makin a comeback

I just got back from catching a mid-arvo matinee of 'The social network' and found myself sitting in my studio wondering about all kinds of internet-themed concerns. Out of some random bubble burst in my head I decided to check on this blog and noticed that it has been one year to the day that I last blogged. I guess it goes to show how Facebook has changed my life and the way I post my artwork online. I was finding that the feedback I was getting on my work was more visible, more frequent, and more interactive on Facebook.
I started thinking about how unfair that is to the people who follow me on the blog, but don't participate in Facebook. I have basically stopped updating my website, as they have started charging me a lot of money for basic mantainence. This blog is free and I love the idea of having it to showcase my freshest work, I guess I just need to devote the time to it's upkeep. I'd like to promise to start updating my blog at the beginning of every week, let's see what happens next week.
Thanks to anyone and everyone who have thought to stop by this blog and check out my work. I will try harder to share what I am creating.

I can't believe it's been two months since I returned to Sydney. We have moved house, I've finished all of the paintings for my show, and the exhibition opens tomorrow night. I intended to get personal invites off to everyone I met on my trip, but a combination of busy-ness, moving (and displacing all of my addresses), and getting the printed invitations really late from the printer (and not enough) has led to me just freezing up and not inviting anyone.
This often happens with my exhibitions. I tell people that I will contact them when I have an upcoming show, and then just before it comes I freeze up and pretend it's not going to happen. I think it must be one of those personal artist quirks. I do feel horrible though, and hope that none of the people that I stayed with on my trip take it the wrong way. I somehow feel like if I invited them and they actually came in to Sydney, that I would be inconveniencing them for going out of their way to see my paintings. I know it sounds crazy, but when all of the attention starts to focus on me I start to feel unworthy. That's most certainly not the case during the rest of the year, I just think it has something to do with all of the pressure surrounding a yearly solo exhibition. I miss being out bush. I hope you all are well.

Day 127 SaturdayAugust has come and gone in a fury of painting, and little else. The lack of posts attests to my single-minded devotion to stay at the easel and finish the body of work. I leave Mildura tomorrow and my trip is pretty much over. I have about 7 totally finished big paintings and another 6 that are close. I’m putting all of the work up so that it stands witness to the productivity of this trip. There is so much to say, but I will let the paintings do all of the talking.

Day 102 Friday This painting of a hazelnut orchard was started south of Eden while staying with a hospitable local art teacher. His dog Tyrone would accompany me down to the orchard and run around while I shot some videos and started this painting. I decided to put him in running, as a counter to the bent form of the man shovelling hazelnuts into a wheelbarrow. This painting lacks the unity of the some of the other canvases which contain rows of homogonous trees, but makes up for it in its movement and spatial qualities.

Day 101 Thursday
I worked on this big painting for about a week before I had my rest, and used my downtime to contemplate where to take it. With nothing in the immediate foreground, and a relief-like horizontal composition, I decided to extend the branches of the persimmon trees to the top of the canvas to hold everything together. Also because of the relief-like composition, the scale of the branches, fruit and interstices of background coming through the branches are all of a similar modularity which helps the brushstrokes form a random pattern in light and shade. I’m titling this one ‘the nightingale brothers’ after the name of the company that owns the orchard, and that name, plus ‘Wandiligong’ the locality can be seen stencilled on the tub to the right.

Day 99 Tuesday
With the ball rolling from the last canvas, and a palette loaded with buttery colours I plunged into this next canvas. The video I was referencing for this composition was shot in a different persimmon orchard south of Araluen, NSW. I pumped up the saturation in the gum trees in the background, as I dread reaching for the greys that would accurately describe their real colour. Again the picker entered from the left, activating the orchard and providing a visual balance to the repoussoir on the right. It’s exciting painting all day long, getting out of bed and opening the bay doors to the morning sun and painting all day until I look outside to see the indigo evening settling down, promptly closing those same doors to paint into the night. I’ve got a bunch of audio tapes to keep me going and am currently really enjoying painting to Annie Hawes’ “Extra Virgin”.