INVURT

Illustration could be regarded as one of the most expressive mediums employed by both new and established artists. It is highly accessible, and often a gateway into a world of un-paralleled creative development.

Whether you’re a veteran art critic, experienced artesian, or humble admirer of the often delicate practice, the second instalment of Brunswick Street Galleries “Drawn Again” exhibition should undoubtedly impress.

After sampling some delicious wine [curators sure do know how to pull a crowd] you will be subject to some impressive works that examine “the struggle between id and ego” and the “reliability and consistency of – the self”

There is a huge array of art on display, and is specifically a collection of new works by the skilled exhibiting artists. So come down [or up] and share some arty love.

Who: Clare Twomey, Hollie Kelley, Jonathan McBurnie, Lucy Roleff, Molly Rose Dyson, Robert Scholten, Tanya Myshkin, Emily Veale, Jane Reynolds, Judy Rogers, Marisa Lai, Ryan McGennisken, and Rena Littleson.
What: Drawn Again Collaborative Exhibition
Where: Brunswick Street Gallery, 322 Brunswick st Fitzroy
When: Opens Friday 29th July, 6pm. Runs until 11th August

For more info and some things to do, visit: BSG website, the Facebook event page, or check out some of the artists sites – Rena Littleson, Ryan McGennisken, Marisa Lai, Emily Veale, Lucy Roleff, Hollie Kelley.
Here’s a pretty cool  interview oe did with Ryan McGennisken too.

We like to stay away from any bias here – we do love Melbourne street art, and if you take a look through the pages here, sure, there are a shitload of events and such happening in Melbourne – but the same can be said for every other city in Oz too, its fkn heaving. In the past few weeks there has been so much going on across the country that its been hard to keep up, and it doesn’t look like slowing down any time soon. Australia’s street art scene is rocking, as is its entire “low brow” scene – and it has been for some time. Adelaide is pumping, Perth is producing swath of great artists, Brisbane creatives and the cities galleries are putting on amazing shows, Sydneys scene is, without a doubt, one of the best in the land and the rest of the country is following suit!

Why do we mention this? Well, two reasons – one, someone mentioned to us that we’re pretty Melbourne-centric. Fair call, but shit, you can see how much is happening here for yourself, and we cover as much as possible outside of here at every chance we can get! Secondly? Well, because in each city across Australia there are small havens of explosive art dotted amongst the metros areas – and, in the coming weeks, we’re going to be doing exposes on suburbs around Australia that have a high concentration of creative oomph. We have a few lined up, but at this stage they’re mostly Melbourne, because that’s our ‘hood here, but if anyone out there has suggestions for places you’d like us to cover elsewhere, or if you’d like to do a small write up and send us some pics of one of your favourite suburbs, adorned with mad art, then just contact us … because as much as we do love Melbourne, and as much as we cover a lot of the ‘burns shit here, it aint the be all and end all of all the cool stuff happening, both continentally, and across the ditch …

Oh yeah, and on that, you may have noticed that our love isn’t confined to just these shores any more, and as of last week we are full swing into our coverage of New Zealand street art and its ilk – we already have some great interviews, event and exhibition news, and we hope you enjoy our new section!

Anyways, hey its been a while between shit-talking – on to the wrap!

News and Miscellanea …

• Askew has opened up a new online shop – lots of cool merch from a very cool artist!
• So it was released a few months ago, but we saw it up on Nice Produce, so we’ll link to it too – Rackgaki is a great Japanese graff doco from a  few years ago – watch!
• Acclaim put up another Carbon recap video – this one is grand! Very inspiring and great to watch. Oh yeah, they also just went digital as well, woot!
• We’ll throw it into next weeks Transmissions, but here’s the preview video for the Everfresh studio at the NGV that starts next week.
• Nice Produce have a sale going on right now – you can get a whole bunch of dope Aussie artist wares for cheap – some amazing clothing on there!
• Support the amazing Dont Sleep magazine by going to buy some of their new shirts!
• We’re so not beyond pimping our mates – that’s what the wrap is for! haha … and our good friend Fergus, a well known local DJ and internationally acclaimed music producer,  has just released a bunch of new tracks in a glitch-hop-ish side project, Oddphonic. We recommend a listen, stat.

