I n v u r t

Woah. I mean, look at the roster of artists in this show – Banksy, Stormie Mills, HA HA,  Shep Fairey, Blek Le Rat, D*Face, Swoon, Nick Walker, Hush and Above – all influential and established artists, both local and international, being put up for a show of un-exhibited works. Its been rumoured for some time, and its great to finally see the details on it.

Check the artist bios after the flyer, and keep an eye on Metros blog for more information as it comes in – we’ll hopefully be covering more of this in the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

“This show will be one the biggest collection of contemporary street art ever shown in Australia, and includes pieces by some of the most notorious internationally renowned artists including;

Blek le Rat: Blek is considered to be the godfather of stencil art, and has been producing street work for 30 years. He’s both a pioneer on the streets and in the transition to gallery work, and has inspired a generation of stencil artists. His signature Rat stencil that covered the streets of Paris in the 80’s is one of the most striking images in street art history.

Banksy: Banksy hardly needs any introduction, he’s by far the most sought after street artist in the world but has managed to stay defiantly anonymous.

Shepard Fairey: Shepard has risen from his humble roots as a teenage skater punk distributing homemade stickers via mail order and gone on to create some the most instantly recognisable visual imagery in recent art history, including the oft reproduced ‘Obey’ campaign and most noticeably the Obama ‘Hope’ image that became synonymous with the Democrat’s rise to office.

Nick Walker: English graffiti artist Nick Walker has been combining stencils with his freehand graffiti work since 1992. Nick initially turned to stencils as a means of introducing the realist elements of photography to his works, while still working with spray paint, since this point he has developed a massive international following of his work due to their wit and sense of tongue-in-cheek irony.

D*Face: Growing up in London D*Face was heavily influenced by 80’s American skate culture and punk rock aesthetics. As a teenager D*Face began incorporating these elements into highly stylised graffiti, developing a repertoire of iconic characters and imagery that are highly sought after the world over.

Swoon: Swoon’s work is indebted to both traditional craftsmanship and classic painterly technique, but her execution is entirely modern. It is this method of incorporating both age old techniques and contemporary graffiti practice that makes her work so compelling. She has contributed work to MOMA, Art Basel Miami, and the Brooklyn museum, and is widely considered to be a master contemporary print maker.

Above: Above is nomadic graffiti artist who has travelled around the world creating public art installations since 1995. His signature arrow can be found in more that 65 countries world wide, from stickers, to wheatpastes, to freehand graffiti, to wooden sculptures, Above is a force to be reckoned with.

HA HA: Melbourne’s own HA HA has risen as one of the most prominent figures in the city’s own street art movement. From his notorious Ned Kelly image that blanketed Melbourne in the early 2000’s, to his recent soft edge portraits that are comprised of up to 70 layers, HA HA has remained one of Melbourne’s most notorious street artists.

Hush: Hush is an English artist who spent a number of years in Japan working as a toy designer, his graffiti style unites these disparate worlds of Western decay, Eastern pop, and design elements. Drawing on the classic motif of the female form, Hush creates beautifully layered symphonies of colour compositions.

Stormie: Australian native Stormie has been producing street work since 1984. His dark depictions of contemporary urban life have seen him travel across the world, painting in London, Los Angeles, Berlin and Tokyo. Stormie’s personal style is entirely unique, and has earned him a cult following the world over.

This is going to be a hugely important show for both Metro Gallery and the local street art community.

Works from all the artists will be available over at the Metro Gallery Blog as they arrive at the gallery, so stay tuned.”

Who: Stormie, Hush, HA HA, Above, Swoon, D*Face, Nick Walker, Shepard Fairey (Obey), Banksy
What: On The Wall – International Street Art Group Show
Where: Metro Gallery, 1214 High Street, Armadale, VIC
When: September 27th to October 17th 2010

Hard to imagine that Go Font Yourself is up to its fifth iteration, and this exhibition of type based artwork just keeps going from strength to strength.

If your not familiar with the show, which tours roughly twice a year between Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, then this is a great chance to get down and see what its all about. Peer Group gathers together some of our leading artists in order to take their talents and attack the boundaries and confines of traditional typography, with some extraordinary and amazing results.

This time around, the artist roll call is headed up by a pretty stellar cast of old and new, with Morning Breath, We Buy Your Kids, Gary MSK, Fiodor Sumkin, Michael Doret, TwoOne, Jeremyville, Alejandro Paul, Mauro Gatti, Okay, Amuse WWB and Friends of Type will all representing, and we cant wait to check out this iteration.

Also, as a special treat, Two One will be doing live etching at the opening show in both Melbourne and Sydney.

Who: Morning Breath, We Buy Your Kids, Gary MSK, Fiodor Sumkin, Michael Doret, TwoOne, Jeremyville, Alejandro Paul, Mauro Gatti
What: Go Font Yourself 5
Where: No Vacancy Gallery, Jane Bell Lane, Melbourne
When: Opens 5th August, 6pm to 9pm

See the Go Font Yourself website, No Vacancys site as well as the facebook event page for more details and info on the artists.

