definatalie.com » art happenings

Swell Sculpture Festival

Natalie — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 01:27:29 +0000

Bella by Greg James: A sculpture made of what looks to be bronze of a woman sitting on a table in a green bikini and flowers in her hair as she stares out to the sea. People are sitting at the seats looking out to the sea, seemingly ignoring the sculpture.

The Swell Sculpture Festival at Currumbin Beach has been showing for the last fortnight but we only got out to catch it yesterday morning, before it closes today. We took Miffy with us because there aren’t many art events you can take your dog to! We are bestowing on her an education in the creative arts, primarily teaching her not to pee or poo near or on the art. We walked up and down the beach, stopping to look at sculptures and greet other art-loving dogs, and at the end of the walk we all sat down in the shade of a tree sipping our cool refreshments.

I wish I’d taken one of the booklets so I could have more information to accompany my photographs but please enjoy these snaps and my probably incorrect and uncultured descriptions. It was a super sunny, hot day and looks gorgeous in the photos but trust me, the sand was hot and the sweat was dripping!

War Ears by Pat Hoffie & Stefan Purcell: A huge orange binocular looking structure sitting on the beach.

So many more photos are beyond the cut!

A yellow lifeguard tower against the blue sky.

POD by Erica Gray : A detail photo of a sculpture that looks like a hession sack with small openings slit in the sides.

Welcome to Paradiso by Alejandro Polo: A gold or bronze small palm tree standing upright on the sand with the ocean and another sculpture, Vanessa Stanley's Your Altered Gaze, sitting behind.

Welcome to Paradiso by Alejandro Polo detail: The golden fronds of the palm tree against the shockingly blue sky.

Journey Music by Mariana Martin: A cluster of tall pin like protusions in the sand and people walking in the middle of the sculpture.

Your Altered Gaze by Vanessa Stanley: Nick and Miffy stand in front of a circular frame filled with circular mirrors that reflect different views of the ocean, some warped.

Your Altered Gaze by Vanessa Stanley detail: My reflection in two of the mirrors as I take a photo, the beach and sky behind me.

Who Cares... by Steve Bristow: A life size dolphin sculpture lies in the sand tangled in net, scarred and bloody.

Green foliage against the blue sky with bonus sun flare.

A Passion for Patience by Christina Khumari: A circular, kind of spider web type piece of crochet is strung between two large trees with the beach behind it.

A Passion for Patience by Christina Khumari detail: Close up photo of this piece reveals a spider web structure made with large beads, the sun shining through it makes the beads look like drips of water.

State of Square by Fatih Semiz: A sculpture made up of a star shape outlines that reduce in size to nothing in circular shape. Sort of looks like a slinky that disappears into nothing!

Passages by Erika Mayer & Tom Koch detail: Blue and green frosted glass blobs that take on lots of organic forms, some look like single cell organisms blown up.

A piano on sits on the grass under a tree as passers by come up and play it. A sign on the piano says "Play me."

Wait and See by Julia Birch: A large brown turtle hoisted up by a flag pole type structure and floats in the sky with the wind.

Transient Migration by Anne Leon: Tall sticks with red, orange and yellow long thin flags sit on a dune with Currumbin Life Saving Club and the beach behind.

An orange and green gelati and iced coffee truck with people lined up waiting for delicious, cooling refreshments.

Listen to a Pipe Dreaming by Christopher Trotter: A curly silver pipe emerges from the sand dune and an ear piece extends towards the sea.

The Rebirth by Cezary Stuglis: Welded stainless steel humanoid figures crawl out over the dunes, some have fish scales and one has a large funnel through its torso.

Miffy lies panting on the shady grass with a cup of water next to her.

Vintage Garage Exhibition

Natalie — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:51:01 +0000

A few weeks ago my work was in an exhibition as part of the launch of Vintage Garage, a Melbourne store selling rare and unique and nostalgic things. It’s a bit strange having work appear in interstate shows but it’s also very exciting! I’m also really happy that the shows I’ve been doing lately aren’t typical gallery shows, it’s proof that I don’t have to be part of the very flawed gallery system in Australian art. One day I’d love to organise my own solo show, but I just worry that my organisational skills aren’t especially fabulous considering the amount of work I know goes into coordinating an exhibition! I’m always really appreciative of people like Sheridan Mills, who arranged the Vintage Garage show, and Renee-Anne who coordinates Leeloo‘s shows (like the recent Disband) – they’ve got some organisational chops for sure.

Anyway, Sheridan just sent me some photos of the opening night at Vintage Garage so I’ll pop a few in here! The other artists in the show were: Kat Weir, Ali J, Eirryn Porter, Linda Fährlin and Andrea Innocent.

The Illustrators at KILN – starts this Friday night!

Natalie — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:37:21 +0000

I just picked up three of my beautifully framed pieces from Bizarre Framing and dropped them into KILN Gallery for The Illustrators show, a group exhibition I’m so chuffed to be part of. I saw Nigel Buchanan‘s gorgeous giclee prints lined up against the wall, and said hello to Shaun Campbell and his fancy car as he was bumping in an installation. The show also includes Jim Tsinganos, Brett Lethbridge, Ron Monnier, Courtney Brims and Lucia Masciullo – some incredible names in Australian illustration that I’m rather honoured to be included with!

Now I shall present to you a taste of The Illustrators!

