Category: Video

November 7, 2013

In the desert with the great Tommy Watson

Tommy Watson is justly regarded as one of the greatest of his generation of Aboriginal artists. In fact , Art Equity goes one further and describes Tommy as the “greatest living indigenous artist.”

Now thought to be in his 80’s Tommy can no longer walk and has to be helped by his daughter and carer. His work however continues its march to its position at the top of the tree.

Tommy is considered a first contact Aboriginal, raised in the traditions of the nomadic desert people before contact with white men. He later worked as a stockman and a labourer before taking up painting around 2001 and has since blossomed into a master of colour and form.

His works feature vibrant blues, oranges and whites, colours that don’t exist in the deserts of Central Australia but have great power and vibrancy. They are more abstract than many of his contemporaries and while using the dot style are not as ordered and patterned as other traditional artists.

Tommy is now represented by Chris Simon at Yanda Art in Alice Springs and Tommy has been painting on the large 5metre canvasses being produced at Yanda. His works are finding a ready market in Asia and Europe for large sums of money, proving his status as the leading Aboriginal artist.

Tommy is pictured with his latest work in the dry creek bed behind Yanda Art in Alice Springs.

See the new Indigenous art DVD from InsideArt.tv available for schools: insideart.tv/education

Is It Art?

Inside Art, the arts television program launched on Channel 31 in mid 2012 and is now being screened in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide as well as Melbourne. The show sees Michel Lawrence move from stills photography to TV presenter. The new program presents art from the artists’ perspective. Inside Art has proved a strong performer on C31 with steadliy increasing viewer numbers and the blog, www.insideart.tv also seeing solid growth each week.

The program consists of three main segments, Artists-In-Residence where artists talk about their work in their studios, Making Art which shows art being produced ‘en plein air’ and even in bronze foundries and Private View which features gallerists, auctioneers and administrators discussing the latest issues in the arts.

The program is now screening as segments on the Big Screen at Melbourne’s FedSq and in Sydney at Westfield’s Chatswood Shopping Centre.

InsideArt is now also an educational program with 8 completed DVDs targetting secondary and tertiary art students. The video is now also available as direct downloads and soon will also be available with the SeeCue technology which allows instant searching by text in video.

Visit the website: http://www.insideart.tv/

November 7, 2013

All of Us

Michel Lawrence’s ‘All of Us’ project began as a statement about racism and an attempt to demonstrate what multiculturalism really meant to Australians.

Beginning with a large scale exhibition installed on the exterior walls of the CrossBar building in Melbourne’s Federation Square, All of Us had many iterations including a tour of India for the Foreign Affairs Department. The exhibition was launched by the Victorian Premier Mr John Brumby, for Australia Day 2008. The subsequent exhibitions were launched in India by Premier Brumby and Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith.

The photographs first appeared in All of Us, a website used to promote the project and were then used in a huge array of materials from the 240 page All of Us book published by Scribe Books to magazines and newspapers around the country, to TV commercials and the Victorian Government’s Multicultural policy book- for which it also borrowed the title All of Us. The photographs also formed the basis of a large website we designed and built for the Victorian Multicultural Commission.

The Fed Square Installation of All of Us.

View the 7.30 Report on All of Us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r04aneo7y7o

November 7, 2013

Lavender Bay revisited

Brett Whiteley’s iconic Sydney Harbour paintings are among three chosen by Wendy Whiteley to feature in a release of new fine art reproductions on The Stock Rooms website. The new site, which launched on December 3, features artworks from leading Australian artists, photographers and sculptors.

Michel Lawrence photographed Wendy Whiteley in her Lavender Bay home where the originals were painted 40 years ago. The portrait features on both The Stock Rooms website and the Stock Rooms blog as well.

The house maintains the views of Lavender Bay although the giant Moreton Bay Fig which was below the balcony line when Brett painted there has now grown significantly to obscure the views a tad!

We asked Wendy why she chose the Lavender Bay paintings:

“People like them! They’re beautifully done reproductions.”

You can also see the portrait of Wendy as well as the video interview with Wendy on The Stock Rooms website.