COUNT DOWN

Towards The Past and Future Gouache on paper 2013

 

 

Count Down has begun for my exhibition COSMIC ADDRESS! The doors are open from Tuesday 15 October... 3 weeks away. The exhibition will end on Sunday 27 October. 

 

I rather like the term 'Count Down' in reference to an exhibition called COSMIC ADDRESS.

 

Let me explain...as well as I can.

There are a few things that have lead me to wonder...and wonder.

 

One is this most fascinating article A Jewel At The heart Of Quantum Physics by Natalie Wolchova in Quanta Magazine . It is about the fact that Physicists have discovered a jewel-shaped geometric object that challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental constituents of nature.

 

The geometric object is an amplituhedron...yes an amplituhedron!

 

Here are a few quotes, but please read the whole article and the comments it has attracted.

 

.....the new geometric approach to particle interactions removes locality and unitarity from its starting assumptions. The amplituhedron is not built out of space-time and probabilities; these properties merely arise as consequences of the jewel’s geometry. The usual picture of space and time, and particles moving around in them, is a construct.

 

And: 

 

But the new amplituhedron research suggests space-time, and therefore dimensions, may be illusory anyway.

 

And:

 

Beyond making calculations easier or possibly leading the way to quantum gravity, the discovery of the amplituhedron could cause an even more profound shift, Arkani-Hamed said. That is, giving up space and time as fundamental constituents of nature and figuring out how the Big Bang and cosmological evolution of the universe arose out of pure geometry.

 

Ye gads! Holy mackerel! Hey what!

 

Where does all of that place a COSMIC ADDRESS?

 

 

Shadow's Secret Gouache on paper 2013

 

 

I did say there were a few things that have made me wonder...

 

SIMULATION

The next is  Prof Nick Bostrom's idea that we are living in a simulation, somehow determined by a post-human project/'life' of re-'living' humanity's history. But, there's more, the simulation includes the creation/re-creation of the Universe...even the multiverse. So, it's a pretty stupendous simulation! These poor post-humans essentially have no life of their own...they just recapture memory...certainly not a pathway to Utopia one would think?! Could be more Kafkaesque?

 

LIVING INSIDE A COMPUTER

So, we maybe living inside a computer? But, then again we may not? But if, indeed, we are living inside a computer it would have to be a really magnificent computer and probably not recognisable as a computer to us, otherwise we'd detect the subtext, the guile, the subterfuge...wouldn't we? But, as the Professor writes, if someone did detect something, the post-human simulators could eradicate the memory of detection, wipe the slate clean...and the simulation would continue.

 

But....maybe the Professor's postulation is a sign of the simulation itself...maybe an undetected leakage from the post-human future or maybe a deliberate play...a teasing loop?

 

And...maybe... the discovery of the amplituhedron, and it's indication that time and space are illusions, is evidence that the simulation postulation is indeed plausible?

 

So, if we are living in a computer simulation, it would be fair to say that we are, in French philosopher Jean Baudrillard's seductive terms, fatally mediated. Because, if we are living in a simulation based on 'memory', the world has already come to an end. Our fundamental destiny is not to exist and survive, as we think: it is to appear and disappear.**

 

 

Cosmic Ouroboros  Oil on linen 120 x 150 cm 2012

 

And,

 

When I was very young, laying awake at night or gazing out the school bus windows, I used to wonder if Life was orchestrated by someone or something that moved us and everything else around like pieces of a board game. I remember thinking that whoever/whatever was in control would have to think of a lot! But, I also thought it would be great fun...

 

But:

 

Back to COSMIC ADDRESS:

If time and space are illusions then a COUNT DOWN and an ADDRESS are actually illusions too! Why... because counting, in this way, is a 'measurement' of time and an address is normally a place in a geographic space. And a COSMIC ADDRESS is situated in time and space...seemingly so anyway.

 

The three paintings above will be in COSMIC ADDRESS.

