Kerry Cannon

I arrived in Australia August , 1995. That was when I decided that sink or swim I was going to do what I wanted to do, create art, for the rest of my life. Art is a terrific game which I play as much as I can. My first exhibition was in Melbourne in 1998 and I’ve had various solo and group shows since then. Some of the highlights:

“Bloody Hard Yakka“, 1998, was my first show. I filled up the Chapel Gallery in Melbourne with art. There were 41 works in that show and the variety was excellent - paintings, drawings, wood carvings and bronze sculptures. We transported most of the exhibition down from NSW in a horse float through a rain deluge by Dubbo and then through a locust plague just before West Wylong. We had some Maoris help out with a performance at the opening.

“Alchemy-Golden Dreams Come True” was my second solo show that premiered 1999 at The Stanthorpe Regional Gallery in Queensland. I’m a member of The Borderline Art Group and we’ve had a show in Stanthorpe every year since then. I don’t normally sell too much at Stanthorpe, but I seem to have a good time.

“From Far Formosa”,2001, was show I put together with Taiwanese artist Yao Jui-Chung. I flew to Taiwan to talk Yao into photographing a story that I had made up. It was a nice exhibition at Bruce Watling Gallery in Southport, Queensland. Two of Yao’s photos were so hot that Bruce wouldn’t hang them up in the gallery, but if anyone wanted to see them, they were in his office under his stack of porno mags!

“The Tiger Club”, 2003 an installation of bronze, fibre optics and mirrors took me two years to knock out. It was wonderful to premier the piece during the Castlemaine State Festival in Victoria and then to show it during Australia’s Biggest Chook Show here in Warialda.

I’ve tried to finish a bronze series every year since 1996. The history of my series so far is: 1996-1997 A Midsummer Night’s Dream series and The Odyssey series, 1998 The Alchemy series, 1999 The Forbidden Love series, 2000 The Monkey series, 2001 From Far Formosa series, 2002-2003 The Tiger Club series, 2004 The Blockhead series, 2005 Clamdiggers series, 2006 Fantastic Voyage, and currently Los Caprichos. The Alchemy series is my personal favourite. It’s a three dimensional comic in 13 parts. A kind of Shakespearean tragedy in bronze.

I also try to make at least one larger sculpture per year usually in bronze. I've managed to finish 10 pieces since 1999. Some of these were editions and some were created just for the sculpture park.

Hi yall. I’m always a bit antsy about putting time limits on the website because invariably you forget to update and 2007 becomes 2010 etc. So caution to the wind, here goes.

2007 followed the pattern of 2006 which was show! Show! SHOW!!! I’m still getting knocked back on the major contests, but I’ve had some notable wins-like a juried show in Texas, USA in 2006, winning the 2006 Moreland Acquisition and winning the sculpture category at the Warwick, QLD annual prize in 2007. Haystack Alpinas was acquired by the Inverell City Gallery in 2007. People tell me becoming part of a public gallery’s collection is very important for an artist, because when you die, it makes your art that more valuable.

Life intervened with a vengeance in 2006 and 2007. My wife of 17 years was in Tasmania for most of 2006 getting medical treatment. She got over that condition, but she was only back to “Bondi” for about 6 months before she was diagnosed with cancer and died early this year (2008). It’s very sad at the moment, but I’m getting on with the show, show, show.

The biggest exhibition of 2007 was the Shanghai Art Fair. My stuff stacked up quite well against what I saw there. And certainly I got a lot of great comments from artists going through the fair-now I have to convince the collectors. I also made it into the Prometheus Prize in QLD for the second time in 2007. There is a really enjoyable atmosphere at this show- a great variety of art and it’s usually reasonably priced. I was also in Contempora2 at Docklands in Melbourne where, unfortunately, A Flaming Giraffe was never lit up due to wind! I had my first overseas solo show in Denver in 2007 and was involved in two sculpture exhibitions in Texas, USA.

