Peteskibreen's Blog

Shannon Doyle and Liana Evans are serious artists with formidable talent. Their oeuvre shows focus, ability, persistence, awareness and energy. Shannon’s 12 mid to large acrylic limited palette works on canvas fill the space with a sense of presence and intensity themed around the genius and talent of street artists and the limits that cultural conservatives have placed on their selection of canvas. Liana’s fine pen and ink works on paper representing the human heart in various stages of anatomical dissection, and accompanied by classic romantic poetic works on paper, are impressively installed in the ceiling of the Level 1 Space. This juxtaposition in line, medium, theme and installation creates a shift in perception and sense around the works that invokes mystery and awe. Opening speeches by Nic Plowman [Shannon] and Allan Owen [Liana] highlighted the skills,conceptual development and positive personal characteristics of the artists that added even more to the beauty of the work.  These works will always create conversations and appreciation for collectors. For sales of work information contact Jugglers Art Space 3252 2552 or email info@jugglers.org.au. http://www.jugglers.org.au

Shannon Doyle “Chain Gang” Acrylic on canvas from “After Dark”

Liana Evans “Neural Signatures” – Multiple installations – pen and ink on paper, text on bees wax soaked paper.

Sha Sarwari – paper and cardboard boat.

Sha Sarwari is a beautiful man with a story that has affected him, a story that has shaped him and a story that is affecting me. As I finished reading his letter “To Australia” for him at the opening of his show at Jugglers on June 7, he embraced me with eyes full of tears and a voice full of repeated thanks. Here is a gifted artist with a powerful narrative  in his paper and cardboard boat and exquisite painted 2 dimensional works on paper and canvas representing his angst, escape and deep existential questions. It is taking time and reflection for me to find a place of  meeting with him. I have never had to escape from my homeland and family as a minority, marginalised and hated by strong and violent religious fanatics. I have been in a minority organisation and found it hard to be accepted and “normal” but never like this. And then to find that the place of welcome has become the place of rejection, and the ark of safety has become a leaking aimless waterlogged paper boat going nowhere feels like some kind of fate overseen by some cruel loveless being. But the positive is that Sha is making art and creating beauty around his story that is inspiring viewers profoundly. Sha’s art and other artists from Afghanistan are beginning to find a niche in the Australian visual art landscape as story telling and as very worthwhile additions to collections.

I watched the  last night [May 19]  of the Anywhere Theatre Festival’s “Here’s to us” at Jugglers Art Space [Fortitude Valley]. As a partner of the Festival, Jugglers enjoyed the opportunity of providing spaces for new performance art [+ at The Shed ]  but  it was relatively easy for me to slide into managerial- caretaker -cleaner mode and to let the paying punters experience the joy. But as a strong supporter of emerging artists, I took time out for “Here’s to Us” and was struck by the mature depth of the script and performance.

The script and performance for this work apparently grew out of small group discussions around the meaning of life over 8 months for this eclectic group of young adults. I have felt increasingly cynical about the current generation of 18 – 25 year olds around issues of the big philosophical questions of meaning and purpose. This is not to say this does not exist perhaps symptomatically indicated by the increasing levels of drug and alcohol abuse and mental health issues becoming a disturbing narrative. The intensity of this show though was more than a reality show or group therapy navel gaze. It appeared that authenticity was at the heart of the interaction with the audience supported by a scripted scaffold with an intro, middle and conclusion. My personal and public experience in public speaking, homily/preaching and counselling has been dominated by the kinds of questions raised by this group of largely non-religious actors. I found myself slipping into a reactive mode in response to some of the obvious well acted and yet personally transparent monologues that in one instance sounded like one hair breadth away from total existential despair. I was energised in my all too brief post performance conversations with the cast as their genuine intent to both be real and create more inquiry within themselves and the audience was supported, not by an evangelical Christianity or atheism but by some kind of settled contentment with both the show and their own personal journeys. I was very glad to have hosted such a gig and caused to reflect that the genuine inquiry that made up so much of the 60’s and 70’s  has not been completely swallowed up by consumerism and utilitarian tertiary education.

