yokohama earlier this year.
2. Photograph of Vicky's garden in Enmore; 63 Llewellyn Street

3. Reactions, connections and collections involving Japan and Sydney's Inner West.
4. Australiana plastic maki-e laquerware series.
5. Four videos documenting wind in bamboo forests, rice fields and lotus ponds.

I called the show Intercourse because I wanted people to relate to each other, over food; thus internalising an external and externalising an internal, through relations.

Bank Art's Life at Shinko Pier, Shin Minatomira Yokohama Sept-Oct 2011

2011-10-08T20:16:00.000-07:00

Work continuing from residency at Tokyo Wonder Site, Aoyama from June-August
1. Tatami drawing, pen on cardboard with video of Izumi's tea ceremony playing, kimonos, apples and blue shochu bottle.

2. Maki-e works, gold pen on PET products, with paint

Tokyo Wonder Site

2011-08-10T00:32:00.000-07:00

Three months in Aoyama.
Collected and converted
PET products

Copies

2010-12-11T00:43:00.000-08:00

This is a copy of a page of architectural features by Piranesi. Sharpie on donut box.

This is the original and the watercolour copy.
I sometimes feel that in order to truly value something, I need to make a copy of it.

I have reproduced a rendition of striking real estate advertisements. I became interested in perusing the ad pages for unusual photographs, finding that certain artworks featured in multiple homes. Primarily buddha paintings which I can only assume are installed by the real estate agent to provide a sense of 'peaceful place'.

Trashcan Dreams

2010-12-10T00:39:00.000-08:00

___________________________________

October 2010
Trashcan Dreams at The Performance Space
with dancers Morisan Yasuaki and Lina Ritchie
The title comes from an Elton John song; Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters
There were many elements to this exhibition, primarily I was responding to the site with my collection and with pieces that would provide an environment to respond to. The dancers, from Japan, worked in collaboration with the materials, over a nine day intense period, where we explored a huge variety of movement.
The work consisted of vast quantities of plastic collected over the last ten years from my local neighbours and friends. Many of the plastics were re-cycled from other exhibitions, being re-fashioned for this event.
The piece I am most proud of; Kyoto copy was made entirely of plastics and is a literal copy of a piece I saw in Kyoto in 2009.

Working with colour, materials, video and objects, interacting with the space and reacting to site-specific as well as historical contexts within the site.

Rectangular dance workshops with participants

Notebook collection

2010-07-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

At Hazelhurst Regional Gallery 2010
Twenty years of notebooks

Fatty and Slender

2010-04-10T16:41:00.000-07:00

This work was responding to my meeting with Takusan in Japan, 2009.
A bakers clay rendition of a Jakuchu painting.
A collection of the receipts collected whilst in the Tokyo studio at Takadanobaba for three months (which happened to fit the window at ICAN exactomondo)
Watercolour painting copy of Hokusai's "Fatty and Slender", including jewellery.
Here is the piece I wrote;

The Hanging Man at Kunitachi
TOKYO 2009

I finally made it to Kunitachi, in Tokyo, to see this famous action I had heard the Yanaka dancers I knew rave about. Takusan, an older man, had been hanging himself by the neck every night for ten years, giving public showings a couple of times a week.
I met with a couple of the dancers and we made our way there, each had seen the work numerous times
It was a bit of a walk from the station, down a modest lane with an unassuming lantern hanging at the entrance to an older style dark, wooden house. There was a box with money in it, Y1000 admission. We sat in Takusan's small yard on homemade wooden benches, after picking up a cut piece of styrofoam to provide comfort, and a tiny bit of warmth. Very cold that night. He was inside his wooden house, I could see shadows of him through the glass, and hear beautiful Japanese music playing. He came out dressed in red trousers, a red polo neck shirt with a white blouse over the top, and began his gentle silent movements through the garden area. This consisted of a few straggly bushes and trees, one tall thin bamboo, and a shrub that had gone brown and died. The dark brown earth ground had been well compacted and a few paving stones hinted at a path. The fences were lined with blue tarps, old ones, very frayed with some parts spray-painted with silver.
Takusan
His presence was so sincere and delicate, minimal but exploratory. I had met him once before, where he had a metal thing, like a cigarette holder, with a block of herbs smoking out one end, and he had taken my hands and pressed them and smoked them, my friends explained that it was ‘cauterisation’. He had accurately pinpointed sources of trouble and pain on my hands, and they felt warmed afterwards.
I felt the wind in the air and watched him react. Action, reaction, honouring time and moving slowly and carefully, knowing every centimeter of the ground he was covering. He moved through the space for nearly half an hour, in a gentle and magnetic way. He seemed to pay special heed to the dried shrub, taking its energy and giving it back. Near this shrub was a square hole, not very deep, dug into the earth. At its edge stood an iron anvil, and over this was a beam, with hooks. There were lights positioned on the house to illuminate the space and we could hear the outside world operating, sirens and occasional footsteps penetrating the silence. Otherwise it was completely quiet bar the wind in the trees.
Takusan explored the space, and then he climbed back into the house, tentatively I noticed...almost as though he was uncertain about it. Perhaps, a justifiable reluctance. He came back with a woven rope, red, with a hook on one end. It was at this point that I remembered that this was what he was renowned for.
Let me say I was worried about seeing this seminal part, but also curious, as the Yanaka group had raved so much about him, and after meeting him, I was interested but still a bit scared. He stepped on to the anvil, hung the rope, and then he hung himself, under his jaw, by the neck. He hung for something like 5 minutes, maybe 10. Such tremendous strength and such power his profound agility communicating something from deep within, not limp and dead, but alive and beautiful, such unbelievable beauty, I was moved beyond. He mainly faced away from us, but swung around at one point. I felt like he was dancing throughout, using his body’s muscle to retain his own life.
I felt shame at my own physical discomfort as it was so very cold, sitting so still, hugging my shawl closer around myself, and snuggling into my scarves. I watched his pain, but also his strength. Such an older man, so thin, with these worn red trousers, sewn tightly at the back in order to keep them from falling down, hanging by his neck, in a residential neighbourhood, every day for ten years. Rain, snow, sleet... He had been doing it for more than 40 years actually, I was told, but only ten years so devotedly.
This is his concept to “bring him to paradise”.
His weakness after hanging was apparent, and he fortified himself with slow movement, energy gradually returning. To sit in such a humble yard and to see something so profound, it felt very great and momentous.
After his actions, we all went inside and sat around a heated table, a kotatsu, to warm our legs, and drank shochu with tea and ate lovely things made by his partner, Mika Kurosawa, the greatest dancer in Japan. My eyes were full of appreciation for the surrounds, but I didn’t want to take photos. We discussed his work, while drinking eating, and smoking. After more than an hour Takusan said, let us make a gift for Sarah! Then they sang for me! Old Japanese songs ringing out like a clear bell of beauty.
"Correspondence", the wise man said, in English. He knew. He said strength was what life was about. “The most important thing is to be strong”.
I said I thought he was dancing to the tune of the wind, and he said he was. I asked if the neighbors knew what went on behind the fence, that there was such a great thing going on, each night, such a powerful thing, such a thing that was so private, yet public...they said shush, don't tell them!
We came home on the train full of bliss and gratitude. I loved it there. The contrasts and the fortitude, I chanced to happen on, in the outskirts of Tokyo. It gives me hope.

A piece written by Intern Rachel Smith

Following her residency in Japan in 2009, Sarah Goffman presents Fatty and Slender: The Hanging Man’s House at the Institute of Contemporary Art Newtown. The result of some intriguing experiences during her stay, Goffman responds specifically to a powerful performance she witnessed at the ‘The Hanging Man’s House’ in Kunitachi; a suburb of Tokyo. Goffman and a group of local Yanaka dancers watched on while the aging man Takusan hung himself by the neck, a ‘death-defying’ act that he has been performing every day, sometimes for an audience, for the last ten years.

Unable to take photographs during the performance, Goffman creates a mixed media installation in the gallery space, re-producing the yard of Takusan’s traditional wooden home from memory using wood, glass, cardboard, and paper as well as the stuff of everyday life collected during her residency. In addition to serving Japanese tea and sake, Goffman re-creates some of the dishes that were eaten in the supper that followed the act at Takusan’s house.

Renowned for recycling and reinventing detritus from consumer culture, such as cartons, plastic wrappers, advertising material, and plastic bags, the artist meticulously arranges these familiar objects in the space; pieces hang from the ceiling, cover the doors, lean on walls and sit neatly on carefully arranged shelves. From the bizarre to the every-day, strange and wonderful juxtapositions are created, seemingly transforming the banal to the beautiful.

In the centre of the installation, surrounded by a collection of shoes, stands an upright structure made of old jackets and shirts piled high and topped with a black hat representing the tall figure of Takusan. An exquisite miniature Japanese landscape made of dough, strikingly lit from the side is complemented by a delicate series of wooden sculptures by Peter Jackson. Goffman’s elaborate but seemingly casual installation is typical of a sensibility described by fellow artist Nobuhiro Ishihara as like ‘Ikebana’ - the Japanese art of flower arranging - “because it looks easy, but isn’t.”

Goffman includes two video works in the installation inspired by Takusan’s profound action; one of oozing liquids played on a horizontal screen transformed into a table around which visitors sit, and the distorted video Conversation with the Peachtree projected through glass on a wall nearby. The latter shows Goffman forcibly propping up a peach tree in her back yard, attempting to “sculpt” the living trunk.

Fatty and Slender: The Hanging Man’s House attempts to capture Goffman’s feelings of bliss and gratitude felt as a result of her intense and extraordinary experiences in Japan.

