Rona Green

The first time I saw this local Melbourne artist's work- mainly prints on paper- I was struck by their dark humor.. Take loveable family pets- dogs, cats, bunnies- and turn them into tattooed thugs, goths, or social outcasts with names like "Floyd" and "dally-boy." I have a copy of "Slim" (middle pic) and, hung at eye level, found him quite disturbing at 3 in the morning and even found myself having a chat with him one night about how we were all on the same side.. (lactation and sleep deprivation does very strange things to one's mind)- Maybe you just have to be a bit strange to appreciate this artist, or maybe the work speaks to one's inner thug, lurking inside the cuddly exterior..

Lyon House Museum, Melbourne

Back in late January 2011 I was able, after a few months wait, to visit the Lyon House Museum in Kew, an inner eastern suburb of Melbourne. I had read about it in the local paper and was keen to visit as this was an entirely new concept for me.

Essentially it is a private home that doubles as an art gallery. The owners, Corbett and Yeuji Lyon live there with their children and, a few days a week, run personalised tours lasting about an hour, for groups of around twenty people, to view their collection of Australian contemporary art. Visitors pay $22 and there are fairly strict rules regarding photograpy and bags etc.

On the whole its a very enjoyable experience. Fascinating as much for the architecture  as for the art collection. I mean, how does one combine the long vistas and uncluttered spaces required to properly appreciate artwork, with the untidy intimacy of a family home? This is resolved partially by keeping bedrooms and bathrooms off limits in a series of "boxes" within the larger structure which also has dedicated exhibition spaces, a music room with a built in pipe organ and a video installation room which is used by the children for film watching and sleepovers!

As for the art collection itself, I am sure its very important, with an emphasis on large, colourful slightly abstract works, sculptures by Patricia Piccinini, photography and a huge Howard Arkley. Whilst I have to confess that the collection is not really to my taste, having a fairly architectural, hard edged masculine feel to it, overall it was congruent- both internally and with the house- and humorous,  and I enjoyed the challenge of examining and appreciating works that would not usually have interested me.

As there was no photography allowed on the day I have cut and pasted the following from Architecture Australia Jan-Feb 2010 which also has an interesting article about the museum..

The white cube-like exhibition space (with a bedroom at the end of the corridor behind a closed door)

The music room with the pipe organ at right

The dining room, featuring a huge Howard Arkley painting

The black cube-like video installation room

Patricia Piccinini, "truck babies" in the living room (kitchen behind)

Criss Canning revisited

Last year a really lovely painting by Criss Canning sold at Leonard Joel for A$19,200 with the buyers premium ( I work nearby on viewing day- fatal) Entitled "Iris and wallflowers 1983-1984." It combines some of my favorite things- colour, persimmons, flowers, a lovely arrangement and what looks like a Phillippa James jug in the foreground!  It renewed my desire to eventually buy and enjoy a very little one of my own.

Last week one popped up on Grays online via Deutscher and Hackett and I got excited-It was one that had twice before failed to sell at auction and I am not sure why except to say that is very small for $3500, only 24x16cm.

Then, just to confuse matters two small ones came up in the Leonard Joel sunday art sale of feb 27th; These were even tinier, about 12.5 x 23 cm and estimated at $800-1200; quite affordable. Both eventually sold just within the estimates, but not to me. I was convinced by my husband to wait and save for a larger one and by then the Grays online one had gone. I comforted myself with the thought I would buy a Gwen Watson possum, which i also missed out on!

One day, one day I will buy a Criss Canning, but meanwhile here are the ones that got away..

Gwen Watson 1916-1994

 There is a "special sale" taking place on thursday march 3rd at leonard Joels auction house here in Melbourne, which consists of a single collection of the work of a potter named Gwen Watson. Like so many of her contemporary potters in the first half of the 20th century she worked alone, untrained, modelling pieces in the kitchen, firing them in an electric kiln in the bedroom, initially as a hobby, later providing pieces to retail stores in Melbourne and Sydney, and eventually expanding her skills to make jewellry and murals.

I went to the viewing yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. The pieces are much more ornate and cute compared with my usual taste, and surprisingly big, but this was more than made up for by their sense of fun and I can just imagine her enjoying making them - with darning needles and hairpins according to the catalogue. The bug orchestra was hilarious, and there are other orchestras made up of frogs and koalas. Most are estimated at between $50 and $1000 Australian, but I don't know if anybody knows what they will actually sell for. Think I deserve an early birthday present..
PS. Sent my husband off with a shopping list of possible presents and he came back with nothing!  All the ones I liked went for about four times their estimate. Cest la vie.

