I am a slacker, despite my youth and apparent astuteness with technology and social media I have neglected my blog in favour of a summer of debauchery and hedonism. Since my last post I have done a number of things. Many of these things are what I believe lead to said decadence. I, in fact, completed my honours degree. It was something of an agony, if you follow my tumblr (www.whatanoddremark.tumblr.com) you would have been privy to my subsequent lapse in sanity. I'm not going to pretend that my journey through exegetical hell was unique, I'm sure any honours student can regale you with tales of eating mint slice biscuits for dinner, leaving the packet bedside so that they could have breakfast in bed before pulling on their 'not trying' pants and going into the studio for 16 hours. 

Following a year of eating biscuits for breakfast we, as always, were rewarded with a graduate exhibition. Install shots and other miscellaneous material can be found here. Below is a price list of my main installation, which aptly shared the titled of this blog post.

1 No Romance in Pattern $20
2 No Romance $20
3 No Romance in Hollow $20
4 Chromophilia SOLD
5 A mistake to do this at a Funeral $30
6 The Collective $60
7 Gin and sour defeat $40
8 Shampoo $100
9 Emotionless meat sack $40
10 Flesh Tomb $100
11 Love Me $175
12 Sweaty and ashamed $50
13 Treat them coldly $50
14 Ulcers $30
15 A horribly sad thing $40
16 Decline in mental stability SOLD
17 Buy some new friends $30
18 Shake people by the lapels $60
19 Bitter and alone $50
20 Sad Sorry Sucker SOLD
21 Singing and dancing $60
22 Soap Scum in Lemon $20
23 Soap Scum in Reptile $20
24 Avoid the Abyss $20
25 Filth Goblin $100
26 Start a blog $30
27 Sexual intercourse $40
28 It is kind of urgent $50
29 How deep can a pan be $30
30 Sleep naked $40
31 Internal Purge for the Summer $100
32 Self-Respect or Lack There Of $100
33 People Standing Too Close $40
34 Empty $20
35 Garden Variety Paranoia $20
36 Garden Salad Paranoia $20
37 Despair and Disappointment $50
38 Commit mass genocide $40
39 Scumrot Bathroom Queen $100
40 Nothing out of the ordinary SOLD 
41 Cleaning the Cache $175
42 Daily crying session $50
43 Masturbate in public $40
44 Silly Self Deluded Girl $20
45 Garden Gnome Paranoia $20
46 Fowl SOLD
47 A flawless plan $50
48 It’s a Disaster $20
49 I Used to be Someone Else $175
50 I have no advice $50
51 Pieces of Shit $40
52 Submerge $100
53 Maybe Not $40
54 Concession Stand $120
55 Control $40
56 Just like a tortilla $30
57 A Spectacle $20
58 A Spectacle in Reptile $20
59 Emotional Trauma $20
60 A Depiction of My Insides $100
61 Meat Queen $100
62 Lay naked on the floor $50
63 A coaster $30
64 Like a salad $40
65 Handjobs SOLD
66 Shower sex and hats $40
67 A brisk powerwalk $30
68 Your underwear $40
69 Folding a fitted sheet $50
70 My sarcasm is constant $50
71 Smelly sloppy mess $60
72 Used Up, Dry and Cynical $175
73 Breakfast of Champions 1 $50
74 Breakfast of Champions 2 $50
75 A disappointing end $30

I'm having a bake sale, but instead of pound cake (what even is that?) and shortbread I'm selling works on paper. So I suppose based on technicalities it's more of an Art Sale than Bake Sale...

Improper sale proposal aside, if you've got a void in your house that needs colouring, perhaps consider one, or many, of the below pieces to solve that problem.

Shoot me an e-mail at [email protected] if something tickles your fancy.

