NGV TRIENNIAL & HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Nicely arranged mix of objects 

Tapestry or carpet? Either way, this aint a photo! 

Love the tongue in cheekness of this piece 

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I know we all get so sick of that one person ( usually me ) repeatedly saying WOW I can't believe this year is over BUT who can really believe that we are in a new year again? Last year seemed to be kind of a downer for lots of people. For me, it was utterly and completely average.  I mean the entire thing was just a huge waiting room. Going from one place to the next and just spending months waiting until the next thing comes on the agenda. I like the fact that I've spent almost two years abroad working and enjoying my life though. I guess that side has been pretty fantastic. I've become too seasoned now to have idealisms about the future so my thing is just to live honestly and with enough enthusiasm to get up and get things done. 

This room was beautiful. The streams shown here interact with movement which meant they moved or jiggled around when you walked. The room was mirrored as well which created a really trippy experience as you didn't know the true dimensions of the room 

Prior to NYE, I went to the Triennial with my friend Marle. I forgot that this thing was even on so it was nice to be reminded of a cool art thing that I can head out to look at. It wasn't a disappointment at all. Seriously one of the best shows I've seen in general in ages and ages. Not as good as the Yayoi Kusama show in Tokyo which was probably the best art show I've seen ever but probably runner up after that. Every single piece of work in the show was good in the sense that it was enjoyable to look at or it was fun. When it comes to art, I'm not into the conceptual side of things. I like visually interacting and visually experiencing things which means its all about colour, form and size for me. I guess this means I'm a pretty lazy Art viewer which I am. I need interactiveness, I want to be affected by things just by looking. The Triennial feels like a SHOW. I'm talking colour and interactiveness which are my two favourites so I didn't feel underwhelmed at all there.

Colourful art makes me feel joyous and young inside. The bigger the pieces of work or even better if it takes up an entire room, the longer I like to spend in there

I like works that invite the viewer in. Seeing something as mundane as a couple of people watching the football on a couch takes on a whole new level when done in a gallery 😆

Had to take a photo of this for interior decorating purposes. I like chandeliers now. I used to not that much but I like their pride and elegance and the kind of energy which it puts into a space. I wasn't sure why there was a chandelier in that particular room but seeing as its a gallery, I'm sure the artist had a reason. It suited the sumptuous paintings which were being exhibited in the same room. In doing PFF's instagram ( here ),  I've noticed that my decorating style is actually super European and very mid century. Especially Italian Mid century which I'm bold enough to declare as my favourite period for furniture and decorative artefacts. I like the rounded edges and the gloopy, blobby shapes of the sculptures that they have. I also love all the gold trimmings and gold detailing that are prevalent in that era. 

The chandelier as seen from below. I liked admiring the symmetry of it 

Really fun and vibrant cafe. The entire thing was done up in a Persian style

Browsing the bookstore. The NGV store has really broadened their book selection since the last time I came

I didn't take any photos at the new years eve party I went to, mostly because it was held at night outdoors and the light wasn't sufficient. It was a good party though, my favourite part was the countdown. I felt like I always get way too excited for the count down and nobody really sees the significance in it! These flowers are the first things I took photos of for 2018. The light was so good in this photo and I loved all the mix of dark and light amongst the leaves.

I'm open to what 2018 has in store. I just think the prospect of turning 28 is going to be the most daunting thing. With each passing year, I feel as if I don't really have enough time to actually ' be ' that age before I'm turning one year older again. My only sort of resolutions are to continue doing Paintings Flowers Furniture business and to grow my hair! What are your resolutions and how was your year? 

See you in the next post!

DEL KATHRYN BARTON, LOUISE PARAMOR, CALLUM PRESTON

My favourite part of the whole show! This wall of collages was really gorgeous 

The hours that went towards all this! 

Yesterday, I spent the day with my friend Hayley looking at galleries. I guess I've always been pretty close with all matters concerning Art as I've known a lot of artists but I've never really been super, super into it as I am now since I began painting. Now, I see art in a whole new way. Other people's art is like a learning resource for me now. A way of helping me find a better way to paint or to just provide a different perspective altogether.

We were both really impressed with the things we saw. Sometimes Art can get too intellectual and boring and you can feel very ousted by the jargon and the 'in-knowledge' so when I see colour and glitter and just something fun and youthful, I really get excited. I love colourful art. I just love to be delighted visually and colour is a very fast way to delight the senses. If you're in Melbourne, then I really recommend checking out NGV Australia to see Del Kathryn Barton and Louise Paramor's exhibitions. They were both really terrific. You feel very invited into their work just by looking at it.

Del Kathryn Barton's drawings section of her exhibition

Louise Paramor's exhibit : Palace of the Republic

Louise Paramor's exhibition reminded me very much of my 'aesthetic' and taste back in 2012-13. All the toy-like, block-like figures really harked back to the kinds of colours and shapes which I liked to paint and use when I started dabbling in painting a couple of years back. The vastness of the exhibition was impressive. I mean, it was literally vast. The room stretched quite far and the artist has managed to fill a good proportion of the room with these inventive looking objects that I'm pretty sure she has found from hard rubbish and other sources she's dug up.

The toy-like atmosphere was very fun to be a part of 

I got wind of Callum Preston's Milk Bar installation via Instagram and I was glad that Hayley knew what I was going on about with regards to it. We headed over to the RVCA gallery in Collingwood to have a look and it bought back very personal memories for me. In the early 2000's my parents ran a milk bar which had everything stocked in this terrific mock version he has made.

