Art Seen August 2018 - Abstraction and More..

Art seen on the art scene, and the fashion too. Sometimes I think some people feel Street Fashion Sydney is not very serious about art but I can assure you I'm very serious about art indeed. And I hope you love what you see here and are inspired to visit the galleries and see the shows, and even buy some art! There has been some great work on show this month, this is of course the tip of the iceberg and I didn't take my camera out of its bag as often as I probably should have. So here we go, let's kick off with Claudia Chan Shaw at Art Atrium - it's photography, very beautiful and nostalgic still life's of collectables that are very much a part of Claudia life. Obscuriosity 8 - 25 August 2018

Claudia Chan Shaw at Art Atrium

Art Student style at Piermarq - painting by Gene A'Hern

At the .M Contemporary 5 Years Anniversary Party

I read somewhere on the internet that it's Abstract Month in Sydney! Is it really, I don't know but there seems to be plenty of Reductionist/Non Objective/Abstract work on show right now.  There is also a Five Years Anniversary show on at .M Contemporary in Woollahra - a terrific show by Paul Snell at Gallery 9 and COMA have done the right thing by having a group show of local Reductionist artists  too! Fabulous abstractions, yes abstractions and with a 80s throwback feel at Piermarq by Gene A'Hern - that's two cool art student guys standing in front of one of them! I also want to give a nod to my friend Geoffrey Goodes who had an excellent mini retrospective of his work in a show titled My Wastrel Life at M2 Gallery; well I think many of us in the arts (and not just us!!!) sometimes wonder what we have done with our lives.. but it looked to me like Geoffrey has been anything but wasting his time. You can check out his Instagram here.

Paul Snell - VANISHING POINT - Gallery 9

Angus Gardner - CLIMBING TREES - Gallery 9

Consuelo Cavaniglia - Rate of Change - COMA GALLERY

Geoffrey Goodes My Wastrel Life at M2 Gallery

Last but not least - thank you to Charles and Christa Billich for having my partner and I along to their Welcome Home party at Billich Gallery - no one does an art party quite like the Billich's. I also heard a rumour while there that there will be a show of new works from their time away in Europe so keep your eyes open for that one. FOMO - Follow on Facebook!
http://artatrium.com.au/
www.piermarq.com.au/
www.gallery9.com.au/
https://mcontemp.com/
http://comagallery.com/
www.billich.com/

Telling Stories in Pictures all over..

Kent Johnson, Sydney, Australia.

0433 796 863

kent@artcommunication.com.au

www.kentjohnsonphotography.com.au

www.fashionphotographysydney.blogspot.com/

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Kurt Sorensen 'into the unknown' - Plump Gallery 'Matters of the Heart'

It's been an interesting week for art & fashion already; & with the Bill Henson show tonight.. well it is no where near over yet, and its only Thursday. But so far it's two/three photography exhibitions and it would probably be fair to say that all three are at the beginning of their art careers. That said; Kurt is a fair way down the track and already at or beyond the pivotal launch point of what I think is going to be a solid career in art photography with a focus on the landscape and history. This is Kurt's unique approach to photography and its the sort of simple yet sophisticated idea that has you saying to yourself. "I wish I had thought of that!' I first saw his work at MCAP 2011 and again, 'historically' based portraits with landscape triptych at MCAP 2012. This show 'into the unknown' was produced in part from an Artists Residency at Hill End, a residiency that seems to be helping artists to produce some really splendid work. Of course Kurt also has some stylin' friends who were kind enough to let me photograph them for Street Fashion Sydney, including Kurt himself, in the artist portrait below.

Collaboration -  'Matters of the Heart' - Plump Gallery..

'Matters of the Heart' by El Cesana along with the photography and installation work of Aaron Stathi was a very different art show with both artists, Aaron in particular at the very beginning of their public art journey.
I do think they had the bad luck of the weather being particularly miserable on Tuesday night but the smaller turnout (at least while I was there) gave me plenty of room to view the art and meet and photograph the artists. I am not sure the general public realise what a big call it is to put your work up on a wall in a public space, gallery, cafe, wherever; and then have people come down and take a look. But it does take courage and commitment, much much more than simply posting your work on the internet! We need more of it.

www.kurtsorensen.com/

www.dickersongallery.com.au/

Kurt Sorensen 'into the unknown'
19 Sep 2012 - 14 Oct 2012


Matters of the Heart - Plump Gallery
Tuesday the 18th September until Tuesday the 25th of September

Artist and fashion pics shot with the Fujifilm X-Pro1.

tenmoregirls - glory box - the art of the wearable object.