Psychiatrist 7 cents AT HELL GALLERY 2010

2010-04-04T04:57:00.000-07:00

WHAT AN AMAZING NIGHT
NEARLY 3 HOURS IN THE BOOTH WITH A BOTTLE OF VODKA AND AN ASTOUNDING VARIETY OF GOOD PEOPLE, TRYING TO RELATE

Big in Japan

2010-03-11T01:01:00.000-08:00

Video of oki-do (Japanese) yoga at night, in the winter rain at Shibuya crossing in Tokyo, December 2009.
Seeking to counter-act the business aspect of this vibrant and populated area with a slow movement, oki-do yoga, learnt in Australia. Shibuya is known as one of the busiest pedestrian traffic areas in the world.

Curtain made from my clothes.

Installation view

S.N.O.W.

2009-11-14T06:48:00.000-08:00

Some new objects with snow 2006 or something years ago, but this year I made similar models based on photos from the real estate guides of home interiors. These were made based on some engineering photos I found near the Camperdown studio.

Photograph Scott Donovan

Placed drawing of shed in shed

2009-11-14T06:44:00.000-08:00

The Polkinghorne shed 2009

Photograph Lisa Kelly

Another project

2009-11-14T06:41:00.000-08:00

Oh my god 2009

One year later

2009-11-14T06:27:00.000-08:00

I am so slack, I wanted to start a new art blog, and look, I am too lazy!
Here are a few things I did this year:

Plastic Arts 2009
PET Bottles spray enamel and permanent marker

Photographs Mike Myers

Turn the light on

2008-06-22T23:41:00.000-07:00

How lucky? For 2 minutes each day, the sun came through the window and appeared to turn the 'light' on!
photo Deborah Vaughan

Paradise Found

2008-06-03T23:33:00.000-07:00

While making work for the show and negotiating beauty and content, a doco played for 2 weeks on the ABC; Paradise Found. It is a super piece of film making about the arts of Islam, architecture and history. I was gobsmacked throughout, ashamedly admitting there was so much that I didn't know about the Islamic influence on all Europe, and much of the world. Had my education been deficient? We find paradise through understanding, through seeing and loving. My world is enhanced by my vision and exultation that we are all in this together, each individual one of us, at different stages, co-existing. The doco made me understand that art in mosques was there to uplift the viewer and contemplate beauty itself. The spires leading to heaven, closer to God.

I am not religious, except about my committment to the earth itself.

But this program helped make me accept what I had made.

Red white and blue

2008-06-01T05:19:00.000-07:00

Re-scheduled work; Have we found paradise? This world of plenty where 1/4 of the world consume 3/4 of the resources. Shocking shit out there. I joke that if the water levels rise, my works would all float. I often wonder what will happen to plastics in landfill over millions of years. This work is a couple of years old, and only the ABC shop bags have deteriorated.
I would like to cover a giant field with logos, I loved the AIDS quilt, and the mass of decoration as well as commemoration.

SLAVE TRADE

2008-05-31T05:35:00.001-07:00

Letters given to me by the wonderful Kate Sowerby, they had been used in labs for labelling on x-ray film. I found the material in a box, it was cut exactly the size 0f the vitrine it is installed in. Also, it reminds me of Liz Day. On reflection I recalled the essay Marise Williams wrote for the Our Lucky Country catalogue.
She wrote;

"Sarah Goffman is a slave to her materials. This is her intention and this is how she likes it. She takes the stuff of everyday life as it finds her and rearranges it, layering and embellishing the flotsam and jetsam of consumer culture, the ordinary, the discarded and what we take for granted - what we don’t notice because we see it all the time. As a reclamation artist, Goffman makes us look at the ordinary with our own eyes invigorated by her artistic interpretive process. Her gift is an ability to reveal the special life of objects: familiar quotidian artifacts are lovingly reclaimed, recrafted and reendowed with the value of a common cultural significance – something we can all relate to, something we all have in common, or we’d like to share."

Serendipity

2008-05-31T05:23:00.000-07:00

Around the University

Colour

2008-05-22T05:26:00.000-07:00

Can't decide what font to use! There are so few to choose from and I want MY OWN. Elvis Richardson suggested I start a blog, so here I am.

Here we are; Tin Sheds Gallery show PARADISE FOUND April 29 - May 17 2008 install view

Want to try and document my shows and write about the links I've explored that inform and enhance the works.

In the foreground; low table on trestles Happiness Table this is made out of cardboard, plastics, handmade paper, wire, glass, fimo, texter and plaster. I made this in response to a picture from my Redbook "Happiness" diary, which pictured such a table setting. I have tried to simulate the beauty and fragility of this chinoiserie, by using found and made objects.

Background; Greens Plastics and more plastics, hot glue, mirror, water. I have been collecting and using plastics for my whole art career. I had kept a plastic bag from Vienna 1979, it always seemed too precious to throw away. The varying shades of green are so beautiful, I have hung on to every scrap, displayed here. Many of these pieces are discarded remnants from other old artworks, re-employed.

Greening Australia

2008-05-21T01:57:00.001-07:00

Top: install view

Bottom: detail

Do you see "Free Duty" on the right image? Thats from some airport bag I had been given, and I love it. I have worked with Duty Free bags for a number of years. I like the notions of duty as a concept. What is your duty? What are ours? I know 'duty free' has to do with tarifs and thereby involves a monetary system, but I think it illustrates so much more. Trade and exchange of goods delegate our lives, consumer culture and monetary systems regulate our time. Here I am collecting all these green plastic bags, the scraps too beautiful to throw away...the greens captivate me. My duty is to be captivated! I am such a product of this culture!

Beginnings

2008-05-20T05:23:00.000-07:00

There was a story book I had as a child where the sick kid made a world in his bed, using the bedspread as mountains. Deborah Vaughan sent me an Emily Dickinson poem about the bed, and I whipped together a tablecloth reaction. The bones come from some find, but I glued them together with hot glue, also an animal product. How well they adhered! The plates on the floor are stickered, from a Pirate sticker book mainly. Raquel Ormella suggested I do multiples.

After I completed the tablecloth I found a piece of red gingham I'd been saving for ever so many years, and glued that on in situ.

Eclectic

Colour cont.

2008-05-19T06:16:00.000-07:00

Install detail
Install detail the blues do not reproduce well, but there is a light box underneath.

Blue time

I love blue. Who doesn't? In fact, I love every colour, as there is a place for each and every one. Plastics, found and collected, a light blue nylon jacket that I'd found and couldn't give away and couldn't get myself to throw away, so it got put on a plinth and I got a clear helium balloon ($1.50), for the opening night to act as a head.

This piece was assisted by my neighbour Russell, as he had a piece of perspex that he gave me to make the tabletop, and Rod from the plastics lab who used a new bandsaw to cut it into a semi circle for me.

I must add that all the plastics I use are found or donated by my friends and family.

In addition to this (in the blue corner) is a video I shot at Newtown Aquarium only a few weeks ago. I've simply watched the salt water fish, and shot footage of their beauty, and sinister encapsulated quality...what a blue they use in tanks. I stumbled upon the new shop a few weeks ago, while out searching for inspiration, after a day of slaving over some large banners. It'd been raining incessantly and I was suffering cabin fever so I went for a walk. The Aquarium shop is just around the corner but I hadn't been up there for months and had no idea it was so close by, and pretty well kept. I met the manager, Sherwin, who didn't mind me filming at a quiet time, so I went back the next day...they didn't care that it was for art work. But what got me was this takeaway container punctured with holes that they kept this white snake thing with black spots, underwater. I will try and grab an image of it for you...it was so terribly sad, confined in this jail. It summed up what I was doing, better than I could say myself.

I have situated the blue works in the corner of the gallery that leaks when there is torrential rain. Apparently the water pools in a lake on the floor there. Wow.

Red

2008-05-18T06:42:00.000-07:00

Install view

Details

Plastics, sellotape, lights

I am obsessed with red. It actually looks quite pink in some places, but I don't care. I love it, I love it glowing with light behind it, it makes me so happy to see it. I need to take some more photos to show you what it looks like from outside, 'cos you see the insides of the bags, and there is something architectural about their appearance, collated in a random formation. I had been working on this piece for months, and some of the plastics were from the 1990's. I remember making a red centre box out of Grace Bros. bags for a show in Darwin at 24 hour art in 2001 for Eco-boutique with Josie Cavallaro and Lisa Kelly. That was the first time I conjoined in this way.

Back room antics

2008-05-17T18:20:00.000-07:00

Detail floor work , this contains all my favourite saved bags
Detail (Velasquez)
Bed
Does it remind you of the beach? It is supposed to. I got up one morning and this is what really happened and I thought it needed to be reproduced.

Pretty things

2008-05-16T18:52:00.000-07:00

Can I ever get enough of colour?

It just begs to be configured and placed together and apart. Its so easy and fun to do, I could do it endlessly.

I realise when I look at what I have made in the gallery that is merely an extension of my house. I don't have enough room for all I make, so I have to rent and show in spaces so that I can lay it all out. All those thought processes, and associations. Lately I have been thinking that I am simply a painter who works with 3-d spaces and objects. I like reality. I enjoy the relics of our present day consumerism. I understand that we live in a disposable culture, and are lucky to have such an abundance. I am a materialist, and a maximalist. I conserve and also convert objects. I am doing what I have to do.

Slave Lives

2008-05-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

This hot glue piece sprayed with copper was re-squeduled from a show last year. I had made it for VICTORIA! at Ocular Lab in Melbourne, hosted by my besty great artist Elvis Richardson.

I love bling, and think it is so interesting wearing loads of jewellry. Ostentatious.

Anyway, the slogan comes from the Police signs; "SAVE LIVES", but in a way we are slaves to life. I don't want to live forever, but I also don't want to die right now, and I really want to enjoy life, but sometimes it is so hard.

When we wear amulets they can serve various purposes. I've always been intrigued by ritual and faith, every culture has an abundance of ways to demonstrate their status. Symbols and iconology...carrying your wealth...we serve our cultural purposes and increasingly I am ceasing to believe in free will. We are products of our genes and society. I am an amalgam of everyone I have ever met, to some degree, and believe I am free, and make my choices. But.

Another part of this work (not pictured) says "Made by slaves". Because much is, whether we like it or not.

