Artist of the year exhibition 2013

The Victorian Artists Society's annual exhibition is taking place at this historical building in city.

This year's winner is Julian Bruere. Beautiful water colour painting.

Otto Ottavio Boron's impasto landscape paintings are very powerful, but not ugly.

Other artists I like are, Nell Frsteen, Barbara McManus, Mary Hyde, Ray Hewitt, Elaine Young, Pamela Pretty....

And of course, Gregory Smith, my teacher.

It was a great show.

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Darebin Art Show 2013 opening

Well, it was a great opening at Bundoora Homestead in north of Melbourne.

They said that there are 134 entries this year, so, it seems it's getting bigger and bigger.

The greatest thing about going to a gallery opening is, of course, meeting creative artists.

Cara-Ann Simpson is a curator at this gallery and a multi-disciplinary artist, ranging from sculpture, sound, photography, installation.....

I had a great chat with her today. Very inspirational.

The link to her website is here.

Although I didn't win, it was very nice to see some familiar faces in this iconic building.

And, there are some great artworks on display.

My photo is being shown at a very nice location in a room upstairs. It's really great to see my work exhibited very nicely like that. 

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RMIT Visual Arts Graduate Exhibition 2013 opening

One of my friends is part of this diploma students exhibition at RMIT Building 94 in city.

There were a wide variety of mediums and styles on display. I liked this show.

Here are some of my favourites.

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VCA Graduate Exhibition 2013 opening

Students from School of Art - Drawing, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture and Spatial Practice - present a wide variety of works at Margaret Lawrence Gallery in Southbank.

Here are a few of works I liked.

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Rick Amor Self Portrait Prize opening night

No wonder my entry couldn't make it to this exhibition.

There're 31 paintings in this beautiful building in Eltham, and they're all very high standard.

Tom Alberts was announced to be a winner of this inaugural self portrait prize. Beautifully rendered work that captured his personality.

I bumped into a gentleman who works at art supply shop in High Street, Northcote. I know he paints, but, Stephen Armstrong is actually a finalist.
Very thickly applied paints flows in the canvas.

Sometimes, very strange thing happens.
I happened to meet a girl in the gallery, whom I had met at Margaret Lawrence Gallery earlier in the day in South Bank. She was sitting next to me during an artist talk.
And she also turns out to be a finalist.
Cassandra Rijs is an amazing painter. She creates very realistic figurative paintings.
Her work in this prize is a very painful one. She said that she was going through a difficult time in her life at that time. Well, she captured it brilliantly.
It's a great pleasure to meet people like her, and have an opportunity to talk about her work.
Her website is here.

It was a great night.

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Drew Pettifer, Marco Fusinato, Kate Shaw,

I was lucky that when I walked in Margaret Lawrence Gallery in South Bank without knowing what's on, artist Drew Pettifer was about to present a talk on his new video work, 'Mapping the interior: In search of an inland sea'.

This is a very thought provoking work concerning with history of post-colonial Australia, people and landscape.
The video below is his profile.

'Mass Black Implosion' by Marco Fusinato at Anna Schwartz Gallery.
A series of fascinating drawing works that are inspired by avant-garde musicians.

'Fjallkonan' by Fiona Show at Fehily Contemporary.
Beautiful and serene landscape paintings fill this calm space with chill out soundtrack from her video work. Inspired by her stay in Iceland, this sold out exhibition shows her diverse talent.

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Louise Paramor, Andrew Potter, Euan Macleod

'Emporium' by renowned artist Louise Paramor at Glen Eira City Council Gallery.

Her distinctive 'found assemblage' sculptures and paintings oozes optimistic and happy environment.

This is her monumental 'Panorama Station 2012' in Peninsula Link Freeway.

'Beautiful Jarlings' by my friend Andrew Potter at Obscura Gallery. 

His new foray into surrealism paintings are all beautifully rendered. I'm always amazed by his expansive imagination.

'Colossus' by Euan Macleod at Niagara Galleries.
This New Zealand born artist creates very powerful paintings of figures in imaginary landscapes.

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Andrew Potter 'Beautiful Jarlings' exhibition

Andrew is a great friend of mine. He was a finalist of Sulman Prize in 2012.

