INVURT

We all know it – life really is completely random – yet many of us don’t embrace such a fact as a real ethos, instead  we relegate the chaos in our lives to simple expressions of "wtf" and "huh?"

As his moniker simply implies, Random is one artist who has long since embraced the chaotic disorder in the world, and turned it into his own personal motto. Traversing a wide range of disciplines, from painting to graffiti, and now with a large focus on body art, Random is one of those artists whose travels and tribulations have forged a unique path by which his creative impulses are explored.

Having recently held a solo show for Aucklands Art Week festival, we had a chance to throw a few questions at the man himself, and get the low down on his work, and what it is about his art, DIY ethics and his travels to Japan that have spurred on his journey …

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Gimiks Born, is a builder of worlds.

As a storyteller, and lover of both pop culture and ancient histories and mythology, each frame of the work he produces contains a creative narrative that is nothing short of immersive. With cross skilled disciplines in design, illustration, painting and street art, Brisbane based Gimiks Born has, over the years, developed characters, icons and storylines that coalesce his various passions into a visual playground.

When we had the chance to send some questions off to Gimicks, we didn’t hesitate – the man has been on our, and many others, radar for some time. What we received back, unsurprisingly, was a veritable feast of words and imagery, and we found ourselves plunged into a creative land of fantasy, fables and Bitter Winds …

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With hints of the sensual, and always with a veil of salubrious beauty, Eveline Tarunadjaja’s illustrative works beckon the eye to dive into the dreamlike worlds, and intricate patterns, that they espouse.

As a self taught artist who moved to Australia in her teens, Eveline has since pursued her artistic passion with a vigorous can-draw attitude; experimenting, developing and pushing her style through trial and error. With comic-esque undertones and sultry combinations of naturalistic and feminine themes, she has garnered interest not only from aficionados within Australia, but from galleries across the world. Not content with merely putting pen to paper, however, Eveline has also delved into the world of t-shirt printing and yardage patterning, extending the intricately gorgeous art that is her trademark into the wearable world.

With work in the upcoming Go Go Gocco Go show at Outre Gallery this Friday , and as she draws her way towards her next solo show in November, Eveline kindly gave us a bit of her time to satisfy our curiosity – and to indulge our love of fine lined, illustrated femmes …

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Japanese street and sportswear brand Onitsuka Tiger have dropped their 2011 Australian Spring/Summer collection nation wide.
In celebration, this Friday, The Lightbulb Lounge Room will be hosting a ‘one night only’ exhibition of “Australian Creatives” presented by Onitsuka Tiger!

“This special exhibition of works by Australian creatives currently based in Japan, aims to showcase Australia’s unique cultural and creative ties with Onitsuka Tiger’s home-nation of Japan.”

With showing artists including; Angelina Fong Lim, Mark Drew, Oliver Georgiou, Hello Sandwich and Denny Stocks, this exciting show will coincide with the launch of the brand itself in the form of an installation.

If dwelling in Sydney have a gander at this awesome exhibition, and if you are interesting in purchasing some wicked wears to strut the street, check out the Onituska Tiger website!

Who: Angelina Fong Lim, Mark Drew, Oliver Georgiou, Hello Sandwich and Denny Stocks.
What: Onitsuka Tiger Presents: Gaikokujin
Where: The Lightbulb Loungeroom: 58 Wallis Parade, North Bondi, NSW
When: Show opens 19th August from 6pm til 9pm, for one night only.

Check out this great interview over at Acclaim Mag with Oliver Georgiou, one of the artists, as well as the Onituska Tiger website.

Two immensely talented artists, Nicole Tattersall and Georgia Laughton; both passionate and reputable  environmentalists, have produced a combination of works that will highlight societies ill-treatment of our oceans, and the impact of humanity om the incredible creatures that are struggling to survive amidst our often careless attitude.
“The oceans lure humans in, often we are all drawn to it; unable to explain its pull or explain what draws us to it. Yet, despite this passion and love for the ocean, our lifestyles are contributing to the destruction of the oceans.  Overfishing, pollution and climate change leading to the rising temperature and acidification of the oceans. The oceans are our planet’s lungs and we are killing them at a rapid rate.”

Drawing inspiration from her recent visit to Taiji, Japan, Georgia, in her paintings, reflects the frustration and anguish she felt when she witnessed the inhumane capture and slaughter of dolphins, that is carried out by an industry of questionable morals.

Nicole’s Art is a true representation of surfing culture, the fight between native and introduced animals, and an overall appreciation for the natural world.

Both artists will present a stunning display of compassion and kindness in this duo show, and it is likely to be a stunning illustration of the impact that our over-indulged lives can have on our oceans.

Who: Nicole Tattersall and Georgia Laughton
What: Running Out Of Air Duo Exhibition
Where: Mad Gallery, 19 High St lancefield, VIC
When: Show opens Sunday July 10, 2-5pm and runs until Thursday 21st July

For more Info visit:
www.nicoletattersall.blogspot.com, or
Georgia Laughton’s Facebook page.
You can also visit the Mad Gallery website. 

