MIERCOLES, EL DIECISIETE DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Part of a painting I've been working on over the last few days. I referenced the raw material, well, some older paintings of mine a couple of days ago here - parts of paintings that I've put together to construct a new narrative. This painting is kind of about the history of painting. I say kind of, as it's a massive history and there are so many vagaries in such a history. I guess you'll just have to wait (as will I) until it's finished to see where the narrative leads.

MARTES, EL DIECISEIS DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
An engraving after Domenico Feti (c. 1589-1623) of Durer's Melencolia I.

LUNES, EL QUINCE DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
I'm just about ready to start painting a larger work on metal based on a history of painting (my take, of course). It's a composition of some images I've used before. Left to right: a caveman from a 2008 painting, Art Openings; another 2008 painting, Travel Fund (which I've been discussing all last week) and a detail from a 2009 retablo of Jackson Pollock painting, based on a Rudolph Burckhardt photograph.

DOMINGO, EL CATORCE DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
A large resin crucifix with Joseph of Aramathea (I'm sure it's not St John) and Mary.

SABATO, EL TRECE DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Two installation photographs of my work in a recent exhibition at PAULNACHE, Gisborne called 'Represent'. I've got four new works in the exhibition, a new painting on canvas and three new crucifixes. The exhibition runs from the 5th to the 27th of March, 2010.

VIERNES, EL DOCE DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
The other version I was talking about yesterday.

JUEVES, EL ONCE DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Another Chardin monkey comparison, this time with his own work. On the left is a portrait of artist, art dealer, collector and teacher, Joseph Aved, painted by Chardin in 1740. Aved was apparently both Chardin and Boucher's tutor and by the looks of it, the model for The Monkey as Antiquarian (right; circa 1740). While Aved is pensively reading from a heafty tome, the monkey excitedly studies his new find, a coin - ready to be placed in a coin album sitting on the table. There are two versions of this painting - the one below and another one, reversed with an oval framed vignette. I'll post an image of that one tomorrow.

MIERCOLES, EL DIEZ DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
A comparison between yesterday's Chardin Le Singe Peintre (right, 1740) and Francois Boucher's Self-Portrait At Easel (left, 1720, also in The Louvre, Paris). After looking at Chardin's painting monkey, I remembered a portrait of an artist painting that I'd seen recently in a book, a work similar in composition to the Chardin. After a bit of hunting, I found the Boucher self-portrait, painted when he was eighteen years old.
Boucher and Chardin were contemporaries but I haven't seen or read any references to a competitive spirit between them, yet it seems there is a striking resemblance between the two paintings so I can't but help thinking that Chardin is perhaps parodying the ostentatiousness of Boucher's Rococo paintings. From what I've seen of Chardin's paintings in the flesh, his work had very little to do with the conventions of Rococo painting from the Baroque period. Perhaps it's Chardin's comment (as a stylistic outsider), on his 'take' of Rococo painting at the time.

MARTES, EL NUEVE DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
I've included here a painting I completed a month after arriving back in New Zealand after five months of travelling around USA, Europe and Hong Kong. The painting is called 'Travel Fund' (1000mm x 800mm) and is based on a painting by Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin called 'Le Singe Peintre' (The Monkey Painter, executed around 1740). The image on the left is photographed from the original painting in The Louvre, in Paris. (frame included).
My version comments on my want to raise more funds to travel again, so in turn becoming a painting monkey, gathering those funds (if only it was as easy as painting!) - a means to an end. The other reason for using the Chardin was to update the parody of the 'monkey' paintings (I believe he painted several versions in different settings and vocations) and look at it in contemporary terms of visual engagement outside of New Zealand's artistic culture, looking at Western influence and to resist becoming, as Philip Guston puts it in the introduction to his 1978 Minnesota lecture, a painting monkey.

LUNES, EL OCHO DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Two years today.
This ex-voto seems all that bit more relevant now with the Pixies playing Doolittle in its entirety in Auckland this coming Thursday and Friday.