Aaron Heng used to work for Arts Queensland. He strongly supported the work of Jugglers Art Space and our on going attempts to validate the form and medium [aerosol] of graffiti within our legal self – managed private space in the Valley [Brisbane]. Sadly he died of cancer within the last three years. This past week I was given a short piece he wrote “We don’t care if graffiti is considered art or not.” Here is a precis of that piece for your reflection. RIP Aaron Heng.

“The art/not art debate is a distraction from the debate that we should be having about graffiti – is freedom of speech for everyone or only a select few? Advertising companies continue to use visual communication as the cornerstone of almost all campaigns. Advertising is a form of communication and free speech should apply to corporations as much as to anyone. The problem is that the right to contribute to our shared, common visual environment is limited to a select few.

We believe that our shared visual environment is a forum for the exchange of ideas and statements. Let us examine the components that make up this forum. The components are: Advertising, signage, fashion/personal appearance, architecture, landscape/nature and functional/utilitarian objects. Of this list only fashion and personal appearance are accessible by individuals although even this has restrictions. To change or contribute to our shared, visual environment requires either – or both – money or legal authority.

Without money or legal authority, the only avenue available to an individual to contribute to the visual forum is the clothes we wear and the way we present out body. We have been forced into the role of a passive audience for visual messages from those with financial power or institutional authority.

We believe that everyone has the right to participate in the public forum that is our shared, public visual environment. We believe that when denied legitimate means to exercise ones rights illegitimate means are acceptable. We believe that selective removal of contributions to the shared, public visual environment by government authority is censorship.” ©

On Saturday afternoon I walked from Jugglers Art Space after being in the presence of our “Feverish” show, up Brunswick Street, through the Mall, into the IMA [the amazing Gregory Crewdson “In a Lonely Place” exhibition]  then onto Jan Murphy’s and finally rested my soul and feet in front of Ray Cook’s works at Philip Bacon Galleries. On the way up the mall I was accosted by a beggar who assured me he hadn’t eaten for 2 days. So I gave him $1.35. Then on my gallery crawl I saw a kid – probably 6   or 7 – in a funky shop window on the floor playing with his iPhone while Dad played with his iPhone on a settee and Mum tried on some funky new  wear. What to make of all this? What is in the space between these experienced and observed happenings? It is as if the held poses of Crewdson’s mildly disturbing “In a Lonely Place” images were – and still are – everywhere. Even in the presence of the wonderfully evocative Ray Cook’s Pacific Island works at Philip Bacon’s, the gallery staff seemed to have just stepped out of a Crewdson photo shoot.

On Friday night Oliver [“Ollie”] Chaseling’s “Feverish” group show at Jugglers had more resonance with the beggar on Brunswick Street than the window framed iPhone player or the gallery staff. As artists, the feeling of being a beggar can sometimes find its way into our consciousness if not our praxis! “Feverish” as a photographic and drawing exhibition by mostly QCA graduates had the swagger and dare and grittiness of the beggar without sacrificing artistic integrity.There was no pretence or strut about the work or the artists,  just a sense of “this work has come out of who we are and you can like it or leave it!”

I bought one small drawing  at Feverish and  gave the beggar $1.35 . In both instances I have contributed something to another human being. I was caught up in a space where we all were together – beggar, artist and me –  and where we contributed to each other’s living. I touched the beggar’s hand and looked into the eyes of the artist and felt in both instances some kind of return, some kind of “bounce”. But I felt no warmth from  the boy behind the window or the staff in the gallery. Not that they were looking for it or that they were deficient. It was just that there were too many barriers in those spaces for there to be anything different, anything that reflected what I experienced at Jugglers on Friday night. Commercial galleries and shops exist for one thing – to sell in a competitive market. A human touch is a means to an end, a skill to use to close a sale. Artist Run Initiatives and organisations like Jugglers come and go mostly because we are not like that. However naive it sounds and maybe is, we are “all about the art”! Selling is legitimate in a capitalist economy but unless there are deep pockets of generosity, touch,swagger, dare and grittiness then the barriers in our spaces of living will thicken and darken and we will find ourselves all alone in a house full of beautiful art.

