This will be my last post from the UAE. In fact by the time you read this I will already be on my way back to gorgeous grey clouds of the average UK summertime. The last two years of living first in Dubai and then in Sharjah, have been a decidedly mixed experience but I have learned a lot and really enjoyed the exposure to the diverse international art I have seen here. What is perhaps most bizarre is that it took me several months to find an actual Emirati artist but now they seem to be everywhere. It has been very interesting to see how phenomenally the cultural sector has grown just in the last two years and how arts development can become a kind of nationalism in the absence of any other type of overt political statement! I actually arrived in Dubai in May 2007 in the final week of the 8th Sharjah Biennale so I didn’t get to see very much of it. However, 2007 seems to have been the key year. Dubai held its first international Art Fair and fringe in March and not to be outdone, Abu Dhabi followed suit with Art Paris-Abu Dhabi in November. Galleries started to proliferate and three very distinct art areas emerged in Dubai which now has plans for a Museum of Modern Middle Eastern Art, an opera house and various other museums and arts dedicated areas. Meanwhile Abu Dhabi is getting a ‘starchitect’ designed Guggenheim, Louvre, Maritime museum and performing arts centre.

The culmination of all this activity seems to have been the launch of the first ever UAE pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale. Actually the UAE had not one, but two pavilions at Venice…. the competitive squabbling between Dubai and Abu Dhabi even spilled over into the most prestigious art platform in the world resulting in one national UAE pavilion organised out of Dubai and a Platform for Venice set up by Abu Dhabi.

However, despite this frenzy of arts and cultural development which has really raised the UAE’s international profile it is still not a good environment for artists on the ground unless they have substantial independent economic means. It is a very expensive place to live (although rents are coming down since the credit crunch), there is almost no studio space and the constant pressure to earn money is just not conducive to artistic output. In two years I have reworked some old paintings, produced four average prints, a digital montage of the Dubai skyline and four towers of trash! However, the towers were a great success and gave me two of the highlights of my time here. They were exhibited first in the Creek Art fair in Dubai and then travelled to the Cultural Foundation in Abu Dhabi where they were part of an exhibition and panel discussion on Art and the Environment. It’s a shame I never got to exhibit anything in Sharjah but another real highlight was working on the Sharjah Biennale catalogue and I am very happy I was able to do that. It gave me a lot to think about on many different levels and I have assimilated (i.e. stolen) ideas about processes, materials, concepts and ways of communicating that I will take back to the UK with me. I don’t know yet how this and all my experiences over the past two years will come out in my work. However, the best thing is that I go back to the UK knowing I have a rare period ahead of me where I simultaneously have the two key commodities of time AND money! This means that I can sift through it all at leisure in my own space and then just focus on externalisation and production. I have (mostly) enjoyed being a facilitator, promoter and reviewer of other peoples art over the past two years BUT I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to just being an artist for while again.

Created by Valerie Grove On 06/19/09 At 11:27 AM

Jessica Burko is an artist based in Boston, MA, USA and creates photographic mixed-media works on wood, and is currently working on a series of paper quilts called “In Stitches”.

She has kindly sent in a few photos of her studio. It looks much cleaner and more ordered than my studio.

To see what comes out of Jessica Burko’s artist studio see her website here.

ArtInfo’s jobs board is now online. They’re listing art jobs, internships, artist residencies, artist opportunities, artist calls for entry and more.

Here’s some more info from Art Info..

“One of the strengths of ARTINFO is our network and our commitment to institutions and individuals within the art world. Because we realize the months ahead will continue to be challenging, we extend this offer to you to post your opportunity free of charge.

ARTINFO has a targeted audience of engaged art world individuals who interact on many different levels and within many different regions of the world. We have a global focus, but advocate a localized point of view. During this time, we would like to help you – our network – connect with potential opportunities” View their art jobs board here.

Google is celebrating the birth of the American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt with a Cassatt-ized Google logo.

