ARTS ZINE MAY 2023

s t u d i o

Skwer Matki Sybiraczki,Muranowa by Maksymilian Biskupski, Warsaw, Poland.

TALES OF MEXICO

slp studio la primitive

CONTRIBUTORS

Peter Tilley

Yelena Revis

Robert Cleworth

George Gittoes

Felicity Cavanough

Bea Jones

Barbara Nanshe

Lorraine Fildes

Walter Hes

SEIGAR

Maggie Hall

Brad Evans

Reese North

PAGE 140

Elizabeth Lish Skec

David McLeod

Mark Elliot-Ranken

Susana Enriquez

John O’Brien

Phil Watts

Eric Werkhoven

Robyn Werkhoven

Monique Werkhoven

Helene Leane

Art Systems Wickham

Gallery

Timeless Textiles

Newcastle Potters Gallery

Straitjacket Gallery

Dungog by Design

Studio La Primitive

COVER : Spellbound by Shadow 2020. 19.5 x 49 x 20cm. painted resin, polished chrome plated steel. Peter Tilley.

Dark Angel, oil on canvas, H180 x W 150cm. Mark Elliot-Ranken 2023.

EDITORIAL

Greetings to ARTS ZINE contributors and readers to the May issue 2023.

The May issue includes a marvellous collection of talented artists and writers.

Award winning sculptor Peter Tilley presents an array of his intriguing works and writes about his passion for sculpture.

Yelena Revis is a professional artist and art educator based in Sydney. Revis features colourful, whimsical, abstract paintings and writes about her journey with art.

Robert Cleworth lives and works in Newcastle, NSW. A contemporary genre, figurative painter. Cleworth draws inspiration from Baroque and academic styles for his recent exhibitions.

Artist and sculptor Felicity Cavanough live and works in rural Mudgee. She is well known for her extraordinary and accomplished wire sculptures.

Internationally acclaimed artist and film maker George Gittoes this month writes two articles, one from USA an eye opening article on American politics and the latest AI art movement. The second about his concern for artist’s respect and acceptance in main stream society. Arts Zine has included several responses of artists’ experiences. We also include a tribute to artist John Olson by Gittoes.

Newcastle artist and jewellery designer Barbara Nanshe previews her latest new sculptural works.

Artist and poet Maggie Hall features a beautiful and disquieting work Fifty one Days in a Night.

At eighty years old Walter Hes began writing, now with four books published he writes about his new career as a novelist.

International Spanish artist and photographer SEIGAR includes a series of colourful photos – Tales of Mexico.

Lorraine Fildes, travel and art photographer and writer presents The New Zealand Art Scene.

Artist and poet from Melbourne, Bea Jones, features her latest works with bones and desiccated animals and poetry.

Don’t miss out reading new works by resident poets Brad Evans, Reese North, and Eric Werkhoven. We are introducing new poet Elizabeth Lish Skec.

ART NEWS and information on forthcoming art exhibitions. Submissions welcomed, we would love to have your words and art works in future editions in 2023.

Deadline for articles 15th JUNE for JULY issue 52 2023. Email: werkhovenr@bigpond.com

Regards - your editor Robyn Werkhoven

Hunter Aqua pencil / pen on wood H25 x W20cm.

Robyn Werkhoven

PETER TILLEY

PETER TILLEY

Born in 1946, in Melbourne, Peter Tilley presently lives and works in Newcastle, NSW. He studied ceramics at Newcastle School of Art and Design in New South Wales, holds an MPhil in fine art and PhD from the University of Newcastle. Holding more than thirty five solo exhibitions and participating in eighty group exhibitions, including numerous Sculpture by the Sea Bondi and Cottesloe since 2004, SxS Aarhus Denmark 2009 and 2011. Tilley is also a regular participant in Australian regional gallery exhibitions.

His subjects range from still-life montages to figurative sculptures, his multifaceted works conjure many connotations and interpretations. Tilley works with with bronze, steel, and cast iron as well as mixed media, pigments, resin, and found objects.

“Generally, my sculpture continues the theme of utilising my own experience as the basis for the narrative. I try to achieve a simplicity that is intuitively accepted, yet capable of complex layers of meaning. My inspiration stems from a range of influences, including Egyptian funerary culture, the destructive influence of the coal industry, and a concern for conservation which underpins everything.” - Peter Tilley

Page 12 : Ten Thousand Sorrows 2021. 41 x 41 x 5.5 cm. bird bone, lead. stained timber.

Above : On a Higher Plane 2011. cast iron, steel 50.5 x 57 x 19 cm. Peter Tilley.

PETER TILLEY - INTERVIEW

As a teenager in 1961 I enrolled at the Art School in Prahran, Victoria. At that time, I indulged in the lifestyle, but was much too young and totally unprepared for the academic challenge, I only lasted one year. I have often regretted this outcome. Somewhat disillusioned, I joined the RAAF, becoming an Airframe Fitter, but I always carried the desire to pursue a career in the arts. Some ten or so years later I became friends with sculptor Peter Gelencser, Peter was lecturing at the University in Penang, Malaysia, while I was stationed at RAAF Base Butterworth, his encouragement was what I needed to return to study after leaving the RAAF in 1978.

I studied Ceramics (1973-75) and then recieved a Certificate of Art (1978-79) from Newcastle School of Art and Design. After achieving a Master of Philosophy (Fine Art) at the University of Newcastle (2008-10), I was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy (Fine Art) (2015-18) at the same institution.

My early exhibitions were with Von Bertouch Gallery, Newcastle. I exhibited with Brenda May from 1989 and my relationship with the Gallery, May Space, continued until the gallery closed in March 2022. Being represented by a commercial gallery has the obvious benefits of exposure to a wider audience, regular exhibitions and sales. Since the closure of May Space, I am no longer represented by a commercial gallery, nor do I wish to be at this time in my life. Not being committed to a yearly solo exhibition, has been very liberating, there is now a freedom and more time and scope to consider each new work, plus free rein to choose and prepare for the sculpture exhibitions that I would like to participate in.

Page 14 : Fish in Troubled Waters 1995. ceramic, bottle, timber, lead 32 x 30 x 17cm. Peter Tilley.

My early sculptural practice included ritualised ceramic vessels and framed arrays of found objects. Later, small to human scale figurative sculptures occupied my practice for some time, they may be carved timber, small bronzes, larger cast resin or cast iron and Corten steel pieces. The other constant in my practice is wall mounted, mixed media works of found objects, often as multiples located within grids. Still-life tableau, constructed from a small collection of disparate objects is another favourite way of my art-making. Very few of my 3D pieces have been larger than human scale. Working in small studio spaces has, to a large extent, determined the size of works I have made, plus I have grown accustomed to, and am comfortable working with objects from very small up to life-sized. These different conceptual approaches to making sculpture have formed the major part of more than 35 solo and 90 group exhibitions I have participated in during forty years of exhibiting. Included are numerous Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi and Cottesloe since 2004, SxS, Aarhus, Denmark 2009 and 2011. Also, when selected, Sculpture in the Vineyards, Wollombi, Sculpture Bermagui, Sculpture on the Farm, Dungog, Sculpture in the Garden, Mudgee.

Until recently I had always worked in rather small studio spaces where I lived, having easy access allows one to work in a less structured way, by that I mean at any time of day. This can have considerable advantages, especially with deadlines looming. The other side to that is one can always find domestic tasks that need doing as a means of avoidance when conceptual difficulties arise with one’s studio practice. As a result of downsizing to a smaller house, I have rented studio space at The Creator Incubator, Hamilton North, a creative home to a diverse group of 38 artists and makers. Working in a creative environment with other artists was a first for me. After settling in to a working routine, I began to enjoy the camaraderie and energy TCI offers. Also, there are visitors to the complex to interact with, if they are interested in what you are doing, given your studio space and works are somewhat visible.

x

x 39.5 cm. burnished terracotta, timber. Peter Tilley.

The incorporation of the figure as a principal element is something I always return to, due to an ongoing interest in the figure and the space it inhabits. I find it a most effective way of portraying what it is to be human and the future of human destiny. My sculpted figures are not meant to be academic models, they are neither abstract nor expressionist, they avoid personal details, but they do stem, as does all of my work, from an example of the human condition. The work may not appear to relate to any direct personal experience; yet at the same time it may have some sense of the familiar. Neither are the figures self-portraits, although they can be somewhat autobiographical in that my life experience influences the work I make. I prefer to see them as representative of the commonality of humanity in a wider sense. I believe the simplified form of the figure should remain anonymous and elemental, a neutral male version of an ordinary existence, a form that is appropriate for my works.

Part of the reasoning behind my figurative work is that I consider a recognizable human form occupies an important place in contemporary sculpture as a symbol of our societies, our histories, and what it means to be human. My figures are not especially demonstrative by way of expressive gestures; the attitudes are modified by a subtle change in posture. This unembellished form of the figure capable of conveying a complex meaning is a convention that I have employed since studying the sculpture and symbolism that is associated with Ancient Egyptian Funerary Culture.

In the framed wall works, the objects I most frequently incorporate can range from common everyday objects to unusual items such as bird bone, coal and cemetery relics. I do prefer to collect unusual objects as long as I believe that, placed into a work, they add something essential to the work as a whole. The meanings normally attributed to the everyday icons would be fairly obvious when situated within their usual context. However, when objects are combined in large numbers, juxtaposed in unusual or unexpected ways, new patterns of meaning can then occur. Large numbers or differing types of materials, colours and shapes can imply new dialogues between one object and the next as well as between those objects and the viewer.

Man of War 1992. 78 x 47 x 26 cm. plaster, paint. Peter Tilley.

The Romance of Objects 2010. found objects on a timber table. 102 x 54 x 54 cm.

Working on a group of works as a series has always been an operative method I have favoured, most likely because of the obligation to produce a new body of work each year for my solo exhibition. It would entail following a thematic connection through the repetition of a formal motif, a range of perspectives around a given idea. Ideas that are all to do with a vision of the world and where I fit into it at that point in time. In the series of framed works that consist of found objects, time may be necessary to acquire a sufficient quantity of items to work with, some of the more unusual pieces can take many years to source, consequently, these works would occur at irregular intervals.

The natural properties of the range of materials that I use to carve or assemble in my sculptures are often just as important symbolically as the form and colour of those materials. For example, lead, which appears in many of my works and is regarded for the evocative soft, dull, blue-grey patina, (which is difficult to control) but those qualities activate and add depth to the surface. Lead has associations with alchemy, coffins, radiation shielding and bullets, to cite a few. I like the natural qualities of a rust patina on steel and cast iron, which, for me has an unexpected connectedness with the Australian landscape. The warm, rich colours of timber, especially old timbers which have a patina from age, too, have a connectedness with nature. Apart from the benefit to the environment by using recycled materials, the material’s previous life implies a stored history. Another favourite material I carve is graphite, (formerly electrodes from steel making furnaces) the crystalline surface of graphite when burnished, is sublime, varying from degrees of silver grey to carbon black, and when highly polished the surface has great depth, it is as though you can see below the surface. The surface can be highly reflective or matte as the granular structure interacts with the direction of the light source and your viewpoint.

I try to achieve a simplicity that is intuitively accepted, yet capable of complex layers of meaning. My inspiration stems from a range of influences, mainly, Egyptian funerary culture, the figure and it’s cast shadow, the destructive influence of the coal industry, and a concern for conservation which underpins everything. My sculptures are not meant to be provocative, they are meant to engage, and ideally, they should imply an experience of a presence in the real world. I aim for the sculpture to be somewhat meditative, and the composition as a whole to impart a reflective stillness, and I would be happy if that may induce a viewer to contemplate and comprehend.

- Peter Tilley 2023.

Right : Landscape with Cloud 2011. cast iron, mild steel. 53 x 33 x 18 cm.

- Peter Tilley.

Page 22 : A Room of One's Own 2012, cast iron, steel, timber, 32.5 x 41 x 16.5 cm.