I drove the backstreets of New Farm last night looking for a “gallery” where a two hour exhibition by a young artist friend – Yannick Blattner – was advertised to be from  6pm – 8pm. As the Director of a multi-modal art space [ http://www.jugglers.org.au ] at the other end of Brunswick Street [the “infamous” end] I thought a two hour exhibition was an interesting idea. After 9 years of exhibiting , we have reduced the traditional luxury of a three week exhibition to one week with a Friday night opening and the options of volunteers manning the space on Saturday and Sunday. A two hour gig intrigued me. It turned  out to be a fine example of smart thinking by Yannick and the curating ARI – Inhouse [ www.inhouseari.com.au ] and a very hospitable family. Yannick’s installation –Yannick Blattner ‘It’s all gone Shane Warne: 708 wickets in one hour’ – was a smart use of space and data projection with the lounge room being the main site. Screen surfaces were one of the house’s verandah blinds, a lounge room wall and a large maufactured screen which was suspended to cover bookshelves. In the bathroom there was a cheeky installation of various  still shots  of Shane Warne -some rather irreverent – strategically hung at eye level [for male users of the loo!] and a recording of Warne receiving an award for the Hall of Fame – echoing from the shower! A fitting place for these insights into Warney’s life!  As advertised, Yannick was going for a wicket taking record and the looped replay of him with some possible channelling of the master spin champion had voice over footage of Ritchy Benaud and other commentators making the “howzat” call. The other two films were less about the champion going for gold but of Yannick dropping ball after ball and of him rubbing the red ball on his crotch. These three cleverly edited films – and the bathroom installation – all made sense for me after I read the guest writer’s reflective piece on the installation. In  a professionally produced and written work, Lisa Bryan-Brown describes Yannick’s concept and installation and unpacks the underlying themes around male identity in Australia including the clever juxtaposition of sport and art in the same room on the same night. The juxtaposition of these two activities that Lisa says “are considered leisure, and not work, by many” is part of the appeal of Yannick’s work. As one – and a male – who is intently interested in what our cultural values as male identity, this installation and written work have deepened my own inquiry and have motivated me to further reflect. The use of this pop up space for Yannick’s friends and family, and art lovers is no new concept and is the way of the future. As gallery hire and and government indebtedness increase, artists will predictably reinvent their way of story telling in spaces less white cubed, more accessible – guerrilla like!  They will continue to get their stories out there so that their hearts and skills form part of the a desperately needed deepening inquiry into what makes us who we are and what we want to become.   Peter Breen

Jugglers artist Nic Plowman opens his studio in one of Jugglers QR houses during BARI 2012.

Paint runs as tears here

Dropped in blobs on dirty boards,

Artists trudging out.

The way to be dictated ?

No, imagination leads. 

On Monday February 25, 2013 Jugglers/Art Estate Services learnt that the Queensland Rail houses that we have leased as artist studios  for the last 4 years are to be sold. Three old “Queenslanders ‘  in Wooloongabba and one in Norman Park – bought by QR for future track expansion and determined uninhabitable – have housed and nurtured artists in their pursuit of a space for soul journeys, quiet and production of art. With 13 artists about to go on the road the feelings are in general far from positive about this decision. Some frantic lobbying by us and advocacy from our local Member of Parliament has secured a 7 week extension past the original March 22 eviction date. Legally QR is within its rights to end the arrangement and we have had a great ride, a positive experiment in what is normal in cities around Australia where Governments and the corporate sector make empty spaces available for artists. Melbourne has long been committed to this model of fostering the support of  artist studios in empty spaces and  buildings, realising the foundational contribution that this is for the long term vision of the the city with well researched impacts on the cultural and economic resilience and depth of its populace. Melbourne City Council has funded the launch of Creative Spaces, a web site set up for the listing of buildings available for the use of artists.

It is this aspect of the QR/Queensland Government  decision plus the lack of empty buildings in the frenetic ” new is best” philosophy in Brisbane  that mitigates against a deepening arts culture throughout the psyche of the city. A cooperative relationship between government, business and  artists needs to be more than a top heavy funding model [eg ABAF] that ends up topping up the already well secured Oprera or public galleries. My view is that the arts are to be such an essential part of the fabric of taxation spending that the kind of decision we have had to experience would never happen. Idealistic and old fashioned perhaps but one that needs to be revisited. A policy of pay as you go does not work for artists. It needs to be a nurturing relationship that values the arts. In Australia, as pointed out so well by Archibald winner Ben Quilty, sport is somehow elevated above everything else to the point where the only tertiary students who are not required to pay HECS are the elite athletes at the Australian Institute of Sport. Now if the Australian Tax Office can rule on this, on our obsession with sport prowess and winning at all costs, what legislative changes would be needed to apply a similar ruling to artists at art school?  The sacred cow of sport will die a long and slow death or not at all while artists continue to make great art in stair wells and run down buildings – unless even they are taken away from them!

