hohoho

is that time of year again when we all get together
in some way, shape or form
to celebrate...
for some this is a burden or a wonderful time...
for me i am usually happy to be with family but sometimes nonchalent

this year my family came from high and low to get together
was really specialioso
a big reunion, was awesome...is awesome!
unluckily some of my cousins bought the dreaded swine flu with them
and randomly it struck..

so speaking from my quarantine station with heavy chesty nasty
and feelings of wanting to run around like a lunatic
i rest....i cough...and fight on....
the swine flu thing hits like a cracken to be sure...
it has made me a complete trash bag...
low and behold i have had to resort to reading Agatha Christie and Daniel Steele...
(that is shameful embarrassment and lack of selection to be sure)

anyway...i miss being able to hang out with my girlies family and catching up with old friends
i want to be healthy and happy...
i wish y'all to enjoy every minute of it....
and surprisingly this minute
i feel better!
yay...
think next year is gonna be a goodun...

wish you all much HEALTH and HAPPINESS....
and me some too...

abstractrionala...ode to D-town

as i have been thinking about paint and its application
across the canvas of this old, red, sandstone country...
and as I try to extract a shard of Darwin glass from deep within my foot,
some friends and I will be having a show next year...
3 non-indigenous, abstract, Darwin, local (me for 2 more weeks), painters...

it will be interesting to bring this kind of work to the Darwin audience...
to see if the average punter can understand crazy, marks on a canvas
that are perhaps not totemic, ancestral or connected to country...
maybe this is a good way to understand something

not sure...despite being in leaving zone, it becomes weirdly apparent
that this place inspires me, you, them, us...
even in its gritty bloodthirsty, intensity...there is on this edge of the world
a glory, a splendor and untamed harshness
that keeps it all in check...

have to say, this edginess has kept me here for a dozen years...
two six-packs if we count
in local stubbie-curreny...not even a bloody carton  mate!

but now, this glass in me foot is really painfull,
all things change....
am glad to have sailed here, made work here
and this upcoming show is like a beautiful ending...
or new beginning...it's all the same book anyway....

want to thank the cranky lightning man and Darwin edge
for teaching me about thrashing it out in loud, unrepentant
brush killing strokes
think it will take a while to put it in perspective...

but for now
i sit with a needle
and try to
un-stick
this razor sharp shard that has itself
firmly embedded in my left soul....

d-town....damn....

words & scratch...

 scratch. and sniff sniff...

just ant

NW Wind...

note the sticky tape....

abstralian austraction

today i think about australia and abstraction
or rather, as the title goes: abstralian austraction.

there is aboriginal art, post-modernist landscape abstractionists, sydney mob who generate flashy neo-abstract expressionist replicas, urban bansky stencil warriors and the occasional nature inspired painter. But what about vegemite and bark and eucalyptus and stuff?

I am just trying to understand what abstract means in terms of our culture, history and identity. Or does it even matter? Not sure that I even have an argument.

Yet I feel there is something vital in a whole heap of artists work...something that pierces the veil of the post-modern, conceptual, machine driven art world and exists as itself, without trying to be....i don't even know who has it, but i see it and when i do, it goes bOOm. you know who you are.


As usual, my attempt at intelligence is GAMMON.
Think i might paint in vegemite.

oh um...
if you want to check out some recent thoughts from
study land adventures...
here's a shameless self-promoting link:

Imbi in studyland

this picture is there and some others

smash it

recently played with smashing plants on paper
species include:
cycad, erythrina, mango leaf, grevillea, melastoma and can't remember.
i then painted eucalyptus over the top.
mango leaf was blue.
now i am painting.

street life: india part 2

street life: tamil nadu, india