Right : Chest with Bottles 2009, carved graphite, bottles. 34 x 36 x 36 cm. Peter Tilley.

Winner

Left : Rows of Roses 2009, found ceramic and timber 39 x 39 x 5.5 cm.

Friends Acquisitive Art Prize 2012, Newcastle University. Peter Tilley. Page 25 : Matter of Duality. 1993. Ceramic, timber, cast iron. 120 x 220 x 25 cm. Peter Tilley.

Seeing the Shadow II. 2017 patinated cast iron, polished stainless steel. 43 x 78 x 15 cm. Peter Tilley. Photo Dean Beletich.

A New Horizon, 2014, cast iron, Corten steel, 152 x 59.5 x 32.5 cm. Peter Tilley.

Drift Through Dreams, 2022, painted resin, carved painted timber, stained timber, 52 x 60 cm. Peter Tilley.

In search of Peace 2018

51 x 51 x 4.5 cm.

Ceramic lead timber. Peter Tilley.

Calla 2002

Ceramic, lead, timber. 55 x 45 x 5.5 cm.

Peter Tilley.

Journey Through Time, castiron, mild steel. 2010. 129 x 60 x 48 cm. Winner Mosman Sculpture Prize 2011. Peter Tilley.

Go Further Fare Worse 2004, painted timber, ceramic, lead. 52 x 41 x 33 cm. Peter

Tilley. Photo Alan Chawner.

Shadow Aspect # 3 . Peter Tilley. Photo Liane Audrins.

Shadow aspect #14, 2017, found ceramic, Perspex mirror, gold leaf, painted timber, 51 x 30.5 x 5.5 cm . Peter Tilley.

In Search of the Sea. 2012. cast iron. steel. corten steel. 186 x 60 x 124 cm.

by the Sea, Bondi , NSW 2012. Peter Tilley.

The Undiscovered. cast iron. corten steel. 197 x 37 x 25 cm.

Sculpture

Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, NSW 2018. Peter Tilley.

the resident

I saw you often, low-lying on branch of shrub, or in the young tree barely making it through this long, dry summer. Sometimes you would hop along the fence or look up at me while I watered the garden. You softened my days with your cheer.

At that very moment I wanted to pull you from out of the garbage where I’d dumped you and give you the proper burial - that burial deserving of a friend who belonged here who had made himself at home.

And when I disturbed those flies & lifted you off the grass yesterday something in me didn’t want to let go.

I recognised the feathery array, your red breast - still intact when I rolled you overthat predator hadn’t taken all of you. At 4 o’clock this morning

I awoke, thinking about what I didA friend deserves respect whatever the animal.

But I was left there at 4am with my head juggling the eons, torn between sheets and values -

A man ensnared by twilight, still wrestling the child within.

- Brad Evans © 2023

brand-new, clean, white shoes

Gavin, do you remember the time you stayed at my folks house and told me the story about your friend from Sydney and how he tried to tell you

something when you were walking down the street with him but this little white terrier kept barking … interrupting your friend until he lost his train of thought finally and kicked the dog hard up the arse with his brand new, clean, white shoes?

Gavin, do you remember that time? He kicked the dog on the spot where something had not quite vacated and when he looked down the shoe on his right foot was no longer the same colour as the shoe on his left but, Gavin, the way you described the look on his face made me burst out laughing, made me remember this doggy scatology but, Gavin,

I forgot to ask you what happened to your friend’s brand new, clean, white shoes? Did he give up in disgust and throw them in the bin? Did he try to return them? Or did he wash them and dry them and put them away until he found himself a better day?

- Brad Evans © 2023

the buyer

we met through a mutual friend who'd told me a little about the pleasures our acquaintance sought in life, one of these was driving cars. He liked to visit people on weekends, people who happened to be selling their cars privately. He would ask them the usual questions concerning road worthiness & mileage & would check the condition of the tyres before asking for the keys. Sometimes the cars would return where he would point out design faults and weaknesses the owner hadn't been aware of.

At other times they would not come back and be found a smouldering wreck a little later on... And so when he turned up at my door one weekend, asking if he could borrow my surfboard, I told him how much I liked the way my surfboard leaned against the bedroom wall... That surfboard remained in good, working condition until my fear of sharks grew to such an unmanageable scale that I was compelled to sell it a couple of years later.

YELENA REVIS

YELENA REVIS

Yelena Revis is a professional artist and art educator working from her studio in Sydney, Australia. Revis’s works are colourful, whimsical, abstract paintings. Painting became her everyday practice, source of energy, dialogue with the world, and her research of her own inner world.

“My aim is to create unforgettable works and impart a deep emotional connection between objects and human beings whenever I begin a new piece. As a result, most of my work conveys the synthesis between Eastern and Western art, the figurative and the abstract, and the real and imaginary.”

Revis’s paintings have been featured in prominent art galleries and exhibitions in Australia, Middle East, Russia, Europe and Asia. Her artworks are in corporate and private collections all over the world. Since arriving in Australia from in 2005, Revis has been running an art school, Yelena Art Studio, in Bondi and Artarmon NSW.

Page 38 : Eye of Providence, Acrylic, Oil and Ink Pen on canvas, 76 x101cm.

Left : Never Alone, Acrylic and Ink Pen on Canvas, 76 x 101 cm. Yelena Revis.

The Wisdom, Acrylic, Oil and Ink Pen on Canvas, 121 x 91 cm. Yelena Revis.

YELENA REVIS - INTERVIEW

I’ve been painting and drawing since my early childhood, as far as I can remember. I always had a rich imagination, which I embodied with paints on paper. I was known as that 'artistic kid' since I was a child and was known for my vivid imagination which found expression in drawing, painting and storytelling. Painting became my everyday practice, my source of energy, my dialogue with the world, my research of my own inner world. I graduated from the art school and then completed Master of Fine Arts in Painting at Omsk State University, Russia with First Class Honours. After completing my master’s degree, I began my 14 years career as a Fine Arts lecturer at the same university. During my work at the university, I completed Advanced Master Course in Fine Arts at the Repin State Academic Institute St. Petersburg, as well as a Professional Fine Arts Master Class at Surikov State Academic Art Institute in Moscow.

I’m currently working with acrylic paint using painting/palette knives together with brushes. I paint in my own style, a multi-layered paint overlay. First, I create a random texture on canvas using special technology. After this I read the canvas, looking for shapes and/or patterns. So these images will be the foundation of the future painting. After the texture is completely dry, I randomly lay the first layers of paint, eventually increasing search for harmony of its composition. This is to create an abstract work by playing with shapes and colours, constantly seeking balance. I use various methods of work, make my own colours, pass the brush knife, transparent layers of thick paint poses. Each subsequent coat of paint falls on the painting after complete drying. Thus, the painting is obtained with a number of shades and colour combinations. This makes painting with a rich texture, with rich colour and the desire to peer into every detail. This format is full of energy, intensity and emotion. Abstract artworks ask us to go beyond our knowledge of what we see, know and understand. They open up our imagination and explore our world of meanings about the artwork we are experiencing.

Throughout my career, I’ve accumulated a vast repertoire of artistic techniques that have allowed me to better illustrate my intentions as an artist. My aim is to create unforgettable works and impart a deep emotional connection between objects and human beings whenever I begin a new piece. As a result, most of my work conveys the synthesis between Eastern and Western art, the figurative and the abstract, and the real and imaginary. What drives my art practice is an openness to possibilities, and a willingness to take on new challenges and engage creatively as often and in as many ways as I can. A very important aspect of work for an artist is the opportunity to have fun and enjoy the process. My art distracts viewers from daily worries and daily routines. During my art life I went through several periods and styles. It was very interesting for me to study surreal art and I felt the influence of such artists as Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Gustav Klimt and devoted large period to surreal figurative symbolism.

My inspirations come from everyday life, an assortment of animals, nature, people and places. I am inspired by colour, shapes and movement. I love experimenting with mixed mediums, oils, acrylics, charcoal and inks to create different styles and textures. My paintings are inspired by memory, meditation, music and the culture and essence of Australian nature. I’m captured by the beauty of Australian landscapes, the colours of the ocean at different times of the day, magnificent sunrises and sunsets, urban architecture. All these is reflected in my works. Nature is a constant inspiration in my work. I have always loved movement and colour – particularly the interplay of colour in nature – I strive to bring these qualities to my work for an affect which is very alive, yet also calming. This creative introspection allows me to produce art that is not only beautiful, but one-of-a-kind.

THE STUDIO

- Yelena Revis in her studio, Photographs courtesy of artist.

The Sydney art scene is creative and interesting. There is many art exhibitions, different groups for established and emerging artists and art lovers. Before the pandemic I was involved in many different community and charity projects. I hope they will resume soon.

Since arriving in Australia in 2005, I have been running my art school, Yelena Art Studio, in Bondi and Artarmon (NSW. Many of my students achieved great results in many art competitions. Instead of highlighting a particular artwork in bold abstract series, I’d rather summarize it: The world we live in is made of colour. Colour is what creates beauty, energy. It evokes emotion, it involves feelings. I have always been fascinated with colour and shape. Combining two together, you have unlimited possibilities of creating art. But creating art, or painting in my case, goes deeper than putting two of them together. It starts with emotion or feeling and then it “spills out” on canvas.

Some of my paintings are impulse paintings where inner emotion takes over and guides my paint brush, whereas others are journeys, that surprise even myself. Through my paintings I try to express the way I see the world and connect with viewer on emotional level, hoping to capture the moment on canvas.

Each artist is individual and differs from others in his outlook and self-expression. The themes and plots of my paintings are born in my head, and it is my personality and my inner world that help me express what I feel on canvas or paper. The creative industry was the first hit by Covid-19. Event cancellations and gallery closures were making front-page news. It was heart breaking to close my art schools, the art shows and exhibitions were cancelled. It is very important for an artist to communicate and exhibit their work. It’s hard for the artist to be in isolation. He needs to communicate with other artists, get acquainted with their work, attend exhibitions. The advantage was I spent a lot more time in the studio, creating the art, which I enjoy a lot. - Yelena Revis © 2023.

G A L L E R Y

Page 46 : Contiguity

Acrylic, Oil and Ink Pen on canvas

76 x 101cm.

Yelena Revis. Right : Pharoah

Acrylic, Oil and Ink Pen on Canvas

90 x 120 cm.

Yelena Revis.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

121 x 76 cm.

Yelena Revis

Right : Traveling Through the Unknown

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

91 x 121cm.

Yelena Revis.

Page 48 : The Lady with the Dog

Page 50 : The Mill

Acrylic and Ink Pen on Canvas

106 x 81cm.

Yelena Revis.

Right : Thirty Two Fouettes

Acrylic and Ink Pen on Canvas

81 x 106 cm.

Yelena Revis.

Y E L E N A R E V I S

Little Green Dog

Acrylic, Oil and Ink Pen on Canvas

81 x 106 cm.

Yelena Revis.

-

Thoughtfulness, Acrylic, Oil and Ink Pen on Canvas, 81 x 106 cm. Yelena Revis. Following Sophistication, Acrylic and Ink Pen on Canvas,76 x 101cm. Yelena Revis.

Left : Sun Glare by the Sea

Acrylic on Canvas

101 x 101cm.

Yelena Revis. Page 55 : Premonition

Acrylic and Ink Pen on Canvas

76 x 101cm.

Yelena Revis.

The Abduction of Europa

Acrylic, Oil and Ink Pen on Canvas

91 x 121cm.

Yelena Revis.

The Power of the Smile

Acrylic and Ink Pen on Canvas

101 x 101cm.

Yelena Revis.

MY GENERATION

The Summer of Love died with the crimes at 10050 Cielo Drive. I was a child of Woodstock of Cream mixed with My Lai the assassination of Kennedy and the deceptions of Nixon —

The war declared upon truth. Generations of orphans were born — A silent Spring held me in awe —

Never before had nature spoken so loud! - Reese North 2023.