DOMINGO, EL SIETE DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
I was looking through a Milan Kunc book I bought recently and spied a milk carton, similar to the ones I painted in 1997 (mentioned in this blog) and also in my 2008 painting 'Travelling May Induce Calcium Deficiency'. We both have used a 'milch' label, which I decided to use as when we were travelling around Germany in 2008, there was some conspiracy with dairy processing plants in Germany at the time - something to do with milk tampering of some sorts. I also included 'malk' which comes from a Simpsons episode where Springfield Elementary needed to make budget cuts so they supplied the students with 'malk'.
I've been looking at my 'Calcium Deficiency' painting recently because I've decided to do another version of it, up-scaled and with a few different techniques. I've specifically remodelled the figure's face, combining a three-quarter view of the Sphinx's head with a three-quarter view of Angelina Jolie's face. There's a few other aspects i'll be tweaking or roughing up, as the painting needs...

left: Milan Kunc, Easy Rider, 1992

SABATO, EL SEIS DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ

Two more plates I've recently finished. They're only at the under-glazed stage, so they're ready to be fired then clear-glazed which will create higher contrast with the blue tones.

VIERNES, EL CINCO DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
I've started working on a large canvas, so I'll need big globules of paint to work with on my palette. I love this colour combination on the right.

JUEVES, EL CUATRO DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Another tooth reference, exactly a decade apart. The work on the left was painted in 1997 while I was at art-school and was part of an installation of paintings called '69 Ways To Make Me Look Stupid'. The text says 'wisdom doesn't come from your teeth' and depicts a lollypop skull looking at a mail box. The ex-voto on the right, again about teeth, ended up just being a sensitivity issue.

MIERCOLES, EL TRES DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
A new painting, Culturally Baroque (oil on canvas, 400mm x 300mm, courtesy of PAULNACHE). The title of the painting is also the title for a ceramic sculpture that will be part of my exhibition, Malfunction Baroque at the Rayner Brothers Gallery in Whanganui, opening 1st of April, 2010. The exhibition includes seventeen new ceramic sculptures and plates.

MARTES, EL DOS DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Tonight I have three paintings (one new, two old) in a faculty exhibition at the Federal Gallery in Whanganui. The Federal is the institutional exhibition space of UCOL, Whanganui and is named after its original premises, the Federal Hotel located on the corner of Taupo Quay and Market Place. I believe the exhibition will include work by tutors from Fine Arts, Graphic Design, Fashion Design and CAD. The exhibition opens at 5pm, 2nd of March and finishes on the 13th of March, 2010.

from left to right: Mother Nature, 2009; Parochial Martyr Corazon, 2010; The Beginning of the End, 2009. All oil on metal, 360mm x 290mm each.

LUNES, EL UNO DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ

Matthew Summers had presented a small group of perfectly-formed paintings available for purchase on his blog/website. There are nine paintings presented in total and belong to a series of works that reference landscapes overseas that Matthew has visited and sketched.
Matthew was recently included in Warwick Brown's 'Seen This Century - 100 Contemporary New Zealand Artists'. He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout New Zealand, including an exhibition my partner and I curated at the Sarjeant Gallery, called Prologue. You can see some examples of his work in the exhibition here. On the Prologue website, please click on the four paintings in a grid format on the lower photograph to view Matthew's paintings.

DOMINGO, EL VEINTIOCHO DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
I took an epic, yet uber-quick trip down to Wellington to see The 3ds play at San Francisco Bath House on Friday night. It was a stunning gig, with an almost identical setlist to what they played at the Laneways Festival about a month ago. I love the inclusion of The Young and The Restless from The Venus Trail, one of my favourite all-time songs (second on the setlist). A couple of strange events happened that evening too, for instance,I found out that it was David Mitchell's son Oscar who rescued myself and my friend Aaron from being crushed by a massive garden umbrella at Nikau Cafe by the City Gallery, just hours prior to the gig.
Below are a couple of terrible cell-phone pics of David Mitchell.

SABATO, EL VEINTISIETE DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
The two images on the left of the milk cartons were painted in my final year at art school in 1998, lamenting the fact that two of my paintings (one, a pink painting of a boxer dog called Morgan and the second, an oddly shaped canvas depicting an abstracted Martin Puryear sculpture) 'disappeared' from my studio the previous year. I'm not too cut up about it, despite the fact that I hope whoever took those paintings suffers an eye-gouging from the painting falling off the wall, or something similar and as effective.
Anyway, I just thought it interesting that almost exactly 10 years later, I painted two milk cartons on 'Travelling May Induce Calcium Deficiency', 2008, oil on canvas, 1000mm x 800mm.

