‘Australia Restless’ – the exhibition

Posted: September 23, 2015 | Author: afgibson | Filed under: Artwork | Leave a comment

I have a new art exhibition opening next week.

This is my final exhibition of work developed during my Masters of Fine Arts at COFA. It will include paintings, photos, videos, other bits and pieces, plus a spoken word performance on Thursday, October 1, at 3pm.

Please join us for the opening night, Tuesday, September 29, at 5pm.

– Adam
———
More details … “Australia Restless – the exhibition” is concerned with Australian language and landscape, distance and displacement. It looks at aspects of Australian life swept aside by picture postcard images of the nation, glib representations that tell a story discordant to the real life and history of the nation.
It is an exhibition incorporating sculptural, painting and video works by Adam Gibson in his final MFA show, with the centrepiece being a performance of a spoken word work which takes the audience on a journey through forgotten landscapes, deserted towns and the desolate landscape that lie at the heart of modern Australia.
Australia Restless holds within it a sense of yearning, a striving to articulate a terrain that, despite the age of mass communication and ease of contact, remains elusive and, in many senses, restless.

30 days of Winter

Posted: July 27, 2012 | Author: afgibson | Filed under: Artwork | Leave a comment

Beginning June 18, 2012, I have started what I hope will be a 30-day period in which I will create or finish at least one artwork each day.

The reasoning behind such a self-imposed program is that it can force me act on ideas that might otherwise be left floating just as ideas.

It also actively engages the sensibility and makes one just create art (for art’s sake, if you will).

Further, such a project can be an interesting artwork in itself, the need for immediacy and speed in creation yielding an aesthetic that reflects both that necessary immediacy and also a sense of time and place.

And so thus begins, 30 Days of Winter.

Memory Crosses Over – Australia meeting Finland etc

Posted: July 26, 2012 | Author: afgibson | Filed under: Artwork | Leave a comment

’30 Days of Winter’

Memory Crosses Over – Australia meeting Finland meeting Australia etc

We move all over the world but carry places with us, jagged thoughts, snippets of images, imprints of memories of the past emerge unbidden.

In Finland in February I had never thought about Australia so much, the sense of being on the far side of the world from the place that I call “home” brought a deep longing for my country, the raw landscape and the wide distances, which echoed in the raw and cold landscape of Finland.

Perhaps that is why I felt such a connection with Finland? Maybe there is a common echo, of empty landscape and quiet roads and the sense of empty empty empty.

‘Unintentional Buddha’

Posted: July 18, 2012 | Author: afgibson | Filed under: Artwork | Leave a comment

’30 Days of Winter’, Day 19

‘Unintentional Buddha’

I had no intention of drawing the image of the Buddha with this drawing. It just happened completely unintentionally.

Is this a sign? Ummm, ommmm.

Which seems to be perhaps strangely similar to such a vision of the Buddha as this, which I only found after doing the drawing … (but maybe I am imagining the whole similarity? Who knows.)

‘Land. Hostage II.’

Posted: July 18, 2012 | Author: afgibson | Filed under: Artwork | Leave a comment

’30 Days of Winter’, Day 19

‘Land. Hostage II.’

Captivated. By the land, mark II.

‘Land. Hostage.’

Posted: July 17, 2012 | Author: afgibson | Filed under: Artwork | Leave a comment

’30 Days of Winter’, Day 18

‘Land. Hostage.’

Captivated. By the land.

‘Scenes from a street parade; Tampere, Finland’

Posted: July 16, 2012 | Author: afgibson | Filed under: Artwork | Leave a comment

’30 Days of Winter’, Day 17

‘Scenes from a street parade; Tampere, Finland’

Whilst in Finland in February, a few of us went in to the city of Tampere for some shopping and for some lunch, plus a general walk etc. It was very very cold on those slippery icy streets and yet the sun was shining and there were more people out and about on this particular day than I personally had seen in Tampere in the few times I had visited there in the weeks before.

And it soon became apparent why… As we were crossing Tampere’s main street, Hameenkatu, we heard a shouting and cheering sound coming from down the road. We looked down and saw … what? … trucks? … Eh? … The sound grew louder as the trucks approached and further trucks came into view down the road.

Before we knew it, the open back trucks were rumbling past, all with massive groups of young people crammed on the back, all shouting, screaming, laughing, and throwing sweets to the crowds which suddenly appeared beside the road.

What an unexpected event, the air so cold and yet so many people laughing and smiling. We had no idea what was going on at first, but soon realised it was some sort of end-of-year celebration for local students.

It was quite an event, with dozens of trucks going around the city on a loop, and the frozen participants on the back getting ever more bizarre in their costumes as things proceeded (and possibly drunker).

It was good. And so here is a photographic / video record of the event, as I thankfully had my camera handy.