William Kentridge Exhibition

William Kentridge: Five Themes on in Melbourne at ACMI Federation Square

Thursday 8 March - Sunday 27 May 2012

Exhibition open daily 10am - 6pm

William Kentridge: Five Themes features over 60 works ranging from animations, drawings and prints to theatre models, sculptures and books. An unmissable survey of a phenomenal artistic talent, it explores five key themes of Kentridge's career, including his direction of The Magic Flute for the renowned Belgian opera house, La Monnaie, and the animated films he developed for a 2010 production of The Nose at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.


Tackling issues of colonial oppression, reconciliation, and the transient nature of individual and shared memory, Kentridge deftly combines the political with the poetic in work that moves across various artforms, from visual art to theatre to the world of the moving image. Inspired by European literature, classical music and opera, plays and early cinema, Kentridge uses archetypal characters to build whimsical, poignant and playful narratives in which good and evil are both complementary and inseparable forces.


View the exhibition trailer
Take a tour through the exhibition
Download the audio/video tour

William Kentridge on his artmaking process.

Double Exposure Photography

Florian Imgrund

Dan Mountford

Jeen Na

Three examples of double exposure photography from different artists.

German photographer Florian Imgrund acquired his first film camera in the summer of 2010 and has made incredibly good use of it since. All of his double exposure work is done completely in camera without the use of photoshop, and often merges human forms with the natural landscape. Dan Mountford also does most of his effects in camera, although some details are added afterwards in Illustrator. Then last but not least Jeen Na. See more on their Flickr pages.


You can experiment creating this effect using Photoshop. Here is a very simple tutorial to get you started.

On the streets of Uruguay

These are photographs of a collaboration between Pablo S. Herrero and David de la Mano in Montevideo, Uruguay (via street art utopia, from Colossal).

Artist as social and political commentator - Ai Wei Wei

Ai Wei Wei is a Chinese  contemporary artist who works as a sculptor, installation artist, photographer, filmaker and architect. His  is highly critical of the Chinese government and he uses his artwork to communicate and inform his audience. Watch the TED talk and hear Ai Wei Wei discuss his artwork and the treatment he has endured from the Chinese authorities.

a wall painted stop motion film

If you like Wlliam Kentridge film animations,have a look at this amazing short film by Blu: an ambiguous animation painted on public walls. Made in Buenos Aires and in Baden.

Embroidered Illustrations

Holger and Moritz NYE 2011  (The Grey Series - Installation view)

Nike Schroeder

Paper Now

Bronwyn Berman The Eternal Dance 2011

Paper Now: 28 January - 4 March 2012

Like works using paper? Check out Paper Now!

Paper Now comprises thirty works by eleven Australian artists who share a common approach to their current practice through the use of paper as the primary medium. Paper is part of our everyday experience - we use it at home, at work, in our leisure time. It is functional, ephemeral and transient. Rarely does it extend into the realm of the aesthetic. In this exhibition artists Sally Aplin, Bronwyn Berman, Marguerite Derricourt, Melinda Le Guay, Brigiat Maltese, Nerine Martini, Helen Mueller, Maryann Mussared, Jenny Pollak, Liz Shreeve and TianLi Zu employ concepts and techniques from a range of artistic and cultural traditions to transform our experience of paper. They cut, fold, stitch, etch, stamp, trace, draw and paint on and with paper highlighting the sensuality and fragility of this extraordinarily versatile substance.

View catalogue on the Incinerator website (link below)

Incinerator Art Space Willoughby, NSW Australia

Artist Talks: 2pm, Saturday 11 February & Saturday 3 March 2012

Birds

Unkempt 3 2011

Christina Empedocles uses obsessive realism in an attempt to recapture her early fascination of the natiural world, mixing idealised images and reality in a unique perspective. By folding and cutting images, using sculpture, painting and collage, she records personal moments and impressions, enhanced by the ephemera of everyday. Her work is the result of hours of looking - contrasting the nostalgic fantasy of idealised memory and the intense focus of the realistic image.

How to do Levitation Photography

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Stuck for Inspiration?

Three art and design blogs we highly recommend you follow.

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Stop-Motion Jelly Beans!

Want to see what pure dedication looks like? This music video for the song In Your Arms by Kina Grannis is a stop-motion animation done with a background composed of jelly beans. It’s a crazy project that required 22 months, 1,357 hours, 30 people, and 288,000 jelly beans!!! (Yikes!) They could have used CGI, of course, but each frame was carefully created by hand and photographed with a still camera. It’s even more mind-blowing given this fact: none of it was done with a green screen.

Watch the making of - it's mind blowingly incredible!

Can art change the world?

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Photography Art to Turn The World Inside Out Ted Talk Inside Out Project I love photographers and artists who have a cause, a message from a small snap shot to a world scaled communication of billboard visuals to get us all thinking and eager to become part of the change.  This is a Ted Talk that has ideas worth spreading.  JR, a semi-anonymous French street artist, uses his camera to show the world its true face, by pasting billboard size canvasses of people around the worldd showing us the human face across massive outdoor gallery    At TED2011, he makes his audacious TED Prize wish: to use art to turn the world inside out. Learn more about his work and learn how you can join in at insideoutproject.net

More textile art...

