INVURT

As Xmas begins to roll its way casually towards us, and as we start going ever so slightly insane from carols in the supermarket, its always good when artists take some of the more traditional aspects of the season and transform them into something new …

This is the core of the idea behind Street Advent, which will be running for 25 days in the lead up to Christmas day. Using the traditional form of the advent calendar, twenty five Melbourne and International street artists have signed up to present a new piece of street art for each day of December up until the 25th. Where these pieces will be, who will be doing what day, an where they will be unveiled is anyone’s guess – but that’s half the fun!

The images will be posted online each day after the work is in place, with a few clues maybe as to where its located – then its up to you to find them.

The first pieces are already going up, such as this fantastic one from I & The Others, so get onto it, and enjoy this special Christmas event from a whole heap of talented artists!

Who: Phoenix, Kaffiene, Rena Littleson, Benjamin Reeve, skulk, Guz, Mason (Canada), Mishap, I & The Others, Year of the Shorts, Blomtrog, Decycle (Germany), Andros, Olive47 (USA), Dopio, Klara, Terrible Horrible, MAO, Birdhat, Nommric, Facter, Jinks (France), James Bevelander, Fezwitch, Internet (not in order, wheres the fun in that!)
What: Street Advent 2011
Where: All over Melbourne, its up to you to track them down!
When: Street Advent will be running from Thursday 1st December until Sunday 25th December.

Check out the Street Advent website, as well as the Street Advent facebook page for more info and to follow the pieces, or hunt them down, as they go up!

Whilst we sit here over the next few days and process the thousands of images and hours of video that we took over the four days we were at Cockatoo Island for the Outpost Project, we have placed a whole bunch of images we took for our live blog in our gallery. Theres lots more here than was posted, and a hell of a lot of great art.

View on for a small snapshot of just some of the artwork imagery we’ll be posting over the next week …

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If you have any sets of images you would like us to add to our Snapshots categories, please feel free to send them in to us.

Art Series Hotels, one of the sponsors of the Outpost Project  along side the National Gallery of Australia, will be hosting a series of topical forums consisting of panel discussions on the many varying issues facing Street Art today.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been reading the happenings over at the Pastemoderism #3 facebook group, and watching as artist after artist has posted pieces of work that are going to go up on the walls … the diversity, talent and sheer volume of work that is going into this event is on par with some of the greatest feats of artistic display that we have seen, and it is sure to be one of the centre pieces of the entire Outpost Project.

But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves – for those of you that don’t already know, you’re probably wondering what Pastemodernism #3 is?

“Paste Modernism is the largest celebration of the medium of ‘paste-ups’ in Australia, and is now presented again for the 3rd time at Outpost Project on Cockatoo Island. Throughout its inception it has found residence in staples of the Sydney art scene, starting initially with the artist run residence Hibernia House in a guerilla exhibition, and finally graduating to the heritage walls of Cockatoo Island. Every available inch of over 300 square meters of wall space will be covered with the pasted artworks of over 100 local and international artists.

The ‘Paste-Up’ is an ever-expanding and innovative form of street art, that involves an artist making their work onto varying sizes of paper and then applying it to walls and surfaces within their urban environment using wheat-paste or wallpaper glue. Whether as black and white multiplied photocopies, colourful hand painted murals or thought provoking text pieces, the ‘Paste-Up’ is an immediate and bold contemporary art-form.

The medium explores not only aesthetic values, but is often politically and socially motivated – which allows experimentation both by accomplished artists as well as people with little or no artistic training. Â With all other street art genres, a hierarchy is in place based usually on the skill and years of training and practice of each artist (aerosol-can control/complexity of a stencil etc). Most ‘Paste-Up’ artists also have years of experience, creating intricate and well-planned artworks – however anybody right now, could find a photograph or jpeg that resonates with them, take it to a digital printer and with relatively little expense, print it out in wallpaper width paper sheets and put it up on the streets.”

Curator Ben Frost, who we think at this point is somewhat of a pasteup champion, and his amazing team of helpers, have put so much work into organising and getting this show happening that its not funny – collating, cutting, pasting, pasting… and pasting … and the proof is in the evidence of how it has turned out. Photo sets can be found up on the PM website, as well as over at 1337s Flickr, Blomtrogs Flickr and Komsumterras Flickr as well – but  as amazing as all these photos are, that they don’t hold a candle to the exhibition in person.