Next week sees a beginning of a busy period for the At Large Gallery crew, with the first of several back to back shows opening Friday the 6th of August, in the form of Craig Poore and ADis duo show, Beautiful Strange.

ADi has done some remarkable work over the past few years, ethereal and alien, yet familiar and entrancing. With Beautiful Strange, he has taken a stripped down, bare basics approach by rendering his works in pure graphite – however this bare basics approach to materials does nothing to tone down the intricacies and details within each painstakingly rendered piece.

We were able to steal a few moments of the mans time, with his words encompassing some universe-spanning philosophical journeys,  down to earth ethos, and, of course, the nature behind his lovingly nurtured creations.

Read more »

Another of Melbournes adopted sons, Acorn, will be holding a new solo exhibition, Planetes, come August – and, as ever, we’re excited about the show (When are we not excited? Its just too much effort not to be, to be honest).

Acorn does some beautiful work, with amazingly detailed characters and scenes of colour-washed images in pen and ink. Each one seeming to always to lead the eye towards a more detailed story for every moment you look upon them. With a bunch of shows, publications and a well deserved fan base, its always a pleasure to see new work by his hand.

“The word “planetes” is greek for “wanderers”, just as planets do, wander across the sky. The drawings presented in this show portray nomadic peoples roaming, gathering, and socializing in a seemingly endless forest where all possibilities are considered. drawings from the forest series are an ongoing project, and they themselves are always expanding, evolving, changing with experience and time.”

“Originally from the west coast of North America, Acorn has been working and living in Melbourne for over two years. With a focus on using traditional mediums, Acorn has spent most of his drawing time developing his craft with an ensemble of pens and inks. The characters and patterns in his work stem from no single culture or religion, but are part of an ongoing focus for creating something unique all together, an endless task.”

Who: Acorn
What: Planetes solo exhibition
Where: No Vacancy Gallery, 34 – 40 Jane Bell Lane, Melbourne
When: Opens August 12th, 6pm – show runs until August 23rd

via Ghostpatrols Deathtron Mountain

In light of his upcoming exhibition, Infinite Nature, at Gorker Gallery, there was no question in our minds that Beastman was someone we wanted to touch base with.  Having followed his work the last few years, the progression of his artistic expression into a fully fledged, stylistically manifested world of strange creatures and infinite evolved entities is an example of the beauty and talent that modern urban and street artists, or their derivatives, are presenting to new audiences.

Thankfully, he had a spare few minutes during the busy preparation for his show and we couldn’t have hoped for a better glimpse into the themes and processes behind his, evocative, and categorically cool, paintings.

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At Large Gallery continue their run of great shows, and next up is the duo-show from Melbourne artists ADi and Craig Poore.

“In their upcoming show “Beautiful Strange’, artists Craig Poore and ADiexamine the beautiful as strange and the strange as beautiful. Our thoughts of the visual world are blurred by our perceptions. ‘Beautiful Strange’ invites us to challenge these ideas.

Through his emotive and engaging oil paintings, Craig Poore captures the startling ‘beauty’ found within the female form.The narrative is alluring, dreamy and at times melancholic. Clown fish appear from the tangled trestles of an underwater goddess, the heart’s despair from a girl’s deep and longing stare.

In contrast, ADi invents opposing ideas of beauty with his imaginative and hypnotic illustrative style. He embraces the uniquely ’strange’ by creating a world enchanted by mystery. The imagery is unexpected, intriguing and symbolic and the technique executed with exacting precision.”

Both artists produce strikingly beautiful work in defined, recognisable styles – and its great to see them teaming up to present a juxtaposed show that manages to adhere to a cohesive, beautifully strange theme.

Check the At Large website for more information, as well as Adi’s website and blog.

Who: Craig Poore & ADi
What: Beautiful Strange – Duo show
Where: At Large Gallery, 208 High Street, Northcote
When: Opens Friday 6th August, 6pm – 9pm. Show runs until August 19th.

I just realised that it’s been almost six months since I decided to, mostly,  move on from writing about music, and to really getting back into covering my first love: art.

Its always been the goal that once I managed to regularly cover events here in Melbourne, that I wanted to begin to cover events and artists out in other parts of Australia – so, I’m looking for people to help out here and there to cover events and artists across the rest of Oz. Read more »

From the streets of the Brisvegas West End, to the laneways of inner city Melbourne and beyond, Magnus McTavish has been presenting his unique style of street art to the public for quite some time.

We were lucky to be able to catch up with Magnus over the weekend for brief q/a on his upcoming exhibition opening at Until Never gallery this Wednesday night, so read on and check out.

