Alias Arts

Yes, it’s an art blog and doesn’t have much to do with travel, but such is life. I have been ping ponging all over the place lately but I keep forgetting to take my camera with me. I managed to take a few snaps though.

(Click to see larger images)

In a hotel in Canberra I had this trippy ceiling that didn’t let my eye rest. I think as an artist you just let an image take you where it wants to go, but this wallpaper on my ceiling just made me dizzy.

Most trees at home are green all year, so I found these trees interesting. There was something romantic about walking down this path, even if I was alone.. and freezing.

See the parrots in the grass? That’s why they’re called Grass Parrots I guess. I have always loved birds and get pretty excited when I see them in the wild. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Here’s the view from my hotel in Melbourne.

Here’s another view of Melbourne.

One more photo of Melbourne city.

Then I felt like I needed sun and warmth so I jumped in the car and headed North again. I have landed in the commercialized hippy town of Byron Bay. It’s a strange combination of weekend hippies, far out hippies, wealthy retired people, surfers, and BMW driving yuppy types. Along with lots of Germans, Brits, Japanese, Americans, and a number of other nationalities.

Everytime I go to the Byron Bay lighthouse I seem to get wet.

One more Byron Bay photo.

I haven’t decided what I’m doing or where I’m going next, but I check out on Wednesday so I better hurry up and figure it out

I don’t know who wrote this poem as it was left by “Anonymous” on an old Vincent van Gogh Quotes post. The only details he/she left was.. “A friend of mine wrote these words today after we spoke of the life of Van Gogh and the recently published book on his history.”

Anyway, here’s a Vincent inspired poem by “HK”

Hands of colors Dutch

Swirl like a painter’s hand gone mad
Canvas of face and time reflect
Bristles of lead give hues of past
Brushes like swords are in array.

I stand in front of the easel like a jury
Words like paint on white torture my hands and eyes
They taunt me like an old pavement princess
Wanting to believe that the brush is still gold
Music I hear or is that the ringing from glimpses of you

Paint away the now. Paint with colors only seen by angels
Colors that hide and feel like a blanket on a cold day
My stand in a broken seal, trembles with dread
Hoping to cure the demon that makes me paint away the now in me

I taste the colors of your soul. I wish that I could write the words that are
In my soul. Words of color and hope. Words that make the pain stop.
Paint. Paint away the pain.
My canvas is my life, and I give you the colors and brushes of me.

HK

I received a few emails and comments left on the art scammers list about Nicole Danes nicodanes@live.com

She/he must be hitting a lot of artists at the moment. So I’m just publishing this post so that her name and/or email address shows up on Google, letting artists know that she is a scammer.

Here’s an example of an email sent by it..

From: Nicole Danes <nicodanes@live.com>
Date: May 7, 2009 10:45:58 AM EDT
To:
Subject: artworks purchase

Good day to you.

I am so excited that I came across of your work on internet search,I am interested in purchasing these creative artworks from you…………………

Construct Series 7,Construct Series 1,Slab,juncture and evanesce

Let me know their various prices.and how much discounts are you going to give?I will be happy to have these selected artworks hanged in our new home in South Africa. As well, I want you to take out the shipping cost.I have been in touch with a shipping firm that will be shipping other house decoratives.

We are traveling from our Dallas home to our new apartment as soon as possible.On Paying for the artworks,I will be glad to pay you with a Money Order or Cashier`s check in US funds that can be easily cashed at your local bank,please let me know on how to proceed for the payment of the creative artworks.

I will await your advise on how to proceed.Have a wonderful day.

Take care,
Nicole Danes

>> List of Cockroaches

A photographer recently asked an interesting question on an old post called Painting from Photographs.

He asks..

What should a photographer do after receiving a request from a painter who wants to paint loads of his images?

- a fee per image?
- % when painter sells this painting?
- just agreement about a credit line for the photographer?

