COLOURED SQUARES ARRANGED BY CHANCE - Factory 49, 49 Shepherd St, Marrickville - 12-22 August, 2009

In 'Coloured Squares Arranged by Chance' I exhibited the large cube that I had shown in Melbourne as well as eight small paintings - four on canvas and four made from painted MDF.

I also made a (rather wobbly) video of it called 'Chasing the White Square'.

'Large Cube', cardboard, acrylic and yarn, 165cm x 165cm x 165cm, 2009

'Square Paintings' , (top line) oil on canvas, 21cm x 21 cm each, 2009
'Block Paintings', (bottom line) oil on MDF, 21cm x 21cm each, 2009

Here is the catalogue -

THE COLOUR OF SPACE - Level 17 Artspace, Victoria University, 17/300 Flinders Street, Melbourne, 7 July-17July, 2009

'The Colour of Space' was an exhibition involving video work by Rose Anne McGreevy, paintings by Barbara Halnan and sculpture by me.

It was the first time that I had constructed one of my large cardboard and wool works - in fact the construction technique came about by the fact that I wanted to show a large piece in Melbourne and had no way of transporting it.  

The original idea was a piece of serendipity...  One night I drove past the car park of a storage warehouse on Botany Road - there is often leftover junk in it - instead of taking things to the tip, they leave them there for people to take away.  This night there was a pallet load of flat-packed boxes...I said to Mick, "I think they were boxes"...he agreed...I said, "I can probably make something out of them"...he agreed.  Next morning he came home with a surprise - "They're cubes!" - only he could realise how excited I would be about that...we ended up with 3 and a half thousand of them...

I knew that I wanted to paint them and build a large cube, but didn't know how to put them together.  I didn't like the idea of gluing them, then having to destroy the piece when the exhibition was over; as I knew I would have nowhere to store a large sculpture, let alone transport it.  I briefly considered staples, but couldn't make it work.  I then thought of wool...problem solved...the cubes could be tied up like presents, then each cube could be tied to the next.  At the end of the exhibition the wool is cut and everything flattened again for transportation and storage.  I had already been making cubes and wall works with wool, so it all made (a strange kind of) sense.  I also exhibited the long crocheted 'Stripe' that I had shown previously at Carriageworks.

'Large Cube', cardboard, acrylic and yarn, 165cm x 165cm x 165cm, 2009

'Stripe', yarn, 1300cm x  15cm, 2009

 

demolishing the cube...

And if you want to waste some time - here is a jigsaw of the 'Large Cube',  go on!, you're on the internet, you're already wasting time!...

CLICK HERE!

EXPANSIVE MINIMAL - Bell Street Project Space, Glockengasse 22, 1020 Vienna - April 2009

Bell Street Project Space was an artist run initiative in Vienna run by Alex Lawler and Marita Fraser from 2006 to 2010.  In 2009 Factory 49 sent works by 13 artists which were exhibited in an outside exhibition space attached to the gallery.  My work was an oil on MDF piece - 2nd row, 3rd across....

POUR FAIRE SIMPLE - ParisCONCRET, 5 rue des Immeubles Industriels, Paris, France - 17 January-7 February 2009

I was invited to submit a work for a group show at ParisCONCRET, a space run by Richard van der Aa in Paris.  The show was called Pour faire simple - 'to put it simply'.....
The show contained the work of 35 artists.  I sent a small oil on MDF work.  It sold!....

From the ParisCONCRET website -
ParisCONCRET 

Pour faire simple - anecdote :
Franz Kline and Elaine de Kooning were at the Cedar Bar when a collector Franz knew 
came up to them in a state of fury. He had just come from Barnett Newman’s first oneman show. 
“How simple can an artist be and get away with it?” he sputtered. “There was nothing, 
absolutely nothing there!”
“Nothing?” asked Franz, beaming. “How many canvases were in the show?”
“Oh, maybe ten or twelve – but all exactly the same – just one stripe down the center, 
that’s all!”
“All the same size?” Franz asked.
“Well, no; there were different sizes; you know, from about three to seven feet.”
“Oh, three to seven feet, I see; and all the same colour?” Franz went on.
“No, different colors, you know; red and yellow and green… but each picture painted one 
flat color – you know, like a house painter would do it, and then this stripe down the 
center.”
“All the stripes the same color?”
“No”
“Were they the same width?”
The man began to think a little. “Let’s see. No. I guess not. Some were maybe an inch 
wide and some maybe four inches, and some in between.”
“And all upright pictures?”
“Oh, no; there were some horizontals.”
“With vertical stripes?”
“Uh, no, I think there were some horizontal stripes, maybe.”
“And were the stripes darker or lighter than the background?”
“Well, I guess they were darker, but there was one white stripe or maybe more…”
“Was the stripe painted on top of the background color or was the background color 
painted around the stripe?”
The man began to get a bit uneasy. “I’m not sure,” he said, “I think it might have been 
done either way, or both ways maybe…”
“Well I don’t know,” said Franz. “It all sounds damned complicated to me.”
in Thomas B. Hess,

Newman, catalogue de l'exposition du
Grand Palais, Paris, 1972, p.76 et 77  

'Small Block 1' oil on MDF, 17cm x 17cm, 2004

Installation view courtesy ParisCONCRET

CarriageARTworks - Carriageworks, 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh - 16-24 January 2009

2009 saw the inaugural CarriageARTworks Contemporary Art Exhibition at Carriageworks in Redfern.  It showcased the work of 'new and emerging artists from Sydney's South West city fringe' and involved 13 galleries and more than 40 artists.  

I exhibited a range of cubes as well as a long crocheted stripe alongside the work of Pam Aitken and Marlene Sarroff.  I received a very nice mention in a web review by 'Pyrmont Village'

2008 WOOLLAHRA SMALL SCULPTURE PRIZE - 536 New South Head Rd, Double Bay - 24 October-2 November 2008

I was a finalist again in the 2008 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize with 'Soft Edge'.  It was a cube constructed of many small crocheted cubes.  The name was an obvious play on hard edge abstraction, but of course it was soft...geddit?....

'Soft Edge' wool & foam, 36cm x 36cm x 36cm, 2008

The local paper did a cute story about it....

2008 BLACKTOWN CITY ART EXHIBITION - Blacktown Arts Centre, 78 Flushcombe Rd, Blacktown - 20 September-18 October 2008

In 2008 I won the painting section of the Blacktown City Art Exhibition with a 3 panelled painting called 'Red, Yellow, Blue'.  The paintings were constructed from individually painted MDF blocks which were then glued together into squares.

I got to experience that wonderful moment when 2 visitors looked at the work, saw the '1st Prize' label then slowly shook their heads as they walked away...

'Red' detail

'Yellow' detail

'Blue' detail

'Red, Yellow, Blue', oil on MDF, 35cm x 107cm, 2008