I Know Lady

I know a lady who for her history is an agony –her people were murdered systematically and randomly. She lives in a town here in Australia –she hides because she feels surrounded by the enemy. She tells me in supermarkets the locals stare at her with hatred in their eyes –

taxi drivers terrify her because she’s in their clutches once the doors are shut and the driving begins and they get to know where she lives. She tells me nights are the worst when rocks rain down on her cast iron roof –and the anonymous voice in her telephone at midnight telling her what he’s gonna do if she doesn’t leave town. She tells me not far from where she lives,

2 centuries ago, many of her tribe died in agony poisoned by flour laced with arsenic brought to her land by the invaders I found a diary written by a settler, 2 centuries ago, he heard wailing in the bush –he found dead babies their blue lips glued to the poisoned breasts of their dead mothers. She tells me her truth.

She doesn’t lie. She has nothing to gain. She has left me haunted by the images she lives with every day.

- Reese North 2023.

ROBERT CLEWORTH

“

ROBERT CLEWORTH

Robert Cleworth lives and works in Newcastle, Australia.

Cleworth first began exhibiting with Legge Gallery, Sydney, in 1992. As a Samstag International Visual Arts scholar, rob undertook postgraduate study in 1993 at the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland, under the tutelage of Douglas Gordon.

He has since exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Bunbury, Perth and Newcastle. He is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the University of Western Australia Art Collection, WA; City of Bunbury Collection, WA; City of Greater Geraldton Art Collection, WA; City of Prospect, SA; and private collections.

Despite the fact I have been painting for over 30 years now, my interests and obsessions remain largely the same. After the fact that some of the most arresting images ever created were in the medium of oil paint, it was the extraordinary material qualities, and ‘feel’, of oil paint (its smell, viscosity, colour palette) that were completely intoxicating. These qualities ‘hooked’ me in, and still do to this day. Beyond these personal, sensory connections, it is the capacity of this medium - when it is used with deep conviction, honesty and intelligence - to tap into our social and cultural consciousness (and to thoughts and feelings not accessible through language) that is most exciting, and enduring. It is all of these qualities that keep drawing me back to this activity called ‘painting’.”

- Robert Cleworth.

Page 62 : Atomiser II, oil, spray paint, pencil and chalk and canvas, 196.5 x 148.5 cm. Robert Cleworth.

Above : Detail - Atomiser II. Robert Cleworth 2022-23.

Johann Liss oil on linen

77 x 67 cm. (framed) Robert Cleworh 2022.

Painting as Witness

On the work of Robert Cleworth, for his exhibition: A COMPRESSION OF TIME: GOOD AND BAD IMAGES

Chelsea Lehmann

Throughout history, the patriarchal power structures of society have granted men dominant positions in areas like politics, social privilege, moral authority, and property control. This power dynamic has also been reflected in the world of art. In his exhibition, A Compression of Time: Good and Bad Images, Robert Cleworth examines the relationship between painting and the patriarchy by using the materiality of paint—historically used to consecrate masculine power - to challenge it instead.

Drawing on the art historical canon, Cleworth references the past to address the present, a time where the ‘me too’ movement aims to confront toxic masculinity amidst the context of neoliberal capitalism, which further amplifies the inequality created by patriarchal structures of oppression. In response to these prevailing conditions and power imbalances, Cleworth opts to incorporate images from historical paintings such as Bouguereau’s The Flagellation of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1880), combining them with contemporary media sources in his works. For instance, he uses an image of convicted murderer Robert Durst, who, according to a psychiatrist's report, suffered from ‘personality decomposition’ during childhood, which serves as a fitting metaphor for the context in which he is portrayed in Cleworth's Atomiser paintings. Here, Durst is depicted as an elderly man with a shrunken, floating head, savagely abridged by an encroaching abstract void. With his technically virtuosic painting approach that blends realistic renderings with gestural abstraction, Cleworth subverts the original meanings of the ‘master’ paintings he quotes from. He achieves this by introducing visual elements like grids, overpainting, and fields of colour, which serve to ‘democratise’ the picture plane, giving equal aesthetic significance to the processes and pentimenti of painting alongside traditional techniques that prioritise the illusion of form. By revealing the conceits of pictorial space, Cleworth’s approach doesn't just modify the ‘good and bad images’ he combines, it enhances them, both materially and conceptually.

As a contemporary genre, figurative painting is encumbered by the sheer volume and intractability of historicised representations of human life and bodies. It is constantly challenged by and conscripted into ideologies around identity, morality, power, and politics. Reflecting this idea, Cleworth says, “My methods, techniques and imagery come from the conflicted relationship I have with the very practice of painting.” The impulse to ‘break’ images and recontextualise them, can, however “function as a mechanism of historical innovation by destroying old values and introducing new ones in their place.” Drawing inspiration from Baroque and academic styles that evoke binaries such as “reflection and emotion, pain and lust, devoutness and voluptuousness,” Cleworth delves into this concept by utilising the interplay of destruction and creation within his work.

Through his paintings, Cleworth bears witness to the ever-shifting definitions of masculinity in the modern era. He says, “In some ways, these paintings are an ironic dedication to the male ego. And to my love of painting,” underscoring how irony and sincerity are not always mutually exclusive. By utilising the emotive power of painting and the blunt economy of erasure, Cleworth emphasises how new insights can emerge from the reinterpretation of images, all the while upholding the rich traditions of figurative art.

- Chelsea Lehmann, 2023.

C. Lehmann, ‘The Articulate Surface: Painting and the Latent Image,’ PhD dissertation, UNSW Art & Design, 2019, p. 42.

B. Groys, ‘Iconoclasm as an artistic device: Iconoclastic Strategies in Film’, Art Power, Cambridge, London, MIT Press, 2008, p. 68.

E. Panofsky, ‘What is Baroque?’, in Three Essays on Style, (ed.) I. Lavin, MIT Press, 1997, p. 75.

Atomiser - after Bouguereau

Oil, spray paint, pencil and chalk and canvas

196.5 x 148.5 cm.

Robert Cleworth 2023.

After Greuze - white earrings, Oil and spray paint on timber panel 40.5 x 30.3 cm. Robert Cleworth 2023.

After Jusepe de Ribera’s St Jerome, Oil and spray paint on timber panel 40.5 x 30.3 cm. Robert Cleworth 2023.

O B E R T C L E W O R T H

Portrait of a connoisseurafter van Dyck 2023

Oil and spray paint on linen 40.5 x 30.3 cm. Robert Cleworth.

2022 – Incubator Exhibition

a series of abstractions

I have been thinking a lot about painting and masculinity. In fact, they have been constant themes of mine for over 30 years now. As time has passed, it has become apparent to me that making paintings and masculinity are inextricably linked for painters who identify as male (perhaps this is one of the reasons why painting has always been such a difficult, personal challenge). To control, the propensity for physical violence, to want power – traits that are embedded in the social, political, and cultural structures of our world – are also characteristics that have defined painting since the beginnings of its conception as a modern artform in the early 15th Century. The paintings of William-Adolphe Bouguereau, one of the most successful artists of his time, and whose work I quote from in this exhibition, not only exemplify (at least to me) notions of (toxic) masculinity, but also represent a point in Modern Western history where the orthodoxies of the time were being seriously critiqued and challenged. Bouguereau’s painting feels relevant again, in that it mirrors our times now, here amid this latest revolution (of the digital age). One of the differences this time is that the nexus between masculinity and power is being exposed for what it is.

Robert Cleworth, October 2022

After William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s The Flagellation of Christ – speedball

Oil and chalk on canvas

210.0 x 146.5 cm.

Robert Cleworth

2022.

G A L L E R Y

R O B E R T C L E W O R T H

: Ellen, after Otto Runge, Oil on linen, 210x182 cm. (this is a portrait of my daughter). Robert Cleworth 2001.

Above : Untitled figure, Oil on canvas, 80x120 cm. Robert Cleworth 1993.

Two figure fragments, Oil on canvas, 101 x 150 cm. Robert Cleworth 1993.

Abstract painting and double portrait of Lucas van Uffel (after Anthony van Dyck) and Robert Durst, Oil, acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 196.5 x 149.5 cm.

- Robert Cleworth 2022.

Portrait of an aesthete - the trial of Robert Durst, Oil, acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 197.5 x 159.5 cm. Robert Cleworth 2022.

Portrait of William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Oil, acrylic and spray paint on canvas and frame, 80.0 x 63.5 cm. Robert Cleworth 2022.

Portrait of Robert Durst (and abstract painting), Oil, acrylic and spray paint on canvas and frame, 80.0 x 63.5 cm. Robert Cleworth 2022.

Fragments from a Museum -

After Juseppe de Ribera

Oil and acrylic on linen

121.5 x 100 cm.

Robert Cleworth, 2021-22

https://www.instagram.com/robcleworth/?hl=en

All Rights Reserved on article and photographs

Robert Cleworth © 2023.

Right : Fragment from the museum, Oil on timber panel and heritage frame 62.0 x 47.0 cm. Robert Cleworth 2020.

Joker Moon

If only I could pluck you to wear around my neck though you are rock and I am flesh. Inconstant transient moon. Companion of solitude. You always look better when I’m in love. The pearl of Autumn lightbulb in a winter sky,

summer’s sigh of cool relief. A spring view enhancement! I stopped writing poems about you when I grew up.

I never saw the man in the moon

Just an old lady knittingLongest scarf in the universe! She looked lonely like me.

- Elizabeth Lish Skec 2023.

THICKET

My hair is a thicket crowning glory collecting twigs and leaves when I trek the creek collecting art. A dark wave of protection beauty as I age. It gets stuck in friends armpits in my hug, tangles in my bra, tucks in my trousers, warms me in winter, adds 10 degrees in summer… o’ the weight of it. I trim but never cut my glory, my crown.

Elizabeth Lish Škec - BIO

Musician! Poetician! Theatrical performer and costumer! Sculpture maker! Spinner of Fire!

Elizabeth Lish Skec finds inspiration in the Australian landscape, her combination of indigenous South African and Scots-Australian ancestors and quite personal experiences of cancer to write poetry, plays, short stories, comedy routines and songs for adults and children.

Lish is the founder and host of Poetryspective at Pride of Our Footscray Nightclub and Bar, and the Poetryspective online YouTube channel. Together with Pamela Sidney, Patrick Alexander and Paul Skec she hosted Accidental Poets @ good morning captain. Lish has organized and hosted readings at the Drunken Poet, Noise Bar and other venues.

Winner of the 2011 Human rights Poetry Slam, Lish has taught poetry, creative writing and theatre workshops for The Victorian Writers Centre, CERES, Overload Poetry Festival and SPAN Community House. Her poems have been broadcast on several radio stations including JOY FM, 3CR and Poetica on Radio National, poems also appear on the Red Lobster poetry program on Channel 31, Poetry Café on YouTube podcast The Candle and the video educational series Picking Poetry Apart She has published two chapbooks: Butterflies of New Dawn (1995) and Leather Skin (2002), the poetry collection Breath (Luckner Press 2014). Her poems have been published in printed and online anthologies worldwide including Going Down Swinging, Mod-Piece, The Mozzie and others.

When not spinning fire or making music or hosting poetry or even writing poetry, she is working on building and growing her business Waratah Bark.

FELICITY CAVANOUGH

FELICITY CAVANOUGH

Artist / sculptor Felicity Cavanough lives and works in Mudgee, NSW Australia. Cavanough holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of New South Wales.

Known for her wire sculptures, a visit to the local scrap and steel yard provides a car full of wonderful materials of both timber and wire varieties, to be transformed into Cavanough's compelling sculptures.

Cavanough’s recent works have followed the turmoil and difficulties faced by women in domestic abuse relationships. Each turn of the wire represents thoughts, feelings and stories of these women on a path of hope toward healing. "I hope to create something beautiful from something so harsh".

Felicity was a finalist on Bluethumb in 2021, Winner of the Indoor Prize at Sculpture on the Farm 2021, Winner of Wellington Sculpture Festival 2020. "It's truly amazing whether you experience grief, joy, loss, love or any other connection with my work because then the lines of wire become enmeshed and entangled with your story just as much as they tell mine". -

Felicity Cavanough

Page 82 : Felicity Cavanough with Self Portrait Laid bare, recycled copper, H153cm x W69 x D10 cm. Felicity Cavanough.

