Hayden Fowler studio visit - 18 April

It's lucky I love snooping about artist studios as I had to schlep out to Marrickville for this one.  Not that I have anything against schlepping out to Marrickville its just that I would prefer if the MCA could've put this on a Saturday at about 2pm so we could nip off to Henson Park at 3pm for a Jets game!

I'd recently been exposed to Hayden Fowler's work courtesy of a trip to artereal.  Hayden is an NZ artist who is now based in Sydney.  And I like him even more now that I have discovered he also has a decent website (once again, every artist should).  He has what I would consider the stereotypical artist pad.  A little vintage, a little grunge and lots of older decorative kitsch artworks adorned the main space but I don't think anything could've prepared me for the studio area.  Here Hayden has built a creepy forest complete with chickens!  That's right folks these birds were right at home in the artist studio.  This big set is from his video work that he recently featured at artereal.  On first view it looked like it was filmed outside to me.  This set is quite a detailed piece of work (views above, on left with the chickens and on right you can see the rest of the studio, behind are concrete antlers).  As well as Hayden talking about his practice we had an assistant curator from the MCA give their 10 cents worth as well.  As an aside Hayden has 2 videos in their permanent collection, nice work.  It was a great discussion and Hayden didn't let the curator off the hook either after an earlier comment about finding his work "challenging".  How so?  Exactly.  I read it as a quasi dig as well but the curator recovered admirably.  Thats why they get paid the big bucks to chatter all knowingly about the arts kids!  It is hard to describe his work, it does deal with a kind of pastoral idyll but from a modern perspective where nature is on the back foot.  In a way his use of rare birds and images of extinct animals was kind of a memento mori for this viewer.  I was really interested to learn more about his fascination with animals, in particular birds.  Given I have a random collection of Gould League of Bird Lovers ephemera I think I have a new artist to put on my watch list.  Kindred spirits?  I was particularly drawn to the story of the Huia bird.  The feather of this bird was reserved for maori chiefs but one was given to the Duke of York (later King George V) which set off a European fashion for the feathers and voila the bird is extinct.  Tragic.  Hayden memorialised the bird in a performance where he got a tat of a pair of these birds (image below).  Apparently he is thinking about using birds in his next body of work as well.  I can't wait.

Points:  Traditionally the 3 points go to the artist on a studio visit and this is no different.  A great night, and really interesting to learn more about Hayden's evolving practice.  I am also fascinated by how many contemporary artists either have or are studying for PhD's.  Someone do some stats.  I will give two points for the tattoo of the huia birds.  Top stuff.  1 point must be shared by the roosting chickens which for the most part were quite well behaved.  Although I did see one take a crap on the set.  Lucky he is junking this shortly (although it does seem like a shame to tear all that work up).  That is the downside with working with animals.

Firstdraft depot visit - 29 August

Lovely weather for a quick snoop about the Firstdraft depot.  For those that came in late Firstdraft is Sydney's oldest ARI, founded in the 1800s or 1980s. Their main gallery space is in Surry Hills and the depot is their studio space in Woolloomooloo. For the local historians out there, the depot used to be an actual depot, and to be honest it looks like it stopped being a working outpost of Sydney council yesterday. But they have hundreds of emerging artists filter through the space, with one half comprising some subsidised spaces that six artists can rent for up to six months and the other half shared by two artists awarded residencies by the organisation.

Our tour started upstairs in the rooms currently occupied by artists Boni Cairncross and Romi Graham. These artists are on the residencies and are prepping for shows at the firstdraft gallery in September and October respectively. After a quick snoop here it was over the corridor to check out the renters (I wonder if there is any tension between the scholarship kids and those paying their way? I should've asked). I didn't catch the names of all the artists here and I couldn't find anything on their intrawebs site (which if I was one of these artists I would ask for a shout out, any publicity helps right?) but I did like the look of Linda Wilken's output which I think would be very popular with some of my junior art critics (it is all disney princesses and barbies repurposed for subversive social commentary). Downstairs we had a chance to look and hear about Boni and Romi's work in what I guess is the project space. It was interesting to hear about Boni's "you must follow me carefully" work where she makes a record of a live performance by someone else. I will have to see this as a performance before I make my mind up. I think I would want some more permanent type of record than the roll of paper which seems a bit ephemeral. I also wonder how a commercial imperative may impact her work in the future (but that may just be the collector in me wondering what is for sale). Romi's work was easier for me to take in. It is an exploration of fame where her alter ego (also known as Romi) pretends to be a famous starlet a la Britney Spears or Paris Hilton. Romi has made some really colourful banners celebrating her fame and has a great quote "never let your talent hold you back" on the one above. This not only speaks to fame but according to my art historian other half (who has a thing for 16th century venetian masters) could also be a subtle satire of some contemporary art output. Romi includes her twitter handle (@RomiGrahamReal) in her work, her goal here is 1 million followers so if any of my 4 readers has a twitter account (I know you do mum!) then help her out as she has a ways to go.

Points: I will give 3 to Romi. I liked how visual her banners were (and I think her alter-ego would crave the top spot). 2 points for Boni and 1 will go to Linda Wilken.  Highly commended to Firstdraft for a great night out.

Tony Albert open studio - 2 June

This has probably been the biggest art highlight of my last month, despite only getting around to posting it now.  I have been a big fan of Tony Albert's work from afar but this was a great chance to actually meet up with the artist and get to have a good sticky beak into how he puts his work together.