This year (2008), I’m picking up the pieces around the farm and have been having a stellar run of good luck. I’ve shown at The Sustainable Living Festival in Federation Square in Melbourne, the Sydney Opera House, the University of Western Sydney Acquisitive Sculpture Award and The Toorak Village Festival of Sculpture. I’m also back in a sculpture show in San Antonio, Texas. My friend Katrina at the Moree Plains Gallery was complaining about how artists ring their own bells on their websites and how it was unAustralian, so I’ll stop the ego flow before it gets out of hand (more?).

After June, I’m hoping to get more sculpting in. I’ll finish A wonder, a natural wonder for the sculpture walk at the park (this sculpture just earned me my annual rejection from Sculpture by the Sea). I should have my current series Los Caprichos finished around August and then I’ll try to do 2 more sculptures for the park this year. Our Builders Phil and Dave emerged the other day after about a 6 month absence and got stuck into the tower project. Two of the platforms should be complete and installed by the end of April.

The trouble with showing is you don’t get to sculpt as much as you’d like. And lately Ceramic Break has been having a run of appreciative visitors who also require a lot of my attention, because Nerida is recovering from an operation and I’m filling in for her. It’s all fun and interesting, but it requires a lot of organization and frankly most of the time I can’t be stuffed.

Rumours have it that a member of our local Probis Club thinks my art is pornographic- I hope she doesn’t tell the kids at the primary school! Also, (from the same origin as the first rumour) by 2011 the “light” will be so intense that the winners are going to be sorted out from the losers so get into the New Age nonsense before it’s too late. Certainly when oil went above $100/barrel it ruined my sex drive. Luckily, I sowed all those seeds in the grind years of my career-2005.2006, 2007 and 2008- and they are now coming to fruition (maybe).

My anxiety is that I feel the park is six sculptures short of making a definitive statement of who I am as an artist. I got to get off my butt and do some work.

Piñata

A Flaming Giraffe

Ceramic Break Sculpture Park apologises in advance for the views of The Lizard Queen- once a cheap bitch, always a cheap bitch.

Hi sweethearts. Hi you motivated artists that the critics ignore because they’re too busy taking care of their mates or just having a good wank on an easy target. Need a critic? I’ll try to fit it into my busy schedule, but I warn you The Queen can stroke, but she can scratch too. Scratch, stroke, scratch those with suicidal tendencies need not apply.

A cursory glance through the artist index of Art Almanac fails to find Mary Kiriakoudis. Where has she gone? Could it be that my random sample of the issues: April 2003, Oct 2007, Jan 2008, Feb 2008 and April 2008 was too small? Maybe Mary married and changed her name or maybe she decided sculpture was just too hard and moved onward. Or maybe I imagined...

No dawling! Out of my archival box emerges the Oct. 24, 2001 invitation to her exhibition Small Voices at Mira Fine Art Gallery, Melbourne. The images on the invite and in the profile section of the Oct Art Almanac are sharp and professional. Mira Fine Art has long since moved on and its artist-friendly Director, Yvonne Werner, also seems to have vanished into the ether. Maybe the desertion of Wendy Stavrianos to Metro5 Gallery drove Ms Werner to despair or maybe Mira’s Dec 2001 sculpture show, in3Door/out3Door, was the last straw (The show was a critical failure). Sculpture was/is a dead end street and is often the bane of commercial galleries.

Mary Kiriakoudis’ white resin sculptures were wonderfully well rendered and enigmatic. I remember feeling a certain gruesomeness looking at her sculptures. The children with their faces covered in cloth or pillows for heads reminded one of a dark place. Yet, there is no threat implied in the artist statement-it’s all about childhood, vulnerability etc.

Sculpture seldom intrigues me these days. Exhibitions seem to be full of giant monkeys, geometric shapes and found objects often displayed in the same room. While The Lizard Queen assents that it is all sculpture, she would be loath to call most of it fine art. Yet, it is displayed as if it is all intrinsically valuable often with a beautiful bronze adjacent to abhorrent kitsch.