There is a lot of great art being made in Brisbane these days. Artist Run Initiatives [ARI’s] are thriving but this QR decision has an ominous smell about it that threatens to undermine the momentum of visual arts practice that really and only thrives in a climate of nurture. However, there is evidence to suggest that tough times make for great art regardless of narrow minded vision-less uneducated policy making.

We are working overtime to find studio accommodation for all 13 artists and are hopeful that this will be a spring board for a plethora of  “good art”. We will not be limited in this vision but wonder how a new way of seeing our society can ever become part of this State’s DNA.

John Briggs has a ticking clock going on inside his body that is louder than mine. But who knows. As an MS sufferer with increasing immobility and pain issues, the challenge is how to make it to the next chair, not the next Bali holiday. John has found art as the story telling medium for his journey out of a successful graphic design business with high roller clients into a world of new ‘possibility’ – the name of his show at Jugglers Art Space on Feb 15. Sponsored by Access Arts, the MS Society of Qld and SWARA, John’s pastel works  are strongly evocative with viewers held and moved by the emotion released via a staring self portrait, an ‘up yours’ middle finger tied to a “Bluebell” flower  and “The Grip” where two figures are locked in a strong embrace. ‘Unframed’ could have been called ‘uninhibited’ with the aesthetic and the emotion on slow release settling down on us like some kind of gentle ‘grip’. One of the viewers related how he was held for minute after minute by a particular work [‘Think’]. Well known Brisbane sculptor and artist Terry Summers’ comment was that the art sold at some galleries in the high thousands didn’t come near this exhibition as art. The high end bought by investors with money to burn might make a space look funky for the cocktail parties on the 16th floor, but the art in this show brought us to our knees. The works were rough with corners torn by accident and intent, pastel smudges that might have been tidied up for a cleaner more presentable polished look and perforations from some sketch book tear outs. The unmistakably unusual element in this show was the approach John took in the labelling of each work. Each label included the name of the work, the word “Possibility” and a number of key words John chose to represent  some aspect of the theme of the work so that  viewer had the opportunity to explore the works as stories of possibility – not disability. As John returns to the UK for further medical treatment his promise is to exhibit again at Jugglers at a distance. This is certainly a “possibility.” Peter Breen.

“Love Love” studios [Teneriffe Brisbane] is an Artist Run Initiative [Andy Harwood, Jay Musk, Sarge Jhogenson] with grunt, showcasing Brisbane’s emerging contemporary art scene. Having had such classy curators as Dhana Merrit [IMA] is indicative of where this outfit is heading, or at least what it is doing.  The current “Saturate” group show features a striking colour palette and installation works by emerging and other well known Brisbane artists including  Simon DeGroot  and Meagan Streader*. Meagan’s interactive installation of movable geometric shaped polymer or light plastic translucent light shades are accompanied by a low volume recording that sounded to me like clunking and clicking metal on metal. My experience of the installation was two fold. First, I was in the room with another couple who were taking the shades off and putting them on to the hidden magnets on the wall. Once the light shades found a magnet “home’ on the wall, the little low energy bulb in the shade came on, revealing a kind of light Buddhist safron robe shade of orange that then effused through the darkened room. On the low ceiling over the wall were about half a dozen light shades with blue lights and next to these blue shades were, I thought, more little magnets. I was mistaken. The woman next to me gently informed me as I tried to stick my shade to the ceiling that the blue light shades were fixed. I had a moment of embarrassment but then realised that this interactive installation of Meagan’s not only had the viewers constantly rebuilding the piece but had them finding human connections in the process. Most art shows are about the viewer and the two dimensional work with maybe a hushed word or two to a friend. This healthy “Love Love” experience for some reason reminded me of a far more harsh and violent approach to engagement with a marginalised arts practice. The current approach to illegal – and sometimes legal – graffiti is eradication and zero tolerance in Brisbane. There is no conversation or attempt to understand what the law currently says is the wrongful placing of paint on public buildings and train track-side barriers. There are some newly funded public mural initiatives that are positive and the Queensland government is on the right track with these projects. However, my view is that a less confrontational approach that attempts to see and understand the art and the artist , that takes the time to engage and to begin the long and sometimes painful conversations, would shift the balance to a more respectful and vibrant ethos and maybe raise the standard of art from reactionary tags to art works that are there just because they are the expression of artists. As with my blue light experience, a gentle redirection has more positive impact in the long term than a sarcastic dismissive intolerant comment from a closed minded observer.

