i know i took pictures of one or two of you wearing those tags.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
IDEALISM
Hey
My names Ben Wilson (as you can tell from my blog name thingy) and this is my first blog and I don't know what to write to I guess I will just start by talking through the process of making my film. Here we go.
My film is titled 'Idealisme' (it has an e on the end because it is the french spelling of the word idealism - nobody can pronounce it and half the people think it's a spelling mistake which I think is the point). Anyone who has seen the film will immediately recognize that I was inspired by filmmaker Michel Gondry. It tells the story of characters Boy and Girl who are bored with their lonely, mundane lives and develop a romantic relationship in their dreams. Eventually, their dream world begins to interfere with their realities until the two worlds combine into one ideal world.
THE PROCESS:
Well, after ages and ages of figuring out a story line, I began story boarding. I found it was very important to plan everything especially because the film involved different worlds that related to one another as much as possible. I asked my two friends Melissa Brownlow and Miles Szanto if they would like to be the main characters. I then spent a week turning my garage into a film set - constructing a bedroom made entirely out of cardboard. After the set was complete, my two lovely and dedicated friends came over for a week of intense shooting. Because I wanted to control the lighting, we could only shoot the dream world scenes at night so shooting usually finished just before the sun came up and when it did we went around filming the reality scenes. One night my beautiful makeup artist friend Annie Noakes made the actors up as dolls for the dream world, we shot all night and at about 4am decided that we didn't like the doll idea anymore and it would work best if they were real people. So we shot everything again the next night. On the last night of shooting we finished at around 4, packed up as much of the set we could into Mel's car and I forced her to drive an hour and a half to a beachside grass hill place where we shot the final moment where the two worlds combine at sunrise (except everyone thought it was sunSET so our sleepless night went unrecognised!)
Needless to say, we were all glad when shooting was finished. We ended up with 6 (I think) hours of raw footage which I had the very tedious task of editing down to 5 minutes.
So yes, that's the process we went through. Filmmaking is obviously a team effort so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank particularly Mel and Miles who are extremely dedicated actors and inspiring people. If they didn't put up with a week of sleepless nights and all of the hard work and have so much creative input, making the film wouldn't be possible, so thanks guys.
Now I think I'll talk about the exhibition opening at the AGNSW. It was so exciting to see the film played on a huge wall with actual chairs where people could sit down and watch it! And the exhibition itself was amazing - yellow walls are really in. And all of the works were so good - I have to say my personal favourite was Nick Levy's '3am/Exit Signs' which was the beautiful paintings on cardboard. It was so good. It was such honour an to be part of that amazing exhibition.
I hope some one read this and that it helped. If you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them.
byeeee
3am/exit signs
hey bloggers. my work just got hung, which is pretty exciting, as it would be for everyone else on this blog who has been hung. brief history of the work: I wanted to explore the idea of heightened emotion at night, that sinking, overwhelming melancholy that comes at like 230 am, or 3 am, as the name may suggest. I was also interested in the amazing effect of soft electric light in near darkness in making perfect surfaces, especially human skin. reducing it to suggestions of the human form and face. The look sorta developed beyond this but i tried to keep the idea of light reducing forms to pristine surfaces. All of the pieces ended up being set outside, so there wasnt a whole lot of soft lighting. Street lights ended up being the major source of light. Through that it was fun to experiment with ciaroscuro (spelling?). Geoffrey Smart (spelling?) inspired this interest in the urban environment, portrayed through detailed painting and the relationships between people and the urban environment. Bill henson was a big influence on the look and emotion of the works, one of my favourite artists, as opposed to jim henson, who, despite my best efforts, did not get a jersey in contributing to my major work. The cardboard came out of neccessity, i couldn;t be bothered to buy canvas, but i liked the way it looked and acted with the acrylic paint and ended up becoming part of the conceptual makeup of the piece, the contrast of the rough edges and worthless cardboard to the detailed painting reflecting that dichotomy of pain and beauty in extreme emotion. the dimensions, ie space at the bottoms of each were inspired by rothko's powerful compositions, wow they're awesome. also huge influences, or if you want to get my concept a little clearer than my rambling read John Keats' Ode on Melancholy or Missy Higgin's nightminds. sorry for going on, hope you got something out of it. I LOVED THE OTHER WORKS!! WOW! everyone is so talented, and goodlooking...