Small Voices was a situational display. It wasn’t quite sculpture and not quite installation. The objects-toys, boots, clothing- through their groupings communicated the messages about the intent of the show. Yet, individually the objects were strong enough to stand on their own! Placement of the objects in space was painstakingly considered. The look was fresh, but its simplicity belied the planning behind the crisp presentation. This kind of sculpting is hard yakka.

So please dawling bring back the intelligence we’ve lost in our sculptural evolution here in OZ. Take away the kitschy cultural references onto which we cling. Those things, Sweetie, that we feel make us culturally unique from the rest of the world. Loose the bushrangers, the kangaroos and forget about the blasé obsession with the Australian landscape. Our landscape is interesting, but certainly not unique. Bring back intelligent sculpture-Mary Kiriakoudis come home!

Dawling! International travel broadens the mind and stimulates the senses and on Singapore Airlines even in economy one receives copious stimulation. Whites and if one is so inclined reds. Tiger too? Well perhaps just the tip of the tail to celebrate an excursion into Asia!

Shanghai is a gorgeous city with new high-rises around every bend. The export money from manufactured white goods is creating towers one can only dream of! They emerge from the brown haze of smoke, traffic congestion and people. People everywhere dawling! Well dressed, fashionable and congenial people- Shanghai is the world’s ultimate, ultra modern, unbelievable city!

Philistines might say that the air in Shanghai stinks. They might whinge about how they spent most of the day in gridlock and how no one speaks English etc. Well I say-Get a life! When in Rome do as the Romans do. Head down to the Mansion Hotel in the French Concession and dip your chopsticks into some of that Shanghai Duck!

The art fair was ginormous! It had the best of Chinese culture on display as well as galleries from all over the world. There were traditional Tao paintings featuring the effervescent ying and the yang in cohort somewhere in the Sino- wilderness. And large booths of calligraphy and not knowing my character alphabet-it’s all Japanese to me dawling!-I was intrigued but not impressed. The Chinese modern art, on the other hand, seems to be of high standard and interest.

There was a huge porcelain display on the first floor. The Lizard Queen usually abhors the pretension of these shining, smiling figurines- probably from spending a portion of my youth in Jamaica where porcelain is revered as the pinnacle of good taste-but even I was impressed not perhaps by the objects but how they were arranged as a postiche of a Chinese Village. It was charming.

The Australian posse included first generation immigrants from Bulgaria, England, United States, Iran and China. One of the big draws was Steve who was showing paintings from Cuba, which the Chinese seemed to enjoy. We really are a diverse group down under! My personal favourite was Anna Glynn and her wonderful painting of a tree from an unusual perspective and Feng Tan whose technique is superb. Oi! Oi! Oi!

The verdict, doll, is that there is something at The Fair for everybody and everybody was there from every walk in life in China. I’ve never been to an event so well attended by such an appreciative audience. One of the off shoots of communism is that everyone gets the same opportunity to enjoy art in all its manifestations and judging from the intrigued faces of the camera toting crowds the revolution was a roaring success.

After catting around Denver, Colorado I couldn’t help but indulge myself with a trip to Victoria. The first few days were wonderful dawling with that hint of spring in the air and clear open evenings, but the trip soon turned ghastly with the return of the inevitable Victorian winter. How I pined for the warmth of northern New South Wales as I shivered in a freezing shed in the pursuit of an art story that failed to materialize. Indeed the story never had a chance as I satiated my pining by deserting that frozen region and drove through the roo-laden night to meet the Spring.

Strange to say dawling, but I was only back for a morning before the travel urge again took hold and I continued the sojourn to Inverell. Have you ever been to Inverell? There are a lot of pedestrian crossings and roundabouts and Coles and Wooly’s and The Inverell City Gallery.

The Black and White show with photographs by Frank Leitner and pencil drawings by Annabel Cleeve was a breath of fresh air after seeing much non-traditional art over the last year. You forget sometimes the work and skill involved in drawing and photography if you’re distracted by the latest thing passing for art these days. This was a well put together effort for both artists with perhaps a few too many drawings and a few too few photos.