I consider my photography as art on its own and somebody would like to do his/her art with my art.
Any suggestions?
I have no problem with 1-3 images painted and a credit line but more than 20???

ArtPrize has created some debate among artists recently. The Grand Rapids, Michigan based art prize is offering the winning artist $250,000, 2nd place $100,000, 3rd place $50,000 and $7000 for the next 7 artists.

That much money on offer gets a lot of attention from artists and the media, but the thing that artists are discussing most is the judging process; there is none. OK, not none, but the public vote for the winner. This has made many artist afraid, especially conceptual artists, and I think they have good reason to be afraid as most people have no reason to be in a gallery. I know that I wouldn’t be a very good judge of hairy footed pheasants at a cock show as I don’t know anything about them, which is the same reason that people who wouldn’t know a poster from an oil painting wouldn’t be very good at judging art.

It seems to be an experimental art prize though, which hopes to involve the public and get them looking at art, so it’s all good. It will be interesting to see the winning work. The choices of art experts often have me scratching my head, so the public can’t do much worse in choosing a winner.

ArtPrize is open to artists worldwide and judging is open to anyone that attends an exhibition space throughout Grand Rapids, Michigan. See the ArtPrize website for more information on entering the art competition. They also have a blog discussing the prize.

Thanks to Susan and those that let me know of the art prize.

Two things that I have quickly noticed about the city of Melbourne is their love for AFL (Australian Football League) and their love for Melbourne artists. I passed thousands of supporters dressed in brown and yellow everything yesterday, so I’m glad I wasn’t wearing the colors of the opposing team. It’s not just guys that are fanatical about the sport, everyone seems to be. If I hang around Melbourne for much longer I might even go to a game to see what they’re all so excited about.

After reading a few reviews in local newspapers of the current John Brack exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, it makes me think that they love their artists as much as their athletes. I can’t remember the exact words of one glowing review in a major newspaper but it called it a perfect exhibition and urged anyone with an Australian bone in their body to rush down and experience this art utopia.

I wouldn’t dare tell this to a Melbournite, but I wasn’t that impressed with the John Brack exhibition. Although he does have a few iconic pictures that depict a particular time and place in Australia like Collins St, 5p.m. from 1955 (pictured), The Car from 1955, and The Bar from 1954.

After the 1950s I started to lose concentration. It was like he was trying to be something that he wasn’t, trying to be new like a lot of art being produced in America around the same time. I became a little more interested in the 1980s when he was painting pencils, but I eventually returned to the 1950s rooms to leave the exhibition on a high note.

The Battle – 1983 – John Brack uses pencils to depict French and British soldiers in the Battle of Waterloo

I was much more impressed by a room of Fred Williams paintings in the free section of the gallery. Here’s some work by Fred Williams online. Fred Williams is also from this area, so I probably wouldn’t be hung for admitting that I like him more.

One of my favorite female painters is showing at the Hauser & Wirth Zürich gallery in Switzerland. “Joan Mitchell – Sunflowers” runs from June 6 through to July 25.

I like paintings that look like they were fun to paint. Art doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that for me. Concepts and theories come a distant second. If I can’t relate to the painting of a picture, I move on to the next one.

From the exhibition press release..
“Joan Mitchell’s Sunflower paintings count amongst the most experimental and vibrant of all
her works. In the upstairs gallery at Hauser & Wirth Zürich, six canvases dating from the
1960s and the year before her death, etchings and drawings host an extraordinary diversity of
marks with compositions whose ungovernable vitality refuse to comply to the rules of image
making. Mitchell considered sunflowers to be ‘like people’ — subjects to empathise with
whose life cycles were played out with exuberance but brutal swiftness. ‘If I see a sunflower
drooping, I can droop with it,’ she explained, ‘and I draw it, and feel it until its death.’ Like
van Gogh whose precedent she was brave enough to summon, she embraced sunflowers for
their hopefulness as much as for their assertive and undeniable splendour. Her images do not
much resemble the plants themselves: they are blue and red as well as golden, erratically
dancing sweeps of colour that communicate internal as much as external landscape.”