Friday, February 13, 2009
Blog 2_Response to the exhibition:
Well what a blast, the exhibition opened yesterday and officially to the public today. I had a ball walking around in the bubbling atmosphere to view my contemporaries works. Many of the works delivered and were thoroughly enjoyable. The way that James Anichich’s colour filled the space, or the detail of Prudence Bell’s paintings or the expressive surfaces of Andrew Smith’s and Goondiga Edgar’s canvas’. I’m looking forward to viewing the exhibition in a quieter time in the coming month.
The way my work is constructed it is important that it is displayed correctly so that it can be ‘understood’ by the audience. It is really a linear work which starts in the realistic and ends in the relative abstract. A slight limitation of my work was the fact that I didn’t include a holistic picture to assist the installers in its set up. However not surprisingly there was my work set up nearly as I had set it up for my school art show, except Tristan that the installers had shown me that it didn’t have to be linear mounting some of my works above and below that linear line that the artworks read and viewed at.
I think like many of the other exhibiting students I was nervous to see how people would approach my work, view and well generally how they would respond it. No emotion is a bad one. Relief struck when I saw people looking at bits in close detail and photographing snippets of it.
One strength of an exhibition like ArtExpress (which is really a group show) for students and certainly for me is the variety of techniques, methods, mediums and concepts on display. Whether or not I liked a work on the whole I saw many small snippets which interested me a lot. I hope that my work at the very least shows students another way to approach there subject matter. As my work is classified as a ‘collection of works’ I have embraced the concepts behind ‘a body of work’ and used many different mediums and materials to explore my concepts. I hope that through this stretching and in depth exploration of my concepts viewers are able to think themselves outside the square of how to approach their own practice.
The way my work is constructed it is important that it is displayed correctly so that it can be ‘understood’ by the audience. It is really a linear work which starts in the realistic and ends in the relative abstract. A slight limitation of my work was the fact that I didn’t include a holistic picture to assist the installers in its set up. However not surprisingly there was my work set up nearly as I had set it up for my school art show, except Tristan that the installers had shown me that it didn’t have to be linear mounting some of my works above and below that linear line that the artworks read and viewed at.
I think like many of the other exhibiting students I was nervous to see how people would approach my work, view and well generally how they would respond it. No emotion is a bad one. Relief struck when I saw people looking at bits in close detail and photographing snippets of it.
One strength of an exhibition like ArtExpress (which is really a group show) for students and certainly for me is the variety of techniques, methods, mediums and concepts on display. Whether or not I liked a work on the whole I saw many small snippets which interested me a lot. I hope that my work at the very least shows students another way to approach there subject matter. As my work is classified as a ‘collection of works’ I have embraced the concepts behind ‘a body of work’ and used many different mediums and materials to explore my concepts. I hope that through this stretching and in depth exploration of my concepts viewers are able to think themselves outside the square of how to approach their own practice.
Going on a little rant.
Felt a bit bloggy so here goes my little ARTEXPRESS rant..
So a couple of months ago I was discussing with someone, the act of giving flowers to people, I’d always figured it was a gesture of kindness or perhaps infatuation because flowers are [generally] nice-looking and make people feel positive and cheerio (personally I don’t understand the psychological aspects of it much so can’t really think of a very sound explanation). Their interpretation however, was that what people were really giving to each other were plant genitals and hence a subtle invitation for sex. That flowers were genitals, I could only agree and sat in silent wonder thinking about how absurd it really was. It's a little crazy. I am mentioning this because it does coincide with the supposed concept I gave to my Body Of Work (BOW)..