Some More

2008-05-14T05:02:00.000-07:00

1. Found pencils

2. Found erasers
3. Tally ho numbers 1-42

Each part of the gallery gets treatment. After five days this work that you see, was all I could do, but on Saturday when I mind it, I can fiddle and add. I would dearly like to have a space for one year and go all the way. Install process is fantastic, I can't find a better high than finding a place for every thing, and the connections that are made between objects. Sometimes when I am placing things, I feel like there are all these extraneous elements that just act as supports for the one true and dear thing. It is up to the public to enjoy those relationships and find them for themselves.

2008-05-13T22:45:00.001-07:00

Happiness Table 2008

Mila

Mackenzie

Jane

Anne

Leo

Liz

Little was I to know that Anne Kay would invite people to sit on the floor, around my fashionable table set. Sometimes you make things and have no idea how they will function. I just saw it as a table setting re-fashioned out of disposable objects, but to see it being used as a conversation point was delightful.

Original image; Peter Sclesinger, Lunch table Chateau Mouton Redbook Diary 2004. Subsequently re-named Happiness Table 2008

Synchronicity

2008-05-12T23:38:00.000-07:00

Footbridge symmetry; I'd been doing these sorts of florals on my plastics.

Too easy...

The building next door (where Tin Sheds used to be)

PJ brought this board in and plonked it down here, and it was right. Very little needed to be added, as it was perfect the way it was, but naturally I added a bit of decoration, along with a past work that I had used down the road in a show at Frontroom Gallery (kitchen) in 2002 called After you which I felt could stand to be re-scqueduled (thanks DMC). Two photos of Big Ben fit perfectly at the edges and a wonderful image of a Chinese landscape sat down the bottom. Luke Parker gave me the lampshades and I tried to install them elsewhere, but they had to be put where they are. Ikebana.

Anzac weekend

2008-05-12T23:28:00.000-07:00

I installed the show the week of Anzac day, which is getting bigger and bigger every year. When I was younger I just hated war, all out, so I never participated in any of the rituals. But now I have developed a better understanding of it all, and am still sorrowful but it is complicated.

Last year I had the most wonderful residency down at Boyd's property in Bundanon with Lisa Andrew, Liz Day, Elvis Richardson and the wombats. As we were driving down there I saw a park with "Lest we forget" in welded steel at the entrance. I couldn't get it out of my head so I made this drawing, and brought it with me to Tin Sheds as it was pognant to the time.

More synchronicity

2008-05-11T05:57:00.000-07:00

Fortuitous Aquarium right around the corner from my house...
when I needed it, I found it...

I don't know the name of this salt water dweller, but I thought it just epitomised everything*, in it's man-made container (reminds me of Lisa Kelly's great work), and also Josie Cavallaro...I remember her work with aquarium photos, cool! These are stills from the video in the blue section, and I shot the film only a week before the show (beautifully edited by IT Superman PJ). I was making work from home, and was going a bit stir crazy, it had been raining in Sydney for weeks...anyway, I went for a walk, and lo and behold, around the corner from my house this great new super-acquarium store had opened, only weeks before, and I knew right away, this encapsulated and super-artificial environment was necessary to include in the show. That blue, it seems to only exist in aquarium outlets! The isolation of the fish snake, in it's homemade converted food container either sheltered it form the other fish, or vice versa. Sherman, the proprietor of the shop was not forthcoming about the fishes, but I was impressed by the amount and quality of his fish specimens, and also these fantastic corals he was growing out of disposable plastic cups. What a trip.

They say that watching fish lowers our blood pressure. I love the fish, I hope they are happy.

I could write about fish and water for the rest of my life. I am very attracted to all the paraphenalia and would like to install in fishtanks, with real live fish, so if anyone has a tank and wants an innovative approach to decoration - I can't promise anything, but I can give it my best - I'm your man.

Water! I am a fish!

*epitomised evrything, huh? How is it possible to epitomise everything? Well trust me, that is what I want to do, I want to capture it all and freeze it, I want past present and future, but NOW NOW NOW! This moment, or set of moments of time, to reverberate and mark time...

Outside

2008-05-10T06:39:00.000-07:00

Well of course I moved outside during my gallery minding Saturdays! Too easy. All the crap gathered from the deck outside . Thought about Lisa Kelly's fantastic ashtrays/planters outside of ICAN...The cleaners found it convenient to dispose of then. One week I hung the tropical hawaiian shirt in the tree, and left it there. I saw Bruce, the security guard whip it off at the end of the day. One week I tied the suit jacket to the base of the tree installed in the deck, and one week I hung pink shiny ribbon in garlands around the outdoor shadecloths and lay fabric on the ground. These I removed my self.

Keep thinking about the duty of objects.

Infinity Constructions

2008-05-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

I proposed this show last year, and had been struggling to make the work from my home studio. Each time that I visited the campus I found major inspiration on site. The garbage surrounding the building site next door to the gallery was outstanding. Many months of work and many discarded bottles, cans and wrappers. I couldn't believe my fortune, I just thought maybe I should just collect everything thrown away on site, and pop it tidily into the gallery...too easy. But it did lend me a freedom to add this if I wanted! (Or ran out of my own stuff!)
The building site itself is a work of art. I love the unfinishedness of sites under construction. Raw and clad with the most interesting coloured materials, cranes and hardhatters, and industry...it's alive and unsanitised and special. The architecture, thats another story. I can see these jutting out bits, all v contemporary, big green glass windowed building, modern materials and it does indeed appear modern. But can I say lacking creativity, its like you draw some squares, and halve them and get some triangles and rotate them and voila, a new bloody block of pop-up mercy. Whatever! We are not in Melbourne.
The next time I came I noticed that the flower designs printed on the new glass cross bridge were the same as ones I had been copying for my Happiness table decorations! How cool was that.
As I went to mind the space, the other day I saw a construction worker with the firm's name "Infinity Constructions" on his vest (no camera of course). But believe me, this made my day. Everything came together...infinity huh? I dig it! My work is endless, it is confined by walls, yes, but it is an ongoing manifestation of now. It reflects and takes in all that is around, and is formulated gradually, but then in immediacy as well.

Please order at the counter

2008-01-07T02:12:00.000-08:00

Self portrait in food

2007 detail

watercolour

Amorphic resonance resounds. It is my honour to work as an artist. I get to see, I get to think, watch and observe how it all goes, then I get to react and make work about it. Thank you to every curator has ever given my work a chance. I wish there was more. I wish that there were a hundred more times space and each show included more insights and that it wasn't so clubby. Over the years there have been some extraordinarily great omissions, I guess it is how things go, but I can't help think that if art were more important to the general public we would see greater support, and therefore more diverse work.

2008-01-06T07:39:00.000-08:00

It begins with a bowl made of cornflakes, and it never ends in this land of plenty. So much thrown away, so much produced, so much to collect!
The plastic house was found and filled with wooden blocks that Ron had left over from his install...they all fit in perfectly.
The strange turquoise plastic pen was found. It is a lap-band sugery promoter, by some pharmaceutical company, and was PERFECT in colour and content for my installation. It matched the neon around the corner from the gallery, on the local club, and it matches today's get thin quick ideals. And I found it while working on the project. When I gave a talk about the show, although to me it was a seminal piece, I neglected to say it. So here it is! Any questions?

Install view

Plastics

2008-01-05T07:10:00.000-08:00

Hot glue works in Small Mall
1.Local businesses
2.Workshop participants (with glitter on red plastic donated by Kate)

Working with the public

2008-01-04T07:01:00.000-08:00

This counts as a collaborative affair; I sat in the lobby at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery for two weeks, making clay words of local logos. Passer-byes were invited to create their own, to be used in the installation Branding 2007

My Store

2008-01-03T06:41:00.000-08:00

I really focused on the consumer aspects of the situation involving the shire riots and what we are made of. I thought, as we all shop in these same places we are equalised through our consumption! My store is the catchphrase for Myer's, and I found Westfield Miranda a minefield of inspiration, identical to each Westfield I have ever encountered.

Self portrait in food

2008-01-02T06:15:00.000-08:00

Watercolour on nice paper. And a papermache lettuce. These were products I consumed during my residency at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, bought at Gymea shops. A vain hope that it will cure me of my addictions by blowing them up and painting them large scale. Also, the tim tam packet really had "Love me" written on it! Special.

Consumers buy products

2008-01-01T05:55:00.000-08:00

Do I have the guts to video the fitness places at night, through the windows, all those people burning their fat off and making their muscles stronger?
2007
Dvd 15 minutes

Small mall 2007 installed at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre as part of Ron and George Adams' epic year long project unfortunately titled Our Lucky Country (still different)

Plastics

2007-10-01T01:08:00.000-07:00

Here is my plastic bag collection.
Photo: Margaret Roberts

I love the way plastics can be bundled up, and squashed, then laid out again and re-flattened. They have a memory, physically, and can become impregnated with scents. I notice very few used bags in our affluent society. Occasionally someone on the train will have their trusty favourite that they use regularly, and you can see how the colour has evaporated around the handles, however it is quite rare.
I was asked recently why I focused on plastics. Perhaps because I grew up in the USA and was a victim of polyester! For sure because of the environmental impact, but also because they symbolise our affluence, and neglect as well. But growing up in New York city in the 70's and 80's there were various artists who made sculptural works in abandoned lots, using garbage they'd create fantastic art works. I found these very inspirational. I would watch the barges go down the East River laden with millions of bags of rubbish. Even as a child I was incredulous that these got dumped out at sea. Sick! The synthetic nature of petrochemicals and their impact on our everyday life is one that I am examining.
Maybe Christo has something to do with it? Or Jeff Wall? Later, in the 90's I saw work by Mikala Dwyer and Hany Armonious. I knew I was amongst friends. Nowadays I can list dozens of artists, just locals who work with the stuff, and I love it. Anne Kay! Josie Cavallaro! Lisa Kelly! Kathy Cavaliere! Simon Yates! Simon Cavanough! Nick Strike! Caz Haswell! Jason Markou! Michelle Hanlin!