I can't remember exactly how I found out about this, I think through facebook or even twitter courtesy of some propaganda from his Sydney gallery, SSFA.  See, getting an iPhone can improve your life!  It was a pretty miserable time weather wise back then for Sydney so it was on a wet Saturday afternoon that I ventured out with one of my junior critics in tow to the artspace bunker in Woolloomooloo.  Tony was just finishing a six month stay at the space up on level 4 or something like that.  I didn't realise they had multiple studio spaces, it was quite the rabbit warren up there.

First impressions.  The walls were chock a block full of different pieces and some of it was just in piles.   There was a lot to digest.  Tony uses a lot of recognisable iconography so I was hoping that my 3 year old would appreciate the disney references whilst I could look through the room at leisure.  Wrong, he had scoped the place pretty quickly and was ready to leave in about 5 minutes.  Time for iPhone improves your life part 2.  With my three year old happily sitting in a corner playing a variety of games I was able to continue the tour and even have a quick chat to Tony.

Second impressions.  Whilst there were a few decently sized collages he was working on (see images above) I was pleasantly surprised to see such a huge volume of smaller work.  There were hundreds of A4 sized works.  Apparently he is putting together 100s for a book project where you need 108 or some specific number that I can't exactly recall.  Regardless, I was gladdened to see so many great pieces that would (a) fit on a lot of my walls and (b) hopefully be reasonably accessible price wise.  It was also really interesting to see the pile of ephemera that he has collected to use in collages.  Lots of vintage aboriginalia, I think I need to hit ebay and help him out.  Continuing on my flag theme from a couple of posts ago I can confirm that Tony would be at the top of the list to commission a flag from.  The works are packed with iconography and the very strong colour palette of red, black and yellow from the aboriginal flag is used frequently.  The only issue is that I doubt he has the time due to all the museums that he is producing large works for.  Given his growing profile I was surprised how few people had turned up.  The guy on the front desk said about a dozen when I was leaving.  But then again, I am sure I miss plenty of events through sheer ignorance.

All the points today to Tony (best on ground).  I will keep an eye out for some of these studio works to be exhibited in the future, I think 4A in Haymarket has a couple of the bigger collages on show now (which is on my itinerary to visit).  We also picked up a great little poster as a souvenir and Tony even signed it for my junior collector.  Hopefully that will encourage him to 'be deadly'.  

Alexander Seton artist studio visit - 29 April

For me, the great thing about the MCA young ambassador program is the artist studio visit. This was confirmed again by the trip out to Alexander Seton's studio in Enmore. I was familiar with Alexander's work from his shows at Sullivan & Strumpf. He is a sculptor that works in marble so not surprisingly there was marble dust everywhere - and that is not a euphemism. He is currently working on his next solo show at Jan Murphy gallery up in BrisVegas and from what I saw it looks like it will be a cracker.

Alex's work uses a lot of visual tricks - you want to touch the marble to make sure it really is stone. One work is carved so that a sheet looks draped over a body. In another corner there is a sheet draped over a machine - another clever sculpture? No that was a real sheet, but you had to look twice. My favourite pieces were his flag series - we are big fans of flags over here at Big Lamington. I preferred the ones that he had hanging off little metal poles - he has also painted some symbols on them. He has another flag work inspired by the Afghanistan war - 23 folded Australian flags (to represent the war casualties). These are marble carvings of how an Australian flag is officially folded to give to the family of the dead. Not sure if that is sold as one job lot of 23 or by the piece. Will have to email Jan closer to the time and find out. There is a lot of work in these and they get pretty pricey so am not sure Alex is going to grace the Big Lamington collection anytime soon but they do get the tick of approval.

Points - 3 to Alex, a very gracious host with an interesting little studio. One thing I learnt was that he has a couple of assistants who help out and do specific tasks and even some of the flag multiples. 2 points to the Hon RJ Hawke, who has recorded a video message for the upcoming show. I am a diehard liberal but even I don't mind the Silver Budgie. 1 point must go to the assistants who were thanked by Alex but don't themselves get all that much limelight.

Nell studio visit - 2 February

So my first function organised for the MCA young ambassadors (something that the MCA runs to try and get us young whippersnappers under 40 interested in contemporary art) was a studio visit to the artist Nell. Nell only runs with one name (which just reminds me of a question I obviously forgot in the Q&A!) and has a interesting little studio in Kings Cross.

It is always great to listen to artists talk about their work, even more so in an intimate and casual setting. I had rsvp'd to this before really doing my homework on Nell but I was glad I did. Nell is about my age and also from my hometown of Maitland so it was interesting to see what influences her given that we would likely have had a number of similar experiences growing up. Another random link is that my employer has a very large tapestry of Nell's up on our meeting room floor. Despite all this I have still not made it to Roslyn oxley9 gallery which represents Nell, an omission I will be sure to cure in 2011.

Pleasantries out of the way, what about the art? It was very interesting to see such a broad collection of her work: some early, some recent, and some in process. I liked the ghosts stuff that she did, very pacman, and enjoyed some of the titles including the very Phantomesque "ghost who walks". Her large text based black and white paintings were quite interesting and I will be keen to see how the collection of AC/DC t-shirts she has sprawled over the floor morphs into her next work. A buddhist robe made from AC/DC t-shirts gave an inkling but this was to be paired with a sculpture.

Points - 3 for Nell, a very gracious and creative host. 2 to the MCA team organising this and 1 to artist Lionel Bawden who has a little cameo appearance in Nell's talk courtesy of a very small pencil sculpture of his that Nell has.