 

 

** Baudrillard, J. Fatal Strategies, Semiotext[e], Columbia University, NY, 1990 P. 175

 

 

_____________________________________________________________________

 

 

COSMIC ADDRESS:

Earth Maybe Our Home But The Universe Is Our Environment

Solo Exhibition

 

BRISBANE

15-27 October

 

Graydon Gallery

29 Merthyr Rd, New Farm, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, Earth, The Universe

 

Please check out  my

 

COSMIC ADDRESS PAGE

 

for all the details!

 

______________________________________________________________________
 

 

 If you have not already done so, please read my last post Putting On A Show

 

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PUTTING ON A SHOW

 Here Comes The Bride Installation DETAIL
Exhibition at Soapbox Gallery, Brisbane 2003 

PUTTING ON A SHOW
Well, there are many ways putting on a show could be interpreted...having a tantrum, making a spectacle of oneself, producing a play or musical, performing at a concert, being a stand up comic, making a faux pas and so on.

But... I am thinking about an exhibition of paintings as putting on a show. And, as regular readers know, I am about to do this in October [2013] here in Brisbane.

It's COUNT DOWN to COSMIC ADDRESS!

Cosmic Address Oil on linen 90 x 180 cm 2013

COSMIC ADDRESS will be my 23rd [or thereabouts] solo exhibition since 1989. However, I held my first solo exhibition at the end of my senior year at school in 1977, so I've actually lost count of the exhibitions I've had. I sold my first painting at the grand old age of 14! It was at the local Dalby Art Group annual exhibition...yes, a grown up show too. The solo show in 1977 was in Toowoomba after I won a prize and met Queen Elizabeth II. You can read about it HERE

Me meeting Queen Elisabeth 11 at Government House, Brisbane early 1977

READ MORE

A SECRET
But, I'll let you into a secret, Putting on a show ie: having an exhibition of paintings... actually entails performance, production, making a spectacle of oneself and even...sometimes...potentially having a tantrum! Oh and don't forget making the odd faux pas and sometimes needing to be a stand up comic...or feeling like one!

You see...it is really hard work to put on a show of paintings. Especially if an artist represents him/herself, like I do. I hasten to add that if the right dealer came along I'd be very happy for him/her to take over the providoring, production, marketing, sales and more that goes into mounting an exhibition. I am sure we would be a great and awesome team! I know successful art dealers work very, very hard.

Video of my Paradise exhibition at Purgatory Artspace in Melbourne 2011

 

So what does putting on a show of paintings entail?

• Well, I have to paint the paintings. This takes about 12 - 24 months to have around the 15 - 22 new oil on linen and work on paper paintings I am happy to exhibit.
• But, before the painting starts I need to order my stretched linens....I don't order them all at once...that's too costly. Fortunately paintings do sell, often out-of-the-blue! And, then I order some new stretchers...nup no overseas trips with the proceeds!...I get a trip out of smelling, feeling and looking at new blank canvases. What did I say about being a comic?
• The exhibition is normally booked at least 12 months prior to the actual show. In my case, for the last 3 exhibitions in Brisbane, I have exhibited at a rental gallery:
  
  Graydon Gallery,
  29 Merthyr Rd,
  New Farm,
  Brisbane,
  Queensland,
  Australia,
  The Universe [if not the Multiverse].
  
  I've noted the gallery's lengthy cosmic address for you...because my next show is called COSMIC ADDRESS. If an artist is represented by a dealer the same timeframe is normally also applicable.
• Then there's the business insurance, marketing, PR, preparation of and sending press releases, designing invitations and getting hard copies printed, putting them into envelopes and addressing them....keeping the mailing list up to date...also emailing invitations...working out how to send follow-up polite reminders [I am going to use Mailchimp for COSMIC ADDRESS]. The initial email invitation will be sent, individually to the majority of people on my database, with a personalised message. This takes time and I am pleased to say that after three full days of work last week all the email invitations are in my draft folder ready to be sent about 3 weeks before COSMIC ADDRESS
• AND, the social media to augment all of the above. I use a lot!
   

