INVURT

At one of those openings, the ones that seem to consist of my entire social life these days – beer on an empty stomach, still suited up from work and the taste of too many cigarettes in my mouth, a friend and I got to talking about artists who we felt were “on the rise”. It was an interesting run of names, some old, some new, some that I hadn’t heard of – and then, she mentioned E.L.K. “He seems to just be everywhere at the moment,” she explained. I remember standing there for a moment, agreeing, and that pretty much prompted a whole new line of conversation – one that I’m still thinking about as I write this.

From his first place in last years Australian Stencil Art Prize, to his recent sell out solo show in Sydney, which was also covered in a saturation of media (and courted a small amount of controversy, in the form of protests from a Christian fundamental group), to his cover appearance on the latest issue of Australian Art Monthly, its no wonder that E.L.K.s name has been coming up with random regularity – he does, after all, seem to be everywhere.

(more…)

For the past few months, Drewfunk has been steadily, and diligently, working away in his studio on a new body of work – an ink centric collection that takes his familiar creatures into new directions, with variations of repetitious, but never repetitive, patterning and forms.

With his highly anticipated Black Lingings solo outing opening this week at No Vacancy Gallery, one of our new team members, Mel Balkan, managed to grab some of Drewfunks valuable time in the lead up to the show. The conversation that ensured was both hilarious and informative, revealing a deeper side to a talented artists humourous, and yet sagely adept, views on life, art, society, and everything in between …

(more…)

As a purveyor of the weird and wonderful, its always a special thrill when we discover an artist whose work has that particularly skewed edge to it. Personally, I’m completely open to all styles and types of art, darker illustrative work will always have a special place in my heart – and that probably harkens back to the massive amount of comics that I read throughout my youth.

The first I saw of Heescos work was last year, during the Sweet Streets @ BSG exhibition. There, he had a collection of light-boxes, scratched out dry-point style from a layer of black acrylic, as well as other drawings that were just as elaborately detailed and strange. What fascinated me most in his work, was the expressive nature of the displayed characters, his work catapulted emotion out of the various old, wizened, mutated and other slightly off-kilter entities.

Couple all of that talent and imaginative artwork with a genuine, friendly and enthusiastic personality, Heesco embodies some of the best virtues of the new wave of multicultural, experimental and genre defying artists that are emerging within Australia today. For our first interview for 2011, we wanted something special, and Heescos detailed and unique story of his artistic journey between his native Mongolia to Australia (and all the paths between) certainly fit the bill – and we’re totally wrapped to have the chance to share it.

So, read on for the unique, and at times emotive and thought provoking story behind the man, and enter the deliciously wicked, familiar, and every so slightly warped world of his imagination …

(more…)

Invurt wouldn’t be anything without the rest of the web and arts community – we spend at least an hour or two every day going through a wide range of feeds and sites, checking for news and seeing what’s happening. Probably half the event stuff we post up is composed of things we find through either gallery blogs or these ones, the other half is stuff we get mailed to us. That said, irrespective of the news they contain, we read these sites because they generally have a great mix of awesome to them, and we can get our fix of art-goodness from reading them all – and, if we see something relevant, we post it up as well. Link-backs are a hard and fast rule, if we see it on a site, we link back to them and give back a bit of support – if we can help drive even just a bit more traffic back to them, or get a few more people to a show that they’ve posted up, then we’re happy.

We wont call it a top 10 of 2010, theres more than that – and, also,  there are other blogs out there that are just as great that we’ll get to in the next part. I haven’t included galleries, and I haven’t included sites that cross too many different categories  with their posts (like the larger magazines etc), and, no international sites. We also think that the term “blog” in reference to a lot of these sites is a little outdated, many of them are so much more than what such a simple connotation presents – we probably wouldn’t even call Invurt a blog, we guess its more of a webzine, or whatever the hell you want to call it.

Anyways – these are just a portion of the blogs that we love – and this is a bit of a thanks to all of them for their hard work in providing us with a great read throughout the week …

Melbourne Art & Culture Critic – updated fairly regularly, and its been going for some time now – Mark Holsworth is a really nice guy, and has a lot of history in the area of writing about art, as well as creating it himself. His articles span the gamut of Melbourne art, but he does have a particular penchant for urban and street art related stuff – and, agree with his opinion or not, his posts are insightful, thought provoking and often also carry a bit of historical information along with them, which I love.

Nothing To Nobody – we talked to Jo Jette from Nothing To Nobody not long ago, and we think what they’re doing with their magazine is great – but, they also have a great blog up and running which covers a whole bunch of different cultural related stuff – not just art – and has some cool info on board.

Everfresh – what can we say about Everfresh? Prolific, talented and dedicated. Their blog spans the gamut of their activities, as well as news and info on what their friends are up to. I particularly enjoy it for their posts while any of them are travelling, as well as all the work they’re doing out in the streets.