Right : Exposed, tie wire, H95 x W40 x D3 cm. Felicity Cavanough.

FELICITY CAVANOUGH - INTERVIEW

What attracted me to the world of Art?

Illustrations in books were some of my first journeys into the world of art, to me, the pictures sometimes explained more than the words did.

When did your artistic passion begin?

As a child I would pursue anything crafty. If I was creating something with my hands I was happy.

Have you always wanted to be an artist?

It took 20 years after completing a Degree in Fine arts at COFA UNSW to realise that Art was definitely my career path!

I arrived at that decision in a very roundabout way. There were lots of things that got in the way but my imagination persisted, and I always felt that I wasn’t living a full life unless I was being creative and pushing the bounds of what I could do.

Describe your work?

I sculpt wire drawings. Sometimes the lines are more simplistic like a single line drawing and recently I’ve explored weaving with wire inspired by preparatory sketches of my work done with a sanguine pencil.

A lot of emotion goes into my work. I always create with feeling, often finding inspiration in everyday moments with my 3 children. I observe connections and similarities between all humans and I aim to draw you in, hoping that my work becomes part of the viewer's story just as much as it tells mine.

Delight

Tie wire and timber

60 x 50 x 20 cm.

Felicity Cavanough

Do you have a set method / routine of working?

I sketch, write and draw frequently, capturing inspiration before it leaves. If I haven’t catalogued my ideas sometimes they leave me and I’m left unable to capture that connective element that’s so important to me in my practice. I have a large double garage that I’ve set up as my studio which houses all my art materials for my own practice and my teaching practice with Art by You. Most often though, I like to work on our very large dining room table, the light is great and the space is just right, I can store my work in my studio at the end of the day and bring it back out. My creative brain has no limits and I’ll happily spread out my Art making in different spots around the house and garden, it’s the best way for me to create and there’s still plenty of space for living.

Why do you choose this material / medium to work with?

I love wire, it’s so versatile, especially copper with all its varying shades and patinas.

I mostly use recycled copper as re-use, re-purposing and how we view waste is important to me. For weaving, I love the really fine wire, it reminds me of thread and takes me back to my teenage years when I sewed a lot of my own clothes. How important is drawing as an element to your artwork?

Drawing and preparatory sketches are a vital step in creating my work. I teach painting and majored in painting at Uni but drawing had always been my favourite expressive medium and I’ve found a way to combine my love of sculpting with drawing. Pursuing those two elements together is my favourite way to express myself as an artist. I’ve always found incredible inspiration from Leonardo Da Vinci’s work, especially his ‘study of hands’ drawings, absolutely fascinated how body parts can express so much meaning.

You are enough my child Recycled copper

H105 x W137 x D10 cm. (Detail of sculpture) Felicity Cavanough. Right : I'm free Recycled copper. Felicity Cavanough.

Any particular style or period that appeals?

I’ve always been intrigued by light and how it influences the way we see, inspired by the impressionists as they captured light as it plays on the surface of their subject matter. Copper inspires me in the same way, it looks so different in varying light.

What are the challenges in becoming an exhibiting artist?

I sell most of my work through art competitions or exhibitions and I’m extremely lucky that I get accepted into most of the exhibitions I apply for, it is hard to take though when entry fees are not refunded and precious time is wasted when I get one of those awful rejections, to which most fellow Artist’s will attest seem to come with little or no feedback. Packaging! Oh gosh, one sculpture took 13 hours to package, I really should have added that time into the price. A very special dog made from hay made its’s way across Australia from East Coast to West Coast in W.A. At least I won the People’s Choice award!

Name your greatest achievement, exhibitions?

I’m lucky because the public seems to engage with my work so I've won a few People’s Choice awards: 2017 Just Art exhibition, Gauge Gallery, Artists Choice Winner ; The York Festival, Western Australia; 2018 -Sculptures on the Farm ; 2020 Sculpture Festival, Wellington. I’ve been thrilled to be announced in the top 400 of Bluethumb’s online Art prize over the last 2 years, there is so much amazing talent on there and it’s hard to get noticed. In 2022 I was voted in the Top 40 People’s Choice, It’s amazing to know that people love my work enough to vote for me. I’ve been honoured in my teaching career to be acknowledged by ADFAS for the creative work I do with kids and a special career highlight has been judging at The Sydney Royal Easter Show in 2022 and 2023.

What are you working on at present?

I’m working on some hands in prayer at the moment, inspired by Da Vinci of course. The serenity of taking time to honour our spirit inspired me to create this work. Your future aspirations with your art?

I’d love to have an exhibition at my local regional gallery, Mudgee Arts Precinct and my absolute dream would be to see my work hung in the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

I’m preparing sketches for an immersive work that connects city to country so I’d be honoured if my work could be represented at Sculptures by the Sea in Sydney.

I’ve just finished two exhibitions in Dungog and Mudgee and will apply for some more sculpture competitions.

- Felicity Cavanough 2023.

Page 90 : Felicity Cavanough with Self Portrait Laid Bare

Recycled copper

H153 x W69 x D10 cm.

Felicity Cavanough. Right : Roots

Recycled copper wire 210 x 95 x10 cm.

Felicity Cavanough.

Left : Worthwhile Recycled Copper and Timber W36 x H52 x D14 cm. Felicity Cavanough.

Page 93 : (left) Wondered Recycled copper Felicity Cavanough.

Page 93 : (right) Serenity Tie wire H125 x W77 x D3 cm. Felicity Cavanough.

"It's truly amazing whether you experience grief, joy, loss, love or any other connection with my work because then the lines of wire become enmeshed and entangled with your story just as much as they tell mine".

Held Recycled Metal

W317 x H150 x D2 cm. Felicity Cavanough.

- Felicity Cavanough.

AMERICAN KNIFE WITH BLACK CROSSES

AMERICAN KNIFE WITH BLACK CROSSES GEORGE GITTOES

Every large food supermarket in America has a section selling kitchen utensils like soup ladles and cheese graters but you will never find a knife for sale. I aways forget this and fail to put a bread knife in our luggage. One time in Chicago I went on a quest for a serrated breadknife. Shop attendants looked at me with fear in their eyes, shaking their heads when I told them what I wanted. I finally found one in a locked cabinet at a hardware store. Two security guards were sent to unlock it and accompanied me to the check out.

The Chelsea Savoy Hotel offers a breakfast with a choice of either assorted bagels or sweat muffins. A person stands behind a counter to cut the bagels and we are made to que while this ritual is performed. For the first week a kind of guillotine was used but as it became blunt if began squashing the bagels into oval shapes. Today the attendant was taking forever to cut them using a small, thin bladed, steak knife. When I told him not to bother, as I have a knife in my room, he and the other guests looked at me with suspicion.

On the same day that Students were protesting in Nashville, pleading for the right not to fear attending classes after another school shooting the Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis held a closed meeting, attended by the NRA, to announce the lessening of restrictions on concealed weapons. People in Florida are now allowed to carry concealed and loaded guns without having to own a gun license. DeSantis sat smiling at his desk as he signed off on this with a phalanx of suited gun supporters standing behind him.

It sounds like a contradiction, but knives are not available because Americans fear one another so much and guns are available for the same reason. De Santis is the most likely Republican GOP alternative to Trump. Yesterday, the 9th April, just before we switched our TV off to catch a plane to Poland he voiced his opposition to further assistant to Ukraine, saying “Protecting our own borders should be our priority, not those of Ukraine.” This is welcome music for Putin’s ears, he simply needs to wait it out. He is counting on the decline of American resolve. He wants to show he has the stomach for a long-protracted conflict and prove his strongman image to the world.

Page 96 : Skwer Matki Sybiraczki,Muranowa by Maksymilian Biskupski, Warsaw, Poland.

When we first went to Ukraine in March 2022 public interest was at its peak and people hungrily shared our experiences. This time, in a slightly bored tone, they ask, “What is happening there now, it has dropped off he news?” I tell them that the ‘experts’ from Western Military Generals to Intelligence Analysts are predicting a certain Victory for Ukraine but I feel this advice is as dangerous as Chamberlain’s assessment of Hitler and the Nazi war machine. Complacency benefits Putin. The chance of Ukrainian defeat has been the motivating factor that has gained the support Ukraine needs to hold the Russians off. We arrived in Warsaw Poland 5 hours ago. From our 6th floor hotel balcony, we look down on a burnt railway carriage, that sits on tracks that end here. It carries dozens of charred blackened crosses, that lean onto one another suggesting a mass gravesite. But it is not a commemoration of the Jews exterminated in Polish concentration camps by the Nazi’s in WWll. It is a Monument to the Fallen and Murdered, Polish victims of the Soviets, titled ‘Skwer Matki Sybiraczki,Muranowa’ and designed by Maksymilian Biskupski. Poland was invaded by the Russians in 1939, occupied until 1941 and finally taken over in 1945. Thousands of young Poles who resisted were either killed or sent to life sentences in labour camps in Siberia. More than any other Country the Poles understand the gravity of last year’s invasion of Ukraine.

We walked around this sombre monument, through drizzling rain and felt the darkness that has descended, again, over Europe. There is a palpable sense of foreboding in the air as Poles brace themselves for the full-scale Russian Offensive which will arrive, soon, with summer.

Hellen and I will be there , taking the long train journey from Warsaw to Kyiv.

Seeing Demoiselles this time was very special for two reasons. Firstly because the large oil painting ,Warhouse’ which I finished before leaving my Werri Beach Studio, is a reinterpretation of the Picasso composition, through the lens of Ukraine, and because my birthday present to my 23 year old, adopted, aboriginal granddaughter, Serika Shillingsworth, was a guided tour through MoMA; climaxing with a shared viewing of the Ladies of Avignon. Serika is both gay and Indigenous. She has been bravely surviving, for the last year from the sale of her paintings.

Warhouse, Oil on canvas, H184 x W250 cm. George Gittoes 2023.

To find out where art is going New York is still as much my guide in 2023, as it was in 1968. But I was not expecting to be ‘blown away’ by a work in the Museum’s lobby, so powerful it made me rethink everything. A gigantic screen was showing Refik Anadol’s, AI generated, ‘Unsupervised’. Anadol has trained a sophisticated machine-learning model to interpret the publicly available data of MoMA’s collection. This program reimagines and animates the history of modern art as well as incorporating site-specific input from the environment of the Museum’s Lobby and outside sculpture court. Anadol is quoted as saying “I am trying to find ways to connect memories with the future and make the invisible visible.”

That is what I tried to do with my first film ‘Rainbow Way’ - using prisms, optical science and the movements of the sea. Rainbow Way,1975 ran for years at the Filmmakers Cinema where viewers came to have a psychedelic expedience, often dropping acid to enhance it. It was what Kandinsky was aiming for, with his ‘Concerning the Spiritual’ abstracts . ‘Unsupervised’ is like Kandinsky’s mystical abstracts, animated on steroids. The impact is no less profound because it is machine generated. Hellen and I stay at the Chelsea Savoy on 23rd St which is close to the family eating restaurant ‘Dallas Barbecue. We are usually the only white patrons in this working class friendly and low-cost establishment. A large flat screen hangs from the ceiling with an ever changing abstract display so similar to Anadol’s that it could be his work. Normally there would be American Football or basketball like at an Australian pub or club, but this is New York! While we sipped our frozen margaritas and waited for grilled salmon and shrimp, I took out my camera and photographed the ever changing and moving abstracts in large cafeteria like eating area. Dallas Barbeque was showing me how the best in new digital art can reach the people while sidestepping the market, dealers and galleries. I am not suggesting that static painting and drawing is finished but this revelation was as exciting for me as my first up close kiss on the canvas and oil lips of Demoiselles Avignon.

Link : : https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5535

- George Gittoes © 2023.