Maringka Baker

I really love this artist's work. She is another member of my favorite art centre, Tjungu Palya, in the remote APY lands in central australia, about 100 km south of Uluru. Here it is on google maps - see how remote.. She was born circa 1952, so must be nearly 70 years old.  Superficially they look like vibrant, abstract works, but like most aboriginal art they have a hidden story, often representing an aerial view, with tracks, waterholes, meeting points and landmarks... At about $20,000 dollars australian for a large example they are beyond my range but that doesn't stop me collecting and enjoying pictures of the examples I have seen, mostly courtesy of Marshall arts 

I am no expert, and each picture tells a different story, but the target shaped objects are often waterholes or campsites, the curved banana shaped objects represent aerial view of a sitting person, often with a  spear and coolamon beside a waterhole. Here is a site that helps with interpretation of the symbolism of a picture. I just love the fact that there is a fourth dimension; a hidden story.

Black holes

Been very much enjoying a blog called "wandering the dream space" which puts into words all sorts concepts that I find difficult to express verbally. The most recent post is about a photographic artist called Gary Fabian Miller who takes images of moving purity and spirituality (I have borrowed one, above right) without a camera.

I was reminded of an image by Louise Hearman (below right) which has always troubled me, in the sense  wanting to move on quickly and not linger and that, along with the contrast between the two I find interesting. What is it that is so frightening about the second one? That core of black emptiness, the decay at the rim? Something struggling to surface, long repressed from childhood?

Superficially similar pictures but quite different, and equally powerful emotions in response.

Brett Whiteley at theTarrawarra Museum of Art

Wendy Whiteley with Brett Whiteley's Self-Portrait in the Studio at TarraWarra Museum of Art in Victoria. Picture: David Geraghty Source: The Australian

Whats not to love about this place?
Food, wine, art, architecture, beautiful scenery, affordable contemporary ceramics for sale by Vic Greenaway, Sandra Black, David Ray, all in the Yarra Valley an hour out of Melbourne.

Brett Whiteley The telephone 1976, oil on canvas, 91.8 x 91.3 cm. Gift of Eva and Marc Besen 2001, TarraWarra Museum of Art collection. © Wendy Whiteley

Always thought Brett Whiteley's work was wonderful but only ever saw it piecemeal before- so interesting to see it all in one place, in the flesh so to speak. Many of the pieces had three dimensions with real sticks and stuffed birds literally coming out of the surface- these are the things you just don't see unless you get up close and directly experience his work which can be fun, tactile and vibrant and then other times incredibly dark!
The exhibition closes on March 20th, 2011..

Henryk Szydlowski

Recently saw some work by a Polish-Australian artist, Henryk-Szydlowski

There was something really attractive and compelling about it, which does not show up so well on-line. The colours were jewel like, luminous, the style picasso/kandinsky-esque. (I am sure there is a more elegant way to put that) To my untrained eye  they look simultaneously "retro" yet contemporary.. Here are some examples of works sold at auction; Lawson-menzies & Leonard Joel over the last few years.. I might watch out for the next one!

Arthur Boyd, potter..

As promised last month, some images from the travelling exhibition, "white gums and ramoxes" currently at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery. The white gums refer to Merric Boyd's work, the ramoxes to a mythical beast (combining a ram and an ox), featured on his son Arthur's. Arthur is perhaps better known for his paintings on canvas, however examples of his paintings on huge platters and ceramic tiles were a revelation, the colours bright and sumptuous, far from the more utilitarian cups and plates I have previously seen. Apologies for the photo quality- straight from my phone to you..

A Boyd obsession.. this time, David and Hermia

I can't recall where this all started but the more I read and research this family, the more fascinated I become..( and disturbingly, the more pottery I collect)

David was the third son (and fourth child) of Merric and Doris Boyd, grew up in Murrumbeena at "Open Country" and like the rest of the family, was artistically gifted. He married Hermia Lloyd Jones in the late 1940s, also an artist and together they made beautiful ceramics for the next 10-15 years, travelling to London and France before returning to Australia and eventually pursuing other creative media.

Here is my collection so far.. Just so different to anything else around at the time - (it was the time of gumnuts & drip glaze followed by the Bernard Leach "stoneware revolution") - but still carries that Boyd flavour, and so tactile- the glaze on the small coffee cup is like satin..