In every dream home

2007-09-01T02:28:00.000-07:00

Curated by Sophie O'Brien at SCA Gallery 2007

Heavy Duty
Collected plastic bags, photocopy, pencil on paper, shelf by Marley

I first saw the audio processor on Tim Hilton’s computer last year. What a pretty and complex picture it made! He printed it out for me, as I knew what I wanted to do with it right away. I wanted to replicate it as best as I could, so I drew it, photocopied it and coloured it in. It seemed to present me with so many possibilities as a picture, painted or coloured in various ways. Presumably, originally an artist designed the series, and perhaps began with a sketch, then scanned it into the computer, before modeling it using software. The racks of sound mixing equipment convincingly resemble the actual things found in expensive studios, and are available to anyone owning a computer with the desire to make their own sounds. My appropriation of the drawing lends a facile, childish interpretation of what it was originally designed for…misuse of advanced technology.
The plastic bags are a result of fourteen years of collecting from my family, friends and neighbours. Their usage is primarily a billboard to advertise the retailers, and secondly a carrier to take your purchases away with you. What are we supposed to do with these once they’ve served their purpose? En mass their weight is surprising, their colours amazing, and their bulk sizeable. Shouldn’t I just discard them and make more room for myself? I cannot let them go.

Excess

2007-06-01T03:05:00.000-07:00

Excess 2007
found fabrics, trestle table, Lisa Andrew's borrowed sewing machine, photocopy

At SNO, curated by Billy Gruner with Margaret Roberts (pictured).

Photo Sue Pedley

Colour world, it appears as though you could just step in the room, whereas in fact, you never got out from behind the continuous curtain, I made holes for seeing through every now and then. It was fun, and felt like a big playroom, or being in a giant dress.

VICTORIA!

2007-05-01T03:20:00.000-07:00

VICTORIA!

Ocular Lab, Melbourne

curated by Elvis Richardson

I was thinking about the gold fields that established Melbourne, and researched Queen Vic and her coronation;

"After the Homage was concluded I left the Throne, took off my Crown and received the Sacrament; I then put on my Crown again, and re-ascended the Throne, leaning on Lord Melbourne's arm; at the commencement of the Anthem I descended from the Throne, and went into St Edward's Chapel ...where I took off the Dalmatic robe, Supertunica, and put on the Purple Velvet Kirtle and Mantle, and proceeded again to the Throne, which I ascended leaning on Lord Melbourne's hand ... I then again descended from the Throne, and repaired with all the Peers bearing the Regalia, my Ladies and Trainbearers,to St Edward's Chapel, as it is called; but which, as Lord Melbourne said, was more unlike a Chapel than anything he had ever seen; for, what was called an Altar was covered with sandwiches, bottles of wine etc. The Archbishop came in and ought to have delivered the Orb to me, but I had already got it…The Queen of Hawaii gave me a present of very rare feathers, but very strangely arranged as a wreath about my monogram, also in feathers on a black ground, framed." From Queen Victoria's diaries online

I have seen Queen Vic's clothes and although she was much shorter than I, as she grew older we filled about the same space. Also, when I was in London I visited the Royal Albert Hall, and the monument to her lost and beloved Albert, which amazed me. I spent many hours in the Victoria and Albert Museum and believe it is my spiritual home. For the opening I made real cucumber sandwiches, and shandies.

Brand Identity

2006-12-09T05:45:00.000-08:00

Brand Identity 2006
collected plastic bag logos, sellotape
Polite car 2006
cardboard, paint, wood, plastic, police scanner radio (borrowed from Elvis Richardson)
Self portrait 2006
watercolour on paper

Our Lucky Country (difference) 2006
Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and MOP projects

The show was put together as a response to the Cronulla riots.

Polite car

2006-12-08T01:58:00.000-08:00

Polite Car 2006

detail

texter and paint on cardboard

It's a new day

2006-11-23T22:10:00.000-08:00

And now...Sim City 2006

Mixed media installation

A residency driven project curated by Sally Breen for Artspace, NSW with Anne Kay, Josie Cavallaro, Lisa Kelly, The Wild Boys (Trevor Fry, Richard Gurney and Tim Hilton)

Pictured; L found mattress, solarised paper R install view

Writings in situ

I could watch the water all day, recording the changes and transitions I observe every time I get the chance. As the tide goes out more piers are appearing, and when it rains I can see the fugue. Rain falling on water seems one of the only times you can see the wind. Emerald gelatinous form, solid...smoothed with light, billowing. The golden purples of the afternoon, the light! The light! Swelling the mass. Harboured in this little nested bay, we are quite still and safe when it is choppy water further out. Am mesmerised by the passing of air in front of me, through me, and out to the H2O. Inside the walls I am hidden, outside I am shared. Public space reveals us, we are on show, sharing each other's breaths.

The coin bag from the bank states "DO NOT MIX DENOMINATIONS". I wonder if Juanita Neilson is buried in the concrete of the buildings on the hill. I fly out the windows and over the bay before me. Gliding and diving through airwaves, washing through the rush.

There is some graffiti on the window in studio#4; "Does the noise ever stop?"

I watch the rain, the salty water of the ocean laps it up. Gray light and haze fills the bay, as it comes down more solidly it washes and soaks. Lucid tranquility pours over us. I see the shifts in colour, intense blooms develop in the water, from bronze and steel come copper, navy green and deep browns getting murkier. A mass of sawdust and floaties arrive, casting a grotesque grunge. At night I delight in the reflected lights.

Today the water is alternately mirrored and glowing as well as shimmering and fractured. When it rains the pavement opposite looks mirrored. A woman in a red dress struts along, and I can almost see up her dress! Watching the crinkly waves lapping the wharf. Tidily re-arranging themselves to subsume, merge and then re-offer their form, irrespective of each other? The accommodating mass pleads and plies, a washing form, virtually alive. Ominous in it's darkness, but so inviting in the light.

Terrific turquoise emerald quality today. I am transfixed by it's iridescence, and flat whole, stretched like a vast mirror to the sky. Lakes of ripples, swollen with oxygen.

Ships disturb and displace the drink, as rolls come toward me, swallowing land. I watch the warships*, and note their appearances, I detail the colours of the cars across the road at the W.

Sometimes it is just play, the residency at the Gunnery. 'Let me try this with that'. I downloaded a Google map of the area and set about doing a rendition of it in locally sourced detritus. And Now: A new day; Night mergers, Offerings and Wishes

* Huge steel bulk with a killing conscience.

6 week trial

2006-11-19T01:40:00.000-08:00

And a dinner
After 6 weeks in the studios, and installing at Artspace, we were rudely kicked out. I got to come back for the night before the closing with a private party. Hosted by Lisa Andrew, Carla Cescon and myself, we created a Grotesque Dinner. Entrees were super-good gazpacho with ghostly croutons (CC), mains, Messy sushi; loads of rice and assorted toppings accompanied by seaweed cut into hand shapes (my own), and finally la piece de resistance, pictured L; ile flotante...by LA; described as an island of meringue floating in a lake of custard, it was truly monumental. Table decor, LA and CC.
Sorry, more pix to come (if anyone has any can they send them to me?).
I think there were 30 guests. Pictured; The fabulous Nobu. Photographs; The great Deborah Vaughan.

Site specific installation

2006-11-18T01:22:00.000-08:00

We pay you 2006

Install detail

I needed mirrors to complete the work and used the FREECYCLE service. I can recommend it. It was an adventure going to stranger's homes to pick up their articles. Highly rewarding. The bottom pic has 2 mirror works in it, the far piece, an engraved mirror with the scene from across the water on it, and nearer, a mirror I'd set a hot bulb on, which had cracked to reveal a fantastic harbour scene...oh my good fortune! I have a history with glass, I am very attracted to it, but am such klutz! I break my most precious pieces without fail, and particularly when I am installing. However I have learnt to incorporate this clumsiness into the work. Or I think I have!

Recording details

2006-11-17T01:13:00.000-08:00

Top; install detail (the trestle tables were laden with a virtual map of the area)
Center; install detail
Bottom; recordings of warships and car colours parked opposite over the duration of the residency (Chinagraph on card)

Size reduced

2006-11-16T00:25:00.000-08:00

More details...the bottom piece doesn't show it, so I'll have to extract stills from the video I filmed of Richard Gurney dancing in my studio, navigating the city scape all over the floor. I have always enjoyed the giant human myths. Adam Costenoble very kindly formatted it for me on the 11th hour, for which I am eternally grateful.

The top piece, a bit of whimsy. Decorated light globe on a chain. I keep seeing fabulous jewellry and accessories all around me, BLING! I keep making fancy decorative pieces in response to all that.

The entire show, once again seemed to figure on points of synchronicity. Pieces I found were perfectly sized and shaped for the purposes I needed. Everywhere I looked I got confirmation of the work I was making.

[I was concerned that the piece had an ivory tower mentality to it. There I was up in my little kingdom, scrutinising the local neighbourhood, noting details and working with my own devised format...but how could I escape this label? Short of relinquishing my control over the project, I wasn't willing to compromise. However the whole idea of It's a new day...involved collaborative projects in some way.]

And now...

2006-11-15T23:23:00.000-08:00

The shadows of the glasses revealed Centerpoint Tower!

I used a version of this once in a Canberra show, years ago, and it said; "SUBMISSIVE POLITICAL IDIOT"

(I was talking about myself of course!)

Submissive 2006

hot glue on lightbox

I think about the cool people we got to meet at Artspace while we were there...Minimaxi May from WA...Nobuhiro Ishihara from Tokyo and Deborah Vaughan, Sydney, amongst others.

We had fun with Minimaxi, she had a dinner in her studio one night and since Lisa Kelly's project involved activating the studio area there was a lot of open doors and checking each other's works out. Nobu was really engaged with what we were all doing, and at the end of our stay I got to see what he was up to and it was fantastic in his space. Deborah showed some of her work during the grotesque dinner, eyes projected onto the exterior windows of Artspace, really beautiful and engaging.