The Museum of Modern Art - Unsupervised, by artist Refik Anadol - uses artificial intelligence to interpret and transform more than 200 years of art at MoMA.

Joe Biden was born on Nov 20 1942 making him 81 and Vladimir Putin was born Oct 7 1952.

When Joe was weighing up whether to run for President his age was a consideration so it was decided whenever he was arriving at a campaign rally, he would do a jog up to the microphone demonstrating his agility. The reason for this was transparently obvious but I have never heard or read anyone comment on it. At a recent Presidential Press Conference, the stage was empty while the cameras while rolled waiting for him to arrive. A side door opened, and Joe appeared very slowly from a darkened room and closed it unsteadily. He took a few decrepit steps before remembering to do his jog . The distance to the podium was so short his attempt looked beyond ridiculous.

Donald Trump was born 14 June 1946 and is only 4 years younger but appears stronger and does not need written notes to speak at rallies or to the press.

When Trump began his run for President, he was aware that a large proportion of his base were Evangelic Christians and he worried that stories of his infidelities could weaken his chances. His cure was hush money while Biden’s was the jog.

The scandals around his sex life, with Stormy Danielle’s and others no longer seem to be a worry for Trump. At 77 they advertise his ability to ‘still get it up’. What matters more is appearing virile and potent.

Wisely ,Biden has decided he is better off not to comment on any of this.

Outside Manhattan Criminal Court on 30th March, when Trump arrived for his Indictment, over concealing the hush money payments, the Pro Trump Supporters and the Anti Trump Protestors were held apart by cops and barricade’s making a narrow pathway or ‘no man’s land’ between the two sides.

What we caught on our cameras was a divided America, as split down the middle as these two angry mobs, with their placards, screaming abuse at one another, irreconcilable.

Every news network in the world was there to enable Putin to watch with a reptilian grin on his face.

Hellen and I had witnessed a giant serrated knife cutting America apart. Divide and rule. American Knife and more black crosses for Ukraine.

- George Gittoes © 2023.

Serika Shillingsworth with George Gittoes at MoMA Gallery viewing Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

THE STRAIGHT HERD

By George Gittoes

The straight herd discriminates against artists as rejects from the ‘normal’. As with other forms of discrimination, there is a hatred toward those perceived to be other, to be different, but in this case, the difference is not in the colour of the skin, sex or religion but in the mind. Artists are non-conformists and from childhood society tries to force them to conform. The most original are accused of madness.

I am here using the term artists for all creatives – painters, musicians, poets, writers, dancers, photographers, actors and filmmakers. The herd has found a way to flog artists and feel ethically superior to them while doing it. They despise artists for their freedom of expression and ability to dazzle. Cancel culture is an insidious attempt to force artists to conform. It is a cruel form of torture inflicted on those who can create by those who can’t.

The motivation is partly envy but mainly the age-old animal impulse to exclude, the ‘strange’. Artists are born the way they are and while what they have is a gift it, is also, a disability. For a child it is very confusing, they can arrive into a family of straights and school can be a nightmare, forced to be surrounded by the living dead – stranded within a tribe of zombies. Zombies that bite! They are adrift in a sea of normality, and many drown, those that survive must fight every day to maintain their sense of inner worth. Every kind of discrimination is frowned upon except discrimination against artists. There is an unspoken agreement, in present day society, that there needs to be “punishment for past wrongs.” The straights have worked out they can feel good about inflicting retribution on artists. By targeting artists, they can divert it away from themselves. Artists are constantly being asked to justify what has sprung from their unconscious as if it had been pre-thought.

No wonder a lot of artists, in order to survive, learn to bend and create products no longer to express themselves, but to please the straights.

George Gittoes with puppets at the Aquarius Festival in Canberra in 1971

Photograph by the Canberra Times photographer.

George Gittoes, 1972 photograph taken by Jon Lewis.

Yet the products that humanity is most proud of are the gifts of artists - the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh, music of Mozart and Louis Armstrong, songs of Pattie Smith and Bob Dylan, poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, dancers of the Ballet Russe, writing of Virginia Woolf and the Brontë Sisters, voices of Nina Simone and Pavarotti, photography of Diane Arbus, the films of Federico Fellini and acting of Marilyn Monroe……..

No one wants to pay artists for their time because the straights think ‘Why should artists be paid for enjoying themselves and what they do is not real work!” As a result they see it as OK to exploit the generosity of artists in every way possible. Plumbers, electricians and dentists have no problem putting a value on their services but with artists the question of “What will be seen as too much?” hangs over every transaction. The straights see the purpose of art as giving them pleasure - decorating their spaces and helping them escape the harsher realities of life. They do not like it when we try to lead them away from destroying the natural world and ending wars.

When are the rights of artists going to be respected and when are the straights going to stop punishing them for being different?

Artists are as willing to die to keep their creative freedom as the people of Ukraine are, in opposing Russia’s attempt to destroy their national identity.

- George Gittoes April 2023.

FORTHCOMING EVENT : George Gittoes and Robbi Buck in conversation at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney on 31st May 2023, 6pm.

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/whats-on/events/artists-in-conversation-george-gittoes/

The following pages include several stories and experiences from artists, in response to George

Gittoes article Straight Herd.

BRAD EVANS

Writer and poet based in Cambridge, England. Evans is a resident poet in ARTS ZINE.

The earliest interaction I can recall with poetry involved discipline & punishment. My Year 3 teacher, Mrs Boyd, had lickety-thick flames of red hair who made it clear that she had little time or patience with the little boys in her class. During one lesson, 3B were given the task of writing a poem. I thought this was an easy enough task, so I wrote down something. Eventually, she called me over to her desk. I showed her what I'd written. She shook her head, looked at me gravely and said "I asked you to write a poem. This is not a poem, this is a plagiarised nursery rhyme". I looked down at what I'd written:

HICKORY, DICKORY DOCK!

THE MOUSE RAN UP THE CLOCK ...

When she uttered the word 'plagiarised', she gave me this incriminating look and I felt like I'd committed a heinous crime. I glanced out of the classroom to the quadrangle where the assembly bell was mounted. It reminded me of a scaffold used to hang criminals. Her voice broke my distraction. "I want you to write your own poem. Now go over and sit next to Megan!" Megan was the model pupil in our class. I felt uncomfortable sitting next to Megan. While I sat there, I thought about what Mrs Boyd had asked me to do.

How could I write my own poem? Poems were written by grown ups, not by little boys. Before then, I hadn't even thought that a boy of my age could write his own poem. Despite the humiliation, Mrs Boyd instilled this sense that I was capable of writing something. Something unique. And far from putting me off writing, her adult conviction made me think of the possibility that even I at that young age could write.

That incident didn't trigger my desire to write, that would occur some years later. But it certainly did not put me off the idea…

- Brad Evans © 2023.

ENRIQUEZ

Professional Artist Susana Enriquez lives and works between Newcastle, Australia and Mexico. Being a female artist.

As female artists, we go through the same and sometimes worst experiences, of racism, and discrimination, not only by the straight herd but also by male colleagues, art dealers, gallery directors, and anyone in a position of power. Throughout art history, we have seen examples of women__ as talented or more than their counterparts, male artists__ who have remained anonymous. Other artists had signed their works with a male name to be accepted.

In my experience at the music school, as a percussionist, the timpani parts in any piece would be reserved for a male, the second best part of the score, for another male; the female students would be left at the end to play the most insignificant instrument, the triangle or the tambourine, or none, just listening.

The discrimination and the punishment for a girl wanting to be an artist began at home and sometimes in schools. I have had both experiences. When I was six or seven, the teacher hit my hands with a wooden ruler because I was drawing in my notebook instead of listening to hear. Then as a teenager, my father punished me with no money for petrol or buses because I insisted on my music studies. I challenged him, and I found a job; I was sixteen. My father kept asking me if I was out of my mind. He kept telling me I would become a drug addict or a hippy if I continued. But I became resilient and more vital and was not persuaded to change my mind about being an artist.

At the art school, I was discriminated against by going to do plain air painting with the group because I was the only female, and the professor said he wouldn't take me because going out with a group of males was not suitable for a young lady. Also, a few times, my classmates suggested putting just my surname when submitting my work for the school exhibitions because if I put my female name, the chances of being selected would be zero.

As a practising artist, I love what I do and continue the path of creativity in the most sincere and honest possible way. For the sake of art, for being an artist and enjoying what I do, not for fame or money. Sometimes I have financial problems, but creativity and freedom have a price. Who cares what other people think or want from me?

Susana Enriquez PhD. - © 14th April 2023.

DAVID McLEOD

David McLeod lives and works in Sydney, Australia. He is a professional TV and stage actor, singer, song writer and artist. When I left high school in the 70’s I wanted nothing more than to go to Art School and develop an ever-growing desire to create. My parents were dead against it, though said if I passed the entrance exam I could go. Of course, they thought that I would not pass, so when I did the good people that they were, true to their word though a little angry and very fearful for my future let me go. After two years full time at Art School I deferred as I fell into a music career which much to my, and my parents amazement picked up speed and became my full-time job for 30 years as a singer/songwriter, musician and actor Though I kept painting and drawing and continue to do so, this other side took over 24- 7 night and day. When in social settings be it a pub, picnic, party or chit chat at a bus stop the old chestnut of “what do you do for a living” would come up. If I would say “I’m a singer” I would always get one of two responses, there was rarely any neutral ground. People would say “ Ha ha what’s your real job” or “what do you do full time” Though generally people meant well the other thing that was common was “but what do you do all day” as if you just turned up to an engagement, wiggled your nose and magically sang danced or acted or you just whipped up a painting or wrote a novel in a few hours. There seemed to be a disconnect that there was no real skill set to be learnt in the arts and that it was just natural and or for the lucky, as if there was no training, practice, meetings, agencies, knocking on doors, and all the other rigour and self-discipline that goes into forming, selling and maintaining such a skill.

Though I still write and record, paint and draw, practice and train, I have now morphed into an academic lecturer and breathing retainer and now my response to the old chestnut is “I’m a teacher”.

- David McLeod © 2023.

Maggie Hall presently lives and works in Newcastle, Australia. Hall is an accomplished writer, poet and artist, who has been a regular contributor to ARTS ZINE.

I don’t think of my gifts as a disability. I often ponder the existence of a normality as it seems to depend on who is in political power and what religious factions are in conjunction deemed acceptable. What is not accepted as ‘normal’ in context is an unspoken but understood seek and destroy mission, an execution of what is feared and misunderstood, the unknown factor that cannot be controlled. The gifts that are not bestowed upon others bring out the weakness and jealousy in those who should know better. A reaction to destroy by any means the competition. If an ant does not fall into line and perform its duty it is either eaten or cast out of its community.

I am sure that George in his art and writings refers to those people who may drown trying to escape. Those whom are persecuted beyond any understanding. Executed because they read and write different letters and text. The only way for a social community to attain the sense of inner peace and worth is through the process of acceptance and acknowledgment. That individuals can think differently and react creatively with a separate vision and perspective without feeling ostracised and persecuted. I don’t see my gifts as a disability, quite the opposite. Nobody chooses where they are born and to whom. Nobody but the soul and spirit that guide’s each vision. We grow reflecting up the condition that surrounds us. We acclimate in response to our surroundings. It is impossible to compare one way of living with another. Especially when they are so far apart. Yet, for so many lifetimes this is what society has done, continues to do.

I was born lucky. We had a roof over our heads in a fortunate time of artistic and political change and support. In a place and country that focused on individual education and enrichment in early learning schools and groups. I had passionate parents who surrounded themselves with likewise companions. I grew up born different. And, because of this a life of constant environmental change, full of continuous challenge and social conflicts. It does not matter which society you are born into. Life will find a way to challenge your path and person, especially if you do not sign up to the expected papers and behavioural sciences.

- Maggie Hall © 2023.

