How to find the work

Three Canons

Be still with yourself
Until the object of your attention
Affirms your presence

Let the Subject generate its own Composition

When the image mirrors the man
And the man mirrors the subject
Something might take over

Minor White 1968

Thanks to Art Blart  - Look up this blog if your interested in exhibition reviews

3D printing

I got very very excited recently when I stumbled across Makerbot's Thing-o-matic which is, wait for it...... a 3D printer. Strangely no-one that I have shared this news with has been as thrilled by this new technology as me. One friend said "So, what? You pay $1000 for something that can make plastic ornaments. I don't get it, why would you want one?" Becauuuuuse you can print them yourself, because its not about making ornaments - it has a thousand creative possibilities, because this is the most radical piece of creative technology I've seen, because it's so brilliantly genius that a person could invent a machine that can take a jumble of 0's and 1's and make a real physical object. Imagine the thought process to get there - I stand in awe.


Another friend who I was certain would show at least more than a mild interest, had already heard about the technology and then he told me something which completely blew my mind out the top of my head and onto the ceiling - medical researchers are using 3D printing technology to create organs made from your own cells. 





I gave you a long pause there, so you could take a moment to fully absorb this information. Imagine the future possibilities, you could create a new liver on your computer, pop it on a memory stick, wonder across the street to Officeworks and say "I'd like to print this file, my other liver got used up. Also is it cheaper if I get more than one, cause I seem to go through livers quite quickly. Great I'll be back in half an hour."And then you could go off to the pub. 

Flowers on a flowers grave

These lyrics are on constant repeat in my head tapes - For weeks I have heard the distant gravely voice singing "and tell me who will put flowers on a flower's grave". It's being played on a piano far away in an abandoned ballroom down the end of the long corridor of my mind. 

Flowers Grave (Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan)



Failure and beginnings

The good thing about this project is that the material is free and there is an abundance of it conveniently located in the lane way beside my studio. But every time I go down to collect more boxes, I imagine my decorative tent/space located next to these dumpsters instead of out in the landscapes for which I am producing the work. It's something to do with a gentleness of simply moving materials around and the transformation of that which is abandoned into something beautiful, it's the contrast and the potential for unexpected discover that makes that space feel right. At the start of a project there are infinite possibilities and this week in particular my mind is like a saucepan full of popcorn ideas bursting and bouncing all over the studio. There is so much popcorn the lids coming off and its a big mess, but this is the nature of beginnings.


Most of the cardboard we have collected is cut down into sheets and patchworked together with tape, to make sections of walls to work with. But an occasional pieces are deemed 'special' and these get put aside for potential poetic functions later.



One of the first things i was curious about was 'how can it stand up?' With no engineering skills to draw on I figured the simple pole structure used in old style tents was a good place to begin, so I set about experimenting with methods to hold walls up. The results were predictably mediocre and clearly a better support structure was needed throughout.


I am planning on using extensive decoration inside, so then played with the possibility that the decoration could form part of the structure. Im thinking something along the lines of Islamic pattern work, with the interwoven latice work of the design being cut out and stuck on to the wall to form a second layer inside.


One of the first attempts ended up looking like this..


I can't decide if this has the potential to be interesting if it covers the whole of the interior or just plan fussymessycrappy looking. Some of the other unresolved efforts have been to use curvilinear patterns instead, or cardboard marquetry, or just the pin pricks, or nothing, or make an earth carpet inside, or a carpet pattern cut out of the ceiling that lets the light cast a carpet pattern on the earth, etc etc. All of this then lead me back to thinking about the structure again. The main thing I want it to avoid is looking like a cubby house.

Although I do like how this cubby house has amazing weeds growing around it - it feels like its been there for years. I started making a model of a tent and it occurred to me that one way I could have the tent feel small outside and large inside would be to create it on a slope. The front would be small and the structure would fan out wider and taller towards the back. Now that I had a space to think around it made a few things clearer, most importantly if i wanted to use light entering through pinpricks or cut out patterns to create patterns inside the space, I couldn't have a gapping open entrance. So i made a mock paper curtain.