*Meagan is an  artist in residence at the Hamilton North Shore Shed – part of the Jugglers studio collective.

I have been picking around at the edges of epiphany for a long time. Wanting existentially to know. Belief has been hard to swallow and so I have moved to passionately inquire: How can I know the unknown, slip into the inbetween spaces and find a suspended experience of the other? That is what birthed White Silence. And there is more to come. Could no speaking, hand written notes, painting a response to “Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet”, in all white clothes produce an epiphany for someone, for anyone in a selected group of visual artists? Each time the music was a new mix, the sensual environment shifted and new artists were added and others dropped out. What happened? Who felt anything – not only sensually and emotionally but existentially, spiritually? I was busy producing and I suppose that left me out of the silent slowing down trajectory. But in the final event [WSIII] I had my hands in paint and responded – conservatively – to some new music. A movement of sorts. And others did the same. And we were wrapped in tissue and paint. The written text communication idea between us  with all oral communication off limits – hardly got off the ground in III as there was some kind of momentum created. There was a knowing generated.  There was no need for written notes to each other. Flow had been created and we were carried. I think it caught us all up in a kind of gentle vortex. But my quest for epiphany, so much a product of liminality, illness , silence and desire, failed to arrive for me in White Silence I, II or III and I think I know what I am wanting so maybe this too needs to be explored. Each event had a great impact in everyone. The production of these events drew out a knowing that to pursue this reclusive and disciplined centring down with a group of artists like this was meaning making for me. This was where I found some enlightenment, energy, joy. And maybe these, this is the epiphany but I am not satisfied.

Conor Timothy O’Shea and Anthony Jigalin painted and installed a body of work at Jugglers Art Space for the 2013 year opening on February 1. How different both men and their art are but the juxtaposition of these works in the Ground and 1st level spaces, and the viewing crowd on the opening night, had some energising dynamism.  Conor’s first solo body of work [in the main downstairs space and the side tunnel]  of large oils and aerosol on canvas, video and sound installation and text on aluminium are the work of a professional, accomplished, disciplined and talented multi-modal artist. As a BFA final year student at QUT, the embedded stories that emerge from taking time with these works began to formulate into deeper understandings for me as I took  time with the artist and his artist statement. The two dimensional painted works as contemporary paintings need to be seen by collectors and curators as making a significant aesthetic statement and as laying the ground work for a  successful future as a practitioner. What was missing from the show was an example of his larger sculptural works, like the stunning piece he installed at the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts in 2012 as part of the BARI Festival.  [See http://www.conoroshea.com ]

Anthony Jigalin’s prolific output of pencil, biro, guache on A4 paper installed on the ceiling of the Level 1 upstairs space had a sense of transience as much as Conor’s had a sense of groundedness and permanence. Anthony’s subjects from trains, to draculas, to fast cars and nudes were tacked to the ceiling with dressmaking pins. The installation took about 6 hours and this fragile “hanging garden of line and colour” changed the sense of space in the gallery and had viewers on the carpet for some relaxed viewing. The vibrancy and quick draw aspect of this show belies the passion Anthony has for his art and this contribution to visual story telling at Jugglers has made its mark on us. Keep going Anthony! Peter Breen,Director, Jugglers Art Space Inc.