Atomic Tangerine  2012 
water colour on Stonehenge 56cm x 76cm
$300

Space Cadet  2012 
water colour on Stonehenge 56cm x 76cm
$300

Protocol Handshake 1 2011
colour pencil on Stonehenge 44cm x 55cm
$150

Protocol Handshake 2 2011
colour pencil on Stonehenge 44cm x 55cm
$150

Protocol Handshake 3 2011
colour pencil on Stonehenge 44cm x 55cm
$150

Protocol Handshake 4 2011
colour pencil on Stonehenge 44cm x 55cm
$150

I’m having one of those moments, you know the ones, the ‘how did I get here’ moments. I find myself sitting in a kitchen that is not my own, drinking coffee that is not my own and looking after animals which are not my own. This is not a sorry state of affairs, this is actually quite pleasant, how could it not be? The dogs are named after Nick Cave songs and the cats are of a chatty disposition, the coffee is… questionable, but it’s there nonetheless.

No, what I don’t really understand is how it came to be June so suddenly and how I managed to make so many paintings all the while concurrently watching Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Seinfeld, Arrested Development and most recently Boardwalk Empire AND reading a veritable tomb of academia on The Absurd in literature AND reading said absurd literature AND attempting to watch the entire back catalogue of David Lynch, Charlie Kaufman and Wes Anderson films.

Evidently I’m the kind of person who doesn’t believe in sacrifice, and goddamn it, I will unscrupulously consume media and information with a gluttonous rigour.

Hopefully my vigorous (the thesaurus suggests dynamic…) ingesting of film, television and literature has been to the betterment rather than detriment of aforementioned paintings.

Coming off the back of a mid-year review of my current body of work I thought I’d do a bit of an image dump of some of the things I have been working with, you know, keep the world up to date with my goings on and what have you.

This is an idea I have had swimming around inside my brain meat for a little while now. Try and ignore the obnoxious dangly earring and sparkly cat sweater – as it happens they are not key to the reading of this work.  

Below is the collection of work that I ended up hanging for the review. 

And this is how I felt about it, at this stage I didn't even know it would take over 3 hours to hang. If it weren't for my blasted tiny planks of words I would have been home and in bed before 9pm. 

Stay tuned for more witticism and glorious painting puns! These will be brought to you from my own kitchen (unlikely) and with my own animals (rogue backyard bush turkeys count as pets right?)

My brain meat has been producing picture planes and smashing them together with some terrible poetry.  I thought I'd share them on a public forum. 

Here are a few experiments I've been playing with:

Stay tuned for more terrifying squares and tiny hand painted text planks in my next installment. 

A guide to the creative process; just like they teach in Art School 

• ·         Suffer some great injustice or trauma 
• ·         Allow pain to fester into resentment
• ·         Break some things – probably not your own things
• ·         Scribble mindlessly and angrily – maybe your ex-girlfriends face, maybe with black holes instead of eyes to symbolise her thoughtlessness (how deep!)
• ·         Write down some sad words like: pestilence, self-flagellation, martyr
• ·         Lose 20kgs 
• ·         Take up some kind of self-destructive habit – alcoholism is a time tested favourite among established artists. 
• ·         Hate your parents
• ·         Read Nietzsche
• ·         Adopt Nihilism 
• ·         Abstain from friendship 
• ·         Forget what it’s like to have a meaningful relationship
• ·         Make some art occasionally 
  

*good is relative 

Oh boy. I'm knee deep in absurdity - wild eyed and angsty. I'm one Camus novel away from a nervous breakdown... or at the very least an existential crisis. 


Hardly. I've been swimming through these pools of irrationality and trying to bake some kind of delightful art pie. I've started working with text - a throw back to my home boys in the world of literature (I'm talking to you Sartre). 

Here are some recent text works I've paintstakingly (see what I did there? witty.) transcribed with a 00 brush and a mix of burnt umber and ultramarine blue.

These little vagabonds are being paired with painted plywood squares of banality. I am taking delight in raiding my ever expanding collection of photographs and stealing equally boring images from my good ol' friend the internet. I'm also feeding my vanity and continuing to paint myself in varying degrees of undress. 