You can check out the entire history of Pastemodernism at the website, where you can also find the whole story behind the event itself. If you’re on the island over the next few weeks, there’s no way you’ll miss this.

Who: (ready for this?) …Ben Eine, Pure Evil, Copyright, Dan Baldwin, Jeremyville, Nathan James, Ben Frost, Anthony Lister, Psalm, Mega, Heesco, Drab, Vexta, Esjay, Bei Badgirl, STABS, Jumbo, Zap, Kid Zoom, Chris Cunningham, Mats?!, James Dodd, Shannon Crees, Smc[3], HA HA, Benois, Urban Cake Lady, Ken Taylor, Bridge Stehli, Rone, Numskull, Yok, Miss KK, Cloud Commission, 1337, Wolves & Owls, Birdhat, Golden Silver, Asio, Skallywag, Rosie Apps, Ape Seven, 7U?, Dr.X, Vars One, Megalo, AM, Dstruct, Flutter Lyon, The Mong, Hazzy Bee, Akisiew, Baby Geurilla, Jess Higgins, Mr. Sweet, Ghstie, Olive 47, Trystan Bates, Boots, Donovan Christie, Tad, No Frills Art, Abyss .607, Th@anks, Mister Edwards, Fukt, JHammos, Donnie Danger, PigeonBoy, Crisis, Mr Skel, Braddock, Skel, Teem, Jason Mamarella, Emya, Bennett, Damion Silver, Mr. Sweet, Wounded Children, John Forno, Bjorn Vanderborght, Mod77, Barek, Benjamin Reeve, Lostrack, Brett Chan, Asha Rowe, Emily hasselhoof, Clag Bandits, YMT, Kirbee Lawler, Thomas Thorby-Lister, th-INK, Resan, The Dirt, KonsumTerra, Vinzenz Reinecke, Lukasz Karluk, Swerfk, Andros, Houl, Rebecca Murphy, Tez, Scott Franks, IniqueInique, Qwux, S-701a, Felix, Fintan Magee, Donii Paul, OKO, Tomahawk, West, Lady Bna-Nas, Kirst Ohh, Ms. Brown, Bunkwaa, Sam Evans, Bathcat, Lauren Vassallo, SeaweiD, Graham Wilson, Stylo, Tim Andrew, Aisha, Fletch, Blomtrog, Ox, Kaff-eine, Cliff Weiderman, Mis Adda, Nathalia Azuero, Joel Lambeth, Donovan Christie, Flx, Ankles, Xcopy, Ruffo, Keeey Pace, Sancho, Mike Francis, Mica Still, Simon Lovelace, Chris Petro, Phi, Toggles, Ali3n, Sebastion Toast, Dboe, Jessica Lahoud, Shida, Bijoux, Lazarus 0.1, Saffaa, Hamishi, Phoenix, Zen, Baako, Neil Collyer, Terrible Horrible, RJ, Nick Simpson, Klara, Murfy James, Mimi, I & The Others, E.G.H.A.D, David Whirlpool, Rod Bunter, Bhats, Claire Kurzmann, Michele Guidarini, Dean Sunshine, Codel, Mk Chilby, Alison Alder, Crux Godsend, Ishi, Jyiro, Seth Tarrant, Keiron McMaster, Oliver Heath, Jodee Knowles, Mama Gunns, Naomi Lou Lou, Brad Robson, Mr French, Fezwitch, Ben Foster, Jeremy Austin, Eamonn Doran, Tdub, Zoe Weber, Nina Gibbes, Ghostess, Ruskidd, Tom Lukacs, Urban Monk, Jason Ditch, Dilute, CDH, Kara Nikkel, Newcastle Productions, Umpel, Phaux, Cooper Lawler, Facter, The Havoc Plan, Awol Monk, Jacquie Manning, areaRED, edgarR, Diamondxdaggers, Sevens, Anto Christ, Badger, Timbo400, Nick Boerma, Isabella Smith, Kieran Mangan, and, believe it or not, many more …
What: Pastemoderism #3 – Pasteup exhibition
Where: Outpost Project, Cockatoo Island, Sydney Harbour, NSW
When: Friday 5th November til Sunday 11th December

Check out the awesome Pastemodernism website – which has a whole bunch of interviews, history, and info … as well as the facebook event page, and, of course, the Outpost Project website for more info.