Urban Art Binge [ http://www.urbanartbinge.com ] is an art class experiment that has found its legs and feet in 2012 and is sure to spread its positivity in 2013. Emily Fong [Jugglers Artist in residence] and Joh Underhill are the brains and heart in this venture founded in a ” coffee moment”. Well organised, passionate, talented and excellent mentor/teachers, Emily and Joh  kicked off the first of five regular 6 week classes in February 2012 using studio, gallery [Jugglers] and on site spaces for lighting the art spark with beginners and not so beginners. Colour charts, perspective, blind contours and space and people capture  framed  a curriculum that builds skills and friendship.  The final end of year exhibition at Jugglers [December 7] melded works on canvas and paper , a plethora of art journals, UAB paraphernalia [Carry Bags et al], blind contour competition on paper plates,  live music, good beer, wonderful food from Street Food Australia http://www.artfoodaustralia.com.au  and awards. Art experiments can be corny, shallow and predictable but UAB has none of that. While respecting the tentative beginning first steps of participants, Emily and Joh have a way of companioning and teaching that appears to create satisfaction, self critique and hunger, a sure recipe for creative exploration and growth.  I found myself drawing again the next morning after the closing celebration. UAB deserves the success it has become and will become as it evolves and finds its next rhythm.

For those who have walked this path in 2012 we know that the unexpected is the whole idea, the unexpected serendipity as a hoped for outcome in a controlled place in space and time.   Structuring an artificial liminal space or threshold moments to set the scene for the unexpected for 10 – 15 visual artists has some religious ritual parallels with set orders, liturgy, sensory stimulation, responsive inter human “readings” and final exit moments. On Friday [Nov 30]  14 artists committed themselves to two hours of silent artistic response to a preselected playlist in the Jugglers main gallery space where, as we are seeing, the music and images become only part of the context of this liminal structure of the creative response. Where normally we would fiercely protect our own works on paper and canvas and clay, this event is evolving to be about a co-construction of art works that are birthed by all of us drawing over, painting over even hand on hand over, and where the whole event [captured on video] is itself flowing into a kind of rhythmic composition. A vow of silence with an invitation to engage with each other by written text on scraps of paper is incredibly challenging but this kind of forced retreat from normal interactions and stimulations can open windows into new experiences of group cohesion, arts practice and even personal epiphany. I am quite convinced that the frenetic pace of this digital age and workaholism benefits from this kind of  making time for non-verbal artistic expression within a slowed down controlled space. Friday night had a dynamic to it that apart from showing up the beauty of the personalities [Introvert and Extrovert in Jungian terms] ebbed and flowed in the making and remaking of marks over and over again. Lucy’s wrapping of all us us in a kind of paper towel hug and drawing marks around our feet on the drop sheet became a statement of solidarity and fun while I still had to process the repeated destruction and reconstruction of works I thought needed to be left alone. Why destroy a Damien Kamholtz or Lucks or Mel Davis work? But these artists and all of us seemed caught up in a flow of something greater than a finished personal work. What happened was not earth shatteringly meaningful but it was meaningful. Strongly so. A poem later that night by artist and former Afghan refugee  Sha summed it up beautifully for me:

white silence has spoken 
sparked imagination 
has created sensations
longing continuation

Damn good art this. South Bank Institute of TAFE is bearing fruit with their 2 year Diploma in Visual Arts. I was there tonight, judging and handing out awards to three graduands. They get a free gig at Jugglers in 2013. Lucy Forsberg, Corey de Muth, Jasmine Brisby were my pick for representative works, striking a chord with conceptual depth and great technical application. This TAFE show keeps getting better and pity help us if the current Queensland Government follows through on its threat to close TAFE Colleges in Queensland or at least shuts down the TAFE arts Departments. Here are three artists representing personal angst, colonisation of Kanakas and narcissism [ FaceBook] who for me showed once again that any group of people are lost without this kind of reflective mirroring. The whole show was a feast for the eyes and the staff can be justly proud. Overall dux, Jimmy Hills’ installation was a quirky little “manshed” that had a subtle invitation to get inside it with layers of works that raised for me a return to childhood cubby houses. Keep a look out for the show this group puts together at Jugglers in 2013. I am quite excited about the potential for improvisational responses to the works and serious inquiry into how we as a community are actually going with self and social understandings and health.

When Peter Kozak accepted his $4000 award as winner of the 2012 Marie Ellis Prize for Drawing at Jugglers Art Space he said:  ‘Thank you. I don’t do speeches’. As the third winner in this new prize on the Australian visual art awards landscape, Peter’s evocative pencil on paper work ‘Absorb’ spoke as a clear, eloquent and deeply reflective representation of the mysterious experience of illness.