Pics And Images From Around The Traps …

• Those cool Prahran cats, T-Squat, have put up a great bunch of pics of recent street art activity in the Prahran area – things are definitely a-changing …
• We love Drab, what can we say? And we also love what Heesco painted, live, at Urban Art Throwup at the BSG last week (the show is still on, get down and see it!).
• The Opening Hours posted up some great pics from Makatrons latest adventures. They also have some great pics of Listers upcoming work for his Europe show.
• Check out this great bunch of pics from Ironlak done by members of the TMD, RTR and FDKNS crews over in New Zealand – mint.
• Dean Sunshine posted up some really cool stuff this week as well. Pics from the Fibre Femmes opening last Friday (which was an amazing show!), as well as a new collection of Melbourne Paste Up images – love this site.
• Lo-fi posted these grand images that Numskull and Roachy did on the El Capo cantina in Sydney
• Those wicked West Coasters, Last Chance, put up a bunch of pics from their recent exhibition up at Port Headland last month!
• Strobed also put up some awesome images from Bennets Oranges & Lemons show up in Sydney at the now, sadly closed but never forgotten Oh Really Gallery.

Also, don’t forget to check out the Transmissions for lots of cool Oz-centric videos from the past few months! That’s a wrap from us this week, have a good one!

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.

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From her past and present stencil based art, to her work with Ruby & Sage on jewellery, as well as her renditions of characteristic artwork on reclaimed surfaces, Megan Dell is an over flowing glass of creativity. Her work evokes a sense of the urban, yet with deep, reflected and contrasting motifs from more a natural world – often tending towards allegorical and iconic compositions.

When we talk about a lot of artists works, utilising words like those above can only ever go so far. With artists like Megan Dell, most of the time the art can speak for itself in a much more succinct and personal way than any we can conjure up – and they also usually sound much better coming from the artists themselves.

With her exhibition with Nicole Tattersall (who we interviewed back in September 2010) – DRIP – opening this week at For Walls Gallery in Melbourne, we managed to do what we try to do best and grabbed some of those words from her about her art, jewellery, stencils, skateboards, timber and oh so much more …

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A new year, another amazing BSG group show – this round is DRAWN, a regular featured exhibition of drawings from up and coming and established Australian artists, and what a collection of artists it looks like – there is a bit of pretty much everything in there.

Just on that note, we’re especially enjoying the preview of some of Kaitlin Becketts new work that we saw over at her blog that will be a part of the show – especially loving the floral motifs – cant wait to see what everyone else has come up with for the show!

Who: Gemma Allen, Genna Campton, Sam Octigan, Simone Capogreco, FAM, Virtue Fern, James Flynn, Daniel Ford, Hollie Kelley, Kaitlin Beckett, Malicious, Scott Marr, Nina Maskiell, Rena Littleson , Melissa Osborne, Elena Papanikolakis, Jane Reynolds, Georgia Robenstone, Robert Scholten, Dominic Sowersby, Luke Taylor, Gary Walker,  Gisela Zuchner-Mogall, Taylor White
What: DRAWN @ BSG Group Drawing Show
Where: Brunswick Street Gallery, 322 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, VIC
When: Show opens Friday 4th March @ 6pm  and runs til 17th March

Check out the BSG website for more info on the show and the gallery!

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 …

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Last night I did the dual mission between Fitzroy and the city to go and check out both the opening of Sweet Streets @ BSG as well as to see my first Secret Wars heat.

Neither disappointed, and I got a couple not so crappy shots from both …

Sweet Streets @ BSG

So much going on with Sweet Streets at the moment! BSG opened their show last night, the Festival Film Night is on tonight with a bunch of new short films on street art, and tomorrow night is the Urban Intervention street art sculpture exhibition and art trail opening at Yarra Sculpture Gallery .. that and all the things happening at the Artists Hub in Collingwood, as well as all the workshops and the many events coming up on the program makes for a busy time.

