Month: March 2010

So after a few days painting on and off but mostly on, time between to let the paint dry off somewhat, the Weta is done. I like it!

I’ve now done qite a few bugs, mostly on traffic control boxes, and I think I’d like to do more. I started in on this way back in the nineties, the idea of doing bugs, when I had a brilliant book on beatles but I lent it to Felix, to add photos to a headless chickens album… and it never came back, but it did get the idea in my head.

Tranfer the drawing to the canvas.

Then put in the blue…

Then the red…

Then get arty about things…

Here we go…!

First up we have the canvas on a frame, stretched and undercoated.

Then I bought some wrapping brown paper, which I like alot because of it’s courseness and durability, and proceed to get a piece big enough to cover the canvas at 860 x 1100.

Then the drawing begins. Theres never enough reference but in a funny way theres always enough and possibly too much at the same time… decisions.

So I managed to get the weta stretched accross the whole background and then I cut it out and trace around the edges so by the end of today I’ll have the main three colours in and be starting on the highlights.

I’ve a commission to do for a passionate bloke and his wife and the passion is in the realm of Kites. The man, Malcolm, is off to Europe to fly kites and saw my weta box in Henderson as the graphic he wants on a kite to take with him.

Two birds with one stone equals me doing a painting with all the frills and then himself removing the basic red, black and blue graphic for the kite.

So my good friend John has just brought a new camera, and a very flash lens, and he has a real Weta, which I arrived at his house this morning to borrow, it’s dead though, but there he was out in the front garden taking photos of flowers quickly approaching their use by date… so I got some very pro photos of Weta as reference for the painting which, the canvas, was made (out of sliced 4 x 2) and stretched and undercoated yesterday.

So now I’ll just crop up the images to suit me and the work and send them to the copy shop for some hard copy I can handle and peruse easily while I paint.

Which I’ll do all day and into the night…except for a brief sojourn to Vit S tonight.
Life itself can be very easy… if you fill it with hard work!

It mean “peace for his fiancee” which is the name of a piece in the exhibition that is kinda hidden (even I forgot about it when I was doing the photos).

Remember this thing…

Well, the light that seems to appear from the frying pan lid with the speaker cover pot riveted into it is a cupboard containing…

… this little sculpture. So it sits hidden within the desk and a single light runs from the junction box on the floor below to allow it to be seen through the door and also through a portion of the perspex part of the top.

During the 90’s I ran around town building all sorts of stuff in shops and cafes etc as well as the odd complete shop, shopfitting mainly, but I did it all from demo to lighting and plumbing, with the normal metal and wood inbetween, and I was always conscious of the fact I hold no tickets for any of the work I do so I saw myself as a cowboy. But not how we all think of cowboys when we see shoddy work but as that fellow with a horse and a bag of tools able to do just about everything required by using those tools and lots of lateral thinking.

But I don’t want to go completely into everything I’ve used but shorthand it down to The turtle that is the world of US and Canadian Indian legends, flying on the wings of pre-history, marked by the British Empire, carrying the Tiger with the Cowboys head wearing a mexican hat below the first of the bi-planes and holding up the sword of righteousness. The Penguin rides shotgun and the thumb points forward.

I could, literally, write a book about all of this and the interconnections thereof, but I won’t because I don’t need anyones understanding of my own reality, most probably better people don’t get it and it remains mysterious… even shrouded under a complete lack of understanding or interconnection, playfully simple even…

And below is the dinosaur headed cowboy. A different cowboy altogether. Uniform wearing dull head holding his magnifying glass to probe the meanings of that which flies statically above. Between the dullhead and the govenor, as in limiting device, hangs the heart and the sphere…

The desk is the grand message accross the years to Mr Marx about mysteries and possibilities that must run rampant with the human endevour. Indeed a socialist and communistic base for operations would be desirable to allow the basic needs of us all to be fullfilled but we must have the freedom to explore ourselves and to push the boundaries of our abilities… Capitalism with it’s feedbag of coin instills and grasps those passions to its own dull needs, or should I say it somewhat offers the scope while altogether dulling the outcome. Somewhere in the middle way lies the ability to provide for all and still allow the brave to dance and entertain… without ruining the planet in the meantime….maybe.

Little bit confusing but the space is full. Confusing because Pierre is changing the name from Aesthete gallery to pierre peeters gAllery but it’s still in the courtyard behind Sandersons at 251 Parnell Rd.