And little old me!

Come and take a look this Friday night if you’re local. Tomorrow the KILN site should show all the pieces in the Illustrators show in the online gallery, so if you’re in an art buying mood you can get a heads up! The show runs from Friday 31 July for three weeks.

Semi-Permanent showbags

Natalie — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:28:14 +0000

Today I volunteered to pack swag for Semi-Permanent, and we were done in super record time. See, we were moving like ninjas, my phone/camera couldn’t catch up :P

I was excited to see my drawing in the book! It started raining as I was waiting for Nick to pick me up so my book got a little damp :(

Swaaaaaag. My fingernails are buggered now after handling so much paper. They used to be terrible at my old job when I’d be dealing with freshly printed stuff all the time!

aaaand I have to show you these pens that are in the swag bags… There are SO many different colours!

Don’t try to pull a comb through paisley and feather hair

Natalie — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 09:52:39 +0000

I have been doing a lot of commissioned drawings lately, which is awesome! This one is for the lovely Omega and the one below is for Ms Katy.

The exhibition opening at KILN was on Friday night, and I still feel terrible about not taking any photos! I was sort of flustered because it was a little muggy and then a little stormy, and I was running in and out of the gallery saying hi to friends who were kind enough to come by and check out my debut in a gallery! Brisbane demonstrated her seductive two degrees of separation once again: I discovered that Cate at KILN actually went to school with my sister!

Afterwards, we dashed across town to the BTUB “tweetup” (I hate using “twords” as a rule but there’s no other way to succinctly explain it!) and had awesome times with awesome peoples. It was moustache-flavoured night, thanks to my entirely rad Poirot moustache necklace that I made earlier in the day!

Messieurs Spencer, Nicole and Tash.

C’est moi!

People were asking if they could buy the necklace, so I’ve made up five to sell (maybe on etsy or something?) One has already been reserved for Spencer though, because we almost came to fisty-cuffs over the ownership of the moustache :P

My photos from Connect Four: Play

Natalie — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 12:29:56 +0000

Last night I spent about three hours drawing at this table with the lovely Anna, Shannon and Renee at Connect Four: Play. Anna was writing haikus; Shannon and Renee were doing incredible portraits for people; and I was doodling on brown paper bags! Donations for the drawings and haikus and proceeds from the event went to Backbone Youth Arts.

I really regret not taking the portrait Shannon drew of me off the wall before I left!

There was a badge making machine!

Connect Four!

What looks like a lightbox set up from a hospital, ahha!

Cupcakes at the bar!

Dress up girls!

Works on Paper at KILN – my first ever exhibition!

Natalie — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:42:12 +0000

So, I am “debuting” at the Works on Paper exhibition at KILN on April 3. I am very excited, almost embarrassingly excited, but at least my enthusiasm falls short of pants-peeingly-excited. I wish I could get the hang of that cool nonchalance that artists are supposed to exhibit!

I am showing alongside some wonderful artists. Allow me to demonstrate:

Danielle O’Brien – Untitled 3, 2008

Nic Plowman – And there she was, 2008

Laura Skerlj

Yuki Nakano – Geisha, 2009

Also Shaun Campbell, Lucia Trove and Jordan Hart – who I can’t find any sites for! If you’re in Brisbane during April, I do suggest you check it out!

Come see me at Connect Four: Play

Natalie — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:24:17 +0000

On March 28 I’ll be one of the “artists on demand” at the Connect Four art party in the Valley. From 8 – 10pm I’ll be doodling for donations for Backbone Youth Arts, and you can also see some of my drawings in the multimedia art gallery. RSVP at the facebook event page if you’re that way inclined.

There are so many exciting things that are gonna happen this year. I’m quite chuffed!

Brisbane Twestival, why you should come

Natalie — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 07:53:24 +0000

I’m proud and happy to support and contribute to the Brisbane Twestival, part of the worldwide Twestival celebrations raising money for charity: water. It’s being put on by twitter users all around the world, with a budget of approximately $0, sponsored by a bunch of awesome websites and businesses.

I drew up this piece especially to auction off on the night, with all the proceeds going to charity:water. A couple of other artists have donated pieces for auction as well, you should check them out and bid on them :P

There’s going to be a bunch of music and food and art projected around Metro Arts, and I’m contributing drawings for that too (which reminds me I need to email them!!) I’ll be going, and I hope I can get some awesome photos dancing in front of the projected paisley!

Tickets are available here, and if you can’t make it to a twestival near you, you can always donate! Everyone likes water!

Never were truer words spoken…

Natalie — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:39:11 +0000

By Chris Piascik [via Meet Me at Mikes].

I am in the middle of trying to get back in to drawing. My arm has been incredibly painful in recent months so I’ve tried to lay off the intensive drawing sessions. I need to organise a proper drawing space with a tilted surface but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

This is part of the new series… “fancy hair” is my work in progress title. I need to buy some more 0.1 black pens because mine ran out!

I got myself a tumblr account so I can post strictly images I like and bits of my work. Follow me if you want to!

Don’t forget, Drawing Day 08 is coming up on June 7. I’m hoping to get a whole heap of RedBubblers involved and I’ll post my favourite DD08 drawings here. If you’re joining in on DD08, or if you just want to participate by blogging it, let me know because I’ll add links to other DD08 posts in my entries!