Virginia Kaiser

Virginia Kaiser. Slight Breeze, 2011. Date palm fruit stalks 

Virginia Kaiser. Dragon Vessel, 2011. Dragon tree and wisteria. 44 x 35 x 30cm.

Virginia Kaiser is a basket weaver who lives in Broken Hill, outback NSW. Her exquisitely crafted baskets made from natural fibres have a cross cultural feel due to the materials she uses and references to nature.

Kai Althoff

Kai Althoff, "Punkt, Absatz, Blümli" (period, paragraph, Blümli), 2011.

Kai Althoff (1966) is a German visual artist who has shown in exhibitions including the 2004 Venice Biennale and at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Punkt, Absatz, Blümli" (period, paragraph, Blümli), 2011, was held at Gladstone Gallery, New York. The exhibition includes soft sculpture figures, paintings and drawings. The painted yellow floor casts an industrial setting for the above horizontal rug painting. The overall installation depicts some fantastic situational narrative - almost a sculptural performance reminiscent of performances by the artist, Joseph Beuys.

Antoni Tapies

Another master dies. Read the New York Times article here

Local Walk

Wall panel, Clifton Hill.

Local Walk

Wood panel wall in Richmond.

Mickail Lezin

Mickail Lezin's new work for the exhibition, 'Iron rusts easily', November 2011, Art-Propaganda Gallery, Samara, Russia, just gets better. You can view the exhibition on his blog here. Every painting is good. 

Judith Scott

Just discovered the work of Judith Scott, 1943-2005. There is a good You Tube here. The works are so perfectly beautiful but also so free. Amazing.

Keith Allyn

Old Man Sweater, oil, wood, staples, and my favorite sweater ever, 9 3/4″ x 6 15/16″, 2011 

Old Man Sweater, 2011, installed.

American artist, Keith Allyn makes interesting paintings/objects which are then installed in various interiors. The sites chosen are all slightly off beat and downtrodden. Spaces include a post office, factories, diners and medical rooms. His blog is here, worth a look.

Shield me

Artist unknown, painted shield, 180 x 51 cm.

Image reproduced from Mossgreen Gallery on Art Net 

I first found this shield of unknown origin at Art Propelled Tumblr Blog.

Mikhail Lezin

Pure Formality, (Perm art-residence) June 2011

Image reproduced from Mikhail Lezin Blogspot

I got a lot of pleasure looking at a series of abstractions in situ in this art residence by Russian artist, Mikhail Lezin. The painting constructions and the environment just jell so nicely.

Johnnie Winona Ross

Corn Creek Seeps 01, 2010. Burnt bone, graphite/paint burnished on bleached linen, 153 x 145 cm.

Black Creek Seeps, 2009. Acrylic on burnished linen, 92 x 87 cm.
Images Reproduced from Stephen Haller Gallery, New York.

"....Repeating the mark, or the drip, scraping, burnishing, builds a physical history within the painting …… when you see worn stone steps, whether at an Anasazi site, or the Met, it is interesting to consider the scores of people that have used or are using the steps in roughly the same way; or seeing the keys on an old piano, worn with use. You realize that you are just part of the stream of history, a large or small part, but you are only  moving  through.”     Johnnie Winona Ross

Text reproduced from Kate Beck :: Art Notes

Just Type

Image of unknown origin reproduced from laflanerie.blogspot

Alan Bates

The Nature of Things, 9, 2011. Mixed media on paper on board, 65 x 65 cm.

Six new works are currently on show by Alan Bates at Salt Contemporary Art, Queenscliff, as part of the gallery's 'Winter Arts Program'. Alan seems to go from strength to strength. Check it out.

Tony Tuckson

TP 597, 1952-56, oil in cardboard, 63.5 x 45 cm.

The exhibition, Figures, by Tony Tuckson currently on show at Watters Gallery, Sydney, is a selection of small and medium sized works on mostly cardboard from the early to mid-1950s. You get a glimpse of the later pure lyrical abstraction which was to come in the 1960s and 70s from the work TP 597, 1952-56, whilst others indicate Tuckson is still negotiating various influences including Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse.

Elwyn Lynn

Elwyn Lynn, Tied Property, 1977, mixed media on paper, 55x77 cm.

Elwyn Lynn, Marbled, 1975, mixed media on paper, 77x55 cm.

Elwyn Lynn, widely known for his art criticism and writing, was an Australian matter painter. Matter painting was a facet of abstraction concerned with the metaphysics of phenomena, placing emphasis on the experimental use of texture, material additives and process. A leading exponent was the Italian artist, Alberto Burri who sometimes burnt his work. Lynn, a contemporary of Peter Clarke, also went further than emulation of an international style, he personalised his painting. Described by Peter Pinson as possessing a ‘roughly hewn larrikinism’,[[1]] Lynn says of his childhood in Junee, ‘You were always conscious of soil.’[[2]] Junee, in south central N.S.W., is ‘Drysdale country’ being susceptible to drought and isolation. Lynn’s personal photographs are of simple but iconic constructs in the landscape such as weathered shed walls of rusted corrugated iron. The references to land through cracked, furrowed and incised texture, range from dark brooding salutations of the landscape to more celebratory works, and are a direct reference to his origins. Whilst the concept and technique are informed by European artists including Tàpies, Dubuffet and Duchamp, Lynn also follows on from the bleakness of Drysdale.

Lynn’s choice of materials and the use of those materials is Australian. Makeshift ‘depression’ or ‘bush’ materials are favoured, and include sewn hessian sacs, packing crates, cardboard, rope, and brown paper. These cheap, everyday materials, were then sometimes torn, and used in an intentionally ‘not too flash manner’. Bound rope around sticks, is also sometimes used in a competent, solid, bushman-like manner. His paintings are ‘made’ rather than ‘professionally’ painted, with apparent additives to the traditional artist’s paint including glue, earth pigments and sand. As a consequence, the works appear to be the residue of play, or freewheeling improvisation. The result: the conjuring of landscape through enactment.

Excerpt from PhD exegesis, 'Makeshift, Abstraction and the Australian Patina', 2009.

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    1.  Peter Pinson, Elwyn Lynn: metaphor + texture (St Leonards, N.S.W.: Craftsman House, 2002), 24.

     2.  Ibid, 13.