No matter how busy things get, there’s always time for some video goodness! This week, what a roundup of grandness!

TwoOne, Al Stark and Nails got down and painted at RMIT the other week – and this is a really cool video from the day – its not embeddable, alas – so click through to watch it on the site.

First up, good friend and talented artistic maestro Ed Bechervaise has a feature video up! We loved the show, and we love this mans work.

Makatron has a show coming up real soon, and this is a great video preview for it – lots of footage of Maka in Brazil, Melbourne, Adelaide and Alice Springs.

Mike Maka Art show trailer from Mike Maka on Vimeo.

The guys at Ambush Gallery teamed up with The Galeries to bring Transient – and this great feature interviews all of the artists involved – Beastman, Max Berry, Mark Alsweiler, Phibs, Jumbo and Numskull.

TRANSIENT from aMBUSH Gallery on Vimeo.

Just Another Agency did an awesome job at getting Sniders lane in the Melbourne CBD all painted up by a host of amazing artist.

Adrian Doyle has a show coming up, and this is an ultra cool expose on the man himself as well as his story and a bit of an expose on the infamous Blender studios – must see tv!

We are starting up on our big Outpost Project coverage next week – but for now, if you haven’t seen it yet – this is going to be absolutely amazing. We’ll be there, and you should be too. Watch this video!!

Jianna Lucia and Ollie Lucas teamed up with Steve Lamattina for the Grolsch Grid events, and came up with this hilarious and cool video featuring their art – and a kewpie doll …

Finally, well, I have a show opening up tonight (hence my less that prolific posting on here the past few weeks) – Carl Allison did up this video preview for it – hope you can make it down if you’re in Melbourne.

That’s it for this weeks roundup – if you have videos, send the links to us! Ez.

Lots of great images from around the web this week, from exhibitions to live art and everything in between – enjoy this weeks snapshots from around Oz and NZ …

Quite a few pics on Dean Sunshines blog this week from last weekends Brunswick Show at Donkey Wheelhouse!

 
Go over to Deans website for more pics from the show …

Kailtin Beckett @ BSG

We loved these images of Kailtin Becketts work at the Folk Art show at Brunswick street gallery the other week – samurai beasts! Mad.

Check out the rest of the images on Kaitlin Becketts website.

Anthony Lister @ Ironlak

Lister hit Melbourne recently for his solo show, and Ironlak posted up a bunch of pics of one of the walls he did while he was here.

 
Head over to Ironlak for more images.

25 Years of RDC @ SDM Crew

We love all the pics that are being posted up from the RDC show, we caught it last Friday and it was grand.

Head over to the SDM website for more pics from the show.

End2End @ Crush City

Crush City in Brissy have been running their End2End competition, and so much great shit has been coming out from it.

"We dropped 20 of Brissy’s most active writers names into a hat, drew one out and armed them with 4 colours to display their style in it’s simplest form. No effects and no fancy business.. We let them start it off then pass it on to the next writer…

The rules are:

• Writers may only use BLACK, CHROME, WHITE & ONE OTHER COLOUR
• Writers must nominate the next artist and make sure they rock up to contest… Punishable by methods we cannot disclose publically.
• Writers must keep it fresh!

Check out Crush Citys End2End blog for a crapload more pics.

Space Invaders @ Artygraffarti

Check out a bunch of pics from the Melbourne Space Invaders opening show over at Artygraffarti 

Click here for more images.

Dvate and Something 4 Nothing @ SDM

Another collection of great images from the SDM crew, this time from last weeks Dvate show at Rancho Notorious – win.

Check out more images here on the SDM website.

That’s all the wrapup for this week, if you have pics from shows, events or just cool stuff you’ve done, send them through to us!

This Thursday, Prahrans Rival Revolution Studios and Invurt will be hosting an intimate live art showcase of some of their resident artists, DJs and friends.

With tunes streaming live and globally on the night via Onlineclubber.com and with art up on the walls and being produced on the fly for the evening, Phoenix, ExRobot, Mishke and Fletcher Andersen will be drawing and up a visual supper, backed by resident studio DJs Edburg and Craig James.