THE STRAIGHT HERD; SOME THOUGHTS

DR MARK ELLIOT-RANKEN

Since I was nine, I’ve known that an artist’s way would be mine after feeling that spine tingling emotion of creating a ‘work of art’. I remember it today (at sixty-eight) that tingling is with me still whenever I create that something out of seemingly nothing.

The completion of my PhD at Newcastle University in 2010 merely emphasised this tingling. I wrote of nomad artists and what being on the move does to the artist as they ‘become other’ on the way.

Since then, I have continued to work exploring painting in as many manifestations as I can. The very language of creativity deeply fascinates me. It’s not about merely communication but exploration of our inner terrain of ‘knowing thyself’ as is chiselled into the lintel on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. It is a never-ending quest.

However, the relationship between Artist and society has always been a difficult one, why? Perhaps because artists by what they do, a magic the earliest, deepest magic unlike any other shakes just quietly the foundations of a comfortable certainty that society coverts. This is I believe an inherent quality of artists committed to their art because art itself is not quantifiable, explores the not known and bites.

Art must bite if it to say something meaningful, indeed art and the artist ask, “what do you understand as ‘meaning’?” Do you simply except the multiple a priori that encrust like coral reefs societies’ assertions of what is normal and acceptable to that society. For an artist this is our stock in trade! We go where the rest will not and question that which must be questioned if cultures are to renew themselves along with the societies that so need these questions asked.

I would not be anything else, nothing sends that tingle up my spine like Art. Yet Artists do occupy a problematic, troublesome space, an ‘other’ of long standing within our society especially in capitalist, utilitarian-materialist societies such as Australia and I would suggest always will.

Professional artist Mark Elliott-Ranken lives and works in Sydney Australia.

- Dr. Mark Elliot-Ranken © 2023.

JOHN O’BRIEN

John O’Brien presently lives in the Hunter Valley, NSW, Australia. O’Brien is an award winning film and TV. Script writer and singer, musician and Executive Director of Arts Upper Hunter Arts.

The artist as hero. The artist as anti-hero. The artist as exceptional or genius. The artist as seeing things different. Seeing things slant. Experimenting. These are all variations of the artist as admirable for their inability to connect to the normal. Strange to say though,

· I’ve rarely thought of myself as normal.

· And long thought of myself as an artist (writer, musician, performer, comedian, collaborator).

· But have never really drawn a connection between those two, adrift among the normal, expressing my gift.

I don’t think about that connection if it exists. One, my non-normality, is about my social skills, my history, being bullied in boarding school, worrying about being liked. The other, to be a creative person, is about my ambitions, my drive, how I want to see myself. But also about my ability to see the big picture, see connections, get excited by some crazy abstruse linkage encrusted with ideas and grease. Me myself, expressing – in an outward fashion – to an audience out there of … humans.

The creative battle for me is about whether I’m any good. I’ve written brilliant scripts and dreadful scripts. I’ve written songs that are lame, and others that are lamé. I’ve missed the point … and hit the bullseye. So doubt and failure are my constant companions as an artist. Which is why a community of artists is so crucial. To normalise all those odd experimentations, to embrace the weird. Is that special to artists? Maybe. Nowadays I am supporting other artists through my work. The inevitable loneliness of the doubting creative is best finessed with community, with likeminded others. Even so, for me there is a winding and exciting greater pathway: creativity and self-expression can be anyone’s and offer wonders to people, such as critical thinking and seeing things slant. Artists aren’t necessarily special, art is.

- John O’Brien © 2023.

PHIL WATTS

Phil Watts, is a multi-instrumentalist musician and artist currently based in the Hunter Valley NSW Australia.

Watts writes and sings and performs his own songs accompanied by his amazing art videos.

Discrimination against artists

George makes a great point around the discrimination that exists against artists.

I’m a musician with a background in visual arts who lives in a regional area or the “bush”.

I’ve only just returned to a full-time creative life after retiring early.

I have a real reluctance to engage in the arts administration processes - funding etc.

So, I find myself, like most artists do funding myself.

Inevitably there comes a time when the money runs out and you need to find income or employment of some sort. This is the artistic merry go around of boom & bust. If you work you have less time for your practise. But in fairness most musicians I know find a way to make this work with many lessons learnt along the way.

So, I bounce around off grid on part time unemployment benefit & private income living as cheaply as I can. Of course, that was before the car problems hit!

Truth be told I don’t experience social pressures about being an artist I have troubles dealing with the life I have chosen for myself as an artist. Don’t forget that artists and musicians are the change agents of society, so we need to be the change we seek.

George asks when are the rights of artists to be respected? Only when there is a total paradigm shift and it’s coming!

Artists & musicians are the voices heralding these massive changes.

- Phil Watts © 2023.

ROBYN WERKHOVEN

Robyn Werkhoven is a professional artist and Editor of Studio La Primitive Arts Zine. I am four foot two and have a lust for life and art!

From a very young age I wanted to be a ballerina, obsessed with ballet and theatre. By eleven years old the realisation that I would not become a great ballerina hit home. My sister arrived home one day with a gift of paint brushes and oil paints, saying –“you love to draw and paint, so become an artist.” Hence art became my passion for life, but many battles to fight against main stream Australia and being a female artist.

I left High School in year 10 to attend Art College in Wollongong, however my father would not let me further my Fine Art education in Sydney unless I enrolled in Graphic Design at Randwick, he said I needed a career, so, either advertising or secretarial work.

From Graphic Design I was led into designing and printing clothing, with Jenny Kee as my inspiration, opening shops in Wollongong and Sydney in the 70’s.

In the 90’s I returned full time to exploring painting – self-taught. Since then I have exhibited regularly, being selected for national and international exhibitions also a Finalists in major Australian art prizes. My works “explore the world of human caprice, with sheer delight and a touch of irony”.

In 2013 I established the free online Arts & Literary Studio La Primitive ARTS ZINE, now celebrating a decade of publications, bringing art and literature to the world

Art is vital for a healthy society.

- Robyn Werkhoven

© 2023.

ERIC WERKHOVEN

Eric Werkhoven is a writer, poet, artist / sculptor and co-editor of Studio La Primitive Arts Zine.

Art is an acquired skill.

We wouldn’t have pushed so hard, without the pressures and dire frustrations. To probe the veil of the ancient past and modern futuristic events. As a means to get there and stand closer and bang on that door to be let through. In that sense we become specialists in what torments us and gives us immense joy.

The ability to follow it through and continue this wilful act, lies in the sheer incomprehensibility, to add another layer, from the enclaves of our ritualised work methods.

We remain constantly in touch with the divine disclosure of each piece.

Art is hunted down to the bare bones of our being. To strike a flint at the camp of our ancestors.

We who are alive carry the banners, we hold their precious love and must in turn, do all we can to keep it in sight.

In the depths of it all we flow through the dance. Our hands poised, eyes focused, our posture earth bound, and the beat, a rumble of a thunderstorm, far off to the mountain paths. Explicit, all embracing, that moment has come again.

I wanted to reach for something we have in common, the path, our life unfolding, earth bound and heavenly. At the same time how we met, as if the stars have everything to do with it, and in the very midst a determining influence, which will enable us to recruit surveillance, eyes and ears to the future in waiting.

- Eric Werkhoven © 2023.

GEORGE GITTOES TRIBUTE

JOHN OLSEN

In preparation for painting John, he suggested we should look through a book together of portraits by Henri FantinLatour. John’s direction was profound. That silent meditation with him became the key to his portrait .

I was early to the studio and John, the master chef, fried me an egg, so deliciously I can still remember the unique taste. Anyone who risks allowing Gittoes to do their portrait is brave. For John painting and poetry were inseparable. He told me that Pied Beauty by Gerald Manley Hopkins said all that ever needed to be said about his approach to painting. My portrait of John is of a poet-artist for whom observed beauty meant everything.

- George Gittoes

A George Gittoes Film 1986

Visions In The Making – John Olsen

Vimeo Link:

https://vimeo.com/821481492/2667925897?share=copy

Portrait of John Olsen 1997, Oil on Canvas,210 X170.5cm.

Finalist in Archibald 1997. George Gittoes. Tweed Regional Gallery Collection.

GEORGE GITTOES

George Gittoes is a celebrated Australian artist, an internationally acclaimed film producer, director and writer.

Gittoes’ work has consistently expressed his social, political and humanitarian concern and the effects of injustice and conflict -

"I believe there is a role for contemporary art to challenge, rather than entertain. My work is confronting humanity with the darker side of itself."

As an artist Gittoes has received critical acclaim including the Blake Prize for Religious Art (Twice) and Wynn Prize. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of NSW. His films have won many International Awards and in 2015 he was bestowed the Sydney Peace Prize, in recognition of his life’s work in contributing to the peace-making process.

www.gittoes.com

All Rights Reserved

photographs George Gittoes © 2022. George Gittoes beside his Russian Monster mural, Borodyanka, Ukraine. Photo courtesy of artist. 2023.

Fifty one days in a night Maggie Hall

I watch the wind sing blue flames. I read the sign to challenge. I listen to the winter as it calls the tune of a song. I see you dancing in the war stone garden, climbing a ladder with the memory of swallowing a pill. I fell asleep to an alarm that didn’t call. In this fascination of religious science

Can you feel it coming, that perfect wind crying tears into a bag. Can you hear it singing the gardens echo? I was sent a message to understand every line. Created biodiversity in a flower by an orchard, turning to the empty field with a bow.

They burst through the door with blind justice, determined not to yell precaution. What sadness to realise the many lives lost. They didn’t drink poison, and stood devout by a madman’s right arm. Them who were old enough to know better.

I see her holding up a garden and singing to the warm winter outside. A scull and crossbones resting in deep sleep under REM ash clouds. Then I wake to feel the wind through my window, the one they kept open.

All this to recall that space where my dog lies. Next to the shared bed with gas masks. It is there she looks at me with pleading eyes. I have made my bed to go to sleep. A day that turns into weeks has become years in my head. Training fear to feed my dog, I raised her on goats milk, she had kept me alive for so long that I might have stayed asleep had she not licked the ash off my dry bones.

I watched the garden burn as it grew fingers. The watchtower where they wouldn’t let me roam, an escape for the water dragons, afraid that the wrong plants might survive this weeding. That seeds might grow. The blue fire is singing a lullaby, while I am put to sleep. Last night somebody turned the garden into a flame. The dog barking to break a sleep-walking circus. And outside my window I can hear the darkness crackle and pop while in a wonder that if I had not been woken would there still be the pain. I see the man with a watering can that goes unnoticed. Falling from the tower to the lime tree where they are buried. The last night was on fire. So why do I still hear the screams echoing and smell the burning hair. How is my dog still barking in the wake of this dream? Snap crackle and pop.

No more sermons to be preached in this empty room. A white feather for the man with a grey face peering through the line of a red brick house snow covered in deliverance.

I see a man in the dark holding a shoe before three white doves perched in a row to the painted houses. And through the window I see the greenhouse blowing shattered glass around a blue man with brown shoes. He has a bag cast around the camera with a boom. And behind him a graveyard full of wood put aside for kindling. I cannot see any flowers, just the grey paper snow and the man who’s eyes have turned into wood. He plays the axe to make green. There is only one arm left. Take my body and put it in your mouth. Taste the tattoo imprinted into skin as a token of justice taken by the man in a blue suit and yellow hat.

They will tell a tale of three trees cast into a kingdom of lost souls on trial before the white mistflower. There is such beauty in the hot winter, recollections that cannot be seen or understood without condition for the melting red leaves of a family tree. I listen to the memories covered in ash blackened paper snow. And the last recall? An image of my mothers smiling face, and her voice . . .

I’ll be back.

All Rights Reserved on article and photographs

Maggie Hall © 2023.

- Maggie Hall © 2023.

THE NEW ZEALAND ART SCENE

LORRAINE FILDES

The New Zealand Art Scene - Lorraine Fildes

This year I went to New Zealand, finding some wonderful art in the process. One of my visits was to the Tauranga Art Gallery, Toi Tauranga. What follows is some information and photos of two of the exhibitions on display.

