going walkabout in the dreamtime...

Australia is a complex land...

ancient elegant culture and brash new bling...

impossible animals, 

and most everything can kill you ...

Australia has always been part of my life ... just as New Zealand has ...

they both have the deep magic ... but on entirely different dream-scapes...

exploring the Northern Territory has always been a wish, since forever

so, ... I ran away and got married up there ......

:D

birds of paradise ...

"Kiss the ground" dance and film productions ...teamed with Creative New Zealand ...

the continuing story ....

break a leg and 

in bocca al lupo ....

here is the latest in the series ....

the beautiful Arjo

we love her

New York EXPOSURE

photography competition 

it's called "EXPOSURE" .... the prize is an apartment in New York for a year and a solo show 

obviously that is quite lusciously tempting ...

to see the whole folio entry

 ... Frances folio

to vote click on the 5 stars at the bottom of the folio ... (preferably the 5th star ...ahem shuffle shuffle)

dont be shy

Francis Van Hout

Francis Van Hout one of my oldest and greatest friends made a brilliant solo show at the UC Canterbury School of Fine Arts gallery last week ....coinciding with the opening of the new wings for film and post grad artists studios

All 4 walls were filled with a single marching file of paintings with definitive photographic sensation......stand in the middle of the room and slowly turn in a circle 360 degrees for the best view ....

Each work is dated ... the show is in chronological order ... mapping out one month of his life in paintings... each day some paintings were made ...some days prolific.... some days only one or nothing for the day ...

following different paths and thoughts over a month

but ...
what happened on the lost days?

tinker, tailor, solider, sailor...

.... rich man, poor man, beggar man thief....
Children's fortune-telling rhyme used when counting cherry stones, buttons, daisy petals, also sometimes when skipping.

hmmm

"life"
... it either feels like this ....

"ladder" january 2010

or like this ... I havent quite decided which yet ....

"soldier" february 2010

will definitely keep pondering ....
why nursery rhymes are so brilliantly poignant
forever
....

pinhole polaroids...
last of a no longer existing stock
no longer being produced
each image over
8 hours exposure

eventually I will have a show of only miniature 5x4" polaroid images ... the collection is growing
dramatically slowly...

i have been ...

happy
poring over monumental masses of my last 20 years of past work ...

and also putting together a mosaic series of recent fun and simple images
this is what i came up with ...
hmmmm
hmmmmmmmmmmm

still quite stylised ....

..o well....

ghost towns graveyards and beds ....

Virginia city .... where Bonanza was filmed ...where it used to take an hour to cross the single main street ... where thousands and thousands of goldminers and silver miners swarmed .....
where men still wear spurs and sheriffs badges and the sidewalks are wooden slats slumping now like an Alice in wonderland rollercoaster....

where the graveyard looks like a giant has been throwing around old

....beds .....


? ! ?