Cross stitch into found book by Lauren DiCioccio

I've been getting into textiles more recently.... So here is some more textile art for you...

Lauren DiCioccio investigates commonplace objects, more recently mass produced items like newspapers, plastic bags and writing pads, as these objects become more obsolete, replaced by the invisible efficiency of various techniques and the hole and questions that will be left behind after the disappearance of these everyday objects. When will we no longer write longhand? When newsprint does not rub off on our fingertips? Her tedious handiwork and obsessive care reminds the audience of these simple but intimate pieces of everyday life and provoke a pang of nostalgia for the familiar physicality of these objects.

Textile Portraits

Elly au Verso

Textile Portraits by Cayce Zavaglia  http://www.caycezavaglia.com/

Artist Statement:

"I still consider myself a painter and find it difficult not to refer to these embroidered portraits as “paintings”. Although the medium employed is crewel embroidery wool, the technique borrows more from the worlds of drawing and painting.

Initially, working with an established range of wool colors proved frustrating. Unlike painting, I was unable to mix the colors by hand. Progressively, I created a system of sewing the threads in a sequence that would ultimately give the allusion of a certain color or tone. The direction in which the threads were sewn had to mimic the way lines are layered in a drawing to give the allusion of depth, volume, and form. Over time the stitches have become tighter and more complex but ultimately more evocative of flesh, hair, and cloth.

My work unabashedly nods its head to the tradition of tapestry and my own love of craft. Using wool instead of oils has allowed me to broaden the dialogue between portrait and process as well as propose a new definition for the word “painting”."

Art Lab Summer

If you are interested in doing some artmaking short courses especially designed for high school students during the summer holidays, check out the National Art School Art Lab Summer program from Tuesday 17th - Friday 20th January 2011.

There are courses on ceramics, painting, drawing, photography and printmaking (screen printing). There is even a drawing course that focuses specifically on creating a BOW from a single idea. You also get to go to the Picasso Exhibition (included in the course).

The Outpost Project

Cockatoo Island 4th November - 11th December 2011

The OUTPOST PROJECT has transformed the gritty industrial spaces of Cockatoo Island into an explosion of urban art. 

Benconservato (well preserved)

Gouache Nesting Dolls by Emma Kidd

Bensonservato is the alias of Emma Kidd, an artist/illustrator from Sydney's Northern Beaches. She has travelled and lived in Europe and a land of mythical animals. She likes to work across many different disciplines creating whimsical artworks with monsters, beasts, sea creatures and imaginary lands.

P.S. In addition to her website and blog (which we follow), she  also has an Esty shop where you can buy some of her lovely creations. 

Contemporary sculptural ceramics

Have a look at the ceramic work of Amanda Shelser, an Australian artist based in Perth.
'My sculptures have always reflected my life and the current journey that I am on. These intimate works celebrate the intricacies of human nature; they look for an understanding of self and the world around us.'

http://www.amandashelsher.com/index.htm

Typography portraits

http://www.typographyserved.com/gallery/typography-portraits/2184535

Typography Portraits by Michael McCabe

Feather & Webb

There is some really cool stuff to see here!

Beast Mode

Loving these images by French duo Helmo (Thomas Couderc and Clement Vauchez) 

called Betes de Mode - Beast Mode.

See more...

Firstlight

Matt Bromhead Firstlight 2011

Our very own Matt Bromhead has a solo exhibition on at Ray Hughes gallery in Surry Hills.
You should check it out!!! 12th November - 7th December 2011.

See more of Matt's works here.

Congratulations Matt!

Make your own miniature photos!

Buckingham Palace, London

Visit here if you want to learn how to manipulate your photos so that they look like miniatures!
Easy step-by-step Photoshop instructions.

Alternatively you can also download one of the many TiltShift apps available through iTunes.

Have fun!

Miroslav Tichý

One of Tichý's homemade cameras

Miroslav Tichý is one of the greatest "finds" of unknown artists who worked on the fringe of the artworld. He couldn’t afford a camera, so he cobbled one up from tin cans, children’s spectacle lenses and other junks on the street! Most of his subjects were unaware they are being photographed.

Tichý's subtle photographs use themes of movement, composition and contrast, but the main theme is an obsession with the female body.Technically, his pictures are full of mistakes that compound the built-in limitations of his equipment — underexposed or overexposed, out of focus, blemished by dust in the camera, stained by careless darkroom processing. Tichý explains, "A mistake. That's what makes the poetry."

For more about Tichý visit his website http://www.tichyocean.com/ or http://www.radio.cz/en/section/arts/miroslav-tichy-a-voyeur-with-a-home-made-camera

Our first post!

Here is our first post to all of our wonderful art students!

Have a look at the images and links that we post so you can gain inspiration and ideas for your own artmaking. We hope you enjoy a glimpse into what we're passionate about and what's going on in the artworld. We would love to hear from you with comments and suggestions of any art-related resources we can include.

Happy Artmaking,
Ms Della Franca, Ms Preston & Ms Papandrea