VIERNES, EL VEINTISEIS DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Our friend Kendra has recently headed back to the USA. I painted this ex-voto for her departure, mostly because I was supposed to make Kendra a mug to swap the one she made for me. I'll post images of Kendra's mug soon. You can visit Kendra's blog here.

JUEVES, EL VEINTICINCO DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
I'd been talking with a friend about where the chain is going in a recent painting I'm half-way through. (the She-Wolf with apt Romulus and Remus replacements) I like the mystery of ambiguity and like to open possibilities of 'reading' rather than hammer down the idea. Roy Dunningham summed it up pretty well in a statement from this article,

"...This diversity of sources creates a guessing game for viewers. When are the sometimes strange combinations of images truly impulsive as in pure surrealism, and when is there a deliberate agenda to be deciphered by the viewer? Sometimes it may be the sheer fun of creating visual puns and conundrums or some serious social comment to which the text gives a clue..."

I recently remembered a work that I had seen while over in Washington DC, a Martin Puryear sculpture that uses the same ambiguity or multiple reading - Le Prix (2005, below right) I think, is a fantastic allegory and analogy for being an artist. What is the ring of the chain being suspended by? What is pulling it? Where is it trying to get to? The title Le Prix, in translation can either mean the prize or the price - to me, commenting on the so-called muse of art-making, the sacrifice of the artist and the rewards of making art.

MIERCOLES, EL VEINTICUATRO DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ

Here's a link to Tony Fitzpatrick's Blog, called No.9. Tony is one of my favourite contemporary American artists and we got to meet him when we were travelling around USA in 2008. He has a studio in Buckstown in Chicago, where I couldn't resist buying a small etching from him. He also very kindly gave us copies of his three-volume set, The Wonder. He's an amazing guy - an artistic polyglot, as he's a poet, writer (his blog posts are amazing reads), artist, social commentator and, in the past, hes been a boxer. I'll put a link to his blog on my side panel to the right under ephemera.

Tony Fitzpatrick, The Dog of Winter (for 10 Bears), collage, mixed media.

MARTES, EL VEINTITRES DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ

I received this image (an elaboration on my post from last Wednesday) in my email box the other day, anonymous to me, my website proxy server showed that the person comes from Sydney, Australia. It's good to have people looking and seeing. This person has picked up on a few other similarities (very neatly compared using colour-coded boxes - if only I was that diligent!) that I didn't compare as I wanted to just point out the obviously appropriated forms and symbols.

LUNES, EL VEINTIDOS DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
REVERSING THE EFFECTS OF MELANCHOLY.
This is the way that Durer would have seen the image.

UN CRUZ PARA DOMINGO, EL VEINTE DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
A new Orthodox-style crucifix, featuring two aminas figures with a blue border

SABATO, EL VEINTE DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
A new ex-voto that I've recently 'antiqued', scanned, colour-corrected and all that other guff (dated 1st of December, 2009). I had to break a rule with this one. Usually, if I'm planning on painting an ex-voto, I'll only give myself a couple of days from the event to complete it, otherwise its intensity and time of possibly existing passes, so it should disappear into the ether with all the other events in my life that I decide not to document. I had a back-log of important ex-votos to complete and since we've been travelling around NZ a lot, I felt I could let this one pass as the whole 'teeth' issue comes up a lot in this ongoing series.
I completed another tooth ex-voto once got back from Wellington last week, in regards to the recent filling I received. It's the first filling I've had since I was 17.

VIERNES, EL DIECINUEVE DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
An invitation to Paul Maseyk's latest exhibition at Avid, opening this Friday.

JUEVES, EL DIECIOCHO DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Another comparison, this time between an untitled Max Ernst hand-coloured collages and one of Hammond's Zoomorphic Lounge studies.