Frank Leitner’s photos were rich landscapes and some wonderful Sydney scenes. Animals were prominent in a lot of photos usually dogs interacting with humans. The Lizard Queen was a bit confused as to why there were no editions in this show and due to her Victorian detour had missed the opening and the opportunity of purchasing the crème of the unique photos.

I did manage to purchase two rather good compositions including a boy looking at two poodles and a dog marching with the flag in his mouth in an Anzac Parade with the old Diggers in the background. Patriotic? Pretentious? Stunning composition and technique-Frank Leitner is a master of black and white.

The former Annabel Jeffrey of Tenterfield and now Annabel Cleeve of Texas has been practicing fine art since yonks. She has a wonderful touch and always uses a very sharp pencil. Her drawings of leaves and larger works of flowers were quite well rendered and presented. There was a lot of effort and time put into these works and work is the appropriate description - there is nothing easy here.

The Lizard Queen makes no apologies when she says that these works by Annabel were not her thing. The Queen can still appreciate the subtleties in Annabel’s line. One delicate drawing of a moth especially caught my eye and the good news is that it’s still for sale Dawling. Black and White runs through September.

Denver on the 4^th of July, American Independence Day. It is a pleasant 38 degrees- the perfect weather for indulgement in a present art venue and a future one. You see the Feb 2007 issue of Art and America caught my eye Dawling!

The new wing of the Denver Art Museum is quite OK. It juts out in interesting angles and is connected by a covered walkway across the street to the older parts of the museum. What was it like inside? Well it had large spaces and large spaces to get to those spaces. I seem to recall a lot of metal and glass.

The display halls were well lit with a surprisingly good contemporary art show of mostly cutting edge Japanese and Chinese artists. The busty Manga heroines were well represented in lavish bright colour. Delicious

Although, it seemed that the locals preferred to frequent the western art display, which although was very good, was western art. Might I say that it reminded me of all those dreary landscapes of the Australian bush and the colonial painting that seem to overly adorn our national galleries in Australia. The locals also seemed to enjoy a display of baseball paraphernalia.

There was also another contemporary display on the top floor with a nice local, international and primitive flair including African and Oceania objects. A recent bronze by Kiki Smith a nude woman with a wolf that I believe was displayed at the 2006 Venice Biennale was OK.

The Lizard Queen was ready to strut across to the other side of the museum, but unfortunately my ride had to go kayaking. I reckon I had enough, but more is always nice.

The new Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver has well and truly broken ground Dawling and is due for completion in October. I donned pink hard hat with my kayaking driver and our guide Tony for the tour of the new 16 million USD facility. The facility will have six galleries each dedicated to: photography, installation, an artist in residence, large works, works on paper and a children’s display.

Tony expects to have about 22 shows per year with the first artist in residence a Maori who will build a traditional long house. I believe he said the gallery is already booked for years in advance. I made a couple of comments about how many Kiwis will fit in an All Blacks jersey that seemed to go well and truly over Tony’s head.

We were debriefed about the tour by the MCA Denver Executive Director Cydney Payton and Tony. The Lizard Queen is not used to this royal treatment, but somehow deep inside it felt like it was entirely appropriate. Good luck in October!

It’s always an adventure visiting The Gold Coast with its sordid motels that are being superseded by higher priced tourist apartments. An end of an era or just another tacky change? Some might argue(The Lizard Queen included) that The Gold Coast has been a disaster for years-from the creepy backpacker disco excursions to the constant traffic exacerbated by the 24 hour road works. Why then are the people so friendly? It defies logic.

I’m drawn to the slimy underbelly of the venues I choose for my art critics, not to imbibe some universal wisdom, but because I’m a cheap bitch. Waiting a half hour with the rest of the ghouls to chew into that $5 breakfast at the Southport Workers Club only to find the “special” was only for the weekends. The ghouls sipping their suds at 9:00AM while the bitch that she is goes off in a huff preferring to fast until late afternoon than to pay an additional $2 for the same breakfast.

