Jason Middlebrook - the Nature of Geometry

I like the way
the natural lines of a tree synergise with hand made geometry

 in this work by American artist Jason Middlebrook

in the gallery NYC

acrylic on various tree 'planks'


images courtesy Jason Middlebrook

Happy Birthday Scott Redford!

There is not an artist in the world who knows more about Australia's

 Gold Coast than my friend of many years Scott Redford.  

Born in Broadbeach in 1962, Redford has since 1983, continued a prolific art practice which whilst coming from an art historical standpoint

 has encapsulated everything from local and international

 pop culture imagery, minimalism, queer art, conceptualism,

 documentation of local mid-century architecture, 

surf culture, and a vigorous fascination with

 memory, desire, nostalgia and place.

Catalogue cover Scott Redford Selected Works 1983-1992

The place being Australia's coastal tourism capital the Gold Coast. 

 Our version of Miami Florida, Santa Monica or Venice California,

 Palm Springs, Las Vegas or indeed Florida's own Gold Coast,

 or a mash up of all of the above. 

The Gold Coast being in Redford's words, 

'the most post modern and fastest growing city in Australia', 

has continued to be the backdrop to which

Redford has based almost 30 years of art practice.

Paradise Waters early 1970's

Mid-century beach bungalow, Broadbeach

Typically perceived as the cultural backwater with its co-existence of kitschy glitzy night life, tourist playground, beach culture, and property development, Redford has hailed the city

 'A work of art in itself!'

Surf Painting/Modernist House 2000 
decal, polyester resin, fibreglass and acrylic lacquer on foam

Surf Painting /House corner of Surf Parade and First Avenue, Broadbeach, Gold Coast 2001 (detail)
decal, resin fibreglass and acrylic on foam

Surf Painting/Black Palms 2000
 decal, resin fibreglass & synthetic polymer on foam

 He optimistically embraces his hometown and in typical Warholian fashion continues to be interested in the idea that pop culture is just as important as what is deemed to be 'high art' and that the lines are now permanently blurred!

Redford forever interested in the concept of 'otherness' 

has continued to ask the question:

  'Does locality fail?'

Why is anything which comes from outside the cultural epicentres of the world whether that be New York or Melbourne, regarded as less important?

And in fact similar comparisons can be made regarding the status of 

New York versus Los Angeles artists. Indeed California is currently celebrating its own history of
mass culture in many exhibitions such as the current
'California Art and Design - Living in a Modern Way' at LACMA .

Glazed Ceramic Skull for use in the proposed film Reinhardt Dammn 2008

During the 1980's, 1990's and 2000's  Redford has produced an impressive array of art comprising painting, sculpture, installation, video, photography, and the ever popular surfboard paintings. 

Here We Are Now/Entertain Us 1999 custom made surfboard cross

He is one of the few Australian artists who has embraced the process of collaboration with countless craftsmen and technicians, to produce his art.  Something, 'internationally' so commonplace a'la Warhol and Koons.

Sculpture to Lean Against and Discuss Pictures  2004

Now the work which is emerging in the younger generation of artists

 both nationally and internationally, 

is so reminiscent of much of Redford's back catalogue. 

Floor piece detail 1962 2003

Detail from floor piece from exhibition 1962 2003

After Robert Rauschenberg enamel over paper on canvas 1991

 And in fact his construction of a fictional young artist Reinhardt Dammn, the cute surfie who makes art, serves to illustrate the point in Redford's more recent work showcased at the

 Queensland Art Gallery

 'Scott Redford introducing Reinhardt Dammn' in 2011.

Reinhardt Dammn Introducing Scott Redford QAG 2011

QAG gallery view Scott Redford introducing Reinhardt Dammn 2011

Polar bear in the Water Mall QAG 2011

Proposal for a Gold Coast public Sculpture to commemorate Nirvana
coming to the Gold Coast/Surf & Kurt 2008

The High/Perpetual Christmas No Abstractions 2008 outside GOMA Brisbane

A Proposal for a Gold Coast Sculpture/ A Place In the Sun 2005

Now, with the cultural entrenchment of what used to be called

 'the information super highway' and all that goes with the world of

 social network and instant gratification, where everyone can be famous for way more than 15 minutes, I think that
locality does not and should not fail.

Automatic For The People/Surf 1997 epoxy coated custom wood

Scott Redford gets a birthday wish from me. 

 To my friend of almost 40 years and to someone who always inspires me.....

 Happy birthday!

The Gold Coast now belongs to the global village. 

Surfers Paradise has just 'entered the building!'


'Our goal must be nothing less than the establishment
 of Surfers Paradise on earth!'

Scott Redford is currently working in Berlin.

Words J Watson-Evans

Images via

 '1962 Scott Redford Selected Works 1983-1992; Scott Redford and the Gold Coast 'The Content of these paintings is secret, known only to the people of Surfers Paradise Gold Coast City Art Gallery; Scott Redford Introducing Reinhardt Dammn QAG/GOMA 2011; J Watson-Evans; Brisbane Times.com.au

Reyle Rocks Dior

ANSELM FOR DIOR

It had to happen. Berliner art star Anselm Reyle has joined forces with fashion house Dior in the creation of the Reyle Collection.

I was laying in bed thinking about what I wanted to blog after being away for some weeks, and I immediately thought about the colourful works of artist Anselm Reyle.  
Apart from having a fascination with the decorative pop style of his works and having the desire to do my own version of them...
(It couldn't be that hard could it?????????)
I see them as being the ultimate in decorator art....
I wondered which angle would give me another opportunity to talk about this contemporary German artist?