MIERCOLES, EL DIECISIETE DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Another comparison, this time to Giorgio Ghisi's 1561 multi-titled engraving The Allegory of Life or The Dream of Raphael or The Melancholy of Michelangelo. The Hammond paintings are The Green Room II, 2009 and Perfect Pitch, 2007. The Ghisi print is obviously a strong lodestone for Hammond, as he's used both symbols from the print (the enlarging horizontal swirl and the pose of the Diana-type figure, who is probably an allegory for an adventurer) and the composition.

MARTES, EL DIECISEIS DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
A comparison of a painting by WD Hammond called Snare and Decoy, 1995 and a hand-coloured etching by Thomas Rowlandson called Ague and Fever, 1788.
In the Rowlandson etching, ague, wrapped around the patient, is commonly referred to as a snake, although its similarity to Hammond's birds is uncanny, especially with its huia-like beak.

LUNES, EL QUINCE DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Sandra Schmidt, who has recently departed for Germany, has an elegant exhibition on at present at Mary Newton Gallery, Wellington.

CRUZ DE DOMINGO, EL CATORCE DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
A feeble attempt at a crucifixion woodcarving. from about 2004-2005. I was doing ok until the arms broke off as the grain was going the wrong way and I was carving it out on an exposed balcony in Coromandel Street in Newtown, so I could only set up and get to it when it wasn't raining, which was hardly ever. I got bored and painted the figure with undercoat primer and then attemped to sand it off.

SABATO, EL TRECE DE FEBRERO, VIENTE-DIEZ
See ya soon!

VIERNES, EL DOCE DE FEBRERO, VIENTE-DIEZ
If overseas, you can watch me on TV here.

JUEVES, EL ONCE E FEBRERO, VIENTE-DIEZ
Heading off to Wellington for a couple of days, a bit of business, a bit of pleasure. I'll be updating this thing when I get back.

Tolpuddle Criminals, 2001, oil on canvasboard,
private collection, Whanganui

MIERCOLES, EL DIEZ DE FEBRERO, VIENTE-DIEZ
A recently destroyed painting from 1999, called Blue Blood, Black Death. I chopped it up as it was riddled with borer, but kept a small piece (now soaking in turps) from the bottom left hand corner.
This painting came from a group of five, three shown at Anna Bibby Galley in Auckland in 1999, one sold, one lost and the rest destroyed. One of them, Game, came up for auction recently in Auckland and depicts a mokomokai and the Star Trek Enterprise, a comment on Delvanius Prime's valiant efforts to return mokomokai to NZ, while NZ's national Museum, Te Papa was exhibiting a Star Trek fanzine-type exhibition. This one shows the aged artist, at the time 22, thinking about his recent shift to Wellington (the BNZ building on Willis St), his history, lineage and future.
Oh brother!

MARTES, EL NUEVE DE FEBRERO, VIENTE-DIEZ
Tuesday night (tonight) my work features on the NZ-made arts programme, The Gravy.
The half-hour episode focuses on Whanganui artists and features myself, Carmen Simmons and Ben Cauchi.
It's screening Tuesday night, TV 7 at 9.35pm. There is more information on the programme here.
If you miss the programme, you can watch it 'on demand' by clicking on the 'watch episodes' button above the episode guide (link above).

LUNES. EL OCHO DE FEBRERO, VIENTE-DIEZ
A stitched-together photograph of my studio before we headed to Auckland last Sunday.

DOMINGO, EL SIETE DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
A new ceramic piece I've had to remake. The original one on the left was the first of the new group of ceramics II've been making for Malfunction Baroque. I've had issues from the start with the crucifix breaking off its base a few times and also, because added at a later date, a couple of the feet fell off a couple of times. The whole object was held together with glaze... It went through the under-glaze firing ok, but after the clear-glaze firing (which is a heck of a lot hotter than the under-glaze firing) the base slumped in the middle as there was no support for the weight of the crucifix. A couple of days later, the crucifix cracked off the base. It was definitely the runt of the litter.
The new piece I've made is in two parts - the base and the crucifix, which I'll fire separately and then join together in the clear-glaze firing. I've also put feet under the middle section of the base for support.
Fingers crossed...

SABATO, EL SEIS DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Back home to Whanganui: ceramics on the go, waiting to be underglazed, then fired. On the far left is the broken, slumped base for the scrimshaw salt and pepper set. I've just finished remaking a new one, ready to be glazed. I'll be posting an image of it in the next couple of days.
ALSO, I'm on TV tonight - details here.

