telling the truth

Sunday night - already!

I feel like I'm walking through knee-high mud - it's Sunday evening and I'm off, out to dinner and then it's the day job on Monday... AGAIN - and nothing productive to show for 3 days except some notes and enjoyable head-space ideas that began to fruit but need that lovely space of hours & tranquility to form in the real, material way.  
Then again, I've read up on some interesting artists this weekend and probably bought too many books.  And I've done a heap of laundry that is sodden on the clothes line and hung through the house - no flash flooding this time but the rain has been bucketing down all weekend.

A collage I put together a few months ago comes to mind when frustration sets in, kick some bugs!

© 2010 Anne Bentley

of course there's probably something deeper here but today, it's just kicking things - ahh, that's better.
wonder what we'll have for dinner...

Group Show - Brunswick Street Gallery opening Friday 10 December

I've put a couple of small works into the small works show being staged by the Brunswick Street Gallery in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, The World.

My works are of a couple of flowers I photographed years ago & cut out to make a collage but only thought to pick up again and actually put together in the last couple of months.

Called Celebrity Eyes & Celebrity Smile, they feature flowers, a bit of writing & in the middle of each flower there is an anus.  

Originally I had written a note with a small drawing of cats bums in the middle of each flower for that sour taste look that snobs who look down on people take on but didn't want to use cat anatomy in such a crude way because I like cats.

 I don’t think I need to write an essay on the images on show or the notion of “celebrity”.

The works are in an edition of 10 printed on 300gsm matte cotton rag, nicely framed with their own magnifying glass attached (found some good bug spyglasses at the Australian Museum of course!).

middle of flower in detail as one would see using the magnifying glass attached to the lovely framed pieces at the gallery:

I've had a fine old giggle putting these together interspersed by slight nauseousness researching images - the anuses (ani?? hah hah) are all in the public domain and do not breach copyright. 

Imagine being contacted by someone saying, "that's my arsehole, you arsehole!"

too fun

Along with over 500 other artists and 1787 works (wow!), the show opens this Friday 10th December 6-9pm and continues until 16th January 2011

BSG: 322 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy 3065 Hours 10am-10pm 7 Days a Week

Should be a lively exhibition - so much to see, wish I was there.  So, get on over to Fitzroy you Melbourney people - I've had a look through the list and all the art is very affordable and there are some excellent bargains to be had.

© 2010 Anne Bentley

"The Director's Cut"

when the director called, Action! chaos ensued

(click on it for a larger view.
from my coming exhibition in June called SANE)

Grimm Days

acrylic paint (except for nun shot - digital eraser) cut & paste - once was a little Grimms Fairy Tales Book.  bits from: National Geographic 1953 (boy & guard & dentures), women's weekly 1950s (hungry bird), internet (dildo), unknown (bubbleman), holy card (nun), Grimm's Fairy Tales (script)
(beavis and butt-head sentiments disguised as art - I may need advice from Daria)

Books unbound

A few months I began mucking around with an old German language dressmaking book - painting over a bit, pulling out a page here & there, wanting to but not feeling collage inspired.
A couple of weeks ago I read of a group show in the US called Altered States where artists get hold of a book, any book & make their own alterations.
A favourite illistrative artist, Shannon Freshwater  was included in this show and I got totally inspired. (when you click on her link scroll down her October 2009 blog to view her book alterations and then hit that arrow button & come back to me)
Sadly, as I've found out in the past, I can't draw for shit (probably why I really like artists who can!).
I retrieved a little UK printing of Grimm's Fairy Tales out from under the desk where I'd kept it for something - to cut up initially rather than stick things into.  I remembered a small pile dated photography magazines destined for the recycle bin & began cutting.
===

1. Bits On The Cutting Board #1-

(currently reading Joe Orton's "Head to Toe" a trippy story of parasites on a giant & other hallucinations  - not sure if it shows in the collages.. but what stimulations don't show? - next on the nocturnal reading list is Flannery O'Connor's complete stories - Southern US gothic with splashings of Catholicism)

2. More Bits On The Cutting Board #2

(had a little read of "Teach Yourself Ventriloquism" published 1917 before wondering what I'd get for it on Ebay - may hang on to it and practice putting words in other people's mouths) 

3. In the book - a city streetscape

4. In the book "The Waggish Musician" -

best refer back to reading Joe Orton... but who'd have thought how useful Judy Garland's hand on a microphone could be.  Is Judy worried?  See if you can find her on the cutting board...

I had a chat about my happy scissor distraction with artist Megan Yeo who has suggested we get a group show going for next year - good O, how fun (love to see what Meggs has in mind!) but why did I pick a book with so many pages in it!!!

Got to go,I've just found some old National Geographics - including the 1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II - includes men in fancy red outfits & little children in their best coats - goody.