Hamburg Bumble Bee

buzz buzz

August 2012 - Hamburg, Germany 

© 2012 Anne Bentley

Puppet Busker

Looking down from the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France.

© July 2012 Anne Bentley

tripping around

there's been a lack of blogging lately due to me being on the other side of the world (Paris) and on top of the world (Iceland) amongst other places
this will all change when I land back on sunny shores in Sydney with a stack of photos and some anecdotes
thanks for continuing to drop by

I think I may have lost June

What was I doing in June?  It's got me.  I think I was crook and had to stay in bed for one of the weeks of June reading crime fiction.  And then it was back to the office job and a lot of not doing things.

Oh, and I've been doing a bit of holiday planning as AH & I have half century birthdays - mine in July & hers in Sept so we're doing a runner: taking trips on planes, trains and a bus or 2 somewhere in many places in Europe (too excited!!!).

Can't post a blog without a picture.  Here's one that has no relevance to the subject at all taken last year spying into a 3rd or 4th floor apartment in Oxford Street, Paddington:

A nice way to finish the day

I picked this song up on an original 45 rpm record recently (for $5.00!!)

- turn up the volume and be quiet for a moment...

sigh

Megan Yeo - Artist in a Group Show

I met Megan about 12 years ago when I bought a painting that she had on show in a small cafe in Newtown (Sydney).  We discovered we are on the same family tree (from one of the Irish ancestors) and have be the best of friends since.

Megan had already studied art and been a part of Art Express when we met and decided to attend the college of arts (COFA) despite already having high school & TAFE art study experience.
COFA, I feel, gave her a freedom to concentrate solely on art and explore her ideas.
I am fortunate to have seen her work in many group show since and to have a couple of pieces of her work at home on permanent display for my own pleasure.
I was delighted when Megan said yes to taking part in the group show, Jehanne's Alchemists, which she used to explore a photography side of her art using instant, Polaroid photographs that she then enlarged into an edition of one only:

above: Dairy Queen by Megan Yeo 2012 (SOLD - edition 1/1 Lambda print 27x42cm from original Polaroid-type photograph)

 

Release the Ravens by Megan Yeo (from the exhibition she co-curated: "Queen & Country" Gaffa Gallery, Surry Hills Sydney 2nd - 14th July 09 - mixed media: cross stitch on printed embroidery fabric)

 

Megan in her studio March 2009 (photograph by Anne Bentley)

above: works on paper by Megan from the group show, Kiez: Homely/Unheimliche that showed in Sydney 2009 & Melbourne 2010

The Banality of Evil by Megan Yeo (a COFA award winner), made of many panels, she split it into individual pieces when the time was right a few years later:

(photography, cross stitch on embroidery fabric & watercolour wash)

Group show is go

Over 3 days, I worked on hanging my first go at curating a group exhibition, Jehanne's Alchemists, but it would not have happened as well had it not been for all the delivery and hanging help participating artists took time out to provide.  Andrew Purvis, our host who provides the excellent space at Sheffer Gallery, was instrumental in the layout and final hang.

I snapped off some shots just before the show opened:

Launch day yesterday (Saturday 21 April) was perfect weather (well, it was still too humid but the sky did not fall in as it had, torrentially, all week) and lots of people came:

Lauren E Simonutti 1968-2012

I have lost a friend and our world has lost a wonderful artist and I am too profoundly sad to write any more.
Instead I am quoting her own words via a gallery in Chicago that represented her:

Sometimes the difference between living and dying is just a little bit.

Sometimes the difference between living and dying is just a sigh

Linda Brescia - Artist in a Group Show

 Linda Brescia's work features screened fabric model making; painting & photography.  She says she "got the art bug" about 12 years ago and has shown her work consistently since; including the Peter Fay curated Showdown in 2011 (she will also feature in his May 2012 group exhibition, Out of the Blue).  Currently, her work is a part of the Mini Print International prize at the No Vacancy Gallery in Melbourne.   She is also a multiple prize winner along with being awarded a number of grants.
I am fortunate to have Linda agree to participate in my first curated group show.
I first discovered her at the same gallery I am now putting on Jehanne's Alchemists 
 which was a combination of screen print, sculpture models and photography.  There were a number of images that stayed in my mind for a week until I simply had to make contact and ask if I could lay-buy at least one:

I'd rather stick pins in my eyes (Viallat) - Linda Brescia (from Showdown at Sheffer Gallery 2011)

Linda is also interested in the lives of artists & relationships between artitsts:

The de Koonings - Linda Brescia  (from Loop installation at the Stein Gallery 2011)

Secondhand (Marlene Dumas) -  Linda Brescia

Group exhibition @ Sheffer Gallery

A sneak preview of some of the work on exhibition at the end of next week at Sheffer Gallery.