NOW TO THE ACTUAL
PUTTING ON A SHOW

 

Me outside my Distance exhibition in London 2002

Yes, I've put on a shows overseas too. London, Dubai and Abu Dhabi

 

• Labelling, pricing the paintings, wrapping them and stacking them into my trusty 22 yr old Volvo station wagon...yes I provide my own freight service.
• This next part is FUN, FUN, FUN....working out where the paintings will hang. But, not quite so much fun...actually hanging them. Up and down a ladder, sometimes for hours. Then labelling the paintings with already prepared labels. And, compiling a numbered and priced catalogue list to have duplicates for the duration for the exhibition. The show needs to be documented with photographs and videos too. This can be done using a professional photographer, but if cost is an issue....then it's the artist. I normally do my own.
• During my exhibitions I usually have a couple of events apart from the Opening Night eg: artist's talk with morning tea. Yes, that's right, add event organiser to the list of skills! This entails providing alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, ice, glasses, table cloths for trestle tables, sometimes food, wait staff...and most importantly, especially on Opening Night when I often have 60 - 100 people, I need key people armed with red dots to indicate SOLD paintings. Also, on Opening Night I have a friend who notes buyers' details, issues invoices/receipts and pick-up instructions. During the exhibition the latter is my job because I sit with the show each day. My children are roped in for various jobs too.
  
  And, after the events there's the cleaning and dismantling trestle tables etc...etc The children are not so keen on this part!
• At the end of the exhibition paintings that have been bought need to be bubble wrapped ready for their buyers to collect or I deliver...yes I offer a delivery service too [only local though]! Unsold paintings also need to be wrapped and stacked into my trusty old Volvo. The gallery must be cleaned and left pristine for the next artist to occupy.
• Once home, there's the unpacking of the car, storage of paintings, following up buyers or people who expressed an interest.
  
  EMOTIONS
• And...exhaustion settles in! It's not only physical, but also emotional and mental. For an artist, an exhibition is a rare opportunity for people to see their work in the flesh. We are, in fact, putting on a spectacle for public review and consumption, a unique and special event, where we reveal a lot about ourselves, our thoughts and beliefs. Whilst fulfilling, it can also be a raw experience where issues of  artistic integrity and revelation are placed beside very real worries about financial and critical success.    
  
  We don't have a permanent shop front and the virtual 'shop front' of a website is not the same as a gallery exhibition. We want people to see our work....if they buy, well and good...but we want people to enjoy, discuss and talk about our work too. You just never know who you may inspire to come and have a look...and then they buy because a painting has made their heart sing...and that's the best reason to buy!
  PSST TANTRUMS
• Have I had a tantrum when putting on a show? Well, whilst there have been a few hurdles over the years, I've not succumbed to tantrums. The show must go on and tantrums don't get the work done! I will admit to sleepless nights though!

Braid Oil on board 2007

[Self portrait]

 

 

__________________________________________________

 

 

COSMIC ADDRESS

Is my next solo exhibition

in Brisbane

15-27 October

Please check out  my

COSMIC ADDRESS PAGE

for all the details!

I have added some more images in the last week.

_______________________________________________

TATTERSALL'S LANDSCAPE ART AWARD 2013

The finalists can be seen by clicking HERE

 

Congratulations to Jun Chen for his winning work Brisbane River

 

and Highly Commended to the collaborative work by

Imants Tillers and Michael Nelson Jaggamara

 

and commended to both

Mostyn Bramley-Moore and Rachel Ellis

 

The exhibition of finalists will be on public view at

Waterfront Place, 1 Eagle St, Brisbane

9 - 20 September

Open weekdays 7 am - 6 pm

Enquiry and Sales Desk open 11 am - 3 pm

 

_____________________________________________________

ADDED MAY 2014
My next solo exhibition is 2 - 14 September 2014
At Graydon Gallery again
Have not give it a title yet!
BUT
Countdown has begun! 