The Artworks of Sean Kerrigan in;
A Tribute in Honour of Peter Sauerbier.

By Sean Kerrigan.

These things that I make have stories both constructional and metaphorical for me. The story of their construction is the main one that drives me to do these things, the challenges I encounter and the problems I have to solve to make them sturdy. But as they unfold I begin to realize that the parts I use and the methods to put them together are beginning to tell another story. A story that has been dug from my subconscious so the things I care about are made whole and take a shape from which I can work through my understandings of the world I live in.

But I won’t ruin the stories you might tell yourselves… because for me this is the important thing about art that if I can reach deep enough within myself I’ll have reached a universal place and this will match what you have in you for you. Even though the associations may change the simple fact that you can tell your own stories and let them have air is what really counts. So I’ll just hint at some of the things that have occurred for me to set you off.

3: The Colonel’s Nemesis.

This was my first work in a long time where I went back to my beginnings and decided to do art for arts sake. No longer will I let the market determine my output and leave paths untread because the market won’t value me the way I value myself. If a piece demands that I work days and days and even then restart after abandoning three quarters then so be it. This chair started one way and failed so was cut in half and started again. The metaphor of the Colonel is apt then as that place on the ladder of leadership, in the Army, is one which is very hard to get beyond. The chances of going further dwindle quickly on the pyramid and it can be a tricky place for the true battlefield is lost to field offices and shaping the fortunes of war is done much further up. The Colonel is caught in the middle unable to determine his future unless he again decides to dig deep, take risks and abandon the security he has attained.

4: Multiplex rellies of lives B4.

If reincarnation was a truth and I believe it to be so, then many of us have been many of us and the self described us that is of our culture… or race even, is merely a mask over the deeper realities that make us what we are. Therefore my assertion with this piece is that the obvious can be a crutch that can stop us from delving deeper into the stuff of legends that are our makeup.

7: Chasing the Lounge.

This piece was the ultimate challenge for me in cantilevering bends. I wanted to push my ability to bring off something strong enough to do the job while also completely making it up as I went along. I also wanted to work the mode I enjoy which is pieces being of nature alike the forest and trees where if we don’t watch where we tread we can get snagged and even impaled. This teaches us to be safe.
Also comfort is a matter of something fitting and is not about padding out a lazy design. This is my chief concern with modern furniture. Having lazy designs means padding is a cover and this padding out becomes a mode unto itself where the loss of underlying truth becomes a contest to always shift the eye from the foundational discrepancies.

9: The Cleopatra Phalanx.

I don’t know if this one even has any meanings. Maybe it’s simply a light. But its construction is such that it isn’t so much fragile but the weakest link definitely defines its care. That said many have sought to look strong thinking the weak point is well hidden.

17: Of England… man.

This cabinet reminds me of the strength and glory in the English industrial revolution and how easy, as we strive for connections apart from the centres of power, that humble England, and Britain by default, is a noble connection to have. That I can be proud of my forebear’s achievements while being disdainful of the blind stupidity of it’s ruling classes.

19: There is no Limit.

More of a joke than anything for it is a fan called Limit and it doesn’t work well as a fan therefore there is no limit. What it needs is more holes in the back to draw in more air and so without opening to the rear, or the past, we have no forward movement.

20: Office Tof!
21: Hot Glow Ultimate Warm.
22: A desk for Karl… with marks.
23: P 4 H F (peace for his fiancée)

20. I think this is simply a light but a light with far more standing than the light it casts.
21. Car parts and exposed wiring. It may very well be that the comfort we enjoy with ready transport and energy may be our downfall as the human race weakens before its onslaught… the onslaught of comfort!
22. Any opinion, no matter how large or small, must be able to change with the times. This is not to say that situational ethics are acceptable but that things change and the constant flow of hypocrisies must be accepted into the mix. Also the more entrenched and dogmatic any systems of beliefs are then the more open they must be to the vagaries of nature and of children.
23. Hidden in a box but with its own light. The cowboys head, topped with sombrero and airplane, on a tiger holds up a sword and rides the turtle flying on dinosaur wings with a penguin riding shotgun while below the garb of the cowboy covers a body with a dinosaur head with a hand held up with a magnifying glass… close by sits a governor. As close as you’ll get to a self portrait.

24: Any construct must have a solid footing.

Once we’ve learned it all we are free to throw it out and start anew.