My name is Estelle Felix and my work “Whimsical Lunacy” has been chosen for the ARTEXPRESS 09 exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW.
It’s a rather strange feeling to have things you’ve spent forever fiddling with, displayed in some kind of gallery of sorts. Today was the exhibition opening and as I walked through the muddy park and up the steps of that huge schmancy building I couldn’t help but feel somewhat intimidated.. almost as if I cheated my way there. I mean people make art for years to get in a place like that and there I was with a single years worth of “serious” artmaking experience behind me. In other words, I’m really quite ecstatic that my work’s been chosen for ARTEXPRESS. It’s true. See ---> :D
I’m yet to begin a Bachelor of Design degree at UNSW which will cater nicely to my interests because I’ve had a lot of trouble with deciding on what area of design I’d be best in- graphic? maybe textiles or jewellery? Who knows.
The artistic intentions I had for my BOW:
Well you see, to continue with the "flower-fact" I opened this entry with, when I first started my BOW I kept conjuring up ideas that were usually entirely illustrative and fairly obvious. I didn’t understand that by doing these sorts of things I was restricting others from their own subjective viewing of my work... i.e. I was turning my work into a diagram of sorts, equipped with instructions for ‘how to view it’. This was because I thought that if I had an idea to tell people about, then I really had to make sure they absolutely and completely and irrefutably understood precisely what it was I was trying to express (in it’s entirety) at first glance. It seemed as if I was almost too aware that people can interpret, misinterpret or reinterpret pretty much everything for themselves.
After a while I think I saw beauty in subjectivity and ambiguity. I looked upon Surrealist artists I admired and realized how much of there work was left open for people to take what they want and to see for themselves and be affected by the artwork in multiple ways depending on the viewer. I then began to understand how seemingly primitive the idea was to force people to see art in a 'one-and-only' way.. take for example, portrayals of biblical narratives through classical paintings.
Armed with my new appreciation of subjectivity, I created pieces that are unrestrictive in almost every way- colour, subject matter, space and use of unconventional materials (like socks and other found objects). I wanted to use the idea of the ambiguous subconscious mind to create works that expressed the constant flow of often irrational ideas just so I could say a big fat,
“go on, imagine a little and take what you want from it” and then going on to ask,
“see those shapes? What do they look like to you? And how can you expand on that idea by using the other absurdities around it?”. Then hopefully (or ideally) they’d reply something like,
“oh wow, they look like dog ears! Yes! It’s a dog with crazy crazy eyes, one of which is framed by fake eyelashes in the form of mathematical ruling devices and it’s got swans running profusely out of its windowed fortune cookie nostrils! Alas! I am inspired!!”. So, in a way, its kind of like cloud watching but with colour and not as limited in terms of shape variation.
Yes so really I’d like to encourage people to interpret the art they see for themselves.. it’s certainly more enjoyable that way and more helpful too especially if you’re in the process of artmaking and developing your own style. Someday one may get so advanced with this skill, that they can see something like “Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride” and think to themselves,
“goodness! that the woman looks as if she has horns!.. Therefore she must be some kind of diabolical goat who isn’t actually pregnant but has a small-but-lethal sized canon hidden underneath her dress that will blow her husband up to smithereens so that she can get all his money and go holidaying with some other man!... Yes, I am sure it is so!”
Strangely, even though I thought I did indeed create a BOW by which each person could interpret [my madness] for themselves, when we had an art and music soiree at school one young gentleman did come up to me claiming quite enthusiastically that my collection of works was (and I quote) “exactly what the inside of my head looks like!”. I was quite taken back to be honest, but ah :), it was probably the most wonderful comment I’ve received from it so far.
To finish this up though, I have to say that from what I've seen today of this years ARTEXPRESS exhibition, I am just so grateful that my work has made it amongst some of the most impressive and aw-inspiring BOWs I have seen thus far.