Combined with the wonderful hospitality of Piccolo Espresso, and with cheap drinks on the evening, head down to Prahran this Thursday night to say hello, have a chat to a bunch of the studio and Invurt crew, and check out the artists and DJs as they do their thing – see you there!

 
Who: ExRobot, Phoenix, Mishke, Fletcher Andersen and DJs Edburg and Craig James.
What: Rival Revolution Road Show
Where: Piccolo Espresso, 149 High Street, Prahran.
When: This free event starts at 7pm Thursday, 25th August, 2011

Check out Rival Revolution, Online Clubber, and Piccolo Espresso and the facebook event page.

The Burning Man Australia are back next weekend with a fundraising event at Noise Bar in Brunswick (the same spot as last weekends very cool Body Canvas promo event). The event itself has a massive lineup of all kinds of talented performers, from music, to roaming performers, to live art. There will also be workshops of all sorts as well, with healing rooms, fashion and circus skills and more.

The live art on the night will feature work from Heesco, Itch, I @ The Others and Facter.

“Born on the catwalk of the Costume Kult theme camp at last year’s US Burning Man festival the dream of an Erotic Sci-Fi Circus Camp specifically designed for Australia’s Burning Man festival came into being.

Back home in Melbourne, The Space Between camp found a crew of inspired burners to make this dream a reality… now this team needs the funds to build and transport this elaborate theme camp to this year’s Australian Burning Man event.

The Space Between has joined forces with various members of Melbourne’s Burning Man community to create a Fun-raising event like none other incorporating workshops, bands, performers and a whole lot of fun.”

All in all, it looks like a really cool night, for a decent cause (who doesn’t like a massive volunteer arts orientated festival?) – so head down, and make sure you check their facebook page as there are a crapload more details on there …

Who: Live art from Heesco, Itch, I @ The Others and Facter
What: SeedPod – Australian Burning Man Theme Camp Fun-Raiser
Where: Noise Bar, 291 Albert St, Brunswick, Melbourne
When: The event starts at 3pm in the afternoon, Sunday 21st August, and runs until 12:30am

Check out  the SeedPod website, as well as the facebook event page for more details!

For our readers who are uninformed of some of the background of Invurt’s editor, Facter, he actually grew up a stones throw away from the Perth suburb of Craigie, 6025 – (sharing the same postcode in neighbouring Padbury), and one of the landmarks near there, was  "the Craigie Wall." Described as a legal wall that all were invited to make contributions to, many Perth based artists took their first spray can to concrete on a legal wall up in the 6025 postcode, and it was an important part of the WA graffiti and hip hop culture for many, many artists and youths in the area. Way back when he was a youngu’un, even Facter attempted a piece there, which he promptly described as “a piece of shit” and was happy when it was covered over by a burner not long after [ed. so MANY fkn burners on that damn wall … ].

“For 15 years the northern suburb of Craigie provided a place for graffiti writers to paint without fear of prosecution or persecution. For the first time in the suburbs history an attempt to document the stories, pieces and individuals that made the Craigie Walls an important place in West Australian graffiti culture, has been made.

Craigie Tales is a publication about a suburb, a site and a mural arts program regulated by the painters that took ownership of three local High School tennis court walls.

Craigie is having a party and everyone’s invited! Finally your book is ready and tacos served. Cordial for the straight edger’s, art on the walls and a RTR after party. Every purchase of Craigie history receives a Lucky dip for stickers!"

The up coming book, released this coming weekend at The Bakery in Perth, should be a reminder to the general public, local councils and our local community about the importance of supporting local established and emerging artists abilities, and the walls on which they are able to paint, and the importance of these places in our history … and that sometime a legal outlet is all that is needed to start the dream.

What: Craigie Tales Book Launch
Where: The Bakery, Artrage Complex, 233 James Street, Northbridge,
When: Saturday August 20th, 6pm – 8pm

Check out the Craigie Tales website, and the facebook event page for more info on the book and the launch party … and stay tuned for some great words from the guys who put together the book ;)

Morning all – firstly theres been a bit of a lack of updates in the last week or two, its been a really busy time for me, and theres a lot on that I’ll get around to after tonight is over, so firstly many apolgioes for that.