We have a lot of respect for artists who use their talents and notoriety to give back to the community; more than just fantastic works. Utilising his unrivalled ability in graphic design and ink work, Usugrow blends together traditional Japanese iconography with Punk symbolism that crosses the line between “bad-ass and refined elegance”

“As a conscious leader of his community, Usugrow has been using his fame to organize and promote a new Japanese art movement [the Shinganists] consisting of a tribe of highly talented artists with roots in the metal, punk, hip hop and tattoo scenes, all of whom share his elegant aesthetics.”

Given the already dearth of ethos behind the Shinganist movement, the two artists are a tight team. Couple Usugrow’s abilities with the likes of 90’s skateboarding legend Toshikazu Nozaka – an artist trained in an array of creative techniques, and this becomes evident. Confronted with such a montage of Japanese tattoo, contemporary art, and even skateboard design, you’re pretty much guaranteed a mind blowing experience.

This highly anticipated duo show will provide an exposition highlighting some of todays best international talent, and hopefully give us all a unique look at a significant underground culture.

Who: Toshikzu Nozaka & Usugrow
What: Oriental Elements Duo Show
Where: Backwoods Gallery, 25 Easey St Collingwood, VIC
When: Show opens Friday 15th July, 6pm-9pm and closes Sunday 31st July.

For more info visit the Facebook event page, Toshikazu Nozaka’s or Usugrow’s website’s or Backwoods Gallery website.

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!

Lo-fi keep on turning on the goodness, and next in line for the collective treatment is “Give Heart”, which is a “group exhibition featuring artists/tattooers who have come together to raise money for the Japan & New Zealand’s Red Cross relief funds. Each artist is presenting their work on a white traditional Japanese Fundoshi garment and will be up for auction on the opening night.”

Lots of great artistic fundraisers happening at the moment, and its always amazing to see creative’s give up a bit of their spare time to produce works for shows like this – such worthy causes both. If you’re in Sydney, get there and help out, and grab a cool Japanese Fundoshi!

 
Who: Jasmin Austin, Stevie Edge, Alison Manners, The Shanghai Charlies tattoo parlour crew, Jason Bell, The Ocean Ink Crew, Adam Craft, The TAttooed Heart Crew, Erin Chance, The Sacred Tattoo Crerw, Josh Roelink, The Tatudharma crew, Kate Knowles, The Chapel Tattoo Crew, Clare Hampshire, Dean Carlyle, Amanda Cain, Paul Surridge, Matty D’Arienzo, Bei Badgirl, Zan Von Zed, Terry James, Mimsy Gleeson
What: Give Heart charity group show
Where: LoFi Collective 383 Bourke Street, Sydney, NSW
When: Show opens 6pm, Thursday 19th May

Check out the LoFi Collective website for more details.

Joshua Smith is a busy man; between coordinating exhibitions, teaching creative classes, fundraising through art auctions and opening hugely anticipated gallery spaces, he somehow also manages to create artworks with a larger-than-life visual effect.

Drawing inspiration from varying cultural aspects of classic film, Japanese culture and well, anything that proves awesome to look at, Joshua showcases his works on both local and international stages. Just as importantly, he is also the proud owner of the newly founded Espionage Gallery in Adelaide. With two successful shows down already, Espionage will also play host this week to an amazing group show, a fundraiser to provide donations to the Japanese Red Cross -  Uchiwa Fan.

Invurt were quite stoked when this creative busy-bee agreed to an interview – and here it is, enjoy!

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The newly minted Espionage Gallery in Adelaide has a fundraising gig opening up this week. Looks like a great idea – gallery owner and curator Joshua Smith purchased 50 uchiwa fans and sent them out to fifty Australian artists to decorate. The fans will be sold during the exhibition for a flat rate of $60 each, and all of the funds raised will be sent off to the Japanese Red Cross.

We love these kinds of shows – things like this, Get Trucked (that is being done by JAA, who are helping out with this show as well) and This Little Teapot are great themes for group shows, and its always great to see such a large and diverse range of artists putting the time in to help out charities such as these.

If you’re in Adelaide, get down there and support the show, and buy a fan from one of your favourite artists!

 
Who: Stacie Reeves, Haley Roberts, Elyse Williams, Dan Withey,Kitty Horton, Hannah Pedley, Bec Winnel, Jack Douglas,  Rebecca Murphy, Joshua Miels, Aida Sabic, Joel VDK, Drypnz, Arisa Yamamoto, Mat Hede, REM, Kate Kowland, Daniel Purvis, Genevive Dawson Scott, Apeseven, Madison Bycroft, Kaitlin Beckett,Ciarne Braes Chappell, Matt Walker, Elisa Mazzone, Susan Catt, Daybot, Greg Eden, Aramas, Fruzsi Kenez, Kate Gagliardi, Daniela Catalano, Steve O’Connor, John Willanski, Ashowka Chowta, Matt Healey, Nish Cash, Sally Jo Cook,  Rachel Strzelecki, Sebastion Blazely, Stacy Alexandrou, Olivia Andreula, Donovan Christie, Christine Smith and more
What: Uchiwa Fan Fundraiser group show
Where: Espionage Gallery, Suite 1, Level 2, 93 Rundle Mall, Adelaide, South Australia
When: Show opens Thursday 5th May, 6pm til 9pm and runs until the 12th May

Check out the Espionage Gallery website for more information.