I'm excited, the artists are excited - hope you are too!

Press Release: Jehanne's Alchemists

Jehanne’s Alchemists - a group art show of cross pollination: from literary to literal and the abstract

Sheffer Gallery 38 Lander Street Darlington NSW 19-29 April
gallery hours: 11am-6pm Wednesday-Saturday
Opening launch: Saturday 21 April 2-6pm

Curator: Anne Bentley

Artists:  Megan Yeo, Edwina Wrobel, Lucinda Clutterbuck, Penny Burnett, Linda Brescia, Priscilla Bourne, Dorota Bona, Anne Bentley and Jakob Adler.

Jehanne’s Alchemists came with the brief that participating artists were to read Thomas Keneally’s 1971 novel, A Dutiful Daughter.  At only 150 pages long, the book is full of imagery, is very Australian and a little fantastical.  Set in the Northern Rivers coastal region of NSW, it features farming, floods, puberty, perversion, beauty, Joan of Arc and two ordinary people who morph into half cows.
With the author’s blessings to put on the show, artist & first time curator, Anne Bentley told artists that they could be as exact or abstract of the subject matter as they liked and to have fun.

As is with all human nature, the work artists present often shows the viewer a hint of their own morals and judgments  as well as what is gleaned from the subject matter of a project.  Megan Yeo presents bovines morphed into smoking, sausage sizzling, flannelette shirt wearing humans with animal heads rather than Keneally’s humans “discovering their bovine selves”.   Lucinda Clutterbuck, is working on a short film focusing on interviews conducted in France late 2011, about how Joan of Arc is remembered as an historical figure along being politically appropriated to suit current sways of belief.  Lucinda has also created drawings of movement, showing a sensual side of discovering one’s own bovinity.   Edwina Wrobel’s gouaches display a distinct symbology including a syringe leaking fire, Día de los Muertos faces and a beating heart down a well.  Linda Brescia, working in her current medium of photographing her posed marionette-like models made of screened fabrics and household items – they are intriguing and a little bit spooky.

Does the viewer need to know the book?  “Not at all” says Anne Bentley who recalls seeing a series of drawings by Salvador Dali’s François Rabelais influenced illustrations Les Songes Drolatiques de Pantagruel  (Pantagruel’s Comical Dream) in 2002.    “...but I did source an English translation of Rabelais’s The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel due to that exhibition, which I am yet to finish reading.  I don’t think it matters at all if people know the story but the show will intrigue people and they may want to source their own copy of Mr Keneally’s novel.”

 

Images clockwise from top left by Linda Brescia; Edwina Wrobel & Jakob Adler – copyright the artists

Artist in a group show - Penny Burnett

Penny Burnett will be participating in the group show Jehanne's Alchemists

Penny's work is always unique and often gently and amusingly provocative.  Her Beanies Tell Lies in 2008 showed her diversity with knitting (little klu klux klan style hats), photography and painting is where I first discovered her work.  
Currently sitting her BFA(Hons) at University of Tasmania (UTAS), she has been exhibiting her work for the last 10 years after studying fine arts in 1999. 

‘I have been burned alive. Jhesus’

(Keneally 1971, p. 148)
Oil on masonite

30 x30 cm

© 2012 Penny Burnett
 

To your door

I've been collecting images of the mostly Art Nouveau tiles on the front stairs of houses in the inner city suburbs of Sydney (mostly Petersham, Stanmore & Camperdown walking home from the office job).  This below is a snazzy stair in Paddington (walking home from gallery visiting):
  

 

© 2011 Anne Bentley

go to my Buildings & Things blog to see others

Lucinda Clutterbuck - artist in a group show

Lucinda Clutterbuck, animator/filmmaker, director, producer, teacher & painter... is one of the artists participating in the group show I am curator of - read & see more: Jeahnne's Alchemists

Image copyright Lucinda Clutterbuck 2012

Anne Lynam - traditional photography with a surrealist eye

Every weekend from 11 am to 5 pm, until 15 April, Sydney dwellers & visitors can see an exhibition covering 10 years of Anne Lynam's  photography at Point Light Gallery.
Anne's work shows a unique urban eye with touches of surrealism & art deco photography from early last century.  I first saw her work at Point Light 10 years ago and grab any chance to see her work on exhibition.
She works with black and white film, hand processes film and prints with meticulous perfection.  Her photographs were shot in many cities including Paris, New York and Sydney (proper street art!!).

Images are copyright Anne Lynam - top: Double Agent, above: (the award winning) Venetian Glass

She has created a Blurb publication "Enigma" (signed copies available at the gallery), which shows a lot of the work on display but not the beauty of actually seeing her silver gelatin prints for yourself - don't miss discovering Anne Lynam.

