WANDERLUST

This is the exhibition that i have been working towards, hope you can make it along!

The invite

WANDERLUST brings together the work of some Canberra artists who explore the act of walking through their work. Walking is a state in which the mind, body and environment become aligned.

Exhibition opening 19 June 6pm

continues until 6 July.

M16 Art Space

21 Blaxland Cres Griffith ACT

Odd Socks

Perhaps it sounds a little odd- but I've been making lately, so watch your socks.

More details on where to view this new artwork coming soon....

One Size Fits All 1-3

 One Size Fits All, 2013. Ski jacket, cotton.

One Size Fits All (detail), 2013. Ski jacket, cotton.

 One Size Fits All (detail), 2013. Ski jacket, cotton.

  One Size Fits All, 2013. Ski jacket, cotton.

One Size Fits All, 2013. Ski jacket, cotton.

 One Size Fits All (detail), 2013. Ski jacket, cotton.

 One Size Fits All (with cheeky monkeys), 2013. Ski jacket, cotton. 

 One Size Fits All (Installation view), 2013. Three Ski jackets, cotton.

Proud.

Backburning

Opening 6pm Friday 4 October Featuring work by Julia Boyd, Jacqueline Bradley, Chris Carmody, Karena Keys, Trish Roan, Adam Veikkanen & Fiona Veikkanen Curated by Annika Harding We hope you can join us for the opening of Backburning. Exhibition continues until Saturday the 9th of November.  Backburning looks back at CCAS’ Blaze ACT Emerging Artist Showcase exhibitions over the past seven years. Blaze has featured over forty-five of the ACT’s most exciting and innovative emerging artists. Instead of cramming work by all of them into the gallery, curator Annika Harding has focused on a select group of former Blaze artists who use everyday materials to create astonishing and enlightening work. These artists – Julia Boyd, Jacqueline Bradley, Chris Carmody, Karena Keys, Trish Roan, Adam Veikkanen and Fiona Veikkanen – make fascinating observations about how we perceive materials and challenge how we see the world around us. Their very unconventional works show how easy it can be to find the infinite in the ordinary.

Ya Big Softy

Ya Big Softy. 2013. Vinyl, fabric, wire, foam, thread. 73x174x174cm.

Photo: Brenton McGeachie.

 Ya Big Softy (detail) 2013. Vinyl, fabric, wire, foam, thread. 73x174x174cm.

Photo: Brenton McGeachie.

Ya Big Softy (detail) 2013. Vinyl, fabric, wire, foam, thread. 73x174x174cm.

Photo: Brenton McGeachie.

Fiona Veikkanen transforms industrially made, mass-produced objects into carefully considered handmade curiosities. Veikkanen creates unassuming objects that resonate with associations of home, personalisation and the urban environment. 

Often engaging with traditional craft techniques including quilting, crochet and pompom making, the unique and personal effects of the craft process transform objects that are typically man-made, industrial and impersonal. These altered objects, now detached from former function revel in newfound appreciation, yet retain hints of a previous use and life. 

Since the birth of my third son -Horatio -last October, I have had the absolute compulsion to create ‘The softest thing of my life’. 

Feeling strangely soft and vulnerable myself I wanted to create something that would speak of this profound softness, of malleability, private/public and self-consciousness. And of course it’s creation would be firmly based within the home. 

As well as the physical softness of an inflatable, the old blow up mattress has a particularly unpredictable and precarious nature. Subject to change, to deflate and disappoint, what more appropriate a material for the creation of this work-Ya Big Softy. 

Since graduating from the ANU School of Art in 2010 Fiona Veikkanen has exhibited with enthusiasm including two solo shows and numerous group exhibitions. Fiona has received several awards, grants and a residency at Canberra Contemporary Art Space. Most recently Fiona has exhibited in Blaze 6, a group exhibition at CCAS Gorman House, Creature Comforts, a solo show at CCAS Manuka and was included in the Australian National Capital Artist’s contemporary group show Material World.

 The Publication

Momentum (and sneak peak)

Tiny mustard coloured sneak peak of my latest making- bottom lower left!)

Hope you can make it along to the opening- next Thursday 28th March at 5:30pm at Belconnen Arts Centre. Exhibition continues until Sunday 14th April.

For more info check out the Belco Arts Centre site HERE

Soft

It all started with a find of old inflatables.

Well that, and the desire to create the softest thing I would ever make in my life.

I have been feeling an indescribably softness. so deeply inescapably soft.

 a softness that comes with the smell of sleep, milk, bodies held close. 

it is not particularly fit, and certainly not very charming.

it is something that cannot be kept.

it is unimpressive. 

it is private.

and beautiful.

My art making has never seen more interruptions and lack of solid focus. But I find myself not particularly minding. The sewing of a single seam tends to turn into a mass coordination of people, Play School, not to mention the manipulation of the material that writhes at the prospect of hurtling through the sewing machine.  

These things always take so much longer than expected. I really should know that by now.

 I hope it will be eye catching, funny, well made and beautiful -as well as inherently soft.

Model Citizens Exhibition

 Sleep In, 2011

Helani Laisk- Pile, 2012

Adam Veikkanen- Bananas, 2012.

 Warm Wool, 2011

You can find plenty more photos of the show on curator Chloe's website art on show.

Model Citizens, Wobble and Me.

Wobble Magazine centre fold.

This weekend is the exhibition Model Citizens- I have a couple of pieces in it including this one which is featured in local Canberra magazine Wobble!

This artwork- Sleep In - is something I made at the end of last year/ beginning of this year and then exhibited in Blaze at Gorman House. 

So I'm showing the same artwork again- which I felt a bit funny about.

But when it comes down to it, I am happy to. 

I still love this piece, and more than that even though it was made a bit ago it is still relevant. It is tactile and homely, familiar yet unexpected, laboured over and thought about- Sleep In still expresses what I want to say today. Not everyone made it to Blaze, and even if they did, here you go for a second viewing.

Yes, I have been more than usually busy with other things lately, but 

I'm still keen to make and exhibit the fresh and new, although I don't always have to.

There is something so satisfying about seeing my name in print!

The exhibition ‘Model Citizens’ of Apartment G09/G10 will open on Saturday 27 – 28 Sunday October, Kendall Lane, NewActon, Canberra. This pop-up exhibition is curated by Chloe Mandryk and supported by the multi-arts festival Art, Not Apart. 

 By the way, artist profiles are posted in the lead up to the show on the artonshow website.

Escadaria Selaron- Rio de Janeiro

Occasionally I experience something incredible, beautiful or even revolting which i just know will influence my artistic endeavours wether I like it or not. 

Today was one of those days.

 

Escadaria-Selaron

Near where I am currently staying in Rio de Janeiro is this wildly obsessive and still growing masterpiece- Escadaria Selaron. After wandering up a dingy alleyway that smells like piss I discovered an enormous mosaic encrusted staircase, vibrant and pumping with activity.

Immense in scale and containing thousands of tiles from many different countries this is a work in progress with the artist- Selaron -still continuing the artwork on a daily basis. 

Lately I have been falling ever more in love with mosaics, patchworks and stained glass windows, and so this was seriously exciting!

I love the combinations of colour and form. I love the way one tile influences the next- the shapes and patterns that emerge on small and large scales- both the intimate details and the impressive optical illusions of the whole. I am breath taken by the sheer mass of individual pieces, and yet the way each of those pieces is specifically, carefully placed. 

Selaron was there today, diligently working away, he was very friendly and insisted on signing a postcard for my son.

Selaron welcomes contributions of tiles from all over the world from anyone keen to donate. He plans to continue this work for the rest of his life. What a guy.