It looked much better when I photographed it from the inside. I could see this being interesting.


But at the end of a week of messiness there are a few major things to think about. Is a cardboard tent just a cardboard tent? If the weather is humid will it be suffocating to be inside the space. If its windy can I make it strong enough. Should work at an Environmental Art Biennale deal more directly with the landscape/elements/environment. How can I make something which is more gently integrated into its site. I keep thinking about making a space to view the changing light, but get stuck at James Turrell's skyscapes (more on him later). I want to use elements of light earth and maybe air, how can i do this? Is the decoration getting in the way? 

The state of my studio really reflects the state of my mind and the unstate of the work.


But as Samuel Beckett said "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better"

I blame Harry Potter

I'm developing some new work at the moment for 2 outdoor exhibitions. The plan is to create a series of (or maybe just one) cardboard tent/s. From the outside, the work would appear to be an unassuming temporary cardboard structure, the inside however will be filled with decoration, such as marquetry walls, dust carpets, a vaulted ceiling and pin prick patterns in the roof, . As I started making the work today, I realised there was quite a big flaw in my idea, one which defies physics and requires magic to pull it off. See when I imagine looking at the outside of the tent, I see a tiny old triangular tent hugging the ground, pulled taught with guy ropes. Its just big enough for one person to crawl inside and lie down. There is long wild grass partially camouflaging it and it's way off in the distance, small in comparison to the large expanse of sky and field. But, and here is where physics got left out of the plan, when I go inside I have been imaging it to be huge - bigger enough for 4-5 people to stand up in and walk around without bumping into each other. It was only today when I started my first attempt at building the structure that I realised I had been working with the magical scale of imagination.

So I have to put aside working out the actual scale of the piece, and let it simmer in my mind, while I tackle some other details, such as how do you make a tent out of cardboard boxes, how will it stand up, how will I make it weather proof...

New Romantics.

I am please to announce that you can now order online a copy of:

New Romantics: Darkness and Light in Australian Art
by Simon Gregg

Order here at the Australian Scholarly Publishing website




Something is happening in Australian art today. We are witnessing the resurgence of ideas that took root centuries ago – a return to passion in art, and a return to atmosphere and awe.Historians called it Romanticism; a disposition for melancholic yearning, for communion with nature, for the sublime. Australian artists, in countless numbers, are engaging with these themes again today. 

Set against the dazzling backdrop of the Australian sublime, New Romantics charts the dynasties of Romantic art. From its nascent beginnings in European philosophy to a cause championed by Australian colonialists, this compelling survey seeks to understand how it has landed in the hands of a new generation of Australian artists. 
Through the work of 36 contemporary Australian artists who have reinvigorated this movement, New Romantics traces the influences that led them to this unlikely path. This is the first book that seeks to understand a paradigm shift that is shaping the future course of Australian art. 

Lavishly illustrated, New Romantics is a book for lovers of art, atmosphere, and awe. A compendium for the twenty-first century, New Romantics is a defining work on the return to beauty in Australian art. 
Artists include: Rob Bartolo, Hannah Bertram, Magdalena Bors, William Breen, Sheridan Brown, Jane Burton, Jason Cordero, Peter Daverington, Iris Fischer, Dale Frank, Briele Hansen, Louise Hearman, Bill Henson, Petrina Hicks, Annie Hogan, Mark Kimber, Chris Langlois, Richard Lipp, Joanna Logue, Tony Lloyd, Susan Milne, John Morris, Saffron Newey, Sarah Nguyen, Izabela Pluta, Robbie Rowlands, Kathryn Ryan, Natalie Ryan, Sam Shmith, Sophia Szilagyi, Camilla Tadich, Juha Tolonen, Stephen Wickham, Philip Wolfhagen, Greg Wood, and Joel Zika. 

SIMON GREGG has held professional posts at Heide Museum of Modern Art and City Museum at Old Treasury. Simon Gregg has curated over fifty exhibitions at a variety of venues, and has published widely on Australian art. He is currently curator of the Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale. New Romantics is his first full-length book.