Group exhibition - Jehanne's Alchemists

I've been working away in the background as curator for a group show coming up at Sheffer Gallery - 38 Lander Street Darlington (just behind Sydney Uni) from 19-29 April.
I have begun a blog to do with it and will feature work by the artists involved leading up to opening day (Saturday 21 April 2012) - and then some.

Eight artists were given the 1971 Thomas Keneally* novel, A Dutiful Daughter to read and get their ideas from.
I've called it Jehanne's Alchemists as I explain by definition: 
Jehanne: the spelling by which Joan of Arc signed her name according to Barbara Glover of Campbell’s Reach (A Dutiful Daughter).
Alchemy: a process by which paradoxical results are achieved or incompatible elements combined with no obvious rational explanation.

I also wanted an early 1970s feeling, hence using "Alchemist" and making the blog lime green.

This is my first curatorial task in the arts, if you exclude organizing my own solo shows, and being privy to the art that will be on show is the best part of it.
I hope it's as much fun for you as it is for me.

images above are all copyright 2012 the artists - clockwise from left:

How could they fruitfully relate by Linda Brescia  

Mrs Glover will be here in a moment (detail) by Anne Bentley

Ciggie  by Megan Yeo

*Many thanks to Thomas Keneally for giving his OK to use the book for the exhibition.

It doesn't seem such a while ago

But it was over 6 months ago...

I took this photo early August 2011 - it was the 10th image I took using my new 'pocket' digital (unlike pocket cameras, it's bigger than a cigarette box) and, although nothing is ever as pleasing to my eye as black and white film grain in hand developed film, this not so compact camera is serving my street walking purposes well.

(Parramatta Road Petersham - Sydney Australia © 2011-2012 Anne Bentley)

Cloud Play

Camperdown, NSW Australia 17 January 2012  © 2012 Anne Bentley

Marcel the Shell with Shoes on

and there's a book too

with shoes on II is as much fun:

Paddington - design & quality

November 2011

and you thought I had naturally curly hair

© 2011 Anne Bentley (Parramatta Road, Petersham, Sydney Australia)

on the way home

King Street Newtown (Sydney) Australia 30 October 2011

© 2011 Anne Bentley

bodydouble

A body double is a general term for someone who substitutes for the credited actor of a character in any recorded visual medium, in shots where the character's body is shown but the face is either not visible or shown indistinctly, or in shots where the image of the credited actor's face is joined, usually by digital image processing, to the image of the body double's body. Body doubles are most often used for shots involving nudity. More specific terms are often used in special cases; a stunt double is used for dangerous or sophisticated sequences. This is in contrast to a stand-in who replaces an actor for non-filming purposes such as scene arrangement and lighting adjustments.
Stunt double or body double can both be used for cases where special skills are needed—anything from playing the piano, to competitive skiing. (text nicked from Wikipedia bodydouble photo by me)

disembodied

© 2011 Anne Bentley

Office Kill

mondayitis for Tuesday.  It's been a holiday weekend just now - bucketed with rain but didn't matter - I ate custard and spent 4 hours reading about obscure serial killers when all that weather was going on
it was nice not to go to work for rent today and here's something for all artists working in that other world: Camilla Jackson as Li'l Cee "I'm a Temp"

A visit to the flicks - previewing The Eye of The Storm

I've just seen the new Australian film by Fred Schepisi, The Eye of the Storm, based on the Patrick While novel with Charlotte Rampling (as Elizabeth Hunter, center), Judy Davis (left), Geoffrey Rush and Alexandra Schepisi.  The later who plays Mrs Hunter's day nurse, Flora, is outstanding in her role but is also the director's daughter and I feel the more seasoned actors were left to themselves during the making of this film while Flora was carefully shaped. 
Judy Davis was splendid as was Charlotte Rampling.  Geoffrey Rush played horrible Basil Hunter perfectly.
If you have not read the book, go and see it, there is some fine acting.  If you have read the book, you may be left wanting.  To not even have Elizabeth speak about the eye of the storm, was a sad omission but with most books made into film, there is not enough time to tell the whole story.  A television series may have suited this better. 
The Eye of the Storm by Patrick White is a large book and not one I am too fussed about but when I read it, I kept thinking it would  be a better movie than book.  While watching the movie, I had to force myself to ignore the book and concentrate on the wonderful actors.  I'm glad I've spent time with both but will not revisit either of them.

Now, the Vivisector... that's another story!  The Solid Mandala - I hope no one even tries to put it on screen, it is a masterpiece on page.

I looked up and felt a song coming on...

© 2011 Anne Bentley

not a movie set

© 2011 Anne Bentley