Shane Drinkwater V

Shane Drinkwater's latest collages remind me of cycles of the moon and how prominent they are in the winter when light here is so scarce.

Monty Lee

Monty Lee is an Australian artist and illustrator who uses collaged elements including ledger papers to create rich surreal illustrations with a very distinctive style.

Min Pin

 The wonderous big cats of Penny aka Min Pin

Mark Martin

Mark Martin is an illustrator based in Melbourne, Australia. These tumbling, busy watercolour images are from his book 'Lots' where he explores different locations by their multiplicity.  They are great images to get absorbed in and to get a taste of different places. 

Helen Gibbins

A wonderful scaled diver by Australian artist Helen Gibbins part of the 'Illustrators Dozen' exhibition, at Surf Coast Art Space shop 2/103 Great Ocean Rd which opened today.

Charles Blackman

A further loss to Australian art was the death of Charles Blackman (1928-2018) on August 20th. Mirka and Georges Mora had hosted his first exhibition in their living room in 1953 and launched his career. Charles was born in Sydney one of four siblings. He left school at age 13 and worked initially as an illustrator on the Sydney Sun newspaper while attending night classes at East Sydney Technical College.

Charles had a tumultuous love life; he married writer Barbara Patterson, in 1951 and together they had three children; Auguste, Christabel and Barnaby, before they divorced in 1978. In 1979 he married Genevieve de Couvreur with whom he had two children, Beatrice and Felicien before they divorced in 1987. In 1989 he married Victoria Bower, with whom he had a son, Axiom.

Charles Blackmans work is darkly abstract and surreal, he is best known for his series of 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'School Girls'. 'Alice in wonderland' became a theme after Barbara his first wife's sight began to deteriorate, they would listen to a talking book version of the story and Charles would then paint illustrations of the text he had heard. He painted approximately forty three paintings of this subject during his wife's first pregnancy. He had never had books as a child and had never heard the story or seen any illustrations for it.

"I was absolutely thrilled to bits with it, it seemed to sum up for me at that particular moment my feelings towards surrealism, and that anything could happen ... The world is a very magical and possible place for all one's dreams and feelings." Charles Blackman

Mirka Mora

Mirka Mora (1928-1918) Melbourne based artist, born in France, has died aged 90. 

Mirka was born in Paris on March 18, 1928 to a Lithuanian father, Leon Zelik, and a Romanian mother, Celia Gelbein. In France Mirka attended theatre school with Marcel Marceau. Amazingly the two were reunited in 2003 when Marcel Marceau delivered to Mirka the honour of 'Officier des Arts et des Lettres'.

The second world war engulfed Mirka and her family, they were placed in a concentration camp but miraculously she escaped Auschwitz.   

                                                          Above: Georges Mora 

In 1947 Mirka married Georges Mora (June 26, 1913 – June 7, 1992) a German Jew born in Leipzig.  Georges was a medical student Georges who fled Germany for Paris in 1930. However when the Spanish Civil War broke out, Georges left Paris to join the cause, after a plane crash he was a prisoner of war for a time, before joining the French resistance. 

Their first son Phillippe was born in 1949 and together they emigrated first to New York and then onto Melbourne, Australia in 1951.  William Mora was born in 1953 and Tiriel Mora was born in 1958.

In Melbourne this young family found a vibrant, accepting society full of optimism and opportunity, Georges at first became manager of a flatbread factory before opening a café in 1954; 'The Mirka Café' quickly became three cafés, and then came the Balzac Restaurant. The hospitality and warmth of this young couple, meant they became key to Melbourne's bohemian subculture. Georges also became an influential art dealer and in 1967 he founded the Tolarno Galleries, the first commercial art gallery in Melbourne. Meanwhile Mirka's career as an artist thrived, she was commissioned to create many murals whilst enjoying her own path as an artist creating soft sculptural dolls and paintings.

                     Above: Charcoal drawing (1963) Below: Reflections on Love 

Mirka's art was not confined to one genre, scale or medium, she fluidly moved between murals, sculpture, painting, textiles and mosaic. The common thread was colour, exuberance and love with an iconography gained from a love of classical mythology. 

In 1999-2000 there was a retrospective of her work at Heide Museum of Art, celebrating 50 years of creative output. She had over 35 solo shows during her lifetime and only two years ago her work was translated into dress fabric by German fashion brand Gorman. Her mural at St Kilda's Tolarno Hotel has heritage status as do many other of her public works in Melbourne.

Below: 'Chatter In The Garden' 2011

                         Above: 'Cat with Friends' 2014.

“I think everything is funny. It’s so funny that we have to die. It’s cruel, but it’s terribly funny. You have all these dreams and you’ve got to leave everything. In my grave I’ll take some brushes and some paint. You never know!” - Mirka Mora

Anna Walker

A murmuration or murder by Australian illustrator Anna Walker.

Anna Hoyle I

Anna Hoyle is an illustrator based in Melbourne Australia who makes fantastic, funny imaginary book covers in a wonderful retro style, I love them.

Jess Racklyeft

Jess Racklyeft has been compulsively making 'fluff headed' or cloud headed characters for the past few weeks, I can see why.

Jenni Crompton

These are some details of Jenny Crompton's; 'Sea, Country Spirits' which won the 2016 Lorne Sculpture Biennale. 

Jenny Crompton studied acting and yet moved to art with no formal study she explored wood carving and other materials these incredible sculptures are woven from wire and assembled with found objects such as shells, feathers and grasses collected when walking. 

"In Sea Country Spirits, there are three large totems – a flying fox, from the land; a bird, representing sky; and a fiddler ray, representing the sea. These three totems were the inner circle around which the other spirits had to be formed. Nothing was drawn or pre-thought except for the first three totems; I kept the process loose. When I was making, I was thinking about things that I can see but not in a representational way, instead allowing a feeling of what it says to me. Circling these three totems are smaller sculptures that are representations from the sky, land and sea; they range from quite representational into purely abstracted forms. I did not think in a specific way, but I started making and let the shapes evolve by themselves. All the pieces have been decorated by the found objects from the land. I had to take in to account which objects could be sewn back in. After the pieces have been sprayed white, the found objects were attached, but they dictated how the object would be constructed." Jenny Crompton 

Karlee Rawkins VI

After months of flat out work, today it is time to take stock, breathe, think, and instead of being the hare be the tortoise. I was really pleased to be reminded of Karlee's wonderful work this weekend and explore her portfolio anew. To enjoy her flamboyant marks her layering of pattern and colour, in a contained abstraction.

Karlee Rawkins: Imagined Places from Joelle Baudet on Vimeo.

Shane Drinkwater IV

One of Shane Drinkwater's rarer series of works are these paintings in the bottom of boxes, which I love for their recycled, cobbled quality and the preciousness of something that is normally rubbish.

”Painting is something I’ve always needed to do and I’m enjoying it more and more. I’m interested in the historical, scientific and artistic observation of the “heavens and earth"." Shane Drinkwater

Shane Drinkwater III

Australian artist Shane Drinkwater is incredibly prolific as he works through ideas like a prisoner to thought and repetitive technique. These are more works on the themes of house creating a variety of buildings with seemingly different personalities mood and purpose.