It’s one of my favorite artist tributes from Google. Google does loud and colorful logos well, but this Mary Cassatt logo shows that they can do subtle and neutral colors too. See more Google logos here.

Mary Cassat was born on the 22nd of May, 1844 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania and died near Paris, France on the 14th of June, 1926 at the age of 82.

The Mary Cassatt painting in the Google logo is “The Child’s Bath” from 1893. It is owned by the Art Institute of Chicago.

Yes, it’s an art blog and doesn’t have much to do with travel, but such is life. I have been ping ponging all over the place lately but I keep forgetting to take my camera with me. I managed to take a few snaps though.

(Click to see larger images)

In a hotel in Canberra I had this trippy ceiling that didn’t let my eye rest. I think as an artist you just let an image take you where it wants to go, but this wallpaper on my ceiling just made me dizzy.

Most trees at home are green all year, so I found these trees interesting. There was something romantic about walking down this path, even if I was alone.. and freezing.

See the parrots in the grass? That’s why they’re called Grass Parrots I guess. I have always loved birds and get pretty excited when I see them in the wild. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Here’s the view from my hotel in Melbourne.

Here’s another view of Melbourne.

One more photo of Melbourne city.

Then I felt like I needed sun and warmth so I jumped in the car and headed North again. I have landed in the commercialized hippy town of Byron Bay. It’s a strange combination of weekend hippies, far out hippies, wealthy retired people, surfers, and BMW driving yuppy types. Along with lots of Germans, Brits, Japanese, Americans, and a number of other nationalities.

Everytime I go to the Byron Bay lighthouse I seem to get wet.

One more Byron Bay photo.

I haven’t decided what I’m doing or where I’m going next, but I check out on Wednesday so I better hurry up and figure it out

I don’t know who wrote this poem as it was left by “Anonymous” on an old Vincent van Gogh Quotes post. The only details he/she left was.. “A friend of mine wrote these words today after we spoke of the life of Van Gogh and the recently published book on his history.”

Anyway, here’s a Vincent inspired poem by “HK”

Hands of colors Dutch

Swirl like a painter’s hand gone mad
Canvas of face and time reflect
Bristles of lead give hues of past
Brushes like swords are in array.

I stand in front of the easel like a jury
Words like paint on white torture my hands and eyes
They taunt me like an old pavement princess
Wanting to believe that the brush is still gold
Music I hear or is that the ringing from glimpses of you

Paint away the now. Paint with colors only seen by angels
Colors that hide and feel like a blanket on a cold day
My stand in a broken seal, trembles with dread
Hoping to cure the demon that makes me paint away the now in me

I taste the colors of your soul. I wish that I could write the words that are
In my soul. Words of color and hope. Words that make the pain stop.
Paint. Paint away the pain.
My canvas is my life, and I give you the colors and brushes of me.

HK

ArtPrize has created some debate among artists recently. The Grand Rapids, Michigan based art prize is offering the winning artist $250,000, 2nd place $100,000, 3rd place $50,000 and $7000 for the next 7 artists.

That much money on offer gets a lot of attention from artists and the media, but the thing that artists are discussing most is the judging process; there is none. OK, not none, but the public vote for the winner. This has made many artist afraid, especially conceptual artists, and I think they have good reason to be afraid as most people have no reason to be in a gallery. I know that I wouldn’t be a very good judge of hairy footed pheasants at a cock show as I don’t know anything about them, which is the same reason that people who wouldn’t know a poster from an oil painting wouldn’t be very good at judging art.

It seems to be an experimental art prize though, which hopes to involve the public and get them looking at art, so it’s all good. It will be interesting to see the winning work. The choices of art experts often have me scratching my head, so the public can’t do much worse in choosing a winner.

ArtPrize is open to artists worldwide and judging is open to anyone that attends an exhibition space throughout Grand Rapids, Michigan. See the ArtPrize website for more information on entering the art competition. They also have a blog discussing the prize.