Here’s a link to the Joan Mitchell Foundation too.

Posting has been a little light lately as I have jumped in the car and just kept driving. I’m about 5 hours south from home and am freezing. I’m in the Australian Capital Territory, in the city of Canberra to see Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles: Number 11 from 1952 at the National Gallery of Australia.

It was bought by the Australian government in 1973 for $2 million USD and created a lot of controversy at the time. If the much smaller and much less impressive No. 5, 1948 painting was sold by David Geffen in 2006 for $140 million, Blue Poles would easily be worth $150 million today.. even in a financial crisis. I rarely ever put a money value on art when I’m in a gallery, but for Blue Poles I’ll make an exception.

Also, I find it funny that a city filled with politicians is based around circles. You can drive around and around and not really get anywhere.. just as politicians go around and around and never really get anywhere. See what I mean on Google maps.

My next stop may be Melbourne.. then maybe Tasmania.. but I’m taking each day as it comes and seeing where the wind blows me. A big gust of wind could even pick me up and take me to London or New York. You just never know what’s around the corner when you’re a paper bag blowing in the wind.

There’s an interesting article over at the LA Times on art, manufacturing, brands, and people that seem to enjoy being in court.

“They may not have realized it, but the folks who snapped up as much as $4-million worth of limited-edition prints by artist Takashi Murakami two years ago at the special Louis Vuitton boutique inside his exhibition at L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art apparently were getting nicely mounted handbags — minus the snaps and straps.” LA Times

Basically, a collector didn’t like the fact that his Takashi Murakami Louis Vuitton prints were just left over Louis Vuitton material strapped to canvas stretchers.

I can’t see a problem with it. Takashi Murakami is like Japan’s Damien Hirst and he doesn’t hide the fact that he’s a branding machine in the business of selling products. The exhibition at the The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles was called “Copyright Marakami” which should have given the collector some idea of what the artist is all about.

You don’t expect a Damien Hirst spot painting to be painted by Damien Hirst.

Artists and galleries seem to be further apart than I thought. The recent art galleries and Internet post created comments that were anti artist or art gallery. A comment by “anonymous” on Starting an Art Gallery (who usually has something controversial to say) said this..

“..here is the KEY.. own your building… this proves your loyalty to art and separates yourself from the others.. so wonderful! then don’t listen to what artists have to say about them having to bear the burden of the costs.. 2 reasons… first. artists (especially abstract painters) are a dime a dozen. second.. it is an artists job to spend money on their lifestyle… so if you were a full time snowboarder, it would cost you equipment, lift tickets,gas to get there, lifestyle clothing, etc..so, being an artist costs, frames, paint, entry fees and The Burden of dealing with art gallery divas like myself.”

Ouch.. No wonder artists and art galleries don’t get along. I would hate to be an abstract artist exhibiting with this guy! I would quickly start painting cow turds and tell him it was important to you and that you’re confident the public will buy, buy, buy.. lol.

Also, the Australian artist Hazel Dooney replied to the recent Art Gallery and Internet post with the following to say..

“But the power of new media, combined with the accelerating decline of traditional galleries, especially in a drastically deteriorating global economy, is such that even the most persistent and grasping middlemen will lose their grip in the near future. While artists will flourish on the net, only a very few galleries are likely to adapt to it, let alone be able transfer offline success online.
As any geek – or record company – can tell you, the web works against any effort to exert control within it. ” Read her full post here.

It seems that artists and art galleries live on different planets. Personally, my dealings with art galleries have left a very bad taste in my mouth, so I decided to take a route that allowed me to forgo selling art, but still allow me to comfortably pay the bills. I now hate parting with paintings and I paint what I want, but I guess my storage will run out eventually