‘I chose to approach the subject of illness through a series of pencil drawings, drawn from fragments of woollen garments in a state of stress and decay. For me, these fragments of wool are an effective metaphor for the body, with their damage representing the body’s susceptibility to violent change.’[i]

Within the framework of the artist statement, my sense of this drawing in its subtle tonal range and improvised chaotic appearance is that the artist has experienced the mystery, debilitation and trauma of illness. Illness is a uniquely personal and unpredictable experience that can force itself to be expressed and diarised by sufferers to make sense of change and to find, perhaps, moments of calm. Kozak’s ‘Absorb’ is a diary of some experience over days or months or maybe moments represented by sweeping lines and convoluted squiggles that evoke agitation and dissonance. In my existential response to the work, I might have found some resonance with the artist’s experience. I need further conversations with him to find some essence of what he has represented in this drawing.

There are four or five lines in ‘Absorb’ that I will call ‘clean’ with the dominant line emerging out on its own on the left of the drawing. It sits in the middle third of the drawing and intersects with these other ‘clean’ lines at various points in the middle third of the work. The rest of the lines – hordes of them – are short ‘squiggles’ and form the most tonal intensity in the middle third of the work to the right of the dominant clean line. In the top and bottom third the short ‘squiggles’ fade out. The squiggle lines form irregular shapes at some points in each segment of the drawing, most clearly in the top and bottom thirds.

The overall sense of the drawing is of some kind of grotesque human form that has had its ‘skin’ removed to reveal the pulsating metamorphosing cell structure in a state of dramatic change. Maybe this was the unintended consequence of the artist’s diarising. It would be informative to bring his other works together with this one to get a sense of the rhythm of his responses to the illness.

Jugglers Art Space Inc and the Hopkins Weise family will host the 4^th Marie Ellis Prize for Drawing in 2013 with online applications available from March, 2013. All three 2012 winners’ works can be viewed at www.jugglers.org.au.

Author: Peter Breen is the Co-Founder, Chair and Acting Director of Jugglers Art Space Inc. As an Artist Run Initiative [ARI], Jugglers is in its tenth year.

In the Jugglers artist collective in Brisbane we are forming stories slowly and strongly in the same direction for as long as we can. We  draw and paint and sculpt the narratives of our lives, our worlds, our illnesses, our conflicts and our loves without words. They come to birth in form and line and colour and tonality to represent our understandings of where are at, even if our themes are hidden from ourselves. We are story tellers. One of the joys of being in this collective at Jugglers is the gentle oral story telling that happens in the spaces and studios over coffee or a beer that might or might not bear any resemblance to current arts practice. Two of the artists who are part of Jugglers – one in a short term studio lease, the other as part of our “White Silence” event – are refugees. Saga escaped war in Africa to find refuge in Australia and Sha escaped war in Afgahnistan, made the trip by boat, was imprisoned in a detention centre, had a TPV and is now, along with Saga, pursuing a “much better life”. These gentle men carry memories and dreams but I don’t have much in common with their past. We are strangers culturally and historically. But, when I am in their presence, in their unhurried presence, experiencing a lingering touch and embrace slows my rushing tendency, slows it right down. I find I am glad just to be with them and its for my benefit. I know they love being part of us. The side affect of an artists’ collective like ours can creep up on us during the mundane slow mark making, the casual conversation, the brief “how are you” visit and can become another aha moment in our in our own human story if we linger long enough.