 

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

ART, PERSPECTIVE AND POLITICS

 All Of Us Gouache on paper 15 x 21 cm [image] 27 x 33 cm [framed]

 

 

As of last night Australia has a new government, with the Liberal National Party/ Coalition winning decisively. Political landscapes constantly change yet where does my favourite topic, perspective, fit into the picture? After all if we use the term 'political landscape' perspective must be lurking there somewhere! Surely....

 

I shall tell you a story:

 

COSMIC PERSPECTIVE AND POLITICS

As regular readers will know the painting below Super Earths Discovered is a finalist in the $25,000 Tattersall's Landscape Art Award here in Brisbane [details below]. The award was announced 3 nights ago at a fun opening night function...I did not win...but I did talk to lots of really intrigued and interested people about my painting, and that's part of my story. 

 

Everyone I spoke with 'got' that cosmic perspectives [spatial and temporal] force a clear realisation that we all share the planet...there's nowhere else for us to go, we are here together for the foreseeable and probably unforeseeable future! Thus, with a cosmic perspective, manmade regional, state, national borders, boundaries and politics disappear becoming essentially meaningless.

 

Yet, in this disappearance, I'd suggest, new ways of seeing not only Earth, but also ourselves, are offered. Now that's where new political agency lies. Are we brave enough to look for it, and then embrace it?

 

For a more creative story about getting to the point of perspective please read my short story Stirring The Star Dust: A short story about digging.

 

Politics and perspective...a complex and fascinating topic! Too much to write on a BLOG post, but one more perspective! below...based on my own experiences exhibiting overseas.

 

 

Super Earths Discovered Oil on linen 80 x 140 cm 2013

 

Galactic Horizons and Beyond Oil on linen 85 x 150 cm 2012

 

 

ART'S CATALYTIC AGENCY AND POLITICS

In December 2005 I was invited to hold a solo exhibition at the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation in the United Arab Emirates. The conversations I shared with people, who came to see my exhibition from all over the region, were humbling, wonderful and shifted my perspectives on many issues. These conversations were triggered by my paintings, but whilst they were initially about the paintings they soon became something more...so much more. Men, women and children opened up to me, and I to them, to the point where differences disappeared and similarities were revealed.

 

I have called these conversations agenda-less, but certainly not directionless. It struck me that the agenda-less quality was very important. Why? Without agenda there is no prescription. Without agenda detours can be explored, new pathways revealed. Without agenda new perspectives can be experienced. Agenda-less-ness can lead to discovery, revelation and inspiration...all potentially highly politically charged! And, challenging for the status quo.

 

The catalytic agency of the arts to trigger agenda-less, but not directionless, conversation should not be ignored. But, unfortunately it is. Taking notice of this agency has powerful and meaningful political potential.

 

In 2011 I wrote a BLOG post called DIPLOMACY which describes some of my thoughts with regards to the catalytic agency of the arts. I have based the post on my own experiences exhibiting in foreign countries.  

 

The painting Histories below is one of those that triggered marvellous conversation.

 

 Histories Oil on linen 80 x 200 cm 2005

Previous post:

EMERGENT PATTERNS IN CONVERSATION

 

 ______________________________________________________________________

 

 

 

TATTERSALL'S LANDSCAPE ART AWARD

The finalists can be seen by clicking HERE

 

Congratulations to Jun Chen for his winning work Brisbane River

 

and Highly Commended to the collaborative work by

Imants Tillers and Michael Nelson Jaggamara

 

and commended to both

Mostyn Bramley-Moore and Rachel Ellis

 

The exhibition of finalists will be on public view at

Waterfront Place, 1 Eagle St, Brisbane

9 - 20 September

Open weekdays 7 am - 6 pm

Enquiry and Sales Desk open 11 am - 3 pm

 

 

______________________________________________________________________

 

 

COUNT DOWN

 

FOR

 

COSMIC ADDRESS

 

solo exhibition

 

15 - 27 October

 

Graydon Gallery, New Farm, Brisbane

 

All the details are on my COSMIC ADDRESS PAGE

 

 

 

Until next time,

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

 

PAST AND FUTURE LANDSCAPE

Past and Future Landscape Oil on linen 60 x 110 cm

 

I deliberated for ages trying to think of a title for the new painting above. I finally decided upon Past and Future Landscape. When I was painting it I was thinking about so many aspects of landscape, Earthly and not, and coming up with a title that encapsulated it all was very difficult. But, from previous experience... the simpler the title, the more open ended, less descriptive and didactic it can be. This means the viewer can more easily trip down their own imagination's pathways! So much more satisfying for all.