Nice Produce – Nice things for nice people; thats their motto – and Nice Produce is chock full of nice things. They have a bunch of artists contributing blog entries to the site, and also cover a lot of events that they or their friends are involved with – they’re also a great online store that you can get a range of different artwork and related products as well. Its a really cool collective, and its another religious read for us – props.

Kompound – when we started out Invurt, we wanted to keep it simple, there are far too many “all over the place” blogs online that just didn’t really have an aim – then we saw Kompound, and liked what we saw. Theres a bunch of candid photography, a bit of events and music, a lot of street art, a  few videos – all those things we sometimes dislike about other blogs are all the things that we love about Kompound – it just works.

Just Another Agency – The girls at the agency are pretty cool, and are doing some cool things to help promote a whole slew of talent, but, their site doesn’t just go into the whole agency aspect of things – they also have an awesome blog attached to it that often has a lot of great info, cool little articles and its a really worthwhile read for both local and international artist info.

ArtistsWA – this site has been around for a few years and was started by a couple of friends of mine. It went through a bit of a quiet period for a while there, but its being updated much more frequently these days by Perth artist Flaunt – lots of new artist information going up, as well as events of a like-minded nature from back at my Westralian homeland.

Images to Live By – for a little more cerebral read into street art – this is noted Melbourne street art writer and researcher Alisons Youngs blog. She’s a pretty busy lady, so the blog isn’t updated every day, but when it is you can always be assured that the content will pique your interest and give your brain something to think about – and you should read through the archives for some great articles.

This Life – another example of an all-rounder that is pretty cool. This Life is a fun read, and with a few people posting on it the content is varied, but not too over the top in terms of the whole “Lookit this youtube video I saw and this one and this one!” nah – its chilled, laid back, and it also has some great interviews on it – notably, we love the interviews with tattooists/artists they’ve been doing lately.

Design Federation – supportive, funky, fun and informative – all attributes that DF excel at, and which has made their site one of the stopping points for Oz creatives. It covers a wide range of design news, from mainstream to the more underground, and its a great.

We Make Stuff Good – Its been a little quieter than usual on the WMSG front in the last few months, but from what we hear it may just be the calm before the storm. One of the coolest sites that looks at the creative subculture in Melbourne, there are some really great articles and interviews in its archives – and, hopefully, many more to come in the future.

weAREtheIMAGEmakers – we’ve sung praise for WATIM before, for good reason. Beastman started WATIM way back in 2005, the news section has a great listing of coming events, and every issue released just builds on each one before. There is an amazing archive of work and artist interviews throughout all 23 parts of this ongoing zine, and as soon as we read one, we cant wait for the next.

Special Mentions

Street Arse – we’re hopefully looking at  NZ events and artists come early next year, and this is one of my favourite NZ blogs right now (Askew Ones blog is also rather awesome). Street Arse has been going for quite some time, and gives a really good over view of things and artwork thats happening around NZ. Check it out.

Io9 - okay. So its not local. I lied when I sad there were no international sites. Its not even art (though it does have an amazing art category) – but io9, Gizmodo and Lifehacker we read religiously. It has some amazing fkn articles, its eclectic, and its one of our favourite sites on the web – everyone should read it – and this is my post, so like, its listed. What-thafuk-ever =P

If you have any other suggestions for great blogs we can check out, just drop us a note in the comments – we’d love to check them out – if we haven’t seen them already and they aren’t going to be in the next part, that is …

There’s something distinctly nostalgic behind the name of Anthony Listers upcoming Sydney show at Chalk Horse Gallery, Memories Not Included -  the title itself feels as if it harkens back to the much loved movie Batteries Not Included of my youth, and, on the surface at least, the titulary play of words from the outset grabbed my attention – so, when I briefly caught up with Lister this week, and I asked him about what the show represented, he replied, simply, “I broke my foot, and this is what I made.”

Its this fundamental ease at which an artist can comment on their work, that always piques my interest – because although it my appear to be so, Listers work is anything but simple. Drawing on a wide range of experience and influences, Listers work often delves into the subconscious of our youth, and allows the viewer to actually participate in his work, rather than to be relegated to the position of a mere bystander.
 

(more…)

It was almost dark by the time I found the number, the only indication of any type of habitation was in the form of a non-decrepit steel door all stickered, tagged and signed with various recognisable marks – names, logos,characters, and, of course, the stylised, almost runic arrangements of TwoOnes familiar font.

(more…)

There’s already a beer in my hand by the time I catch sight of him – it’s Friday afternoon and the bar I’m in, e55, is near-full, and the crowd is drinking their shit away in preparation of the night to come. He’s sitting down in the back corner, and I notice that he already has a jug in front of him, notebook out, writing away – plotting and listing whatever number of things an artist needs to get done in the week before their second solo exhibition.

(more…)