Last weekend at The [Jugglers] Shed at Hamilton Northshore, Random Overtones hosted their second Under_scored micro music festival. [The first was held at Jugglers Brunswick Street space in 2011] Curated and organised by Janet McKay and her core team of Julian Day [of  ABC Radio’s New Music Up Late] and Luke Jaaniste, the weekend long event fitted into The Shed beautifully. Instead of berating the low and loud industrial hum that defines the audio landscape of this part of Brisbane, the musicians and music blended and worked with landing aircraft and the thump thump thump of diesel car semi trailer carriers. My experience of the weekend was of the glorious trombone improvisationas playing of Ben Marks [Qld Conservatorium of Music] and the 6 young trombonist he had with him. As a once was one, I warmed to their rich tones and skills. The Sunday night Critical Mass however, was an event of evocative and moving pageantry on a low scale of theatrical delivery. In the massive hard space car park next to the shed, small lights marked a grid of pathways to walk where over 1 hour 10 bell ringers marched in time to another dimension’s silent leadership, using the brass bells made for Australia’s Federation and kept in the Melbourne Museum. As a lover of the long and slow reflective walk [cf The Labyrinth] this was home for me. The hour was not enough but it was enough. Landing planes and diesel motors were recorded along with the intermittent “dinging” of the brass bells in a final to a weekend of open ended musical play and skill. Let’s do it again! [Funds for this event were raised through Crowd Funding Pozible ]

Little Creatures donated the 2012  BARI Festival* 35 cartons of beer. They want us to swoon in the art with their beer and last night we served Little Creatures, as usual, even before BARI has started! And swoon we did  at Jugglers Art Space at “Veneer“, a first solo show for well known Brisbane artist and Jugglers artist in residence, Guido van Halten. Guido has shown in group shows and painted around the world large “mural” style works that collector and PhD candidate retired Art Teacher Peter Fonoglio said just grabbed him. Collectors are fussy about what does and doesn’t grab them. Guido didn’t quite care that work sold as much as friends and art lovers were immersed in his work and so for the past two weeks he reworked the whole of the Jugglers inside space, tunnel and public art area. Filmed by QUT student Yannick Blattner, this whole process wiped out story lines and graf writers latest work and transformed the space into a white cube and then into a green shade multi tag wall paper show room, then to be finally reworked by Guido into large scale van Helten public art works. 

Art galleries, art spaces and museums are getting a bad wrap for limiting expression options and for promoting a kind of elite separation of emerging arts practice from the chosen few who have leapt through the unwritten hoops that a small group of curators and buyers have ticked off on. There is a reality here and that is that the commercial consumer art market is highly competitive and fussy buyers are really fussy and when big dollars are at stake then lots of hoops are justified. Jugglers is not a commercial gallery. It is not driven by that value. True, we benefit from the 22% commission on sales but on one sale at $180 it hardly makes a difference in our cash flow. We are about what Guido wanted last night – a place for his friends and art lovers to “swim” in, where his work could be celebrated, where he, as an artist could tell his story. And we were immersed in his story. Held by the clear spring Brisbane sky in our magical outside space we were held as well by Guido’s painterly works. Artists are forever trying to catch the inspiration as it sneaks into awareness. Jugglers tries to catch the same inspiration, to serve the vision, to facilitate the fruit of labours. If in the meantime we can make a bit of brass to keep the doors from closing that’s worth a “Cheers” and another Pale Ale from Fremantle.

*October 5 – 12 [www.bari.com.au]

We took the time to linger with the works and to see if there was anything new when we redrew. Children are told they are good artists if they can accurately draw a copy of a photo and colour inside the lines. Not necessarily bad but it should not be the only thing they learn to do in art. My first response in drawing is to find satisfaction if it looks like the thing I am looking at. I am learning to undo that child constraint. At the Friday morning group art session last week we took time to respond to a work from the Marie Ellis Drawing  prize collection at Jugglers. [Three works] The only direction was: “Respond on paper to one of the works over the next 10 minutes.” This exercise has a spiritual and artistic dimension to it. My experience of this discipline is an expansion of understanding of the work, the artist and myself. And these things that emerge in the time given to the drawing exercise, begin to deepen when, as we did last week, the exercise and personal experience   of the redraw are shared in the group. In this world of fast feed information overload and stimulation [aka Smart Phone/Tablet] this intentional slow down with a group of young men [and me] was not impossible but embraced and almost transportive. We found threads of connection to new understandings in the story telling and more group cohesion. Finding a rhythm of rest in our madness is critical for recalibration of the mind and spirit and one way of finding our own path. This exercise of redrawing works in a gallery is easy enough. Visual over-stimulation and incessant busyness needs a corrective and this exercise is worth the effort as a regular discipline for personal and group renewal.

[Image: Winning work 2012 Marie Ellis Prize for Drawing by Peter Kozak]