VIERNES, EL CINCO DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
A sand-wang with island background at Karekare beach. I don't believe that was present in The Piano.

JUEVES, EL CUATRO DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Door to the McCahon House shed in Titirangi

MIERCOLES, EL TRES DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
After the excitement of Laneways and then our interview, we retired out to Karekare to say at our friend's place down by the beach. There I was surprised to see two of my works, a scrimshaw from 2007 and an ex-voto from the 26th of Sept, 2007.

MARTES, EL DOS DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
from left to right: Dirty Three; Warren Ellis going nuts, the 3d's: I saw there last concert in Wtgn in 1997 - watching them at Laneways was liked they never broke up. Me after the gig with wristbands - red one is the VIP tent band courtesy of Si and Katy, who I hung out with, along with Aaron and Heidi and Tom and Kathleen.

LUNES, EL UNO DE FEBRERO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Daniel Johnston at Laneways. See yesterday's post for links. He was amazing, played for about 45 mins, half solo, half with a guitarist. Unfortunately, about three-quarters through, Cut Your Hands Off started playing on the opposite stage and drowned out Johnston, but all in all, an amazing gig.

DOMINGO, EL TRIENTA Y UNO DE ENERO, VIENTE-DIEZ
Today, we're off to Auckland for a few days - a bit of work + pleasure as I'm going to (now sold out) Laneway Festival, primarily to see Daniel Johnston and the newly reformed 3d's.

Daniel Johnston image courtesy of Rejectedunknown.com

SABATO, EL TRIENTA DE ENERO, VIENTE-DIEZ
Five recently completed crucifixes. The tallest one on the left measures 300mm tall x 150mm wide by 70mm deep, just to give you an idea of the scale.
From left to right: Last Kind Words (28th of Jan 2010), Corpus Christi (24th of Jan), Trinity (25th of Jan), One (26th of Jan) and Simplicity (27th of Jan). All completed this year.
The Last Kind Words crucifix is based on an old blues song by Geeshie Wiley.

VIERNES, EL VEINTINUEVE DE ENERO, VEINTE-DIEZ

A scrimshaw from 2006 called 'Life Pursuits' (you'll need to scroll down to the bottom of the page). An apt work for us at the moment. This work now lives in a cabinet with some real scrimshaw in Nashville, Tennessee.
I haven't made many more scrimshaw over the past year as they've seemed to have been replaced by my cruz de las animas that I've been making and painting. They are very similar in content even though they're very different, physically speaking.
Originally, I started making these historical objects if I wanted a real one but couldn't get one, same with the ex-votos and the crucifixes. The tables have somewhat turned as I haven't been able to secure a real scrimshaw after a decade of making them...and now I've stopped making them, yet I continue the ex-votos and retablos, having purchased several of them over the last three years. I'm not giving up hope in getting a scrimshaw, it's just that I'd have to sell four of mine to be able to purchase a real one.

JUEVES, EL VIENTIOCHO DE ENERO, VIENTE-DIEZ

Two new plates I've finished underglazing, again, in a delft-blue. The left one is tentatively called 'Eye Teeth' and the one on the right, 'Amina and Phoenix'. Tentatively as you never quite know what will come out of the kiln until the final firing.
Once bisque-fired, the blue tones on the plate will be a little bit darker than what you see in the photos. Once the clear-glaze is applied and then fired, the tones with be a lot darker and (hopefully) there will be plenty of contrast between the white and the dark delft-blue.
These plates will be in the second firing along with my toilet-bag shoe reliquary, a virgin mug, a melancholic coin jar and a hell envelope stand.

MIERCOLES, EL VIENTISIETE DE ENERO, VIENTE-DIEZ
On the left is a photo I took in Twizel in the town shopping centre. I took the photo because it instantly reminded me of the Spanish and Mexican paintings of 'life and death contrasted', a common mortality theme in Spanish and Italian Baroque painting. The middle image is a tinted engraving from the Wellcome collection in London and depicts what looks to be a French Aristocratic woman next to an obilisk. The third image is a painting of mine called 'Travelling May Induce Calcium Deficiency', an oil painting from 2008, 1000mm x 800mm.