[stretching an elastic band until it snaps, spray-paint, cardboard, elastic band, 2007]

Charlie Sofo’s studio show at ANCA Dickson (SOME THING LIKE A HUMAN) opens on Wednesday night at 6.00pm, and will be open for the next four days from 12.00 to 5.00pm. ArtWranglers is happy to email the list of works and prices on request. Please contact Willa if you want to see the show outside normal hours.

[tooth-pick, paper, ink, toothpick, 2007]

With this body of work Sofo continues with the essential ingredients of his art. A constant dimension of all of his work over the past three years has been a kind of revelation and celebration of its processes – an aesthetic of discovery whereby the processes of observing, conceiving, making, ordering, and presenting continue until the work reaches a definitive state of completion. Most often his materials determine the form of the work, and sometimes the materials are so ephemeral the completion of the work is a forecast of its own destruction. With his fascination for what evolves in front of his eyes, he neither predicts the final character of the work, nor is longevity one of his criteria. The primary pleasure for Sofo is in the discovery of the final form through its processes, and only secondarily whether the outcome is something which will appeal to others. There is also we suspect a kind of perverse pleasure in the (human) body at play. We imagine him looking at his hands and asking himself: “what have I got to work with today? Ah! that looks interesting!” and so the process begins which results in a perfect circle of finger-grease, (paper, finger oil + grime), number 5. in this exhibition.

You can see what Charlie has to say about it all on the previous post.

See all the works in the show in the Gallery at Charlie’s name in the sidebar ->

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At the closing ceremony for Trouble, Rachel Jessie-Rae O’Connor and Erica Seccombe are wearing each other’s chest objects: a knitted Aliens scarf, and a plastic bead necklace. The significance of this exchange is magnified by a recent post from the recent NGA party… perhaps there’s a category emerging here?

Other moments included Head of School Gordon Bull, launching (closing), in front of the dinosaur.

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On the last day of the Trouble exhibition at the ANU School of Art, Jan Hogan and Antonia Aitken complete their cycle of wall drawings: The Breathing Project – the heart, by way of the breath, to the line (Gundaroo dirt, Namadgi charcoal, compressed charcoal, BFK Rives, wall and fence palings). A .pdf of the snappy catalogue, designed by ArtWranglers designer Caren Forance at ampersandduck, can be found here.

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Charlie is holding a show of his recent works at his ANCA studio in Dickson on Wednesday 31st October from 6.00 pm. Charlie is picking up sticks (and other things) and joining the Canberra diasporic artists community in Melbourne. Let’s hope we don’t lose him altogether!

Charlie explains that with this body of work he is interested in margins, or very small quantities of things. In the studio I have collected small particles and applied them to surfaces. Sometimes these particles form larger particles. Things. I have used a tooth-pick to make dots, a shit load of dots. I roll a single die 650 times, each time pressing it into paint and then into paper. The exhibition Something like a Human is a bit mechanical and a bit human, but mostly its just me.

This project has been generously funded by artsACT.

Very soon ArtWranglers will have a list of works for sale which we’d be happy to email to anyone who’s interested, and we’ll be continuing to represent Charlie in Canberra, show new work on the blog, and plan for an “at home” show down the track. We’ll be posting images of this exhibition some time next week.

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in downtown Dickson. This is a 1934 Chrysler DeSoto Airflow, imported to Australia with right hand drive, one of five remaining in the country. The Chrysler Airflow was designed by Carl Breer, with the help of wind tunnel technology, and was therefore a precursor of things to come. Unfortunately it didn’t look any faster, except in reverse, so it was a financial flop.

whereas this is a hot (radioactive) Airflow sitting on Jeep running gear, on Whidbey Island. It was said to have been modified and used by a uranium prospector. Now this is a desire object…

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At the National Gallery of Australia’s 25th birthday and launch of the first Indigenous triennial Culture Warriors the two Ramingining elders and stars of Rolf de Heer’s recent film Ten Canoes Phillip Gudthaygudthay and Peter Minygululu suffered bravely in the chilly weather. Gudthaygudthay (which in his language means native cat, hence his misleading sobriquet “Pussycat”) was the recipient of the major Australia Council Indigenous Artist Fellowship this year, and his paintings and hollow logs on the theme of the ancestral story of the Wagilag Sisters are the first thing you see in the first gallery.

Minygululu is seen here with ANU Dean of the College of Arts and Social Sciences Nic Peterson, whose life he saved some thirty years ago when the young anthropologist was helped to walk through the crocodile infested Arafura Swamp from Mirrngatja to safety at Nangalala and Milingimbi with a bursting appendix.

Want to see more of the night’s festivities? Go to the Kelly gang

And for the ArtWranglers heart-stopper: see some of Ricky Maynard’s wall of photographs, at tasphotos

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whose works starred at the National Gallery of Australia’s 25th birthday party last night.

James Minson is an Australian artist working out of Seattle, the epicentre of world glass. He makes great chest objects… and as you see, they’re on the move.

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For your diaries: ArtWranglers next “at home” exhibition will be glitter paintings by Rachel Jessie-Rae O’Connor, on Friday 9th November. This one, Phosphene Dream 2005, (synthetic polymers, acrylic paint, imitation gold leaf, glitter glue and foils scatters, 102 x 102 cm) will be in the show.

In case you didn’t know, a phosphene is an entoptic phenomenon characterized by the sensation of seeing light. Phosphenes are caused by mechanical, electrical, or magnetic stimulation of the retina or visual cortex as well as random firing of cells in the visual system. Who says Wikipedia isn’t useful?

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Remember a couple of months ago when we posted a Tim Price we liked (now in the collection of Neil Hobbs and Karina Harris)? Well here’s another in the same series, entitled Works 2007. Compare…

Tim will be having a show with ArtWranglers early next year.

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