So I’ve been working my ass off the past few months to get my first solo show up and running – everything is now hung and its looking great – so if you’d like to come check it out, pop down!  Lots of illustrations, prints, drawings and other mixed media works, some dresses as well as custom toys – I wanted to do a whole range of stuff for my first solo, and its all really come together, and I’ve had some mad help along the way too.

I wont give too much away, but heres a couple of photos from setting up and the At Large gallery, the finished hanging looks awesome and I’m really, really happy with it!

Also opening last night was Jae Copps exhibition My Illusion Architect at Gorker Gallery, hoping to get down there tomorrow to check it out, it looks amazing!

And, to cap off a big weekend, as you all probably know (unless you live under a rock), Everfresh are also launching their Black Book at 1000 pound bend tonight! (I can never figure out how to get that pound sign!)

All in all, a huge weekend ahead, and I hope you all have a good one – back to regular scheduling next week, hope to see you all either at my show or afterwards at the launch … ez.

This has been up at a few places for a while, and flyers and facebook page have been out, but I held off posting here or promo-ing on here for a little bit – I try to keep this blog separate from any personal stuff I have going on – but its an exhibition, and its coming up, so here it is.

My first solo exhibition, Inhabited Times, will be showing at At Large Gallery in Northcote on September 3rd – its something I’ve been working on for, well, almost a decade or so of writing and drawing, so it has a fair bit of a back story to it – and you can find more details on at www.irikanji.com. The show burrows heavily from my love of scifi concepts, as well as a lot of research and my interest in the last few years on Singularity Theory.

This is, I think, the same night as the EF Book launch (alas for minor clashes), which is going to be grand, and I’ll be heading to that straight afterwards – so you should all make a night of it as well!

I’m pretty excited to be able to show a range of my work for the first time, outside of a few group shows here and there, and, of course, looking forward to getting my beer on on the night.

"Inhabited Times" is the first solo exhibition from Fletcher Andersen, presenting both new and unexhibited works from a vast, conceptual world building project over a decade in the making.

Fletcher, out of Perth and now Melbourne-based, has steadily built the dark, solar system spanning demesne of The Known. Adrift with the remnants of a technologically-rich past, wandered by the disparate remains of a xenophobic humanity; the remnants of the failed Singularity struggles to discover a route with which to rebuild life, albeit hyper-evolved.

Shining a light on humanity and its absorption of technology, Fletcher marks our vicissitudes in bionics, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. He draws upon Singularity Theory, the concept that the pace of technological development approaches a crescendo whereat life inevitably transforms to accommodate advances in science – irrevocably altering civilisation, society and the biosystem.

Presenting a wide range of illustrations, prints and visuals, Inhabited Times is the first exploration into the vagaries, alternatives and deviations of a future civilisation in which the concept of humanity is a lost, idiosyncratic aberrative.”

Who: Fletcher Andersen   
What: Inhabited Times solo exhibition
Where: At Large Gallery, 208 High Street, Northcote
When: Friday 3rd September, opening 6pm – 9pm. Show runs to September 16th

So please check out the facebook page, as well as the website for more details and background to the concept behind the show (and to make sense of that nerd-speak haha).

So after having been online for a year, and having only posted articles up from all the archives, I’ve decided its time to start writing new material in this blog, and actually using it for the purpose it was originally intended – to act as a conduit for looking at music and art here in Australia and around the world ..

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Some friends of mine, Brian Simms and Jaz Miu are opening a gallery in Northcote this Saturday, so please feel free to come and check it out – the following is from their facebook invitation:

“AFTER MONTHS OF SLAVERY HARD WORK AND HELP FROM SOME OF YOU BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE, OUR PROJECT, AT LARGE GALLERY IS FINALLY OPENING ITS DOORS TO THE PUBLIC!
Kicks off with a huge group show of 25 street and illustrative melbourne artists, 4 live graffers painting our massive brick wall outside, dope dj’s spinning dub, hiphop and specially crafted beats, and a visual montage projection of the city we know and love from 6-9.

Official Opening 6-9pm Saturday 20th June.
After party closed to public.
The group show is up for 3 weeks till 11 JULY.

free wine and nibblies, and cupcakes courtesy of anita ;) and cheap beer at the bar.

come git. it. on. and help us celebrate this awesome thing to support beats and art.”

… yes, I will be showing a piece in the exhibition and theres some really amazing work in it from a diverse range of street artists :)