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I love that Melbourne attracts a crap load of artists from both interstate and overseas, and when opening my mail today I saw that Brisbanes Magnus McTavish will be doing a show down here next week at Until Never. I’ve stumbled across Mags Ones art before in my surfing, and had always thought it’d look great to see in person up against a wall – so it’s cool to see he’ll be down with a bunch of works.

“Growing up in Brisbanes’ wild West End, Magnus has a long and prolific association with the core artists of the Brisbane street art scene, working alongside pioneers across generations of the culture.

“Metaphorically, Laos is land mass consisting of trees and bio mass diversity, But Mags, Magnus, McTavish and the Reconstruction of the uni humanizer, consists of retro reversion of super fly ninja mixes of Refract longitudes.

McTavish industry make fine tapes in trimesters, also there are frequencies that rotate between objectivity and long winded biography. Laos was born as country, Mags was born as the Manga character with magnetism.

Also known as a super-vision listener can create such pronouns as subjugated art forms of retro-vision. Listening to the forward communication can create such idolization of the self aware recreation. Which in its process can create such quite metaphor on the anti matter of the subject.

Pass this through time and dwell on the thinking forward motion of movement within its own creative likeness, which within manifest of science human errata.

Who: Magnus McTavish
What: Mags One solo exhibition
Where: Until Never gallery, 2nd Floor 3-5 Hosier Lane, Melbourne
When: Opening Wednesday 14th July, show runs until August 7th.

Via Until Never. You can check out more of Magnus’s work on his blog.

Going through our daily blogs, we spotted the flyer for the great group exhibition that is “Free Brains” at SJS Gallery, and, amongst the talent listed, we noticed that one of our favourites, Adnate, was also contributing a piece to the show.

So we figured, what better opportunity to ask a few questions, and delve into the mind behind some truly cool work?

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More great shows coming up at Gorker Gallery this month – this time in the shape of a solo exhibition by Sydney based artists Beastman.

His upcoming show "Infinite Nature" is "Influenced by the beauty and symbolism behind nature’s repetitive geometric patterns and its eternal struggle against man-made adversities, Beastman’s tightly detailed, symmetrical paintings depict a parallel world of hope and survival inhabited by his scaly-skinned, beastlike yet beautiful and emotive characters. Gripped by fear, anger, stress, confusion and paranoia, these instantly recognisable and loveable creatures reflect human nature and the everyday burdens and struggles of life that mankind so easily and continuously finds itself lost in. Beauty. Battle. Death. Repeat. This is Infinite Nature.

"One of the most distinctive and prolific emerging artists in Australia and founder and editor of the online art publication [weAREtheIMAGEmakers], Beastman has exhibited extensively throughout Australia, as well as London, Berlin and New Zealand. He has curated and organised numerous art exhibitions and events, and has designed skateboards and graphics for various brands including Element, Folklore and Mingo Lamberti. Beastman was recently profiled on ABC’s Rush TV and has been featured in publications such as Empty, Semi-Permanent, Tees, Deadbeat, Oyster, Spitpress, Australian Creative and more."

Beastman is a highly talented artist who is at the top of his game, and getting to this show really should be a mandatory excursion for all.

Who: Beastman
What: Infinite Nature solo show
Where: Gorker Gallery, 395 Gore Street, corner of Gore and Kerr, Fitzroy
When: Opening 22nd July, 6:30pm to 8:30pm. Show runs from 22nd July to 8th August

Check out Beastmans blog, as well as Gorker Gallery for more info.  He also has a pretty cool collection of stuff on Flickr. Also, I cant recommend more highly that you go and take a look at the [weAREtheIMAGEmakers] website – imho one of the best online publications in Oz for the kind of art we all love.

Found over on Adnates blog, he and a few other Awol’ers have some pieces in a group exhibition coming up at SJS Gallery in Fitzroy

“… over 40 paintings, drawings, video, and installation works. Including an installation of Giovanna Phillips’ playful and engaging ’Pegged’, Jenna Corcoran’s video piece ‘Dollhouse’ examining  the everyday life of the doll through a watchful Big Brother-esque presence, and Richard Denny’s vast postcard collection from his ’Is the map the territory’ series.”

This, coupled with some urban influenced pieces here and there, promises that Free Brains will have a little bit of something for everyone.

Who: ace wagstaff, adnate, aubrey rhodes, callum watson, chris dansie, dom bonnice, elizabeth barnett, ellie king, fergus simms, jamie lea o’shea, gina maher, giovanna phillips, hannah maskell, jenna corcoran, jordan pill, josephine bradley scott, josh hook, justin tumilaar, laura mckellar, lucy lucy, matt tambellini, max milne, nick berry, prole, richard denny, rosie santos, seb fransz, seb juan, slicer, sophie sideris, travis nicholson, william erickson
What: Free Brains Group Exhibition
Where: SJS Gallery, 120 Alexandra Pde, Fitzroy.
When: Opening 7pm to 9pm, Friday 9th July, Exhibition runs from 6th – 17th July 2010