The Swell Sculpture Festival was impressive. Held on Currumbin Beach, just north of where the old Gold Coast Highway meets the M1. Traffic, traffic...personally I prefer the wild where I can stretch out my thighs. The highlight was Richard Moffatt’s sculpture “392”. It’s 9.7 meters tall made out of recycled steel. Well engineered, it hardly wavered in the strong gales on the beach. It’s hard to describe, but it was like a meandering string with a ball on the top-fantastic!

Another gem of a piece and the most expensive thing in the show was “Radian” by Jan Kelder. He used a wonderful combination of metals and materials; the sculpture was very refined and nicely finished. “Fragmentation” by Scott Charles used steel and glass in a unique position on the beach point. Scott’s use of space between his objects really accentuated his designs.

The international artists from the UK, New Zealand and USA made nice contributions with Nick Horrigan’s “Perpetual Wave” my favourite. It’s a beautiful wave-shaped object made out of marine ply and inlayed with glass.

“Pull the Plug” by Cezary Stulgis, a giant steel bathplug added a bit of humour to an otherwise dry beach. The pick of the figurative sculpture was a piece by Frederic Berjot much better than his entries to the 2005 Jupiter Prize and The Thursday Plantation Prize in my opinion. His veiled women were tall and shapely with a nice sandy texture.

All in all Swell 06 was a good variety of sculpture from figurative to conceptual from fine arts to kitsch and well worth a visit.

I shall end my first critic with a report on the opening at the Currumbin RSL. Bringing on the Ritz seems like a contradiction at an RSL, but after slurping down a half dozen oysters and champagne well…Gold Coast people are so well groomed and attractive in their casual but chic outfits. The queen fit right in, but could only take so much love before she had to drift down to join the riff raff below the party room. In the dungeons the large beery punters punched their pokies over the roar of sports TV. The daguerreotypes of diggers in their metals, the sign-in ritual at the front desk-the RSL is The Gold Coast is Sydney is Ballina is Australia.

It’s been so long since we’ve had a chat darling! I’ve been engaged at my country estate pining for The Gold Coast so off I go. Ah the pretensions! The gigantic high-rises, the traffic noise, the seedy hotels and vibration. There is nothing like it for a country girl looking for that little something...

Trade shows are weird. Those poor vendors stacked to chokers trying to sell what is in many cases not worthy. No one likes to make eye contact at these events which makes it difficult when you’re trying to ascertain art.

Usually the Lizard Queen abhors these art meat markets where the best on offer camps beside lowly quiche, but after a dozen oysters and a half bottle of Sauvignon Blanc I was down right randy for a bit of fun.

Most of the artists were masquerading in costumes and although stacked together like fishy-deans seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was tribal drumming and dancing, but the part I liked the best was the full body painting.

I’m a big fan of nude bodies both male and female and with the paint...well, what can I say, I was enjoying myself. I like watching the brush as it pigments those forbidden places, colouring around and around…

I don’t know what to tell you about the art dawling, except that it seemed good and there was a lot of it. And yes- there were more artists than punters which was fine with me as it gave me more room to perv.

Ceramic Break has apologised in the past for the views of The Lizard Queen, but refuses to sink to that level anymore. Read on as the wench from the west continues her tour of parts east.

I’ve had a lovely ride up the revamped M1 to Brisbane with continued wonderment at the mythical Logan Regional Art Gallery located somewhere in the city of Logan, but having no directions off the fabulous M1. Does it really exist? The Lizard Queen finds it very unlikely, especially on a Monday.

The Triennial is one of those displays that puts most other exhibitions in Australia to shame. It is deeply political with a display of deformed smiling children, the result of chemical experimentation by multinational chemical companies (logos included!) during the Vietnam War. It is humorous with film clips of Jackie Chans’ best stunts. Beauty and engaging themes around the region are given ample space to tell their tales in the lavish new Gallery of Modern Art.