Psychiatrist 5c

2006-09-13T02:23:00.000-07:00

LUCY from Charles Schultz’s Peanuts: Psychiatric Help 5c

Trial 1
September 2006 Loose Projects

The comic character of Lucy from Charles Schultz’s Peanuts has long intrigued me. As a child, growing up in the USA, I was inundated with Peanuts television cartoons. Every season provided more ‘special’ episodes, and the cartoon was celebrated as ‘clean living’ but slightly awry children’s content. The filler that I enjoyed was purely Woodstock and Snoopy. I loved them, but didn’t care much about the cartoon, except for scenes of the interior of Snoopy’s doghouse. They also had appealing names…Peppermint Patty, Schroeder and Pigpen, and I liked the obsession Schroeder had with his piano playing.
As I got older, I began to reminisce about the ideology of this comic. What did Lucy stand for? Hers was the only way. There was an absence of logic in her arguments, and what has been described on the official website, as “a shining lunacy”. I relate to this, and think, essentially there is an art to her bossiness. In December 1962, Lucy’s character declares to Schroeder “It’s a scientific fact that girls are smarter than boys”. Her big sister claim and motives are rarely pure; in fact she was very selfish and crabby.
As a kid, I really liked the Archie comic series, and fell in love with Betty’s character. Betty is the blonde sweetie, who was always losing out to Veronica’s ‘femme fatale’ antics. It was a battle between blonde, poor, honest Betty and Veronica; brunette, rich and devious. I identified with the wholesome and rarely successful Betty, hating Veronica. Lucy, being quite a nasty piece of work, resembles Veronica’s character. Lucy would whisk away the football she was holding for the trusting Charlie Brown, having promised and lied to him that she wouldn’t do exactly that…a scenario I hated. What a subversive dig at male trust and empowerment! Charlie always fell for it. As did Archie, falling for Veronica.
Lucy’s other role, being the gang’s ‘psychiatrist’ clashed elementally with her status as troublemaker. “Psychiatric help 5c” has such an appealing resonance. Despite all the trouble she caused, she still wanted to give her quasi-advice, assist maybe, and cash in on the trials of existence. She ran a business, calling herself ‘the doctor’- a precocious ego! Perhaps Schultz was making a comment on the plethora of analysists and shrinks common in the West. By having a child acting in this esteemed doctor’s role illustrated his mirth…her lack of responsibility and willingness to capitalise on proffering advice on anything speaks of the American way. Personally, I believe in the essential goodness of couch therapy, and the exploration of the self a noble and necessary modern convenience. Information sharing, story-telling.
The price Lucy charged rose from 5c to 47c in 1992. Even in comic book land there’s inflation. By now it should be $2 at least!
Sarah Goffman 13/9/06
Curated by Carla Cescon

Elvis Richardson in photograph

On reflection

Having tried it, and earning some $5 including tips

It was hard but fun. With people I knew it felt like an everyday arrangement, but with newbies it was all systems go. It ceased to be a camp performance and became charged and demanding. I haven't the guts to go public with this idea yet, as the play on actual mental illness poses problems I am not equipped to handle. I liked the physical proximity I had with my clients, and had to have a 5 minute time limit on the session, but felt really confident improvising on the spot and getting people all to myself for 5 minutes!

Simulated Accumulation

2006-08-31T01:35:00.000-07:00

Simulated Accumulation 2006

Mixed media

Simulation of an actual shelf in my studio with copies and hand made representations of actual materials, books and objects out of paper, plastic, glass, cardboard, paint, texter, hot glue, tape, wire.

LIST

2006-05-24T21:50:00.000-07:00

FROM 2002-04 I WORKED AS A CLEANER AT THE ARTSPACE NSW STUDIOS IN WOOLOOMOOLOO
THESE ARE THE NOTES FROM THAT PERIOD
NAMES HAVE BEEN DELETED TO PROTECT PRIVACY

_____LEFT PINS, STAPLES AND FUR
_____LEFT $1 IN COINS
_____LEFT A NICE GREY SHIRT, STACKS OF EXPENSIVE SHOPPING BAGS, SET OF SHEETS AND SOME POTS AND PANS
_____LEFT A CUBE OF PAYNES GREY WATERCOLOUR PAINT
_____LEFT ME SOME DELICIOUS CHOCOLATES AND A THANKYOU NOTE
_____LEFT A FEW UNOPENED BOTTLES OF EVIAN STILL WATER
_____LEFT VOGUE FASHION AND ENTERTAINING MAGAZINES
_____LEFT SOME COOL ENGLISH LOTIONS
_____LEFT SOME VERY NICE SNACKS IN THE FRIDGE
_____ AND _____LEFT A BEAUTIFUL WORK OF ART ON THE WALL
_____LEFT HER INTERNATIONAL DRIVERS LICENSE
_____LEFT A PURPLE STRIPED BEACH BAG, SUN BLOCK, INSECT REPELLANT AND A MERCUROCHROME STAIN ON THE CARPET
_____AND_____AND_____LEFT VOMIT SOMEWHERE
_____AND_____LEFT MASSES OF SHAVING STUBBLE AROUND SINK
_____AND_____SPIT TOOTHPASTE ALL OVER THE BATHROOM TAPS
_____LEFT A VERY BAD TOILET SITUATION
_____LEFT A BIG BLACK HANDPRINT ON WALL ABOVE CISTERN
_____LEFT A HANDMADE CARD WITH A PICTURE OF SPAM PASTED ON
_____GAVE ME A HUGE BAG OF DRIED FRUIT
_____AND_____LEFT STACKS OF MATERIALS
_____LEFT A FANTASTIC ROTRING MECHANICAL PENCIL
_____LEFT DOZENS OF TINY GLOW IN THE DARK SKULLS
_____LEFT A LITTLE BADGE WITH A DRAWING OF A COP ON IT
_____AND_____LEFT CAT FOOD SCATTERED AROUND THE STUDIO
_____LEFT $2
_____LEFT HAIRCLIPS IN HIS BED
_____LEFT UNSET RESIN STAINS ON TABLES AND FLOOR AND RUBBINGS OF LATEST WORKS
_____AND_____AND_____LEFT GOLD LEAF WASTE EVERYWHERE
_____LEFT 2 NEARLY FULL AEROSOL CANS OF ADHESIVE
_____LEFT A FULL CAN OF BLACK SPRAY PAINT
_____LEFT A BOTTLE OF NAIL POLISH REMOVER
_____LEFT ARTLINK MAGS, ART AND TEXT, AND OTHERS
_____LEFT A MIRROR BEHIND AND A BLOCK OF DARK CHOCOLATE, AND A COFFEE AND A BEAUTIFUL POT OF CACTI
_____LEFT POSTERS OF THEIR ART WORKS
_____AND _____LEFT A LOT OF PLASTER DUST
_____LEFT SEWING THREADS
_____LEFT BLU-TAC AND MASKING TAPE
_____LEFT A HUGE FILTHY MESS
_____CLEANED UP AND MADE IT ALL REALLY NICE
_____LEFT SUCH A HUGE ARRAY OF EMPTY BOOZE BOTTLES I WANTED TO KEEP THEM ALL
_____LEFT TWO LIGHTERS AND A BOX OF MATCHES
_____AND _____LEFT STATUES, PLANTS, CARDS, STONES, CUPS, CLOTHS, ARTWORKS AND CANDLES
_____LEFT SOME LOVELY BRIE AND CRACKERS
_____LEFT A BOTTLE OF VODKA
_____LEFT ½ A BOTTLE OF SHERRY
_____LEFT A SMALL WORKING LADIES WATCH
_____LEFT GERMAN SHAMPOO AND CONDITIONERS, ONLY A BIT IN EACH, BUT ENOUGH FOR A SAMPLE
_____LEFT EMPTY CAMPERS SHOEBOXES
_____AND _____LEFT INVITATIONS TO THEIR SHOWS
_____LEFT STUBBIES OF CHARCOAL
_____LEFT A PURPLE ACRYLIC SHAWL
_____’S KIDS LEFT BEHIND A BRACELET, SOME COLOURED PENCILS
_____LEFT A CREAM COLOURED BRA BEHIND
_____AND_____AND_____LEFT ME THEIR CATALOGUES

Chinoiserie

2005-06-16T03:39:00.000-07:00

Tank 2005Every time I've visited the Art Gallery of NSW in the last ten years, I go to the Asian art section and gaze at the Scholar's table. I copied elements of it years ago, and once again thought it was necessary to simulate the objects, using plastics that I carved and altered and found objects. The tank idea came about as a result of reading of the Gallery's early days where the roof would leak so much that water would run down the walls. The staff would have to remove the paintings to save them! As the desk is situated in a giant floor to ceiling vitrine, I thought it would be nice to immerse the pieces in water. As the pieces were all plastics, balsa wood and Styrofoam, they floated and so they needed to be weighed down, we used lead and old lady's gloves filled with sand. What you see here is early days...as the piece aged the rust started really coming on strong and the piece aged beautifully. The MCA worked hard to stop the rust* but the combination of materials and especially the lead we used to weigh everything down was TOXIC as hell.

This piece was hyper laden with problems and difficulties, and was a nightmare to install. It nearly destroyed my relationship with PJ who worked tirelessly helping me, and I believe it assisted in my allergic reaction to coffee! You see, when I was changing the water, by hand I was soaking in the poison water. After breaking the table a bit, and being shattered that I was so stupid not to have tested everything in advance (learning curve), I was at my 'wit's end'. I am a cuticle chewer when I am nervous and I stressed so much that day with the piece that I chewed myself ragged, whilst abusing strong long black coffees. The next day I was chemically changed, and ill. I have never had a real coffee since.**

I just remember it was fraught with trials and mega problems to solve, every step of the way. However, I was really glad to have realised the piece. No-one needs to know what a hellish struggle art stuff can be. But it is sometimes. I feel consumed by the need to get it right. It wasn't 100%, but it was worth it. I felt proud.