Anyways, I got to BSG fairly early and moseyed around and checked everything out …

More on our facebook page …

Secret Wars

Wow, damn that was cool. Scale and Itch battled it out last night in the first heat of the Melbourne round of Secret Wars, and it was a great show – Scale just made it past the mark and beat out Itch to go into the next round of qualifiers. I personally wouldn’t have liked to have been the judges, and as it was their votes were equally split between the two and it was left to the crowd cheer-vote to decide.

Great job by both, amazing work – congrats dudes.

All the rest of out photos are up on our facebook page, as per the usual …

Last Friday night was the opening of Sweet Streets, the 2010 Melbourne street art festival.

I was there most of the night at the Awards exhibition helping out with the show (as semi-official red-dotter and general run-around-er), and got a glimpse into all the hard work that was done in the background for both the opening, and the next two weeks of the festival. The committee really needs to be congratulated for putting it all together – it was packed out and there were so many unique and amazing pieces in it. A special yo also has to go out to the other volunteers, who all did a great job too.

As a pretty shitty critic (You may have noticed that I tend to love anyone who puts anything up on walls!) I wont comment too much on the content, but suffice to say there wasn’t anything there that I didnt like, I picked up a piece from a favorite artist, loved another massive four panel work that had awesome robotech-ish spacecraft across it (that was a little out of my price range), that Junky Projects rules, that the music was great, the crew doing the live drawing was amazing, and that all the winners of the prizes were well deserving of their kudos – as were all of the artists involved.

Theres some more on the opening over at Melbourne Art and Culture Critic – I had the chance to meet and chat to the affable and friendly Mark, whose blog I’ve been a big fan of for a while, and we took a good look at the show together before the opening, and he sums it up nicely. I’m looking forward to the next installments over the coming fortnight, starting with both the show at the BSG on Wednesday as well as the film night on Thursday … not to mention all the other events and workshops happening!

So heres photos from Friday pre-show as well as the opening, with my oh so ultra awesome camera skills haha .. its on at 1000 pound Bend for the next two weeks, so get in there and take a look!

The layout …

Toy Mountain with the panel I mentioned in the background ..

The Hand!

Some of the awesome work up for auction at the charity event!

Crowded room …

Live art!

One of my favorite urban sculptors, hands down. Finished live art product, up for auction (excuse the crappy photo!)…

Sick night, sick art, sick festival.

Download a copy of the entire festival guide and get to it!

Busy Friday this week with the opening of the Sweet Street festival, and several other exhibitions – not least including a solo show from Melbournes Aramas at the Brunswick Street Gallery.

“Evanidus is a collection of paintings and sculptures looking at the vanishing of some the important things in our life; the passing away of memories, of loved ones and the environment around us; it is about mourning the evanescence of our connection with life and meaning.”

There is also a great little studio visit article that the team from JAA did with Aramas on their website, and theres some really beautiful in-process pics there too.

Who: Aramas
What: Evanidus solo show
Where: Brunswick Street Gallery, 322 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
When: Opens 8th October @ 6pm, show runs until 21st October

I posted a fairly generic notice about this some time ago, but now that the festival is upon us its time to post again, this time with a little more detail. Sweet Streets is the new incarnation of the Melbourne Stencil Festival, reinvented by a new committee to traverse and cover all aspects of the street and urban art scene here in Victoria.

The guys and girls at the festival have been working hard to get everything running, and they have some pretty amazing things lined up for everyone, and just looking over it I’m really impressed by the variety, creativity and effort that has been put into it all!

The festival runs from the 8th to the 24th of October, and is really jam packed with what looks like an event for pretty much everyone, and it will be run over a variety of venues, so, heres the kinda really rough guide  …

Sweet Streets Festival Opening

October 8th, 6pm @ 1000 Pound Bend – 361 Ltl Lonsdale St,, Melbourne, Australia, 3065

The night to begin what is sure to be an amazing two weeks, and as the release says:

“It’s your first chance to see the works in the award show, as well as find out the winners of this years prizes. You can also grab a festival program on the night to find out what other events you can get involved with! (events are also posted on the Sweet Streets website)

The night starts at 6pm, with live performance by Great Earthquake and guest artist. Speeches and formal announcements will happen around 7pm. Then lets all kick back and party the night away with Dj Mike Zun!