2013 seems to be hurtling forward at an impressive speed, much in the same way I would hurtle towards a cabinet of ceramics with the promise of destruction... which is not to say I dislike ceramics, I'm simply fond of breaking things, preferably not my own. 

I've been throwing myself with the same fervour towards my studio this week. In an effort to produce work at startling rates I have promised myself only to make art that makes me laugh. There are a few problems with this strategy: just because it makes me laugh, it doesn't mean anyone else will and evidently I have a somewhat depressive sense of humour - it's a fine line between laughing manically and sobbing uncontrollably.

In saying that I would like everyone to meet Bread Baby - a working title for a series of work centered around me swaddling a loaf of bread. Hilarious no?

here are some work in progress shots.

Since the hilarity of birthing a bread child was not enough to sustain my fickle attention span, I also introduced a strategic cat-in-pocket composition.

These little exercises are my tentative steps into the realms of the absurd. I'm yet to resolve these little guys but hopefully with time (not that I have much) I'll be able to create work that is both truly odd/strange/amiss and somewhat familiar. 

wacky. 

The cat - a key cultural figurehead, a true social symbol of our time or that jerk who got in the laundry and peed on your washing. For as long as I can remember I've been amused by the concept of the cat... and the literal cat, as in, cats literally amuse me. 

Upon visiting my studio this week some one remarked on my clearly remarkable (ha!) collection of ugly cat drawings. There is something so dandy about an unfortunate looking feline. I was also recently reminded of an unrealised series of paintings I did of appropriated vintage cat photographs.

here is an example:

amusing no? just look at that cone control, no cat could master such a grasp, ridiculous.

At this stage I think the project will remain unfulfilled. Some one did suggest the series was suitable for market place sales... I didn't necessarily take it as a compliment.

I have however been known for my feline motif previously, I assume my interest stems from some kind of crippling childhood trauma wherein I was smothered by a hoard of cats.

Super Kitten was a seminal work from last year

I imagine the work answers many questions, possibly more than it raises. Such as: What would a hairless cat look like with a human face? a true quandary for the ages; solved in a mere 120cm x 90cm painting.

I followed it up with a less abrasive cat portrait

Oddly, People seemed to respond better to it.

I think the cat will be a pervasive trope in my work in the future, although I may have exhausted the cat/my face combination. 

If you haven't had your fill of cat based entertainment you should probably more than likely peruse the following websites, I do and it has evidently worked out quite well for me, 

Antique Cat Photos
Women and Cats
Fuck Yeah Kitties

I'm branching out from my traditional skill sets and embracing the apparently "lesser" art of terrifying cake decoration. Needless to say I'm heavily influenced by popular culture in this particular element of my uh... cake painting.

I'm also exploring that ever insensitive post modern trope of appropriation - also known as stealing other people's art and claiming some kind of ownership... you know the one; it justifies plagiarism! 

Please peruse my ever expanding port folio below (arranged conveniently in chronological order): 

It reads 'Happee Birthdae Harry' - it was mostly hilarious because it wasn't in fact for anyone with such a wizardly name. Please note the quality cake construction. 

This was my first foray into appropriation, stolen from my infrequent collaborative partner and generally delightful painty friend.
find the original here: http://www.jamiemumford.com

An exercise in subtlety.

The contemporary artist is often versed in multiple disciplines, this is my way of staying relevant: Cake Art.

It would seem that I have found myself in the company of some pretty swell emerging artists from Brisbane and Melbourne for a delightful little shin dig of a show at Bleeding Heart Gallery. If you're in the mood for witty banter and amiable company you should pop in say hello tonight. 
15-22 March 2013

Opening night Friday 15 March
6-9 pm

http://www.facebook.com/events/120894668093957/

http://nervouslaughterexhibition.blogspot.com.au/

Be sure to check out our fearless curator Amanda Wolf
http://amandathewolf.blogspot.com.au/