One exhibition displayed the work of Maraea Timutimu : He kāwai whenua He kāwai whakapapa. The other exhibition showed the work of Ayesha Green on Folk Nationalism. It showcased both traditional and abstract works.

Maraea Timutimu:

He kāwai whenua He kāwai whakapapa

Maraea Timutimu is a contemporary Maori artist from New Zealand, who has gained recognition for her work across various mediums, including painting, sculpture, and installation art. She was born in 1971 in Hastings, New Zealand, and grew up in the Hawke's Bay region. Her art reflects her Maori heritage and culture. She often uses traditional Maori motifs and symbols in her work. She has also explored the themes of identity, connection to the land, and the intersection between traditional and contemporary Maori culture.

The following information about Maraea Timutimu’s exhibition was provided by the Tauranga Art Gallery.

He kāwai whenua He kāwai whakapapa addresses the centrality of whenua within mātauranga Māori and the ways it can connect us to our stories, histories, identities and whakapapa. Maraea presents a suite of large-scale colour photographs that are a play on portraiture; stones and rocks are collected from the waterways of her maternal and paternal kāinga at Matapihi, Tauranga Moana, and Rūātoki, Eastern Bay of Plenty. They are composed into totemic forms that poetically stand in for people and places that are important to the artist. These photographic portraits provide a unique insight into the connectedness of whenua and whakapapa through a Māori lens. “When we view whenua in its natural state, we see that it is made up of layers. These layers all have a whakapapa, derived from the natural pigments of Papatūānuku (mother earth) connecting it to place and time. It depicts us and the makeup of our individual genealogy” says Timutimu.

Ayesha Green Folk Nationalism

Ayesha Green is a contemporary Māori artist from New Zealand who works across various mediums, including painting, printmaking, and installation art. She was born in 1987 in Auckland, New Zealand and has Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu, and Pākehā (European) ancestry. Her art explores themes of cultural identity, colonialism, and power dynamics. Her work often incorporates Maori iconography and symbols, such as the tāniko weaving pattern, which she uses to comment on the ongoing impact of colonialism on Māori culture and society.

In 2015, Ayesha gained recognition for her painting series "Infidel," which featured studies of Māori and Pacific Islander women wearing traditional dress and holding contemporary objects such as cell phones and cigarettes. The series was a commentary on the interaction between traditional and contemporary Maori and Pacific Islander culture, and the ongoing struggle for cultural autonomy.

In addition to her art, Ayesha is a lecturer at the University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts. Her contributions to the arts have been recognized with several awards, including the Te Tohu Aroha mō Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu Award and the Arts Foundation New Generation Award. The following information about Ayesha Green’s exhibition was provided by the Tauranga Art Gallery.

Folk Nationalism continues the artist’s interrogation into histories of Māori and Pākehā representation and the role that images and language play in perpetuating systems of power. Ayesha often reclaims and recontextualises existing historical images (by the likes of Marcus King and Isaac Coates) to question where power lies and where Māori can gain agency against those historical images. While Ayesha’s paintings are often characterised by her simplified rendition of figures and forms, they represent a bold approach to issues concerning her Māori whakapapa –passed down through women over four generations.

Ayesha Green is the 2021 recipient of the Rydal Art Prize – a major contemporary painting prize administered by Tauranga Art Gallery Toi Tauranga in collaboration with Seeds Trust. Folk Nationalism is a key outcome of the Prize.

The Prince’s New Toy, 2022. Acrylic on canvas 2000 x 1700 mm. Courtesy of the Artist and Jhana Millers Gallery

Two Māori boys in an English Field, 2022. Acrylic on canvas 3800 x 2400mm. Courtesy of the Artist and Jhana Millers Gallery

The Rupture, 2022. Acrylic on canvas, 5400 x 1900 mm. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, purchased 2022.

Imagined Communities, 2022. Coloured pencil on paper 1006 x760 mm. Courtesy of the Artist and Jhana Millers Gallery.

Primrose, 2022

Myrtle, 2022

Jasmine, 2022

Kōkōwai

Kōkōwai (red ochre) on paper 820 x 610 mm.

Courtesy of the Artist and Jhana Millers Gallery

Kōkōwai (red ochre) on paper 820 x 610 mm.

Courtesy of the Artist and Jhana Millers Gallery

(red ochre) on paper 820 x 610 mm.

Courtesy of the Artist and Jhana Millers Gallery

Mother Grandmother, 2022

Coloured pencil on paper

630 x 790 mm.

Courtesy of the Artist and Jhana Millers Gallery

Daughter Mother, 2022

Coloured pencil on paper

630 x 790 mm.

Courtesy of the Artist and Jhana Millers Gallery

Granddaughter Daughter, 2022

Coloured pencil on paper

630 x 790 m.

Courtesy of the Artist and Jhana Millers Gallery

All Rights Reserved on article and photographs

Lorraine Fildes © 2023.

Acrylic on canvas

1600 x 2400 mm.

Left : Self-Portrait as Joseph Banks, 2022

Courtesy of the Artist and Jhana Millers Gallery

THE WORLD LEAVES ME ALONE WITH MY WRITING

The world leaves me alone with my writing.

No one stops me, to forbid me to write and document my thoughts.

I am probably a harmless conjurer.

I often smell the left-over offerings, from the throne of mankind.

Like an after taste, that clings to the walls, the ceilings, on every bit of furniture.

To dispense of us at the appointed hour.

Sure to hear the bells and sirens, blare in the distance.

Such a close call at that designated place, the last narrowing passages, are snapped like small twigs.

I didn’t do a lot, did not suddenly decide to go out.

Feel like I am ripe to do nothing, not even whinge.

A shallow weakness presides in my limbs and torso, but at least I can follow a few persistent thoughts.

The days of long gone (Yore), the bulk of what remains unsaid.

That is why, there is nearly no end to our dialogue.

That is why, I can sit here for long stretches of time and write.

Rewind the clock, as in setting up a décor, where the theatrics can take place. Which is posing a challenge, from an actor’s point of view, an entertainer who quickly feels flabbergasted, and feels no consolation from a stupid facial expression. It is just one debacle after the next.

I notice this with derision, thumb pointing down with another would be conqueror, of the spoken word. Guess we should know what we can and can’t do, to profess a certain well-seasoned maturity.

I must therefore prefer to stare into this space of near nothingness.

Because the self as a body, is well truly doomed like an over ripened fruit, so the Bardos (1) move us up or down a notch, in the big theatrics of life and death the self must shine like a torch, in search of the passages ahead.

- Eric Werkhoven ©

2023.

(1) Tibetan Buddhism -Bardo is the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth. The six Bardos - of this life (or birth), the bardo of dream, the bardo of meditation, the bardo of dying, the bardo of dharmata (or reality), and the bardo of existence (or becoming).

TALES OF MEXICO

Tales of Mexico by

Seigar.

Last year, I was lucky to spend the summer traveling and shooting my travel and street photo narratives. I visited Serbia, Cuba, Mexico, and Morocco. This series belongs to the Tales of Mexico. During this trip, I moved around the Yucatan Peninsula. Its landscape is the idea many people have in mind of paradise: beaches, islands, cenotes (natural pools), archaeological sites, and traditional villages. And delicious food! Local parties are everywhere, with orchestras playing Latin music in the main squares! What attracted my attention was the sweetness in people. In this peninsula, they have a natural kindness. This personality makes it easy to talk and share experiences with them. I had a blast on this trip! I have selected some photos I took of Holbox Island and Lagarto River. Enjoy this paradise, and remember: carpe diem.

Biography:

Seigar is a passionate travel, street, social documentary, conceptual, and pop visual artist based in Tenerife, Spain. He feels obsessed with the pop culture that he shows in his works. He has explored photography, video art, writing, and collage. He writes for some media. His main inspirations are traveling and people. As an artist, he aims to tell tales with his camera, creating a continuous storyline from his trips and encounters. He is a philologist and works as a secondary school teacher. He is a self-taught visual artist, though he has done a two years course in advanced photography and one in cinema and television. He has participated in several international exhibitions, festivals, and cultural events. His works have been featured in numerous publications worldwide. His last interests are documenting identity and spreading the message of the Latin phrase: Carpe Diem. Recently, he received the Rafael Ramos García International Photography Award. He shares art and culture in his blog: Pop Sonality.

S E I G A R

SEIGAR

Webpage: seigar.wordpress.com

Instagram: instagram.com/jseigar

Galleries: flickr.com/photos/theblueheartbeat/albums

Blog: popsonality.blogspot.com

All Rights Reserved on article and photographs

SEIGAR © 2023.

METAMORPHOSIS - BEA JONES

Artist and poet Bea Jones, was born in London and grew up in New Zealand and started writing poetry in the early 1990s, based in Newcastle NSW and the Hunter Valley. Bea moved to Melbourne in 1998. Over the years Bea has exhibited her art and performed poetry at readings in NSW and Melbourne and appeared as guest poet at various Regional Writers’ Festivals.

Jones has been published in many anthologies, including ‘ Visions from the Valley - Poetry of the Hunter Valley 1960 – 2000’ and ‘On the Street, a Melbourne Anthology’ 2020.

Jones won the Ada Cambridge Award in 2016 and was shortlisted for the Grieve Award 2019, the Poetica Christi Award 2020 and the ACU Award 2019/ 2020.

“I have been working with bones, mummification and found detritus for some years now and always find it very satisfying giving discarded and unloved things a new lease on life. My love of words and poetry are sometimes integrated. My home is fast becoming a mini Natural History Museum. I am working up to a big exhibition sometime, somewhere, somehow. This is a selection of my latest work.”

Page154 : Goat Reimagined, mixed media, H54 x W39 cm. Bea Jones.

Left : Goat Reimagined ( ink drawing), mixed media, H41 x W32 cm. Bea Jones.

A Skullduggerous Reincarnation, mixed media, H24 x W40 cm. Bea Jones.

Bones, mixed media, various dimensions. Bea Jones.

Bones, mixed media, various dimensions. Bea Jones.

Seeking Asylum

Mixed media

H48 x W58 cm.

Bea Jones.

St Eligius, mixed media, H35 x W23 cm. Bea Jones.

Camouflage, drawing, H57 x W43 cm. Bea Jones.

All Rights Reserved on article and photographs

Bea Jones © 2023.

Top Left : Bats in a Bushfire, mixed media, H25 x w25 cm. Bea Jones.

Bottom Left : Frogs Cavorting, mixed media, H25 x W25 cm. Bea Jones.

WALTER HES

WALTER HES - INTERVIEW

Thank you for the opportunity to promote my latest book ‘Hundred Shades of Green’ and to tell a bit about myself.

I was born in The Netherlands (a very long time ago). Part of a large family with very little money, I had to start working at a young age. Seven years in the construction industry combined with on-and-off evening classes provided me with mainly technical education. I was then drafted into the military and spent 26 months as a pare-medic in the Royal Dutch Navy, of which 18 months in Dutch New Guinea, now Irian Jaja

Returning home, the Netherlands looked like Madurodam to me. I didn’t want to stay and saw the world as my oyster. I looked for jobs on big international civil projects. That is how I came to work in Malta, South Africa, Brazil and finally, in 1982, in Australia, where my wife Elly and I decided to settle down.

I started writing after a nasty accident that needed a long recuperation time. The experience of working and living in five countries with different cultures changed my outlook on society from a conservative Roman Catholic view to the openmindedness of a world citizen.

I never contemplated writing a book. How could I? I am dyslectic, and writing a letter is already an ordeal. But my brain has always been concocting solutions to the world’s problems in the form of a story. I would lay awake at night and contemplate being a benevolent dictator setting the world straight. Obviously, I haven’t found a way to achieve that, so when the accident in 2014 forced me into inactivity, I started to write.

My first book, ‘Resolve’ was born out of frustration with the time-wasting politics in the democratic parts of the world. I thought that a supercomputer would do a better job. The main characters even managed to change the United Nations for the better.

My second book, “Tenerian World” compared the once fertile area of the Sahara to the desert it is now and pondered if it could be changed back and help turn back climate change.

