August – A Mural, A Group Show & Some Public Art

August has been a busy month so far and like the rain it doesn't seem to be abating. I painted a big mural in the courtyard of the youth Mental health ward for Fiona Stanley Hospital. It took six days to paint but about a year and a half to organise! Thanks to Mel Midenhall for getting the ball rolling and Richard and Brian from the engineering department at FSH for moving the scaffolding for me and letting me go home early without too many jibes at my work ethic. Also thanks to George Howlett for the assist, couldn't have done it without ya man. 

Things are moving along nicely with a little (biggest one I've ever done) public art job for a new development in Baldivis. Betty Richards and myself have designed a series of ten aluminium sculptures that will sit in sweet little groups around a park. We've had some fun visiting fabricators and powder coaters in our new (second-hand) Suzuki Jimny. We've also sent hundreds of emails and had a few meetings at fancy offices with some nice people in clean shirts who were very impressed with our last minute paper models. Result. 

I've been in the studio a little bit finishing off some work and also planning a bunch of new ones. I've got some shaped canvas paintings in the Scene 2018 show at Nyisiztor Gallery in Melville and it's bittersweet as I think this will be the last of this type of work that I'll do for a while. Painting is fun but I want to try something else. With that in mind I found out that my proposal for Smart Casual (a great little gallery space in the centre of Freo) has been accepted. I'm going to be producing an installation there and conducting a series of artist talks/performances throughout December.

I've also had a very exciting talk with Bennet Millar from Artsource about producing a large scale installation at Customs House in 2019. I'm not going to tell you any more about it just yet but I will say that it's going to be a lot of fun. Still waiting to hear back about my funding application for a big installation at Testing Grounds early next year, so keep your fingers crossed for me.