upcoming exhibition

Need I say more ? Come by to check out our art, eat some chocolate and drink some wine..we've all been working pretty darn hard on this ( and spending all our money on it!)

Although planning exhibitions are pretty stressful, (I should know, Ive got 3 coming up before the end of the year) we've been pretty lucky to have the past few weeks free from assessment work, which is a huge weight off the shoulders. Also, we've been very fortunate to get discounted fliers printed as well as a free place to exhibit, wine and chocolate!

My work in this exhibition is going to be all printmaking, and I made sure to push myself by combining several printing techniques in a lot of the work (For example, the biggest series in the work involves lithography, Image-on etching, collagraph, and screen-printing)

I'm not getting my hopes up about selling anything at the moment, its better for us students and upcoming artists to just view it all as (expensive and time consuming) work experience.

Now excuse me, I''m off to spend all my money on Ikea frames and custom made mattes! See you all on the 29th!

Cheers, Josh

PS: my new hero is Jacob Arden McClure, mainly in regard to his paintings, because of his use borrowed imagery, the combination of drawing and painty/drippy stuff, the text.. all rolled int0 really effective compositions..one day I will rise to his level artistically I swear!

Art Update

So lots of stuff has been going on lately, due to spending all my time doing school/art stuff.

One of the coolest things thats happened lately is getting some work up in UCS, thanks to the ever-so-generous Luku. In one of my final year subjects we have to do some "work experience" - which can mean pretty much anything (some people have go as far as teaching primary school kids, whereas James just opted for looking over some weirdo comic book guy's shoulder whilst he works)

So anyway, Rueben and I got the the chance to put somethings up in Luku's exhibition. It was a good feeling to have something I made in nice frames, and I felt pretty important walking around the place with my hammer and spirit level. I dont know why, but theres a certain amount of power you get from hammering things into someone else's wall. Heres some (bad phone camera) photos after putting things up:

My work hanging up:



Ruebens work hanging up:



Luku, the art machine's, work ready to be hung (mounted digital prints, and paintings):



Some more of his work hanging up:



The opening night was pretty darn good too (sorry no photos, I was busy running around talking to everyone) due to beers, lots of people, crazy Bollywood music, not too mention hypnotic projector picture power. It was pretty much the first time that anyones seen my art outside my family and peers, which is a really, really, weird feeling.

Now I just need to spend some time doing my work for this semester, which I admit I've neglected a fair bit. Since I've visiting James in the final year drawing studio, I've become ultra jealous of his situation:
1. They have a wall of windows, which brings awesome natural light, not too mention a nice view
2. Theres only like two of them in there- dont get me wrong, I like having people around me, but it can get distracting, and annoying, especially when intense concentration is required.
3. Drawing people - they can just draw whatever they want - If something looks crap, they can just paint over it, or erase it.

The final point made me decide to start experimenting with mixed media stuff over the top of printmaking, which brought a variety of results, but it was rad to loosen up a bit. I've decided as a printmaking major, Im only there to utilise the equipment and materials I want, because do enjoy making collagraphs, etchings, lithographs and screenprints. But at the same time I have no interest what so ever in the nerdier, boring aspects of printmaking, such as making editions, perfect registration, chin colle, book binding, etc..

Mixed media experiement/ Collab with James (they look better in life cause the crazy ass texture):




I've also started, believe it or not, thinking a bit, just a bit, about what I'm going to do next year. But I'll talk about that later. For now heres a picture of a wolf, and make sure to check back for updates to write down!


PS: send me your email adresses / postal adresses to be on my mailing list