*I did not want to alter the piece. I accept that the work is changed by time, but the MCA insisted I repair the water situation...I do not agree. More work for me!

**Do you need to know that?

Pictured; the wonderful Michelle Hanlin and Robert Pulie I believe.

Rust = Age

2005-06-15T05:14:00.000-07:00

SHOP

2005-06-15T02:48:00.000-07:00

What is this? A simulated display of a Shop. In the Gallery. Only silly, dare I say subversive? I didn't even know I was making it, until I did...another case of synchronicity, where I found the shelving and it exactly matched the shelving in the MCA shop at that time. I have always had a special fetishised attraction to all Museum shops, their haughty standards, they are so aquisitional, and the MCA store was no different. The arrangements and curious oddities remind me of Wunderkammers, but it is all about commerce. It's essentially a market for expensive designer items. And so, what is art? I have questions. There were a number of nice smelling things, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables.

Consumer Distributor

2005-06-14T03:19:00.000-07:00

Shop 2005
Installation view
potato, television set ON ,hot glue, plastics, mung beans, glass, water, tomatoes, found pictures, paint, inks, bananas, metal, wood, wax, pencil, lights, lenses, cumin seeds, orange, paper, cardboard, fimo
I have a German carry bag with the words "Consumers distributing" on it. I love that concept!
Many of the objects in Shop are found and converted, and have to do with the art world. Small dioramas set the scene, and arrangements were constantly meddled with. I would come in over the course of the show and eat the blackened bananas (in this case I wanted the bright yellow of the fresh banana to be intact), and re-install components that had been moved.
I really like that curious people touch works and have a fiddle, it is part of the reality of showing to the public. But I have to restore order!

Refuse

2005-06-06T06:38:00.000-07:00

I have been collected used thick plastic bags for years and years. They are so durable, and perform this function of carrying your purchases home, and then being discarded. When new, they seem like a fashion accessory, people with armfuls of them in the city. All crinkling and shining. I saw one from an expensive designer that was so stylised, ornate and decorative, I wondered if the contents could be as ostentatious as the outer packaging. Possibly, as these days 'gaudy' has achieved a whole new status of being coveted. I really wanted that bag! Sometimes I want to ask people on the train to do a swap, as the colours of their bags are so extreme, and are not represented in my rainbow (above). No more swags bundled up in a bandana for us!

I have collected through different friends and family, all women: Kate Sowerby, Raquel Ormella, Olga Jakubovsky, Anne Kay, Josie Cavallaro, Lisa Kelly, Jane Goffman, Ngaire Worboys, Beth Eldridge, Shobhna Kumar and Sophie O'Brien to name a few. For this show, I got the MCA to collect for me. They also bought the lights, which I wanted to enhance the transparent qualities.

Refuse 2005

I like the dual possibilities of this title, it implies what is thrown away, and also is contentious in this time of re-cycling, as we are asked to refuse shopping bags.

I removed the logos and had them hung upside down on the bamboo sticks, coming out of the wall like banners, but the original idea was from a picture of washing lines in the past, hanging out of windows given to me by Lisa Kelly. I liked removing the logos. It was quite therapeutic, just cutting through plastic is satisfying, and erasing the designer's graphic imprint was exciting. Leaving traces of their handiwork, for sure, but eradicating their grip on the proposal to advertise felt deviant. What about copyright? Leaving these traces also has the effect of creating an architectural plan. What better urban development thing, as this is what houses our ever-increasing demands.

I do not shop very much. I haven't got the money! I don't work enough, and never work full time and haven't the desire for money that entails getting it together visavis making it. But I want to consume! As a teenager I did a lot of shoplifting. As a forty year old I still want new things, yet am satisfied with what I have. I see people in malls crowded day in and out, seemingly purchasing rigorously. Maybe they have all just lost their stuff in a fire, how do I know? I can't assume that everyone in the mall is there regularly, except the staff...some people do shop as a hobby, and as therapy. I guess in the past we would gather. I would rather be gathering firewood quite frankly, as long as I had enough to keep me warm and comfy clothing wise.

I do like a change. I change my hair colour often. I read different books. I travel to new places. I meet new people and try new things. Do I have to be involved in this shopping spree? I am involved! Some of my family are shop-a-holics. They have more than one of everything, and are always buying new things, to make their lives easier, and their houses nicer. Good on 'em, I get their throw-outs! As a matter of fact I probably wouldn't collect nearly as much as I do if it weren't for people re-furbishing and renovating. I happen to like the used and pre-loved (then chucked!) pieces. They speak of character and the past. Hell, one could build a house on what is thrown out in my suburb each week. Our waste is astronomical. I can just do what I can.

This piece will be ongoing, I envision a warehouse of the world's shopping bags, hung like the bloody United Nations!

Fear Not

2005-04-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

A shrine to all women 2005, based on the piece by James Hampton, The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly. Hampton had spent his lifetime as a janitor, but when he died, they found he had created a wondrous installation of artifacts, wrapped in tin foil. It is the most remarkable endeavour, absolutely fantastic, and he died without being recognised. This show, curated by DJ Robert Lake called Seven Beauties entails seven hard working artist women who play together and have social ties in and out of the art world. He curated it based on this.

I collected objects from all the women in the show; Lisa Andrew, Mishka Borowski, Sadie Chandler, Maria Cruz, Elizabeth Day, Elizabeth Pulie and wrapped these, as well as domestic objects and ephemera, to create a dazzling montage. I am in love with chocolate, and the wrapping really reflected that, but I also remember when I was young, my father (single after my mother's death) was a swinging bachelor, and he wallpapered his bedroom with aluminium foil. Installing these objects into this shrine formation on an upturned tabletop filled with water added to the reflective qualities, and also happened to host a colony of mosquito larvae for the duration of the show! I had been looking at the Taj Mahal, and was mightily impressed.Fear Not was borrowed from Hampton as well. It seemed a fitting epithet for a group of women all singularly trying to make it in the art world.

Red

2005-04-04T20:36:00.000-07:00

The colour red is much espoused upon. Personally I have always loved it. I chose red paint for my room at one stage, and was designated red as a child, while my sister got dark blue. I love all bright colours but red has a particular hold on me. It is symbolic and loaded with significance, and is so easy to spot! It glows with it's own warmth, and is considered a primary colour. In my darkroom days, red was the first colour I worked with.

By collecting together red objects and fashioning a red installation I was thinking of Louise Nevelson, and also the synchronicity of my finds. As soon as I started looking out for objects of that colour, they came to me. I would walk to the Gallery and find a red book, or scarf. I went to someone's house and they'd give me a red thing. It all worked together. I painted on a bucket little electrical pylons, but otherwise just removed any colour that wasn't right.

As I sit here typing I look at my red glass water cup. The light travels through it and I am entranced. When I'm in a car, behind the brake lights of other cars, I am delighted. The red traffic lights, STOP, glow so readily. I loved Emil Goh's following red video piece. I would like to gather together all red cars, but found Nina Katchedorian already did it! I went to a butterfly farm wearing red and the butterflies were so all over me. And once, when I was going to post a letter, I nearly mistook a woman wearing pillar box red with a post box! When I go bush, I love wearing red. It's the opposite to green! My therapist likes talking about why I love red. Recently, my sister made a video of our old home movies and gave me a copy. I had never seen the footage and in it, my deceased little sister was running around the garden all in red. Perhaps I am honouring her memory. Perhaps when we are in the womb, it is all red around us, and the redness that glows is so primal. One day I want to have a red party and invite all the red enthusiasts for a red blast.

I love

2005-04-03T21:05:00.000-07:00

Shrine to all women 2005
detail

I love laying objects out. I love collecting, arranging/assembling like and opposites. I could do this endlessly. The gallery exists as a home away from home.

Elastic archive show

2005-01-01T21:34:00.000-08:00

At Cross Art

Elastic Projects was invited to put together a show for Cross Art, run by Jo Holder. Elvis Richardson, Lisa Andrew, Anne Kay and I curated this show of works made in the context of archives.

I curated a video programme, and wrote a booklet. I also invited people to my home for tea.

Installation view by Regina Walters

pictured; Liz Day, Liz Pulie, Elvis Richardson

The Gallery as Archive 2005

I identify with collecting for a number of reasons, but mainly because I admire other people’s collections. As a child, my family moved countries a number of times, and with each move, more things would get lost or broken. The notion of hanging on to something for a good long time was unknown. Even the most valuable things can disappear. When I returned to Australia, nearly 20 years ago, I only had two suitcases with me. It’d been my policy to be able to move myself, requiring only a taxi. Since then I have been able to stay put and bring home as much as I can find, within reason. My partner PJ and I trawl the streets for throwaways, collecting what others don’t want. Neither of us can believe what good things people put out on household rubbish collection days.

Collecting and Ownership
I remember being awestruck by giant mountains when I was young, and felt more than a sense of wonder. I felt a desire to own those mammoth things, to contain them, and somehow have access to that majestic beauty forever. Short of climbing them and living there, I felt some satisfaction by doing a drawing, and then I felt like it was in my heart, or at least in my sketchbook. My home and studio space are my archive, and are constantly in use and being improved upon.

For the Elastic archive show I wanted to assemble a collection of video works that dealt with collecting. I liked the idea of using the minute storage facility of the DVD to serve as such a fantastic recording device, holding potentially loads of information. This contrasts so heavily with my work, and my home, which serves as my archive.
The Gallery as Archive show initiates my quest for video works that deal with collecting in some way. Hopefully, this will be the beginning of an archive of video works that attempt to catalogue the notion.