Indeed, the new gallery has outstanding lighting and ample natural light. Views of the Brisbane River are superb from both levels and there is a bright watering hole and gift shop.

The emphasis of this exhibition for me seemed to be works from China, Vietnam and Japan, although the whole region is well represented. I feel a pride of place as the Australian entries seem to complement our creative neighbours. I’m still licking my lizard chops at the wonderful variety of cinema, installation, sculpture, drawing and painting. We’re a clever lot aren’t we?

Be sure to allow at least three hours to do the exhibition justice. There’s plenty of displays for children, where one can ditch them and go have one’s own fun. Also, try to coordinate a movie from the Triennial Asian film festival into your program.

As I left the exhibition, I was attracted by a small crowd around whom else, but Peter Beatty, the Premier of Queensland. He is somewhat smaller than I thought, but quite sharp and engaging. Where but Australia can you go down the street and see those from television land? We have a lot to be proud of.

It’s been awhile since I was in Tamworth dawling and the new gallery is a gem. It was hard to find being located on the second level of the library and the signage wasn’t the best, but once inside these minor distractions were lost in a lot of space. The gallery is big with a welcome desk and gift shop the first thing you see.

There was a marvellous display of prints from the art gallery of New South Wales. Don’t ask me who they were by, I was too busy drinking champagne and flirting with the local talent. I remember a nice hippopotamus and a Noah’s Ark that caught my eye, but perhaps the problem was that the gallery was totally chokers with prints. Too many prints perhaps for the space? I am indeed a bitch.

In the side space, the friends of the gallery had a miniature display of over 270 works by local artists. And why shouldn’t regional galleries display regional works if the standard is high? Don’t local artists have a right to see their works displayed in a million dollar space? The show was very well received by the local fans of fine art and the drinks were very welcomed by me.

I had the pleasure of mingling with some of the members of Gamilart, a Tamworth coop of indigenous and nonindigenous artists. Some members were having their first show in that beautiful space. What a wonderful start to an art career.

I have a thing for human bodies and The Amazing Human Body exhibition had dead ones of all sorts, but perhaps more an abundance of Chinese midgets than anything else. It was definitely not for the squeamish and my grand daughter and I spent a pleasant afternoon looking at the afterlife. After a while it gets to you, how could it not? And I know the plasticine injected into the cadavers is supposed to prevent purification, but did I detect a faint odour or was it my own uncomfortable odour?

It is fascinating to see bodies sawn in little sections both longitudinally and laterally, displays of nervous systems, digestive systems, artificial hips, knees and spine supports, skeletal displays, skulls and lips. But the modelled look so unhappy sawn in two longitudinally taking a ski jump with all the ski gear on. And the flayed Asian on the bicycle forever riding in a nonexistent race and the little Asian woman staring into space forever embarrassed as everyone stares at it all- is it anatomy, is it art or is it perversion?

We took a break for drinks and my granddaughter said she had seen Doctor Gunther, the creator of the plasticine method, late at night performing autopsies. She commented how sharp his knife was and how he never slipped even when it was covered with corruption (my words). The doctor wears a black hat reminiscent of another Doctor (Duvalier) as he chats in his jolly Bavarian accent while he cuts his meat. Is it too much for a 9 year old? They do grow up fast these days.

I was a bit skeptical about the black-hatted doctor with the nimble knife, but the next evening there he was! He was cleaning the large intestine of all its faecal material and yes it did stink clear through my TV. Unperturbed, weeks later in a fit of insomnia, I again joined the good doctor as he castrated and then sliced a testicle longitudinally into parallel bits with a speed any Ginzu Master would be proud of. My next fortnight was spent in delirium within fits of nightmares.

They’re trying to make war sexy in Australia. Instead of legitimate roles like trying to maintain the peace in the immediate region, Australia is glorifying the brave diggers in Afghanistan and Iraq and is determined to expand its military in new exciting ways. I don’t like it. I reckon Oz has no business playing in the Middle East and that eventually this dangerous game will probably have dire consequences here at home, but hopefully not in my lifetime.