This is a free event and perfect way to spend your friday night. So come on down and bring your friends to celebrate the opening of Melbourne’s street art event of the year!”

Theres an e-invite here on the Sweet Streets website, so download it and send it to all your mates.

Street Art Workshops & Master Classes

Undoubtedly the heart of the festival are the artist run education sessions that will be running over the two weeks that the festival will run for. A huge range of artists, designers and street art aficionados have pooled together with the Sweet Streets festival to play host to a wide range of workshops and master classes for anyone interested in finding out more about street art, or just to learn new techniques. There is everything from street art classes for secondary teachers, to stencils workshops, character design, yarnbombing and urban sculpture.

For a complete list of all the festival workshops you can be a part of, and to book your attendance, check out this link.

Festival Film Night

1000 Pound Bend – Thursday 14th October 7:30pm – Tickets $7 (+online booking fee)

Mark Holsworth, secretary of the Festival, well known for his impressive and often street-art supportive blogs, Melbourne Art & Culture Critic, has put together a cool night of street art short films “featuring four fresh short films about street art and by street artists – three of these films will be having their premiere screening.”

For more details on which films will be screening, check out this link – his selection looks pretty slick.

Sweet Streets at the BSG

Brunswick Street Gallery – October 13th @ 6pm – 322 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy – show runs til October 21st

The Brunswick Street Gallery in Fitzroy will also be playing host to an exhibition featuring artists from both sides of the Tasman during the festival, with a great range of talent such asl Cracked Ink (NZ) ,  Cinzah Seeyakem (NZ) , Liam Moore (NZ), PNTR (NZ),Rhys Burnie, Nate Gamble, Deb ,  Jo Waite, Megan Dell , Bados Earthling, Heesco  and KA’ …

“Through a small bookshop, squashed between two kebab shops, and up some narrow stairs, you will find the hidden gem that is the Sweet Streets at BSG exhibition.

Finding the place may be tricky, but it is worth the effort as Brunswick Street Gallery and the Sweet Streets Festival presents an amazing show of urban and street artists from Australia and New Zealand during the Sweet Streets Festival (8-21 october).

This cross-Tasman show will feature artists working in comic illustration, stencil, free-hand graffiti, screen-printing, mixed media, and painting.”

Pretty sure that this one is curated by Tessa Yee, who put together the amazing Urban Art 10a earlier this year. Check out more details on this show here.

Sweet Streets Fund Raising Auction

October 24, 2010 @ 6:00 pm -  1000 Pound Bend – 361 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne, Australia, 3000

Closing off the festival will be a great fundraising auction, where a bunch of the artwork from the awards ceremony as well as some other unique items will be auctioned off to help fund the future of the festival, as well as charity.

“Help raise money for the future of Sweet Streets as well as the Collingwood Housing Estate Arts Community, and Anglicare Victoria – our chosen charities.

Featuring signed prints donated by Obey, the Award Show murals by well-known local artists including Deb and Drewfunk, and a range of unique works created especially for the Charity Auction, by local and visiting artists, through the facilitation of the Collingwood Underground Artists hub – active throughout the three weeks of the festival.”

Check out the link to the event here.

So, thats the very brief  kinda rough guide to the festival – but there is so, so much more detail that I haven’t covered, so make sure you check out these links:

Sweet Streets website
Sweet Streets facebook page
Sweet Streets on Twitter

Have fun, and see you at the festival – I’ll probably be doing other updates as the various events come round, so stay tuned …

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The Brunswick Street Gallery has, for some time, been a bastion of visual innovation amongst the sidewalk-bustle of Melbournes creative hub, Fitzroy. With numerous exhibitions revolving around both solo and group works, as well as competitions for emerging and established artists, it is no surprise that their next endeavour is helping to foster the expanding interest in gallery displayed urban art. Having begun her position as Assistant Director at the BSG in October of 2009, and as a member of the board for the Melbourne Stencil Festival, curator Tessa Yee has wasted no time in putting together a showcase of works traversing an undeniably complex, and continually evolving style.

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