Again, I marvelled at the hours which would've been put towards this installation piece. My favourite section was the magazines rack which I snapped a picture of which you can see below. I feel like at times, there can be a fear from some artists to create work that can seem ' child-like ' ( maybe that's just me? ) but to be honest, they are my favourite pieces of Art because they are fun. I don't think that meaningfulness is necessarily tied up with serious, grey, depressing modes of expression, subject matter or even colour. I think it's more complicated than that. Or maybe even simpler.

My favourite part of the exhibition. Who doesn't remember all those magazines that girls used to love when they were teens like Dolly and Girlfriend? I used to wait eagerly every month for the new issue. 

If you have time, I really recommend both of these exhibits. Information can be found for

NGV here and Callum Preston's milk bar here

ALICE NEEL

I've decided to choose Alice Neel as the debut entry subject for Paintings, Flowers and Furniture because her work is SO good and she's one of my favorite artists too. The first time I saw her work was somewhere around Pinterest and I remember how moved I was. Seeing her work made me want to start painting portraits despite the fact I've never been particularly interested in that area. To me, portrait painting leaves very little room for error. You need to have a fine understanding of how one area of a persons face, composure and body relates to the other to create a harmonious flow that has the same weight and logic as the laws of physics or maths. On top of that, you need to capture that very illusive part of them which I like to call their 'vibe'.

Alice Neel lived the kind of lifestyle that now remains a lost relic of the 60's and 70's. A lifestyle of languid, gypsy nomadicness carried by wind and whimsy. There were a lot of lovers, a lot of travel, a lot of drama and if I might add, a lot of children too. There were stays in mansions with a wealthy cuban artist ( he fathered two of her children ), a failed suicide attempt, a stint in a Mental Institution and a volatile, opium using partner who slashed her paintings in a jealous rage. 

She lead the kind of lifestyle where her heart was very much in charge. There was no foresight, only forward onward going. This was the impression imparted when I watched the documentary made about her by her grandson, Andrew Neel. When it came to her work, she was a woman who plunged herself deeply into her subjects. She wanted there to be no barrier, no film and no guard between her and them. She wanted the full package, complete and un-abridged.

" Like Chekhov, I am a collector of souls... if I hadn't been an artist, I could have been a psychiatrist." 

Like most artists, she was never rich during her career and only began to see the pin dot dawn of fame towards the latter end of her life. But where fame was lacking, she held a bounty of richness in artistic growth, insight and emotional acumen. She was like a living nerve, exposed without protection from the elements. That's what I like about her, she was intense as a person and as an artist. And she didn't shy away from the intensity. She lived for it.

" You should keep on painting no matter how difficult it is, because this is all part of experience, and the more experience you have, the better it is... unless it kills you, and then you know you have gone too far " Alice Neel 

"She'd say very belligerent things, and people yelled at her." - Alex Katz

“I don’t care for bohemian culture. Innocent people are hurt by it.” - Richard Neel  

" The place where I had freedom most was when I painted. I was completely and utterly myself. " - Alice Neel 

 “She could hold an image in her head for something like 16 hours.” - Hartley Neel 

Hartley Neel in Alice's apartment much of which has been left as is when she passed away 

The documentary gave a more intimate glimpse inside her life told by members of her family ( the documentary was made by her grandson ) as well as members of her inner circle. It reiterated to me the plight of female artists as well the lives of the women of which I admire and identify with. Lives like Alice's are almost soul destroying when they are being lived out. But they offer so much for people like us as a way of understanding what ordains great art and the ordeals which most artists themselves go through in order to make their canon's possible.

" It's a privilege, you know, to paint and it takes up a lot of time and it means there's a lot of things you don't do. But still, with me, painting was more than a profession, it was also an obsession. I had to paint. "

Alice's art for me isn't just something of an Aesthetic thing, even though it very much is that. She painted lives so well because she knew what it meant to have one and to live one. She understood the innermost complexities of being alive and she captured other peoples well because of this. And how can we really be surprised when her life was so chaotic? So emotional? So frenzied in its anguish as well as its joys? Portraiture is about being able to fix the soul of the subject onto the canvas. Alice hasn't only managed to do that for herself, but to help fix the souls of others through her talent but also through understanding her own life.

From Top to Bottom : 

Martha Mitchell, 1970, Oil On Canvas, 76.2 x 55.8cm ( 30 x 22in. )

Nancy, 1966, Oil On Canvas, 127 x 102cm ( 50 x 40.2in. )

The Family, 1982, Lithograph on Paper, 80 x 68.6cm ( 31.5 x 27in. )

Portrait of Hartley Stockton Neel, 1981, Lithograph in colours on wove paper,

72.4 x 55.9cm ( 28.5 x 22 in. )

David Bourdon & Gregory Battcock, 1970, Oil On Canvas, 151.8 x 142.2cm, ( 59 4/5 x 56in. )

Men From Rutgers, 1980, Colour Lithograph, 72.7 x 56.4cm ( 28.6 x 22.2in. )

Portrait of Girl in Blue Chair, 1970, Colour Lithograph, 53 x 68.58cm, ( 27 x 21 in. )

Mary Shoemaker, 1965, Oil on Canvas, 98.8 x 66cm ( 38.9 x 26 in. )

Abdul Rahman, 1964, Oil On Canvas, 50.8 x 40.6 cm ( 20 x 16in. )

The Family : John Gruen, Jane Wilson & Julia, Oil on Canvas, 153 x 147.3cm, ( 60 1/4 x 58in. )

Ethel Ashton, Oil on Canvas, 61 x 55.9cm, ( 24 x 22in. )
Benny & Mary Ellen Andrews, Oil On Canvas, 152.2 x 127cm ( 60 x 50 in. )

https://www.aliceneelfilm.com/