Art news

Joshua Petker clearly epitomises the 'tortured artist' cliche through his solo exhibition Black Sugar at the Corey Helford Gallery in the City of Lost Angels. Petker's dream girls are slightly nightmarish, like beautiful girls come undone amidst splashings of neon pansies and mythical creatures. Wish I were on the West Coast right now...

From this Thursday, the omnipotent Oxford Art Factory will spread a little further up Oxford Street; taking over an empty shopfront for 17 days as part of the City of Sydney Art & About Festival. Nicknamed Little OAFY, the space will host all sorts of stuff - including performance art, video art, installations and music from the likes of the China Heights boys, Exquiosite Corpse and the Sydney Underground film Festival. If the above poster is to believed we can also expect pigs heads, chocolate and – as Sydney-siders have come to expect from their art openings – free booze. Those OAF folk sure know their demog. Little OAFY opens this Thursday at 7pm.

Last week, I met with art curator Chris Chapman to have a chat about the new National Portrait Gallery. Since closing their doors at the Old Parliment House, the new expansion located next to the National Gallery of Australia will be open to the public in early December. Chris walked me through the layout of the new space and showed me some of the works that will be hung. He describes a progression of portraiture, starting in the early 1800's of Australian early settlers and moving onto more current portraits of significant Australian icons like Nick Cave and our former PM. The gallery will be an interesting way to gain an insight into Australian history and our cultural identity.

Two of Canberra's most prominent band photographers launched their exhibition this week "Live - A Collection of Music Photography". Stella-rae Zelnik and James Thomson take you backstage to bands like Faker, Grinspoon, The Butterfly Effect and some more underground sounds like Mz Ann Thorpik and her vampire pose. Zelnik and Thomson have captured the relationship between audience and performer through their unique styles. Their use of colour and light is amazing and it's great to see the collaboration of these two very different artists.
Live - A Collection of Music Photography
National Convention Centre Canberra
September 24 - October 12
27-31 Constitution Ave, Canberra City 



 

www.myspace.com/stellaraephotography
http://flickr.com/photos/jamesthomsonphotography/

Meet Meggs. He's a Swinburne University graduate and is recognized throughout the Melbourne CBD for his comic book style illustrations, stencils and aerosol art. With a background in skateboarding and graffiti, his work has led him to feature in a number of publications and seen him take his skills to the streets of Tokyo, Paris, London and Barcelona. Meggs' second solo exhibition 'Own Worst Enemy' opens this Thursday 25th September at the Don't Come Gallery in Melbourne. His collection explores childhood heroes, personal frustration, nostalgia, power and vulnerability through a range of characters and his usual graffiti style as well as some installations. See http://houseofmeggs.com or http://www.dontcome.com.au/ for more details.

My childhood obsession with ponies was bound to extend into my adult hood. In fact, I actually requested a My Little Pony for my 18th as I felt without such a right of passage (you see I had never owned one) I could not progress into adulthood. But the fixation with all things equine continues. On every gift-giving occasion I am handed envelopes and an assortment of boxes as I exclaim "IS IT A PONY?!" So I was quite excited when I heard everyone's favourite plastic pony was to celebrate its 25th birthday this year. My Little Pony is celebrating being a quarter of a century old, and to commemorate 25 years of pony pottiness, owner Hasbro has asked 25 celebrities, designers and competition winners to create their own unique mini figurine, where they will be auctioned off on Charity Folks. Peeps like John Stamos (Uncle Jesse from Full House), Leann Rimes and Courtney Cox have gotten involved, and some fairly psychedelic creations are up for the bid.  Hasbro has also released a Silver Anniversary version, made of 100% Sterling Silver. Clearly just for us "mature" grown ups. All proceeds will go to children with terminal illnesses. See http://www.charityfolks.com to make a bid for Stephan Maze Georges & Laurel St. Romain's design, pictured on the left.

Post secret is an art project that started in Washington DC and has expanded worldwide the man behind the project Frank Warren receives thousands of secrets every week and these secrets are not merely arriving on paper anymore they are arriving on items as exotic as artificial bananas. These secrets are a form of liberation for each anonymous person and for each person who encounters them on the website every week.

The project illuminates the inner lives of people, some are funny, some are sexual, some are devastating and some are hopeful but each is an expression of a hidden desire, habit or thought that makes the individual who shares it quintessentially them. But what makes this project so amazing is that the secrets are universal they are things we are all afraid to say or can relate to in some way, they are thoughts we never even knew we ourselves had, written and expressed on paper. They highlight a social landscape of devastation, discrimination, bad behaviour, hidden dreams and doubts that is often ignored and forgotten about. Each postcard and secret is a gift from an individual reaching out and expressing and isn’t that what art is all about? It’s worth a look.

You never know what you might found about yourself through another.

.cohttp://http://postsecret.blogspotm/