It's a curious thing this business of wearable art - objects of art that function - the decorative blending with the practical (or maybe not so practical) and the world of high art. And if it was not for having a few friends who were well versed in the three dimensional arts at the very beginning of my art career I think my uneasiness; my fear (!) of understanding the three dimensional art object would probably still be quite strong. I had again, the similar good fortune at a later point in time - a time when two dimensional quality; or is that the one dimensional quality of 'surface' ruled my own world absolutely, to have met someone who believed very much in the world and the art of craft; to again enable me to see beauty in creativity that I had sometimes previously been unable to acknowledge..

This is a beautiful show of art, craft and design with widely varied interpretations on the 'glory box' theme. Although I loved Radka Passianova's '...a dream of fear....,' Daggers in Silver Steel and Ebony; finding those at the bottom of  a glory box is both a beautiful and frighting proposition! there are all manner of imagined glory box pieces and many of them are certainly luxurious and affordable art.

The pictures start with five of the artists portraits, some of the work and then some equally styling attendees. 'glory box' August 27 - September 8th; Salerno Gallery, 70 Glebe Point Road, Glebe. Web links at the bottom of the page.

And I have my own piece of  'wearable' Luxury now too thanks to Fujifilm Australia who are very kindly sponsoring Street Fashion Sydney with thier fabulous X-Pro 1 camera and lenses. The 'glory box' opening is my first SFS post using the new camera which a lot of people seemed to notice is quite artfully stylish itself! Thank you Fujifilm Australia.

http://tenmoregirls.com/
http://www.salernogallery.com/
http://www.fujifilm.com.au/

SNO 85 - Factory 49 - Abstract Art Baby!

The 85 after SNO stands for the number of shows; SNO being good minimalists don't have names they have numbers for the shows instead. I quite like that as it makes it easy to keep track of how long it is is since the last show I attended, photographed at, and how many I have missed! Not many lately. And although Factory 49 also shows work in a similar style and some of the same artists; the 49 is the street number of the gallery space and always stays the same - though this could become confusing if they decide to move and keep the same name - mind you King Street Gallery seem to have been able to work around that little problem quite well for more than a few years..

First up is the SNO show; I had been wanting to make a portrait of Suzie Idiens for a while now and this time I managed to get one of Suzie in front of her artwork 'Blue Slot 2012', (MDF, polyurethane, 60 x 54 x 6.5).  I was thinking that having made Suzie's portrait I had photographed the only exhibiting artist in attendance at SNO 85; not so. I had been talking with sound artist Gary Bradbury; who incidentally had performed live at my own show at SNO two years earlier - I knew he had the sound piece running in the front gallery space but it just didn't click, no pun intended that I should photograph him too. So this is what happens when you get a little too fixed in your ways; you think visual-art artist-portrait a little too often and you forget that the sound artist who is making art you cannot see is standing right there talking to you and can also be documented at the shows opening. My apologies to you Gary, this will not happen again; and by way of trying to make up for my omission I did make an 'autograph portrait' of the freehand ballpoint pen description of 'Mouth Tracks' which I very much suspect was jotted onto the wall by Gary himself;  pictured below, I quite like it.

Dutch artist  Henriëtte van 't Hoog 's coloured , light-reflecting back-to-the-wall 'Cubes' were/are absolutely fascinating and had me thinking of some great ideas for my fashion photography. Well yes I do draw some of my inspiration from looking at art, of course! And then there was a mild pang of jealousy but far more admiration for Karen Schifano's - 'I'll take you there', I do love a good road line. I wish I had thought of adding my own to the ones that are already there. What a great way to draw, the possibilities truly are endless.

SNO 85

Factory 49 Annual Group Show 2012

And so onto the Fab group show at Factory 49 which included the installation piece 'barely breathing, 2012' by Caroline Phillips whom I also managed to photograph for my collection of Artists at their openings. Thank you Caroline; love your installation piece and I love the pink and mauve. As group shows go, there are far too many artists to single any out - you just must go and see for yourself. Both galleries being quite close to one another in Marrickville should make it an easy trip to see both SNO and Factory 49 in the one afternoon..

Thanks to everyone at SNO & Factory 49 for another two beautiful art shows.
http://www.sno.org.au/
SNO on Facebook

http://factory49.blogspot.com.au/
Factory 49 on Facebook