So a couple of months ago I was discussing with someone, the act of giving flowers to people, I’d always figured it was a gesture of kindness or perhaps infatuation because flowers are [generally] nice-looking and make people feel positive and cheerio (personally I don’t understand the psychological aspects of it much so can’t really think of a very sound explanation). Their interpretation however, was that what people were really giving to each other were plant genitals and hence a subtle invitation for sex. That flowers were genitals, I could only agree and sat in silent wonder thinking about how absurd it really was. It's a little crazy. I am mentioning this because it does coincide with the supposed concept I gave to my Body Of Work (BOW)..
My name is Estelle Felix and my work “Whimsical Lunacy” has been chosen for the ARTEXPRESS 09 exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW.
It’s a rather strange feeling to have things you’ve spent forever fiddling with, displayed in some kind of gallery of sorts. Today was the exhibition opening and as I walked through the muddy park and up the steps of that huge schmancy building I couldn’t help but feel somewhat intimidated.. almost as if I cheated my way there. I mean people make art for years to get in a place like that and there I was with a single years worth of “serious” artmaking experience behind me. In other words, I’m really quite ecstatic that my work’s been chosen for ARTEXPRESS. It’s true. See ---> :D
I’m yet to begin a Bachelor of Design degree at UNSW which will cater nicely to my interests because I’ve had a lot of trouble with deciding on what area of design I’d be best in- graphic? maybe textiles or jewellery? Who knows.
The artistic intentions I had for my BOW:
Well you see, to continue with the "flower-fact" I opened this entry with, when I first started my BOW I kept conjuring up ideas that were usually entirely illustrative and fairly obvious. I didn’t understand that by doing these sorts of things I was restricting others from their own subjective viewing of my work... i.e. I was turning my work into a diagram of sorts, equipped with instructions for ‘how to view it’. This was because I thought that if I had an idea to tell people about, then I really had to make sure they absolutely and completely and irrefutably understood precisely what it was I was trying to express (in it’s entirety) at first glance. It seemed as if I was almost too aware that people can interpret, misinterpret or reinterpret pretty much everything for themselves.
After a while I think I saw beauty in subjectivity and ambiguity. I looked upon Surrealist artists I admired and realized how much of there work was left open for people to take what they want and to see for themselves and be affected by the artwork in multiple ways depending on the viewer. I then began to understand how seemingly primitive the idea was to force people to see art in a 'one-and-only' way.. take for example, portrayals of biblical narratives through classical paintings.
Armed with my new appreciation of subjectivity, I created pieces that are unrestrictive in almost every way- colour, subject matter, space and use of unconventional materials (like socks and other found objects). I wanted to use the idea of the ambiguous subconscious mind to create works that expressed the constant flow of often irrational ideas just so I could say a big fat,
“go on, imagine a little and take what you want from it” and then going on to ask,
“see those shapes? What do they look like to you? And how can you expand on that idea by using the other absurdities around it?”. Then hopefully (or ideally) they’d reply something like,
“oh wow, they look like dog ears! Yes! It’s a dog with crazy crazy eyes, one of which is framed by fake eyelashes in the form of mathematical ruling devices and it’s got swans running profusely out of its windowed fortune cookie nostrils! Alas! I am inspired!!”. So, in a way, its kind of like cloud watching but with colour and not as limited in terms of shape variation.
Yes so really I’d like to encourage people to interpret the art they see for themselves.. it’s certainly more enjoyable that way and more helpful too especially if you’re in the process of artmaking and developing your own style. Someday one may get so advanced with this skill, that they can see something like “Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride” and think to themselves,
“goodness! that the woman looks as if she has horns!.. Therefore she must be some kind of diabolical goat who isn’t actually pregnant but has a small-but-lethal sized canon hidden underneath her dress that will blow her husband up to smithereens so that she can get all his money and go holidaying with some other man!... Yes, I am sure it is so!”
Strangely, even though I thought I did indeed create a BOW by which each person could interpret [my madness] for themselves, when we had an art and music soiree at school one young gentleman did come up to me claiming quite enthusiastically that my collection of works was (and I quote) “exactly what the inside of my head looks like!”. I was quite taken back to be honest, but ah :), it was probably the most wonderful comment I’ve received from it so far.