I see him at Princess Hill life drawing class, or at Last Peek Studio in Thornbury.

Watching him create a great work of art with my naked eyes is always a great pleasure and learning opportunity for me.

This exhibition at Obscura Gallery is a big step forward for him. His painting style seems to have changed a big time since last exhibition.

I can't make it on the opening day, but, definitely check it out.

Opening: Thursday 17 October  6:30pm
Until Thursday 14 November

"Andrew C. Potter is a surrealist painter based in Melbourne.
A former US marine, Andrew offers an unusual unique perspective to his craft.
Drawing from his experiences in the military, Andrew adopts a literal interpretation to the term 'jarhead'.

Andrew's current series embodies the jar morphed with the human figure, which he has termed, Beautiful Jarlings.
Through his paintings, Andrew explores themes of sexuality, greed and masculinity."

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Darebin Art Show 2013

I'm taking part in this exhibition.
I'll be at the opening after work, so, come along and have a look if you're interested.
And, if you're generous enough, please vote for People's Choice Award!

Friday 6 December @ 6 pm.
Bundoora Homestead Art Centre
7-27 Snake Gully Drive, Bundoora


"My artistic practice focuses on expressing human psychological state in the form of photography, painting and haircutting.
In this work 'Melancholic Solitude', I tried to capture this man's existential vulnerability through a lens, which I hope resonates in viewer's mind as well."


Exhibition
6 December - 16 February
Wednesday - Friday 11 - 4pm
Saturday - Sunday 12 -5pm

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John is a winner at Kenneth Jack Memorial Award Watercolour Exhibition

John Orlando Birt is a well-known watercolourist, and my painting friend at Last Peek Studio in Thornbury.

John had to leave a class early yesterday to attend an award ceremony for winning this prestigious prize, and everybody went like, "Wow, that's amazing. Congratulations, John."

He's a very kind artist, always giving some advice or suggestions for my artwork.

I saw his winning water colour painting at Montsalvat in Eltham today.
It's a beautiful atmospheric scenery in Venice.
I like his style very much.

There're many great watercolour paintings on display in this wonderful gallery.

The paintings below are not from this exhibition, but, you get some idea about this remarkable artist.

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Fabrizio Biviano, Wayne Viney, Nick Slenitsch, Tony Lloyd, Abdul Abdullah

Two artists at James Makin Gallery.

'Stacks' by Fabrizio Biviano.
Bold and colourful oil paintins of books, CDs, flowers... stacked on top each other.





Wayne Viney.
Subliminal monotype prints of landscape.

'Relief' by Nick Slenitsch at Sutton Gallery.
Very clever geometric shapes. Beautiful abstract works, which can be described either as sculptures or paintings.

'Other Worlds' by Tony Lloyd at Dianne Tanzer Gallery.
Beautiful oil paintings that explore other dimensions of universe, our existence. 

'Homeland' by Abdul Abdullah at Fehily Contemporary.
Very powerful protestation against prejudice, bigotry that exist in our modern culture. In other words, its tendency to see the world just as black and white; simplistic binary judgement.
This one particularly is great. Do you get that message?

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Justin Khamara, Agneta Ekholm, Jan Nelson, Paul Blackmore, Kallena Kucers

Justin Khamara at Arc One Gallery.
Beautiful synthesis of photography and sculpture.






Agneta Ekholm at Flinders Lane Gallery.
These are my favourite paintings. Beautiful fluid colours caressing each other.
Very sinuous and sensitive lines floating in canvas wonderfully.
Still, there's a very strong sense of structure, I guess, underpinning the paintings.

Jan Nelson at Anna Schwartz Gallery.
Incredibly skilful sculptures using material called Forton. These works are inspired by Occupy Melbourne protest.

Paul Blackmore at Edmund Pearce Gallery.
This gallery in beautiful Nicholas Building specialises in photography.
'New Beirut' is an exploration of, and new look at this troubled city once called 'The Paris of Middle East'.
These strong images are the testament to what photography does at its best.

There's a very moving exhibition at RMIT Gallery.
These works are done by people suffering from mental illness, as part of their recovery through art therapy.
Most of the artists are anonymous, but works by Kallena Kucers (on the left) are really beautiful.

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