 

MOUNTAIN RANGES - BUNYA MTS AND CUNNINGHAM'S GAP

The mountain ranges remind me of the Bunya Mts and Cunningham's Gap, both sections of the Great Dividing Range which snakes down the eastern side of Australia. I grew up on my parents grain farm with the Bunya Mts cutting a majestic silhouette against an eastern horizon, whereas the west offered a flat relentless horizon which often disappeared into watery mirages. The contrast between the two horizons intrigued me. [See the flat western horizon in the photo Pirrinuan Siding below. Photography Wilfred Brimblecombe]

 

Cunningham's Gap is a magnificent section of the Great Dividing Range south of the Bunya Mts. I used to drive through the Gap on my way from Brisbane to Goondiwindi, where I lived for 18 years. Each time I approached it from the east my breath was taken away. Glorious shadows cast by the peaks created patterns and shapes that seemed to dance with the sunlight. I stopped many times to sketch these shadows. You can see them in Past and Future Landscape .

 

Yet, the mountains in my painting are not attached to other identifiable landscape elements. They float in an indeterminable space. In fact, there are two mountain ranges, as if mirroring each other. They meet at a point where a tree...my much loved age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life...reveals its canopy of branches and its anchoring roots. A central source of light is identifiable if you look at the shadows cast on the mountains.

 

UNTETHERING LANDSCAPE

I've previously written about my ideas of untethering ideas of 'landscape' from being Earth-bound, to release more cosmic perspectives. I suggest that this is important in an age where cosmological research is revealing more and more about the close and far distances of the Universe...indeed maybe the Multiverse. By untethering 'landscape' we afford ourselves an opportunity to experience multiple perspectives, even simultaneously! How might we view ourselves and our home, planet Earth, then?

 

The tree-of-life in Past and Future Landscape represents all life, past and future. The roots suggest the past and the canopy of branches represents new life, future life. And, life with accompanying consciousness means that 'landscape' is observed. But, now we have an opportunity to take conscious observation beyond Earthly horizons, at the same time as firmly placing Earth within a Universal environment...address even. In doing so we release ourselves to an expanded consciousness that may hold treats we, as yet, can only imagine. But, imagining may be the first step!

 

Without consciousness, after all, there would be no visible universe. Something would exist, but nothing can be said about it. Prof. Joel Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams, The new Universe and The Human Future: How a shared cosmology could transform the world. Yale University press, new Haven and London, P.76

 

Our relationship with and to landscape somehow mediates and forms our identity and our conscious awareness of ourselves. If we are to become more cosmically aware citizens of the Universe/Multiverse we probably need to see landscape as something more than those within the boundaries of Earth's horizons. This is not to say that we abandon Earth based landscapes. They just become an integral part of a cosmic matrix. By untethering 'landscape' from being Earth-bound, we actually untether ourselves and our awareness. Who knows what we'll discover?

 

 

Pirrinuan Siding Photograph by Wilfred Brimblecombe 1978

Check out more of Wilfred's photographs HERE

______________________________________________________________

 

TATTERSALL'S LANDSCAPE ART AWARD

My painting

Super Earths Discovered

is a finalist!

 

You can view all the finalists by clicking HERE

and you can read about Super Earths Discovered HERE

 

___________________________________________________________________

 

 

COSMIC ADDRESS

 

Is my next solo exhibition

in Brisbane

15-27 October

Please check out  my

 

COSMIC ADDRESS PAGE

 

for all the details!

 

__________________________________________________________

 

 

Here's a link to one previous post where I write about untethered landscape.

UNTETHERED LANDSCAPE

 

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com