You ex diggers- was war the greatest adventure of your life? Was mateship and patriotism worth the youth that was stolen from you? Do you at times feel empty about being exploited by politicians and those c#%@ s that make the bombs and uniforms and feed off the misery of others? Strike a blow against these vampires and help me make war unsexy again.

Since coming to this country 10 years ago, I’ve been dismayed by the energy expended remembering The Great War. The war memorials that dot almost every village and the ghost trees marking the entryways are the stark reminders of the hellish event. Lately, however, I’ve noticed that the tone is more nostalgic than remorseful, instead of the Great War being a travesty it was a great adventure and a defining moment for the Australian character. And maybe the war wasn’t such a bad thing after all…

Time is a great healer, but it is also the great clouder. War memorials loose their memories with time. Who were those people that died? And why is that ugly obelisk there anyway?

People see the memorials, but they don’t see them. They’re there, but they are invisible. The stark reminder of the horrors of war is ignored.

I think it’s time to up date the Australian war memorials and make them relevant again. Revisit the engraved names, find out who they were and write it out in longhand. Make the memorial a place of contemplation and interaction where people go on a weekly or even daily basis instead of once a year. And most of all, make the memorials visible, not just from the road, but for miles around. Help me make war unsexy. Email me to find out how. kerry@cbreaksculpturepark.com.au

I consider myself a narrative artist opposed to a figurative artist. Certainly figures are important in the art I create, but aren’t the art itself but a conduit to tell stories. A good story teller like a good poker player doesn’t let on about his hand. The story even in its final form may remain ambiguous leaving room for other interpretations than what the artist had in mind. And many times these interpretations are more interesting than the original idea.

A good example of what I strive towards is the Los Caprichos etchings by Goya. They are inundated with Spanish folklore and superstition, yet hold a freshness and resonance that touches our world two hundred years after their creation. The archaic puns in the series take on new meanings in the modern world and the chistes (jokes) are still funny. Goya’s observations about human nature and the caprices of relationships are timeless. There is a universality and immortality in the narratives of Los Caprichos.

These are the most interesting times in human history. The world seems to be on a rollercoaster ride that is moving too fast to take it all in. What I observe are the unusual glances that appear for a moment before the thing goes careening around the next bend. Are we all hell bent on destruction or are people just becoming ridiculously alarmist? Are mass species extinctions and the green house effect really something to worry about? What about war, religion and world trade? A cursory flick through the television channels leaves me feeling mediocre and empty. Is this the pinnacle of our civilization? Well if this is the best we have to offer, it’s not much.

What is the roll of the artist in this cacophony of images- to produce art? All those beautiful female nudes and still life’s, landscapes-I have a lot of time for beauty. Or maybe the artist should be an activist and chronicle the injustices and problems in the world and even offer up solutions. And maybe these outcries will one day reach the rich and powerful and become a force for real change in the world-I have a lot of time for reformers. Or, closer to my heart, the artist should be a biased observer who offers a point of view, but in the end leaves the art lover to make the last judgement call. But why make distinctions; shouldn’t all artists strive to take on all three rolls and more? To do less would be to ignore the most interesting times in history and ultimately sell ourselves short.

It’s calm in my studio in the bush. It’s an open shed that offers little joy from the elements and nasty mosquito and fly bits, yet even with all the at times physical discomfort, something extraordinary happens there everyday. I strive to marry literature and art. I’m the biased observer playing with his wax dolls. I line them up on the window sill and bend and shape them in an effort to recite my stories. Quickly- before they melt!

Biff!

Unveiled at
Australia's Biggest Duck Show

The Flower of Burma

I’d like to start a comic-type publication based on an art contest. I’d also like to direct some movies I’ve written and start showing my art internationally on a regular basis. A satirical quarterly newsletter involving comments about the current state of the enlightenment is also a possibility.

I’d just like to close this section with a selection from my artist statement that I submitted to the Florence Biennale:

..I abhor the overwhelming violence of human nature, but invariably this violence underlies almost everything I create..