To finish this up though, I have to say that from what I've seen today of this years ARTEXPRESS exhibition, I am just so grateful that my work has made it amongst some of the most impressive and aw-inspiring BOWs I have seen thus far.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Hitler failed art exam
Did you know that Hilter left home (and his mother who had breast cancer) at 18 to become an artist? In 1907 he failed the entrance exam for the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and after that he ended up doing some commissioned watercolours and such, but he returned home to his dying mother in dissapointment. That scares me. I understand how creative people could go too far. Many artists create their own philosophies (eg. Hundertwasser) and just a few ridiculous judgments can take it to the point where you think it’s quite fine to become a Holocaust leader or going to extreme measures to preserving and protect 'precious' works of art incase of attack during a war, but not showing the same courtesy to living, breathing human beings. Think about it. Anyway….
I’ll start off generally by touching on my intention, my opinion of art galleries and a little bit of background. My next blog will go into the process and realisation of my BOW.
I’m Margaret Sevenjhazi.
This is completely nuts.
I’m obviously really excited to be included in the Art Gallery of NSW as part of ARTEXPRESS 2009
My body of work (BOW) is titled, Art for the Blind.
I wasn’t really aspiring to get into ARTEXPRESS because such a small number of people made it in and the selection process seemed to involve both luck and a strong artwork. Some people in my art class would talk about it every lesson, but I kind of blocked it out because I didn’t want it to be a constant thought that might change my ideas.I previously attended ARTEXPRESS with my high school art class a couple of times. I did want to do well in the HSC, but I didn’t want to compromise my ideas so I just selfishly created my body of work to satisfy myself. The ironic thing about my BOW being exhibited in the art gallery is that the main issues presented explored ideas like:
- perceptions of ‘art’ and its value (by both art lovers and the general public)
- the commodification of artworks
- the often snobbish and uninviting atmosphere of galleries
I do feel a little bit anxious because I’m basically criticising galleries and now my artwork is in one, but the fact that it is in a gallery makes the message more potent. I’m hoping that people will take a step back and re-evaluate the way they’re viewing and interacting with the artwork when they get to mine. I hope people will stop, think and possibly be able to say, ‘Wait! I’m being a pretentious bastard! I don’t actually like that expensive painting.’ So of course some people won’t like what I’ve done, but I don’t care. It was a fulfilling process. Everyone has their own opinion. Everyone likes different types of art.
I visit galleries in person and online (probably online more, just because it could be 3am on a Sunday and the website won’t be closed). My body of work presents my perspective perfectly (haha). I don’t go to galleries excessively because the atmosphere makes me feel a little uncomfortable at times. The level of pretension (internal and external) makes me laugh. I like observing the way people interact with and interpret art in a gallery setting. People say some horribly stupid things with the intention of seeming knowledgeable. On the other hand visiting a gallery can often be an invaluable and inimitable opportunity to experience art in person and this cannot be replicated in words or by merely viewing pictures of art in books or online. This ultimately strengthens my connection with art, particularly if I’ve read about it, talked about it and seen pictures of it because seeing it in person is totally different.
I’m going to study law.
No, I’m joking. Haha.
No matter what I do art will always be high on my list of priorities. Right now I was to pursue graphic design, although I also have an avid interest in textiles (I did textiles as part of the HSC) and design in general.
This year I’ll be studying and working. I’ll be trying to get some industry experience. I’m going to do a diploma in graphic design at TAFE. I was considering university, but I think the increased practical skills, ‘hands on’ work, equipment training, and the fact that I can work while I study (more so that university) will be far more beneficial and conducive to a career in the creative arts (rather than far more years and money spent sitting around arguing and writing highly strung essays). I’d rather learn things first hand and from experimentation and experience rather than from textbooks, theories and essays.
So the opening’s only days away. I can’t wait! Hope to see you there.
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