Straight after Dorian, and when I say that, I mean only a month after it, came the next show, Dirty Wonderland, an exhibition of photographs and curiosities at Vanguard Gallery in Northcote. It was composed of three artists, Soncha Iacono, Ilona Nelson and myself, but features work by a couple of other artists as well, including items from the theatre in decay collection of puppets and masks.
This was a very busy exhbition with over 100 works crammed into a small room. We filled it from floor to ceiling, every nook and cranny had things in it up to and including the fusebox. The gallery owner was a little more worried each day as we bought more and more armfuls of work inside and arrayed them out. But the carnival is a hugely busy experience and sensory overload is common. We wanted to
re-create that experience in a white gallery room, which I think we sucessfully did.Tbe image is clown head masks by Robert Reid from the theatre in decay collection, and behind on the walls and floor artwork from Soncha Iacono, Ilona Nelson and Sayraphim Lothian.
The gallery owner had asked us not to invite too many people to the opening, he said he found found it very difficult to sell works to people when there were too many people in the gallery.
Myself and the other two artists discussed this, but we all felt that openings are more about allowing as many people to experience the show rather than making a few people buy a couple of pieces of art. We agreed that at this level, it's more about showing as many people as possible the stuff we do and that selling work, while nice, is secondary to that. So we sent out invites as usual to everyone we could think of.
For the opening we hired a fairy floss and icecream van, and many of the attendees again dressed up for the occasion, so we had a room packed full of people in sideshow type costumes eating icecreams and admiring the artwork. It was a beautiful experience to be a part of, and we did end up selling a couple of pieces at the opening.
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