Thanks to Susan and those that let me know of the art prize.

One of my favorite female painters is showing at the Hauser & Wirth Zürich gallery in Switzerland. “Joan Mitchell – Sunflowers” runs from June 6 through to July 25.

I like paintings that look like they were fun to paint. Art doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that for me. Concepts and theories come a distant second. If I can’t relate to the painting of a picture, I move on to the next one.

From the exhibition press release..
“Joan Mitchell’s Sunflower paintings count amongst the most experimental and vibrant of all
her works. In the upstairs gallery at Hauser & Wirth Zürich, six canvases dating from the
1960s and the year before her death, etchings and drawings host an extraordinary diversity of
marks with compositions whose ungovernable vitality refuse to comply to the rules of image
making. Mitchell considered sunflowers to be ‘like people’ — subjects to empathise with
whose life cycles were played out with exuberance but brutal swiftness. ‘If I see a sunflower
drooping, I can droop with it,’ she explained, ‘and I draw it, and feel it until its death.’ Like
van Gogh whose precedent she was brave enough to summon, she embraced sunflowers for
their hopefulness as much as for their assertive and undeniable splendour. Her images do not
much resemble the plants themselves: they are blue and red as well as golden, erratically
dancing sweeps of colour that communicate internal as much as external landscape.”

Here’s a link to the Joan Mitchell Foundation too.

Robert Genn’s latest Painter’s Keys newsletter is an interesting one. He replies to a letter from artist Tom Lockhart talking about how being an artist can be tough. Tom wrote the following to Robert..

“I work 50 to 65 hours per week, teach workshops and serve on the Board of a Local Arts Center. I judge art shows and travel to locations to paint. I earn $75,000.00 to $100,000.00 annually–too much to get a grant. I pay more than my share of taxes, expense out what the law allows and still find it difficult to make ends meet. I’m constantly paying entry fees, dues, advertising, framers, suppliers and travel expenses. I can’t understand why the public insists on buying cheap, crappy art from poorly educated artists who suffer for their craft. Yuk! There are constantly retired lawyers, doctors, architects, dentists and other professionals who decide to become painters. They put their work in galleries and sell to the unsophisticated, taking sales away from deserving, serious artists. And now with the economic bad times, it’s even harder to sell your art. What do you think about this?”

See Robert’s reply here. He basically says things aren’t so bad as you are an artist!

I couldn’t agree more. Being an artist is a privilege that should be appreciated. Listening to an artist complain about being an artist is like listening to someone with 5 Ferraris complain about not having 6 Ferraris. The quickest way to shut me up if I’m ever whinging about being an artist is to tell me to get a 9 to 5 job.

I’m not saying that being an artist doesn’t have it’s ups and downs, but look at the alternatives. Take an office job or get into sales for a while if being an artist ever becomes a chore. If you really are an artist you’ll quickly come running back to the studio and the many privileges of being an artist.

I never feel sorry for struggling artists as it’s hard to have any sympathy for a person with the equivalent of 5 Ferraris in the garage. I don’t care if you can’t pay the rent or you’re tired of eating 2 minute noodles.. you’re an artist!

I found out about the “radiology art” of Satre Stuelke from a NY Times article called “The Inner Beauty of a McNugget” but I would have called it something like “Scary, Toxic Looking Chicken McNuggets.”

Stuelke has also done a few McDonalds burgers for his Radiology Art project and they look just as scarily toxic as the McNuggets. Sure, they’re beautiful to look at but they’re probably not something that should be put into your mouth.

The New York City artist’s statement for the project says it is “Dedicated to the deeper visualization of various objects that hold unique cultural importance in modern society, this project intends to plant a seed of scientific creativity in the minds of all those inclined to participate”

He has photographed/scanned toys, food and electronics. My favorites are the toys, especially the wild looking barbie doll and the toy elephant. See them on his Website here.