The pre-occupation with gathering together, archiving, storing and collecting seems inevitable. Relatively little from the distant past remains, so we seem to be on a mission to preserve remnants, souvenir our culture, to the death! Who decides what is kept, and what is thrown away? Bart Simpson nearly killed for a comic book. A giant air controlled hangar filled with Sydney 2000 Olympic records exists! I’d prefer to see a museum filled with snapshots taken at Olympic events, by visitors, actually. E-bay acts as the largest catalogue collection in the world. Sci-fi writer William Gibson observed this obsession with thrift-shop hunting and picking may be a sign of “some desperate instinctive re-configuring of the post-industrial flow, some basic mammalian response to the bewildering flood of sheer stuff we produce”.[1]

Regina Walter’s video ‘IN’ is a collection of images of women taking a puff from a cigarette. The camera acts casually, outside a plaza and often there’s an embarrassingly candid gaze of the smoker, as you’re watching them inhale. Magnifying through repetition. The simplicity of gathering together groups of sames appeals to me psychologically seeking order in chaos, but also because it makes you look at those moments with a different concentration. After analysing something, you are much more involved with it. In ‘Smithfield’, the idea extends to asking passer-byes to say “Smithfield”. The random choice of people, and their genuine personalities, as well as their enthusiastic, almost ritualistic boredom makes me feel glad. I see some reflection of myself in those residents, and their quintessentially Australian dynamic is apparent.

Kutlug Ataman’s Küba, shown this year at the Argyle Centre served as an amazing installation of Istanbul resident’s stories. I loved seeing the work, for it’s obsession with tragic stories, fringe residents (they looked like my kind of people), and also it’s physicality. The collection of well-worn Salvation Army armchairs, old televisions, and TV tables had to be experienced, to be believed. The warmth and cosines of those very domestic objects, all varied, making a giant living room out of the old wooden wool store building, and eerily one chair per monitor, all facing South-East (?).

Liz Day’s work The Origin of Ideas is an ongoing inquiry into these places where thought processes meander. An interdisciplinary archive of notebooks showing the intimate working processes of people working across arts and sciences. She records random sequences of sketchbook pages, and as you watch, the sense of following each artist’s neural pathways is evident and delightful. The translation of paper through to video is quiet and fluid. The assemblage of people’s works, and just a taste of a few of their books have a sensibility that achieves so much through passive contemplation. I felt the seminal act of creation was evoked, and made the ordinary quite beautiful. Private jottings and notes are scanned as quickly as a complex drawing or configuration. I watched my own with trepidation, but feel honored to be included. She has been working with other people’s notebooks since 1997 and has a further work planned for later this year, in Tasmania.

Che Guevara’s image lives on in Raquel Ormella’s zines Che 2005. This document of his ever-increasing popularity demonstrates a fortitude, commitment and readiness to record each and every image of Che that came her way over 10 years. The revolution seems to have only begun and his face is everywhere! I think she even culled her collection to keep the costs of printing down. If only Gandhi was as photogenic… The pre-occupation with the subject seems devotedly fan-like, as that’s what is required for a collector. Time is of the essence when you’re collecting. You can go to e-bay and purchase a ready-made collection, but marking time through you pursuit historicises a life’s journey.

When I invited Luke to do something for the show, he wanted to display some aspect of his collection. Mark wearing my t-shirt collection 2005 reminds me of Brigid Berlin’s substantial pile of identical Lacoste© t-shirts from the Pie in the Sky documentary. It didn’t matter how ragged they were, they had done their time and it was integral they were there. Luke’s photographs document a devotion to interesting t-shirts, handsomely modeled by Mark. I admire obsession. It is the commitment that keeps the collection alive. The devotion over time seems somewhat religious to me, I know how enthralled I am, when I find a thing that compliments my collection. Once I have a number of similar items, and they really start mounting up to something, I pore over them with pleasure. Accumulating a substantial collection can make a person famous; someone I knew, knew someone who sold their ABBA scrapbooks to The Powerhouse Museum for $10,000. I wonder if anyone will ever want my collection of tobacco-related paraphernalia!

A couple of years ago I was given some watercolours and I embarked on a series of paintings of packaging I’d amassed. I filled a book with quaint paintings, in the hope that I wouldn’t have to keep all the empty packages forever, that the painting would serve as a record, and that was enough. Unfortunately, when I looked at the paintings on their own, they weren’t as interesting as when they had the object next to them. At art school, studying painting, I was confounded by the length of time it took to paint something reasonable. I moved into photography, where capturing things on film takes a millisecond, but stills weren’t enough.[2] I went back to the objects themselves.
So, for my own work, I would like to invite visitors to my home, open by arrangement in November.
‘In perpetuity’ seems impossible as I consider our population, era, environment, and history.

[1] William Gibson, “My Obsession”, Wired, January 1999, 102
[2] The removal of the object through photography, and the distance created between the viewer and that original object seems distorted to me. The interruption, or lie of the lens is an easily manipulated tool. How to display photographic works dictates their interpretation. It can be an expensive medium.

The end of a dream

2004-06-06T23:49:00.000-07:00

The end of a dream
A painting at the AGNSW “The end of a dream” (1908, by G. Pennasilico) leads me to wonder what hopes and dreams occupied the minds of travellers in the past. It shows an obviously upper-class woman looking a bit dishevelled, in a beautiful dress, in a beautiful room, with a serving maid behind her. It’s coppery tones and feathery paint strokes imply a romantic, romance fiction fire-lit aura. How did he envision the future when he painted that? Not just his personal fate, but the destiny of civilisation.
What would people from the past think of us if they were deposited into the 21st century?
In order to explore these speculations I intend to tell a story. Inhabiting the Sleeper with hot glue objects, radio music, scent and lighting, to project a traveller’s dream into the atmospheric antique interior of the Sleeper coach enabling the viewers to partake of their for bearers reverie.
This work was produced as part of 24:7 at the Canberra Railway Museum

Detail hot glue words: Mr.Speaker
Top
Install detail, paint on cloth, light, paper, bowl

Tank

2004-02-10T23:29:00.000-08:00

Tank 2003
New Zealand at Michael Lett's Gallery in Fantasy Island group show curated by Hany Armonious

Shelves

2004-01-03T03:24:00.000-08:00

Using the existing shelving

1. Twigs grown in my garden hot glued together.

2. Styrofoam ball floating on pool of water contained in a plastic bag resting on my yellow t-shirt.

3-4 Bakers clay with blue food colouring, mini mountains with architectural features ( retro model houses).

5-6 Fairy lights under red plastic bag

The doctor is in

2004-01-02T03:07:00.000-08:00

Bus ticket collection
Printed numbers in water

I collected Metro Ten tickets because I liked that they printed out the exact time of the transaction. I used the services of Column 8 in the Sydney Morning Herald to acquire more tickets. I found there were other people who had been collecting for years. I wanted to map out every minute of every hour of the day that the buses run. I cut out the time and pasted it on to sticks, shown here. I never completed every minute of the day, but I got close. I think they matched the ghastly laminex counters in the gallery.

Sunrise

2004-01-01T01:41:00.000-08:00

Install view

Sunrise 2004 Install detail
Josie Cavallaro, Lisa Kelly and I shared a studio at 16 Pidcock Camperdown for about five years. Marrickville Council runs Chrissie Cotter Gallery just down the road, with a Bowling club, and a tennis centre. We decided to do a show together. My work, The doctor is in, was playing with all sorts of ideas.
Sunrise
This portion contains a collection of pink materials, offset by a flouro flag (kindly donated by Josie) draped off a plinth. On the plinth were small offerings, sweet honeysuckle, some food and a candle. The bright blue table was found and I painted it. It had been used for years as a palette and was hugely bumpy. It is a painting. These found Australian coins had rusted in a jar, and formed a centerpiece. I keep coming back to money over the years. The inference of transactions. Symbolising exchange, wealth and my desire for money. That one and two cent pieces were discontinued (I still find this radical), and nowadays people will step over a 5c coin on the street (some people).
Money on the table: gambling? voodoo? bribes? illegal activity? I have a well cultivated reaction to money. From the thousands of images I have seen of greenback-filled suitcases to my personal desire for enough money to live on, money is a huge part of our society. I dream of cash, literally. Wads of it. When I was little I would take money and steal. I'd throw the money on the ground and pretend to find it. Who doesn't love finding money?
Capitalism. What a loaded gun, the temptation for money. What we'd do for money. As a kid, I used to hang out after school asking for bus fare money from strangers. I am not proud of this, but it was something I did to get money for sweets. One man turned out his pockets and he had only 35cents and a little charm. He held it out to me in his palm, offering it all to me, and I was shocked, he had so little and he was willing to give it to me. I turned it down and felt so ashamed.
I was in Paris in 2000, waiting in a queue outside a gallery. It was freezing cold, and the wait was long. A homeless fellow was gleaning money from the crowd, and when he got to us, we gave him some cash and he flipped out and threw the cash onto the street and yelled incomprehensibly and stormed off. We gathered the money and left it on the ledge for him, it was like 100 Franks. His action was so unexpected. He humiliated us.
The doctor is in refers to the psychiatrist's office. I was sent to analysts/psych since I was about eight years old. I have always loved them. A formal exchange where you have someone to talk to who doesn't judge you, and who can illuminate your ways of thinking about things and coping with emotion.

Essay

2003-07-13T03:22:00.000-07:00

I wish I were bigger

Fatter? Taller? More famous? Or just giant?

I wish my work was bigger!
The stain on the carpet looks like spew. The day I was minding the show outside on the pavement someone had done a big red spew and I knew I had done right.