My third book was a novel roughly based on my family’s history, passed on through several generations. I wrote that in the Dutch language.

The inspiration for ‘Hundred Shades of Green’ came after becoming aware of the nearly irreversible and stupid destruction of the Amazon Rainforest. ‘Stupid’ because this rainforest produces 20 to 25 % of the world’s oxygen, our oxygen. I called it ‘almost irreversible’ because of my experience working in underground tunnels: if the oxygen level went from 21 to 19 % inside the tunnel, it was ‘Everybody out!’. How will we explain why we did not act in time to the next generation?

My next book will be about Africa and has much to do with breaking free from its colonial times.

Thinking of a story and writing down the plot usually comes quickly. But I struggle with filling in the details and how to use the internet for research, describing surroundings, emotions, etc. Luckily, Elly keeps me on my toes. I am forever thankful and in debt to my editor-wife, who can spell!

I write novels because you can use dialogue between characters to discuss essential things in the story. However, the most challenging part of writing, in my view, is presenting believable characters and dialogue.

I have no art education; I did no writing course, and I did not attend book clubs. My story might be a bit of an anomaly in this beautiful magazine, but I take this opportunity to share my thoughts and spread the word.

- Walter Hes 2023.

Left : Photo of Walter Hes. Photo courtesy of

BARBARA NANSHE

BARBARA NANSHE

Artist and jewellery designer Barbara Nanshe lives and works in Newcastle NSW.

Nanshe is an environmentally conscious brand of Art and Jewellery and Design.

Nanshe sources ethically supported materials, hand makes elements for her ideas and combines salvaged antique and vintage parts in her work. She uses 90 to 100% recycled gold, sterling silver, brass and copper. The following pages show case her new sculptural works for her forthcoming exhibition Metamorphosis at Straitjacket Gallery in Hamilton, Newcastle.

Page 166 : Birds in Transition To Nowhere, Mixed media with feathers, Copper, 2023; 1180 x400mm; 80% recycled.

There are those of us awakened to the knowledge that everything is interconnected and humans cannot exist without the inherent and balanced energy of planet earth and the atmosphere the planet is immersed in. I believe the world faces an opportunity to grow and regain balance and equilibrium if we can recognise our connection to all and everything and strive to regain balance in the transaction of energy. We can change our direction. Embrace creation instead of destruction. Be a part of the garden not lord over it. Connectedness is a tool to help us realise humans are only part of a much bigger force. It give us not only compassion for every other being but flow and balance in the whole system. There are only 2 directions we can go. Forward or back. I don’t accept that it is too late to rethink and take full responsibility for where our thinking has taken us, but we need to Change Direction Now. Barbara Nanshe Studio - new shop opening on 27 MAY at 2 Wallace Street, Islington, Newcastle NSW.

Go online or call for appointment, 7 days PH : 0477505332 https://nanshejewellerystudio.com/ Change Direction Now - Metamorphosis Exhibition of wall sculpture.

Opening July 22 11am - 5pm STRAITJACKET GALLERY

https://straitjacket.com.au/

Inside The Sea

Mixed Copper wire and cast copper, Shell from Kelso Tasmania, 2023; 470x470mm; 80% recycled. I believe all living things exist in and are part of, an energy field. There are infinite universes within universes transacting at the same time. All are connected and rely on balance to exist. We are phenomenon in phenomena. Our bodies exist of water; carbon; billions of organisms; electrical impulses, colour, light, darkness. We have billions of other organisms inside us and around us all the time.

From Where Have You Come and Where Are You Going?

Mixed media and copper, 2023; 590 x 420mm; 90% recycled.

To get to where we are on the evolutionary time line, humans historically have seen all forms as separate, not connected entities. Modernism taught individuality, singular purpose and duality. Continuing to not see the connection leaves humanity in danger of furthering the destructive trajectory we are on as a species. We are watching as multiple species slide into extinction without thought of the repercussions. It baffles me that we are loosing species at an alarming rate yet we still choose the trajectory that puts economics before clean water, air; living earth, organisms and other species; the planet.

Forward From The Heart, (Remembering the Maia People).

Mixed Copper wire and cast copper, locally cut Mookaite from Mooka Creek WA, 2023; 600 x120 mm; 70% recycled.

The only Known source of the stone coined "Mookaite" was sourced from the traditional lands of the Maia People at Mooka Creek, (Mooka meaning running water). It has been quarried from the area since the mid 1960's by local specimen miners. Microscopic examination shows Mookaite consists of the remains of tiny creatures known as radiolaria, that have an unusual skeletal structure of opaline silica. Billions of these were deposited as sediment in the ancient sea-beds of shallow seas. When the seas retreated, these sediments were cemented into solid rock by the silica.

Remembering the Maia People Maia traditional lands extended over an estimated 12,000 km2. They consisted mainly of a strip on the coast facing the Indian Ocean, and a western hinterland and up to and beyond Boolathanna, Mooka, Mardathuna, Binthalya, and the Kennedy Range. They also lived around the coastal salt lakes near Canarvon to Manberry and Hutton Creek. Their southern flank ran down to the floodplain of the Gascoyne River, and on Lake Macleod. The Maia are believed to have been extinct by 1910. Their area was afflicted by diseases like smallpox and influenza which ravaged the coastal populations after the establishment of pearling stations on the coast, at Shark Bay and Cossack. Subsequently, a culling of hands to work the pearling trawlers, and a system of indentured labour imposed on the tribes -found by pastoralists on their runs- effectively decimated the Maia by breaking up their kinship groups. All materials are energy. All formed somewhere on earth or in the universe. We can change the form but not the inherent energy of the base material. Copper is a conductor of energy (heat) no mater how humans adapt its form to suit the use. Humans have evolved raw materials into all manner of forms to build a new world for ourselves.

Earth Morphs Sun.

Copper, Zinc, Enamel, Patina, 2023, 200mm x170mm, 95% recycled.

Copper, in different forms, is a big part of my work because of it’s malleability and availablility as a recycled material.

Copper speaks to me of impermanence and earth energy. I use it symbolically to represent the conduction, encompassing, weaving and morphing of energy. I use copper to weave, knit and shape to symbolize the creation and woven fabric of our world. Woven around the figures it represents the energy force field around us all. I recognise my connection to the earth and the changing cycles.

I represent so many women who have voiced their dismay or delight regarding our relationships with the planet. Each figure symbolises us as made of earth imploring, praying and hoping for a better future; immersing, meditating; birthing.

Woven Bodies

From incomplete work, 2023, from 100mm to 150mm each, copper, enamel, patina.

When you look at my work I want you to connect with earth energy.

I hope you ponder land, sky and Sea; impermanence; hope; transition; honour, metamorphosis; your relationship with other energy bodies.

I want you to feel your way, to be with sea consciousness; live in the air with birds; see the wonder of different plants; recognise the intelligence of fungi and so much more. Be the energy to change direction now

Sea Body

Whale Vertebrae cap from Beached Pilot Whale, 1920 Tasmania, Anemone Shells, Kelso, Tasmania, Sterling Silver, Patina, 1970s TV Antenna cable, Copper 2023, 90% recycled. Though forms appear to be separate, when one form is juxtaposed with another the energies merge or overlap. Light energy changes the appearance all form. I believe that to be in the proximity of so many divergent energies should help us understand that we are not separate. Each connected form is pure energy and is in transaction with our energy. Anything in proximity is ultimately part of us. How can we not feel ourselves part of the creatures, earth, wind, sea etc? We could not have drained rivers, cut great holes in the ground, polluted the air, obliterated forests and built cities without green corridors if we recognized connection to all energy, to country.

All Rights Reserved on article and photographs

Barbara Nanshe © 2023.

https://nanshejewellerystudio.com/

PHIL WATTS

Phil Watts, born in Melbourne is a multi-instrumentalist musician and visual artist currently based in the Hunter Valley NSW Australia. He has been involved in the world of art and music for many years, graduating from Newcastle University with Fine Arts Degree in

Phil writes and sings and performs his own songs accompanied by his remarkable art videos. His latest recording Gods and Beasts voices his concern for the war Russia is waging against Ukraine. Phil exhibits his artwork with Dungog By Design shop and Gallery, 224 Dowling St Dungog, NSW.

Available for viewing on YouTube as pHil antHropichttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzXPI_H-

eX_ByVF5EnNeYAg/videos

Above : Phil Watts performing, Video still, courtesy of artist. Page 176 : Video still from Late Blooming Flower still, courtesy of artist.

STUDIO LA PRIMITIVE ARTS ZINE

PREVIOUS ISSUES

A R

T S Z I N E

Arts Zine was established in 2013 by artists Eric and Robyn Werkhoven, now with a fast growing audience, nationally and internationally. Their extensive mailing list includes many galleries, art collectors and art lovers. The Zine is free, with no advertising from sponsors. “It is just something we want to do for the Arts, which has been our lifelong passion.”

We have featured many national and international artists, photographers and writers including - Wendy Sharpe, George Gittoes, Matthew Couper, Kathrin Longhurst, Nigel Milsom, James Drinkwater and Kim Leutwyler, Blak Douglas and many more.

In 2017 it was selected by the NSW State Library to be preserved as a digital publication of lasting cultural value for long-term access by the Australian community.

POETRY & SCULPTURE

The publication includes a collection of poems written over recent years, penetrating and profound observations on life. And a selection of Eric’s dynamic and prolific sculptures.

Enquiries contact:

E: werkhovenr@bigpond.com

Page : Left - Front cover, The Fall, Autoclaved aerated cement / cement / lacquer, H32 x W46 x B38cm. Eric Werkhoven 2013.

Right : Relief Carving The Battle, Autoclaved aerated cement

Photograph by Robyn Werkhoven.

Right : Eric Werkhoven. Photograph by Robyn Werkhoven.

May 5 - 21

IN THE MAKING

Juliet Ackery, Amanda Lawrey, Susie Lockhead

June 16 – July2

CLAY MATTERS

2023 Diploma of Ceramics Graduates.

Newcastle Art School

26 May - 11 June

UNGUARDED

MCatley, Kristen Grainger, Jade Perry

7 - 23 July

AT HOME...IN NATURE

Susie Oldfield & Phillipa Bird

57 Bull Street Cooks Hill NSW Hours: Fri Sat Sun 11am - 5pm

www.newcastlepotters.org

2 Wallace Street, Islington, Newcastle, NSW.

EXHIBITION CALENDAR 2023

29 APRIL - 21 MAY

Paul Maher

James Rhodes Kerrie Oliver - Prologue

27 MAY - 18 JUNE

Mario Minichiello

Steve Smith

24 JUNE - 16 JULY

Marlene Houston

Fleur Stevenson

Katrina Holden

Rhino Images - Art and the Rhinoceros

Lorraine Fildes and Robert Fildes.

Art and the Rhinoceros - There are over three hundred Rhino images in this book.

Whether in the ancient past or in the present the rhinos are always represented as huge, powerful and solitary animals. The book includes paintings, drawings, woodcuts, etchings, rock carvings and sculptures of the rhino all depicting the power of the animal.

These images of the rhino range from early civilisations such as in China, Roman Empire, Indus civilisation in Pakistan/ India area and from Southern Africa down to current day images of paintings and sculptures produced by modern day artists.

The text indicates where you may find these wonderful images as well as the websites of the artists concerned, the caves where the rhino images have been found and the places where posters use the rhino image.

There are very few of these magnificent wild animals left in the world, so unless they are protected and managed, artistic images will soon be the only viewing option.

Rhino Images – Art and the Rhinoceros, First Edition, 2017, is available for download at The Rhino Resource Centre web site.

Direct Link : http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/index.php?s=1&act=refs&CODE=ref_detail&id=1518479271

Page : 198 White Rhino crash at Whipsnade Zoo, England. Image: Robert Fildes © 2019.

Detail : Atomiser II, oil, spray paint, pencil and chalk and canvas, Robert Cleworth 2022-23.Atomiser II