HANA - The Essence of Life

I haven't seen many exhibitions during Fringe, which disappoints me a little, but I've been so busy with Totem that I jsut haven't been able to find the time.

But I did drop by Collingwood Gallery on Smith St to see Hana, an exhibition from 30 Japanese artists on the theme 'The essence of life'. The word Hana means 'flower, essence, spirit and beauty'.

The styles are incredibly diverse, from Izumi Ishihara's graphic style to Kou's oil on board works reminiscent of looking at old children's book characters through the sepia haze of time. I really liked these paintings

There was Misa Tsutsui's work, which was a style recognisable from the Sailor Moon type characters. A single figure on each canvas, pretty but not really remarkable. Kisho Tokutomi's work, jsut around the corner, were incredibly detailed, again the single figure but this time with highly patterned kimino garments and executed beautifully.

There were also landscapes, absracts, highly graphical work to the traditional (and beautiful) black ink Shodo work. On the other side of the gallery were some 3d objects, hats, and some incredibl silver and pearl jewellery. One of my favourites was a number of sweet sculptures from Nazomi Ueno called "It's my turn, bear" "It's my turn, rabbit" "It's my turn, mouse" and "sloth" These were 4 small sculptures on wooden plaques of a wooden chair with the aforementioned animal sitting and fishing off it, except "sloth" which was the same size and shaped plaque but with a little sloth hanging off a hook. Very cute.

Hana was an interested window into another culture's art world. You can see traditional influences and artists applying those influences to modern situations. It didn't really make me think, but i did spend an interesting half an hour in there.

bare with me

I know I haven't updated this blog in a while, but I'm currently organising an exhibition called Totem: Dolls with Souls as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival to be held at the Fracture Galleries in Federation Square.

Totem is a collection of dolls created by artists to reflect how they truly feel themselves to be. These dolls are more than just simple childrens toys, they are powerful symbols of who we think we are, the internal workings of the human mind given form and are honest, heartfelt expressions of self.



for more info go to http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/season/2008/show/259/

We will return you to you're regular programing jsut as soon as we are able!

History part 3: The Attic of Dorian Grey

That year, in fact just after Kitty, was when I decided that I'd start organising group exhibitions and that I needed a name for it. I wanted something recognisable, something that people would remember. I came up with Omnific Assembly, a group of people that creates all. Looking back, Kitty was the first OA show, I was just a little late with the intellectualising of it.

So the first official OA show was The Attic of Dorian Gray, which was the interval exhibition for Dancing with Strangers Melbourne Fringe Festival show Art Murder, Pictures of Dorian Gray. Dorian Gray was an Oscar Wilde story of a decedent man who never ages. The exhibition was based on the premise that if Dorian had traveled the world for 100 years, what would he have collected in his attic? It was a breathtakingly beautiful exhibition and I was very proud of it. We had costumes, installations, delicate sculptures built from bone, a huge machine rusted and covered in cobwebs, several steel sculptures and a fortune telling machine. The image to the left is (front) Sootie, a costume designer and behind are artists SaraMae Bell (left) and Marlo Spikin(right).

More images can be found at www.omnificassembly.com/oa/dorian.html

Invitation to participate in "Totem", a Fringe exhibition at Federation Square

I am organising an exhibition for Fed Square for Fringe called Totem.

Totem dolls with souls is a group exhibition exploring self identity through the resurging craft movement. Artists are invited to create a self portrait doll, not of how they look on the outside, but showing how they feel about themselves or how they secretly see themselves on the inside. These dolls will then be hung in the Fracture Galleries at Federation Square in Melbourne from 22nd of September to the 13th November as part of the Melbourne International Fringe Festival.

These dolls can be created from scratch (sewn, knitted, crocheted, carved, glued etc), conversions from pre-existing dolls, sculptural assemblages from any materials, found objects or anything else you can imagine. They can be a human, an animal, a mythical creature or anything else. They can be as fantastical or ordinary as each artist feels themselves to be. Artists can submit as many dolls as they wish. The venue can cater for dolls from 30cm to several metres.

The Totem exhibition recognises we live in a growing culture of alienation which results in an increasing suspicion of strangers and shame of the self. The central premise of Totem is that no matter how different from each other we might seem on the outside, we all feel the same on the inside and it expresses this through individually created dolls which expose each artists deepest sense of identity, demonstrating that the realm of human experience is the same no matter who we are.

For more info go to http://www.omnificassembly.com/ and to participate email me on them [at] omnificassembly [dot] com

Image Credits: Doll by Beth Robinson http://www.strangedolls.net/, photograph by Ilona Nelson http://www.illyphotography.com/