Catalogue Essay

Sarah Goffman’s wish to be ‘bigger’ is a clue to the ethos of her latest installation. If only she was more capacious, then she might be able to harbour all the junk in the world. This passion for objects may be read as a symptom of intense curiosity. While studying literature at university, Goffman was plagued by the thought that she could never read everything, marvelling at libraries stacked with more books than she could hope to absorb. Evidently she feels the same way about all the detritus she now seeks out. Her plaintive proclamation may be understood as the inevitable outcome of a collector’s obsession, or the manifestation of a desire to save the planet from rubbish. Indeed, the two aims may be intertwined in an altruistic yet covetous drive to improve the environment.
Goffman’s installation, made almost completely from found materials, is full of intriguing combinations, seemingly infinite in their variation, like a microcosm of the world made from trash. Here, the artist suggests new aesthetic forms for things which are usually despised or beneath notice. Arranged in organic formations, these cast-offs appear compellingly beautiful. A tree branch in a giant bag, plastic shopping bags sport customised pockets and toilet paper is embroidered like exquisite craftwork. Commonplace items are repeatedly transformed from the prosaic into the decorative, blurring the boundaries between categories.
While this composition may be read as an inspiring DIY dream, or a masterpiece of waste management, darker themes may be discerned. The structures on display have unmistakably apocalyptic resonances, suggesting a crumbling cityscape after a disaster. Miniaturised scaffolding submerged in a fishtank illuminated by a floating strobe, with stained carpet beneath, summons up the spectre of civil decay. Here, nature is visibly damaged by artificial constructions, but is itself already man-made and mass-produced, reflecting the perils of excess. In spite of these black undercurrents, humour is evident in various distortions of scale: scaffolding inside a fishtank, a small box labelled ‘Extra Large’ and a miniature newspaper mountainscape.
Goffman’s collections could be understood as a way of filling the void, a compensation for loss or momento mori. After all, every collection is a constant reminder of the very reality it has been created to stave off. The objects she covets are talismans of an inverted conoisseurship, each piece the grave of a past desire. Many of the materials Goffman puts to use will be around long after we are gone, given their virtually indestructible, toxic qualities. In this installation, people are absent except in caricatural forms while inanimate objects testify to the folly of our endeavours. Inhabiting a blackened zone, an empty motorcycle suit hangs surrounded by an audience of cut-out faces. Elsewhere, money and ashes sit side by side on glass, as in a macabre shop display, posing an equivalence between human life and hard currency.
B.L.Magner

I

2003-07-12T03:12:00.000-07:00

Install detail I wish I were bigger 2003 Solo show at Scott Donovan Gallery, Liverpool Street
Found motorbike rider's suit, lace gown, goggles filled with sand, embroidered toilet paper, light, tissue box, candied nuts, hot glue bowls and cubes, plastic bag with orange on glass plate, found table.

Protect me from what I want found Simple shoe box

Newspaper mountain
Newspaper, water, tray

I wish

2003-07-11T02:54:00.000-07:00

Tank
2003
detail
Hot glue, copper wire, sand bags, water, laser, pump

Giant woman 2003
Install detail
plastic bags, hot glue, lights

I wish I

2003-07-10T02:35:00.000-07:00

Install detail

Embroidered toilet paper 2003

By embellishing this throwaway material I suggest an alteration to ways of thinking.

I wish I were

2003-07-08T02:18:00.000-07:00

Shopping bag, glass plate and an orange
Tank 2003
Plastic hot chips 2003

I wish I were bigger

2003-07-07T01:39:00.000-07:00

Plastic bag spray painted, tree limb from outside, string, paper silhouettes

Detail
photocopied cash, spraypainted found board, found brick, tea, buttons, lights, hot glue, found carpet, paint

After you

2003-06-06T01:24:00.000-07:00

After you 2003

Rubber band face detail and painted Vitawheat biscuit I've got love in my tummy

bubbling light fog machine

mirror, found objects, wooden fruit, tissue box, wire, paper, hot glue, paintings on canvas Someone told me I should try painting

Front Room Kitchen

Trouble in Canberra

2003-03-03T03:45:00.000-08:00

Hotel Module 2003

Solo show at Canberra Contemporary Art space Cube
Top right Install view
Centre left detail Centre right Install view
Bottom detail DEGENERATE MATTER hot glue

What possessed me to make such a complicated installation out of town?
I wonder. The title, Hotel Module refers to a hotel room I stayed in, when I ran away from home at sixteen. I'd taken my passport and all sorts of belongings. I was a naughty and disturbed kid and this act got me into a lot of trouble (I was found). I stayed in the room devising plans to get me out of the situation I was in. There was justified anger but also a lot of false illusion. In this show I was thinking about all that past baggage I still carried around with me, and the symbols of that.

Trouble

2003-03-02T04:03:00.000-08:00

Texter on Kleenex tissues.

Found book

More trouble

2003-03-01T04:10:00.000-08:00

Top Found postcard with plastic and hot glue

Centre Repetitive texter on blotting paper (site specific work)

Bottom Detail Glass beaker, water, styrofoam, light

I used a lot of different coloured detergents and liquid soaps in the show, Playing on their scents and different pearlised colours.

A factor of my shows has to do with experimenting with putting objects out into the gallery environment. I am constantly learning how to install, always trying.

Plastic Reality

2003-01-01T01:16:00.000-08:00

This was made for a group show at MOP curated by Koji Riju.

It is a simulation of a real event in my bathroom where a praying mantis came and sat on a pink jellyfish hanging on the wall. It is made from hot glue, paint, string and a jelly cup container.

2003

XXXXXXXL

2002-12-05T04:14:00.000-08:00

XXXXXXXL

2002-12-04T04:20:00.000-08:00

XXXXXXXL

2002-12-03T04:33:00.000-08:00

XXXXXXXL

2002-12-03T04:24:00.000-08:00

XXXXXXXL

2002-12-02T04:45:00.000-08:00

XXXXXXXL

2002-12-02T04:41:00.000-08:00

XXXXXXXL

2002-12-02T04:38:00.001-08:00

Briefcase Show

2002-08-08T03:02:00.000-07:00

At Boutwell Draper, organised by Simon Barney Briefcase 50 2002
My briefcase offering, a lightbox contains hot glue maps of the area, plastic money and ID. There are all sorts of samples and preserved collections in perspex and plastic bags, including a fake coin collection.
I often make money. I draw it, photocopy it, photograph it and fax it. I keep copies of strange bills and I dissect the money that goes through my hands daily. I forge my own credit cards (not literally, but I make facsimiles out of them). I copy my passport and licenses.
The fucking Gallery put number stickers on the perspex...what idiots.

Swell 1

2002-07-07T04:24:00.000-07:00

Swell 2

2002-07-06T04:32:00.000-07:00

Swell 3

2002-07-05T04:35:00.000-07:00

Swell 4

2002-07-04T04:37:00.000-07:00

Swell 5

2002-07-03T04:41:00.000-07:00

Swell 6

2002-07-02T04:44:00.000-07:00

Swell 7

2002-07-01T04:49:00.000-07:00

Spray painted bag of nuts on outside ledge

SWELL (Just some shit) A grouped show
@ Block

Sunrise found motor; Erskineville, gadget; City Gold back alley, hot glue, plastic

Take away plastics, found display shelves; City Gold back alley, paint, horse, Asian magazine page; Qantas, wax, pins, glass, Perspex, wire, steel, whiskey, hot melt, 10 Lindt chocolate bar cards, sand, string, hessian, shopping trolley, light water, lead, fishing wire, found glasses; Scots Church lane, concrete, t-shirt, light box, oil pastel, pumpkin, watermelon

Found money 1980-2002 money, Sellotape, perspex

Taken in Geneva 2000 photographs; anti land-mine public art

Found in back alley Plastics, wood

Champion shell thing; Auburn household rubbish, plastics, bamboo, glass, hot melt, string, sellotape

Positive gearing hot melt, glass jars from former art work, containing own hair, paint, oil pastel, jelly sweets, snail droppings, shelf

Found rings 1970-2002 rings, found umbrella; in Kingswood, whose is it?, orange juice

Stand found stand; City Gold back alley, Xenon light, batteries, plastics, hot melt, permanent marker, glow in the dark human skeleton head, page from aforementioned magazine, found gloves; Coogee household rubbish, balsa wood; 10 day city sponsor, personal stereo, water

Well donated lighters 2000-2002, pump, water, sandbags, plastic, glass

Sydney snails Stripped box; from garden, snail droppings, plastic box, Perspex shelf

Black Queen ink, stamps, binder, religious icon, local paver

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In kind sponsor Australian Native Landscapes, thank you Daniel

Thank you to the Hollywood Hotel, Surry Hills, the Union Hotel, Erskineville, and all
the people who donated lighters.

Absolute Rubbish

2002-05-05T05:09:00.000-07:00

Eco-boutique 2002 24 HR Art Darwin, NT

With Josie Cavallaro and Lisa Kelly

We proposed the show so that we could go to the tropics.

Tourist trade

2002-05-04T05:21:00.000-07:00

Simulations of money in hot glue, simulation of greenery, in a green perspex box (inspired by my garden).

I try to work intuitively when I am tracing work for a show. I try to research as much as possible about a place, and my biggest mantra is "Trust your instincts" and work intuitively. With all that I know, I do the best that I can do. I am always pleasantly surprised when I get there and find empathy with the environment. I feel part of the world I am looking at, and there is nothing better than that.

I discovered pawpaw salad, and ate so well! I have never eaten better.

Waterproof

2002-05-03T05:24:00.000-07:00

Heat

2002-05-02T05:27:00.000-07:00

It was winter in the tropics, and still 32 degrees every day. As soon as I got there it was exactly as I'd expected. It had just rained and was glowing green fecundity. Every growing thing was bigger and greener than I had ever seen. We stayed in a nice little place and hit the pool as soon as possible. The locals were walking around in jumpers! It was the most amazing experience, being so far from home yet still in Australia.

After the show opened we rented a tiny car and some swags and drove to Litchfield National Park, then on to Katherine for the night. I have never swum in a pool whose water you could drink. It was awesomely beautiful out there.

Greenview

2002-03-03T05:56:00.000-08:00

Greenview 2002

Curated by Jason Markou

BLOCK

I planted the median strip full with bromeliads. They lasted one week. Council came and tore them up!
I painted the windows with this green glass paint 'Vitrail', someone scratched some off. An interactive show!