Rex-Livingston Art Dealer - Five Emerging Artists

I've always cringed at the word 'emerging' when placed beside the word 'artist', I always wonder where they are emerging from ... but that's just a wee bugbear of mine ...

Ben Little, Eva Hampel, Julie Keating, Matt Bromhead and Richard Francis Burns are the artists here and a they're a very mixed bunch.

A strong show, maybe a little overhung.

Stand outs are Richard Francis Burns wall pieces and Matt Bromhead's drawings and sculptures.

Always fond of a little finger food!

26th November - 20th December
rex-livingston.com

Kaliman Gallery - Del Kathryn Barton

With Fleur home lying down (will you get better my sweet) I was off to Kaliman solo. What a huge crowd and the room was filled with the smugness of a sold out show.

Without a doubt Del Kathyrn Barton is an extraordinary painter. Her technique is amazing but am I the only one who gets freaked out by those huge anime eyes? ... and I really don't understand the almost direct Gilbert and George quotation, it just seemed a little bit self conscious ...

It is a must see show though, that seven metre long watercolour is amazing ...

27th November - 19th December
www.kalimangallery.com

MOP Projects - Jamie North & Manya Ginori

On such a hot day even I could wrap myself round a cold beer!!!

It's all those plants fighting to stay alive in the concrete jungle, seeping through gaps in brick walls, helping to extend cracks that have formed through structural movement...All over the world...

Jamie North has documented extensively through photography and created shrines in the plants honor to create an atmosphere of green and grey!!!

In Manya Ginori's work, a feeling of going tribal with her shield like work...gave a demanding balance!!!

26th November - 13th December
www.mop.org.au

Boutwell Draper Gallery - Ben Frost

Lost in the Supermarket...

Cartoon propaganda or highly decorated art, is Ben Frost telling us a story, not sure...

These paintings look like the colours used in cake decorating for children's parties mixed up with Andy Warhol Factory days!!!
Lots to look at and I even spied Spock...

I wonder if Jimmy would have liked them!

26th November - 19th December 2009
www.boutwelldrapergallery.com.au

Grantpirrie - Michael Zavros

With Jimmy covering another show, it was my first visit to the sleek and stylish Grantpirrie Gallery...Almost like walking into a high fashion house...

When I worked for Giorgio Armani back in the 90's I fell in love with the high quality of craftsmanship and seriously appreciate the time it takes to create an object of desire and beauty.
It's not fashion, it's Art!!!

When you fall in love with it you will go to great lengths to acquire it, because you know it will last forever...and it will make you happy...I fell in love with Michael Zavros work when I saw it many moons ago at the Mori Gallery, back then I could have afforded it...

And not to forget the window has some lovely work by Susan Hipgrave, botanical drawings on porcelain and it's nice to see works by Lionel Bawden among others in the back room...

26th November - 19th December 2009
www.grantpirrie.com

Australian Galleries - Roylston St - John Forrester Clack

We don't really know what to make of this show... there's quite a range of styles and they come from a number of years. The lumpy ones were great but we were left with the bright red 'ET phone home' pic in our heads and that kind of ruined it ...

As always a lovely crowd and what about that Michael Snape parking a one and a half tonne sculpture outside the front door!

24th November - 19th December 2009
www.australiangalleries.com.au

The Delmar Gallery - Group Show - Shelf Life

It's always a small adventure going to the Delmar Gallery.

Let's face it, Fleur and myself don't get to the suburbs often and couple that with Fleur being poorly and myself having had no sleep after foolishly travelling down the coast from Coffs Harbour we were quite the disaster.

Shelf Life is an annual event at the Delmar. Credit certainly must go to Nick Vickers... how he can find the patience to organise so many artists to be in a show I really can't fathom.

We got there very late and hardly had enough time to see the huge amount of work presented here. The trip home was fun, we relaxed and looked at the houses and gardens of Ashfield and a lovely lady gave us flowers!

22nd November - 13th December 2009
www.trinity.nsw.edu.au

Ash's Studio - ASH JOHNSTON, ELI RESKOV, LEONARD AITKEN

With Gallery37 and John Gordon Gallery closing down in Coffs it's really good to see an artists run initiative opening. It's a simple space, but it's laid back and draws a fun crowd.

A really nice opening... strange pre-storm light, a huge downpour, lots of mates there and more stretched earlobes and tattoos than you could count ...

Ash's Studio
Earl and Vernon St
Coffs Harbour
Wednesday - Saturday 10am-3pm

In Memory

Janice McCulloch

2009

James Dorahy Project Space - Sherna Teperson

It's been a busy and wonderful night for me flying solo with sixtoeight!!

Sherna has built a small city, a small balsa drink bottle city...And it is a brilliant show...

These delicately carved small sculptures of drink bottles that have been accumulating in her studio are the stuff that dreams are made of, I could not imagine the time spent carving each bottle so meticulously. I especially loved the flattened bottle in the tall perspex box and the other tall box of balsa wood shavings, a grand gesture on your arrival to the gallery...

I could almost say...move over Ricky Swallow, but I will only whisper it!!!

Although it may be a quiet show, these works speak volumes...

10th November -29th November
www.jamesdorahy.com.au

Martin Browne Fine Art - Alexander McKenzie

It was transport chaos outside as I tried in vain to get a cab from Paddington to Potts Point and only really had a short time to whip into the gallery and do a sweep, but my visit was not disappointed as I will always be a fan of Alex's...And Jimmy was disappointed he could not be here to enjoy it too!

In the past I have heard some people say that Alex's work is too much like chocolate box art,
well I wouldn't say no to a box of chocolates with an Alexander McKenzie painting on it, hell no!!!

Tending trees is another wonderful series of yummy paintings... A collection of portraits of small islands with wonderfully clipped hedges, wistful trees and foreboding skies and he is a master at painting water...Yum!!!

11th November -6th December 2009
www.martinbrownefineart.com

Iain Dawson Gallery - Robyn Sweaney

After spending a week in bed due to illness, I have been itching to get back into the sixtoeight saddle...

I first saw Robyn's work at this very same location when it was the Tim Olsen Annex, and lucky for Robyn when Iain saved her from the much publicized Olsen stable cull.

I fell in love with her work then and I am still in love with it...it reminded me heavily of what I grew up with living in Rockhampton in the 60's and 70's. Her beautiful gouache brush work would just set my heart pounding.

Jimmy is still on vacation so I am allowed to gush!!!

A true fan of the use of gouache, her hedge work reminds me of my own early 90's work of topairy gardens which I sold many paintings...

And I do hope that Robyn sells just as many...

10th November - 21st November 2009
iaindawson.com

Robin Gibson Gallery - David Eastwood & Maryanne Wick

It's a beautiful day and I'm out of my sick bed so off to Robin Gibson Gallery to see
two very different shows by two very different artists...

The eclectic compositions in David Eastwood's paintings create an almost stifled atmosphere, but at the same time put a smile on the viewer's face with his whimsical dialogue...

He has created a feeling of almost loneliness, of rooms in the middle of being emptied with traces of rubbish and unfinished packing.

And the colours are sumptuous to say the least but I found myself quite taken with the big black and white work on paper...

Maryanne Wick's work is so much different from David's work, as I walked slowly surveying these intimate still life's I felt a sense of calm overwhelm me almost like marking the end of a season.

With her use of a soft green palette revealing the other side of nature and a darting lizard. These paintings have an essence of Giorgio Morandi which is definitely a good thing...

7th November - 2nd December 2009
www.robingibson.net

In Memory

Nick Waterlow

1941 - 2009