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Anthony Breslin

My best friends fathers, is creating a art gallery/studio/cafe/living space for the artist Anthony Breslin, which was almost completely destroyed by a fire. As they are such close friends, for Christmas he was given a copy of a hardback book with all his artwork in it, and a personalised canvas. I was looking through this book the other day and really fell in love with Breslins’ work. 

This piece is titled ‘Bourke,’ after my friends father, which I found quite exciting. i absolutely love this kind of work., as it is kind of ambiguous in a way. It is most obviously a face, but it is not a typical face; it is created with crazy lines, scribbles and colours. 

This piece is titled ‘Walkerville.’ I love this piece because it is so incredibly bright and vibrant, and he has used mixed media, which is quite different from your usual typical painting. 

This piece is titled ‘Maybe silver raindrops on your face are golden raindrops on your soul II’. I quite like this piece because it has a melancholic, sombre feel about it, in comparison to his typical loudly coloured, busy work. It still has the use of crazy lines and dribbles, but it is used much more subtly. I think changing the feel of his paintings is a huge strength for Breslin, as he can promote for different demographics and for different looks that people are going for when buying his artwork for a particular space.

I would most definitely like to visit his art space in the future, when it is completed.

Linden

On Sunday, I went to the Linden Postcard Show, at Linden Centre for the Contemporary Arts. 
I was SO impressed with a lot of the artwork that had been admitted, but so disappointed with the winners!!! They were so plain and unimpressive. The ones I really liked, were the small illustrations, as that is what I have been interested in for a while. Sophie and I got caught taking pictures..but I will try to upload the few that we took to show you an example! (sneaky) There was a skull that was done on some sort of grid like paper, that was just colours in squares to make the tones of a skull, I really liked that. I will put more of a description when I can figure out how to get photos off my phone.
I love the space in which this exhibition was set up, as it just looked like an empty house. However, the way in which the pieces were set up was extremely difficult to find your way around. I was trying to locate a friend of mines piece, and as there are hundreds of pieces and no real numbering system, therefore finding took me a good ten minute as I had to just find the number that referred to his piece.
I reallllyyyy enjoyed this exhibition, even if there were a lot of pieces I did not particularly like. There was such a diversity in the pieces that you were bound to love something! 

Future

I have been quite sick and lazy in the past week, so this is my late post…

Last Saturday, I went to Future Music Festival, which is mainly a festival with mainstream music and DJ’s. I have been quite interested in possibly pursuing a visual merchandising course next year, and always notice shop fronts and the layouts of stores/exhibitions/etc, so will be discussing that in this post, and what I think worked and did not work for the festival itself!

Firstly, the music was not loud enough for a festival, and the weather was horrific which made it even worse, they did not have enough toilets, there was not enough under cover space and it was never clear where all the different stages and acts were playing. I really think this was a badly set up festival in terms of accessibility, as lines for everything were enormous, including to get into the actual venue. Events like this should be prepared for massive amounts of people. As much I had a really great day, it could have been so much better if small things were changed!
One of my favourite acts were The Chemical Brothers. Their lighting was really simple but effective;  they had plain colours swirling around on a black screen. It sounds kind of cliche and tacky, but it just worked really well with the music and the fact that they were the last act to play!

Hey Stubby

My best friend recently broke his leg, and a friend of mine, Jack Turner, drew a character on his cast. After some more questioning, I found out he is in his third year of the course I am interested in pursuing when I’ve finished at Brighton Bay; Communication Design at RMIT. I’ve checked out his blog, and I absolutely LOVE his work. He does a lot of detailed illustration, often distorted characters with strange features, and his work often has a crude joking side, quite like his personality. His work really appeals to me, as I did small illustrations for my year twelve finals, and am always excited about discovering illustrators or artists who use ink/watercolour/fineliner as a medium! Here is some of his work that I dig the most..

I love the series of ‘ladyboy’ characters he did in this style. The colours are quite basic and childlike, however the lines are detailed and many. I also love the comparison of the hair/moustache and the eyes. The hair is done in thick lines, whereas the eyes and features and done in thin, sketchy lines.

This piece appeals because I am terrible at colouring in and painting, using shade etc to create a 3d feel. It’s something I really hope to improve on this year.


I adore this. It’s so finely and beautifully detailed, it looks so fragile and delicate.
 
 
I really like this, as I quite like street art eg Banksy styles

JACK TURNER
http://www.heystubby.com/
http://www.heystubby.com/
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http://www.heystubby.com/ 

Front

Front, is a design group located in Stockholm, Sweden consisting of Sofia Lagerkvist, Charlotte von der Lancken, Anna Lindgren and Katja Savstrom. I absolutely love the projects front are involved with and how they continue to reject the classical ways of design and embrace their own style, from their simplistic, minimal technology designs to their use of animals within their designs. 

 
My favourite project of theirs is their work using animals. This picture is from rat wallpaper, where rats gnaw on rolls of wallpaper to create a repetitive pattern of the wallpaper underneath, creating something like this..

Another one I really like is insect table. It is simply paths in a piece of made by insects, forms a table top. It is so simple looking, yet so much work went into its creation by small, tiny insects, with of course, the help of humans.

 

The Naked Face

I recently went to The Naked Face-Self Portraits exhibition which is on at the NGV until the 27th of February. I really, really appreciated this exhibition, as there are so many different ways a person can perceive themselves, and in so many different mediums. This in itself, makes for an intriguing exhibition. 

 
I quite liked Vernon Ah Kee’s self portrait, which is a monumentally scaled pencil portrait. It is so incredibly life like, yet leaves an air of mystery as there is no neck line, or even hair; it is simply the features of his face staring defiantly at you.
 

John Brack’s ‘Self Portrait,’ 1955, is probably one of my favourite pieces of the exhibition. You know, as the audience, that he is shaving in the mirror, yet he looks as if he is scrutinising your every movement, wanting you to wonder what his intention is. Brack has not idealised himself, nor captured himself at his best, rather doing an every day action.