Welcome to this months round of Dean Sunshines top 10 street art images for the month of April … enjoy the tour!

Help out fill in the gaps on the unknown artists by dropping us a comment!

Japanese artist Jun Inoue is down here visiting, and the artist will be presenting a show of new works at Collingwoods Backwoods Gallery early next month -

“The negative space surrounding objects, the objects themselves and resulting delicate dialogue between these elements is the focus on Jun Inoue’s latest body of work.

A classical theme which characterises the essence of Ikki, the aethetic legacy of the sublime intricate simplicity of Zen Buddhism.

Jun’s work however brings a new dimension to the practice as he is a key member of the latest generation of Tokyo street artists who approach this classic practice by combining modern Zen aesthetics with the environmental interaction and western elements of graffiti.”

Jun is hard at work at Backwoods as we speak, and the guys there just posted up a preview video of the installation – check it out:

Jun Inoue – Work in Progress – Backwoods Gallery from Alexander Mitchell on Vimeo.

We think that its pretty safe to assume that this is going to be a really damn interesting show – oh, and take a look at the painting hes been working on over at Twoones studio – Ultraman rocks!

Who: Jun Inoue
What: New Works on Paper by Jun Inoue
Where: Backwoods Gallery, 25 Easey St, Collingwood, VIC
When: Show opens Friday 6th May, 6pm til 9pm and runs until the 15th of May

Check out Jun Inoues website here, and the Backwoods Gallery website for more info.

Well, I’ve had a nice and I think well deserved four day break from both work as well as the blog, but its now Wednesday and I’m looking at the backlog of stuff thats even gone up around the place in even that short amount of time so I best get back to to … cant keep myself away from it all for too long!

Highly exciting amongst all that past few days news, and, personally, something I am really, really looking forward to, is the upcoming exhibition by Kami & Sasu at Backwoods gallery in the coming weeks. These two are some of Tokyos most up there and talented artists at the moment, and their murals leave you with a serious case of mouth wide open with their symmetry and beautifully rendered designs.

“Japan’s foremost street artists KAMI and SASU will present their first Australian solo exhibition, titled “OMNI”, this November at Backwoods Gallery.

As husband and wife, KAMI and SASU create a constantly evolving visual dialogue that expresses their world and hopes for the future. Renowned for their giant collaborative zen pop murals, KAMI and SASU’s works combine elegant geometry with ebullient, uplifting colors.

KAMI and SASU have been an inspiration to a generation of Japanese underground artists. Like an eclipse, “OMNI” by KAMI and SASU AKA ‘HITOTZUKI’ (lit: Sun and Moon) will be a vibrant celebration of the couples idealistic spirit.”

The pair will also be doing a large scale mural at Melbourne Central

Who: Kami & Sasu
What: Omni exhibition opening & mural work
Where: Backwoods Gallery, 25 Easey St, Collingwood, VIC.
When: Friday 19th November 6pm – 10pm, show runs until 4th of December

Via Everfresh & Backwoods Gallery

You’ve seen the announcements all over already, and if you haven’t, then I guess you’re not as much of a artnews junky as me – either that or you’ve been in a coma, (either/either) but this week sees  one of the most amazing “lo fi sexy” photographers in the world right now – Yasumasa “Yone” Yonehara, opening not one, but two shows in both Melbourne and Sydney.

“Yasumasa ‘Yone’ Yonehara is undoubtedly one of the most dynamic and influential magazine editors and photographers in Japan.

During the 90s Yonehara’s work with the iconic Egg Magazine was instrumental in the emergence of ‘kogyaru’ (Japanese schoolgirl) culture into the global consciousness.

Yonehara’s signature ‘lo-fi sexy’ photographic style was established though a collection of erotic Fujifilm ‘cheki’ shots for Smart Girls with some of Tokyo’s hottest models. The unprecedented success of his first book, a folio of these Smart Girl portraits, bestowed him instant fame.

It was at this point that Yonehara’s sphere of influence became global, with brands such as American Apparel ‘appropriating’ his unique photographic style for use in advertising campaigns. A new genre of editorial photography was born, founded on Yonehara’s instant Polaroid style.”

(flyer is for the Melbourne show)

Who:  Yasumasa “Yone” Yonehara
What: Shake That Ass solo show

Melbourne show:

Opens Friday 24th September, 6pm til 9pm – show runs til 10th October
Backwoods Gallery – 25 Easey St, Collingwood (rear of side alley)
After party at New Guernica from 10pm

Sydney show:

Opens Saturday 25th September, 6pm til 9pm – show runs til 27th October
Lo-fi Collective – Level 3, 383 Bourke Street, Surry Hills

Via Backwoods Gallery & Lo-Fi Collective

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.

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