When I checked my emails that morning, there it was, a link to the Reyle Collection by Dior.

Perfect!

The video on the site has to be seen.  What a hoot!  
Reyle, stuck up a ladder, overseeing the pouring of wonderful thick paint, so delicious you almost feel compelled to reach into the screen and scoop up the cascading medium as it drips off the camo edged work table. 
His 'factory' workers there to accommodate his every need.

 Cut ups of sample fabrics in neon and metallic with the imagined 'jingle jangle' of plexiglass triangles, interspersed with a pouting, thoughtful Reyle eyeing off and playing with his creations.


  Re-imagined Lady Dior handbags appearing as camouflaged effects among the well appointed floor to ceiling shelves of Reyle's multi-coloured paint repository.

The driving motif of camouflage throughout the bags, shoes, accessories and limited edition makeup, whilst a touch predictable, works as the perfect segue to the army of modern Kardashianesque young women who sport the Dior logo in droves. The familiarity of the graphic almost certain to be comforting, appealing, and oh so desirable!

As part of the recent Art Basel Miami, 

in a perfect post Warholian gesture,

the first ever Christian Dior pop up took hold of an ideal commercial opportunity and revealed the collection to the glitterati amidst a sea of Reyle camo art motif.

I immediately ran to my nearest Christian Dior counter

 (in Australia) to purchase at least the nail colour and co-ordinating eye shadow palette, only to be told that they had never heard of this particular artist and knew nothing of it!!


Stay tuned for further info regarding possible release down under (if any) or overseas stockists.

Dior pop up Art Basel Miami

Even the catering truck gets the Reyle treatment in Miami

finished detail of the painting in progress in the video for the pop up store

Nail colour by Reyle

Pop up launch Miami

Words J Watson-Evans

images via
 NY Times Blog;  White Wall Mag.com; Dazed Digital; Vogue.fr; hauteliving.com; parkerism.com;sumally.com

Action Painting is Now!

In my mind, some of the most important action painting took place not in New York in the 1950's, but right here in a place called Utopia, smack bang in the middle of the Australian Desert.

The artist, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, was to create a body of work during 1991-1996, that would go on to be compared with 20th Century art icons such as Sol Lewitt, Willem DeKooning, and

  Bridget Riley.

And yet she came to painting not until she was in her eighties.

The "Old Lady" as she was affectionately called, is recognised as one of the most important contemporary artists of the late 20th Century.

She created masterpieces which depicted her daily life in the

  Aboriginal community of Utopia

...in her words, "Awelye (my Dreaming), Arlatyeye (pencil Yam), Arkerrthe (mountain devil lizard), Ankerre (emu), and Kame (yam seed)...That's what I paint, whole lot."

Emily Kngwarreye 'My Country'  1993

Utopia:  The Genius of Emily Kngwarreye
Catalogue of the touring show of 120 masterpieces by Emily shown in Tokyo and Australia

Emily Kngwarreye 'Bush Yam' 1995

Emily Kngwarreye (Body Paint) Yam Dreaming 1995

Emily Kngwarreye 'Awelye' 1994 

Emily Kngwarreye 'Awelye'

Emily Kngwarreye

Emily  Kngwarreye Body Paint

Emily Kngwarreye Arlatyey Dreaming 1995

And works from one of Emily's friends, the late Minnie Pwerle show such wonderful vibrancy of balance and colour...

Minnie Pwerle Awelye 2004

Minnie Pwerle Awelye Antwengerrp 2005

The influences of astonishing works such as these, reverberate far and wide throughout the many areas of our pop culture....

It's no secret that modern art has been a major influence on many leading edge interior designers including American decorator Kelly Wearstler.

Tony Tuckson

One of Australia's important abstract painters, Tony Tuckson, also produced a stunning body of work, whilst working as an Art administrator, for the Art Gallery of New South Wales, from the 1950's through to his untimely death in 1973.

Heavily influenced by the international art of his overseas contemporaries, together with his important involvement with Australian Aboriginal Art throughout the 1960's, he also came to showing his art at a late stage in his short life. 

 He was one of the first to approach Aboriginal artists as artists, concerning himself with documenting their individual styles and intentions, and also highlighting the relationship between tribal art and modern art.

  Before his death at the age of 52,  he produced these wonderful linear abstractions from the period 1970-1973, these are some of my personal favourites.

Pink Lines (Vertical) on Red and Purple, 1970-1973

White Lines (Vertical) on Ultra-Marine, 1970-73

White Lines (Horizontal) on Red, 1970-73

Five White Lines (Vertical) Black Ground 1970-73

Pink, White Line, Yellow Edge, Red Line Middle. 1970-73

Words J. Watson-Evans
The Decorator

Aborinal Art images via Contemporary Aboriginal Art by Susan McCullough; Christie's Contemporary Sydney Catalogue 2001; Menzies Art Brands Catalogue 25 March 2009; Christie's Paintings from The Dr Joseph Brown Collection catalogue May 2005; Christie's Aboriginal Art 2005; Australian Art Collector April-June 2005; Modern, Contemporary Australian & Important Aboriginal Art2008 Lawson Menzies

Tony Tuckson images via Tony Tuckson by Daniel Thomas, Renee Free & Geoffrey Legge