It has been a while since I have posted much of anything here.. Just brief updates and propaganda for the upcoming show. I have been very sick and had quite a few things going on that haven’t really created the environment to get down and dirty with my faithful pens and paper.
But that’s changing. A lot is changing.
Lately, I have been doing plenty of ground work.. Taking loads of photos, writing down ideas and I have been doing some life drawing lessons.(Sketch above is from my recent class. It is a bit rough, but it has been a while!) I think this year I will include different models in my work. As I have been stalled over the last couple of months as I just really don’t want any pictures of me taken. Of course, I’ll have to be selective of who I chose, as people can sometimes be hard to work with. My work isn’t about flattering people, so sometimes I feel a bit of pressure to make my work flattering when I am using a model.
I have also been out and about and getting inspired all over the place.. Usual culprits. Went to London to get overwhelmed by the tube and Camden Markets. Went back to Berlin for a week, where it was minus sixteen degrees. This is my first winter in the Uk and Germany, so you have to understand it is a bit of a shock. I have never felt cold like I did in Berlin, and I can safely say, my ideas on hot and cold have been altered forever. The snow was amazing. I still like to watch it snow. Gene’s beard froze. It was amusing!
We also went to Bath again recently. I am always so impressed with Bath. Such a beautiful city. We went to visit the Abbey and it’s vaults and the Victoria Art Gallery there. The Victoria Art Gallery had a photography exhibition on, it was the Royal Photographic Society 152nd International Print Exhibition (9 January – 7 March 2009). I didn’t really like the show overall. Too many digitally manipulated photos and I think if you don’t know your craft, it is pretty obvious. But there were some photographers that I enjoyed. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my notebook with me so I didn’t write any names down, but you can read the press release here. Press release.
There were some paintings upstairs, there were a few of animals that were absolutely amazing.

I move house again this weekend. Hopefully this will be the last move for a while. I now own a professional drawing board and I look forward to setting it up in my new place and getting down to business.

Group show- “Devil Made Me Do It” at WWA Gallery

This exhibition will “Me, Myself” (Used for main flyer as well) and “Touchy Subject”. I am very excited to have been invited by the gallery to exhibit with them and other amazing artists!

Here is the press release:

WWA gallery Presents

The Devil Made Me Do It
A Group Exhibition Curated by Industrial Squid

Opening Reception: Friday, February 12th, 2010 from 7- 10pm
On View: February 12th – March 20th, 2010

WWA gallery is proud to present, The Devil Made Me Do It, a group exhibition curated by Industrial Squid, featuring new works by 34 established and emerging artists from the Los Angeles area and around the world.

Encompassing themes from the darkest corner of the creative mind, to the force of evil that can take over and control someone to create anything from mayhem to murder, the show will ultimately be defined by each artist’s interpretation. Open to the public, The Devil Made Me Do It gallery reception is from 7- 10pm on Friday, February 12th. The exhibition will be on view until March 20th, 2010. Upon accepting the invitation to participate, artist Frank Kozik stated, “I will make a fucked up painting!” London based artist, Lily Mae Martin, notes “My work is often described as ‘grotesque’, ‘dark’ or ‘aggressive’; which is not what I intended, but I find it interesting that people have that reaction.” And San Francisco artist, David M. Ball, adds “The internal voice becomes external in my work. I’m typically compelled to create art when I have a problem that needs solving. This is where I hash it all out.”

The Devil Made Me Do It show features a diverse line-up of artists including:

Justin Aerni, David M. Ball, Dan Barry, Bora Baskan, Eric Thomas Bostrom, Julian Callos, David Chung, Dave Cooper, David Cooper, Rob Corless, Edward Robin Coronel, Jason Cullison, Alex Curtis, Deadly Daisy, Bob Dob, Thomas Fuchs, Dan Harding, Frank Kozik, Kristy Anne Ligones, Jacob Livengood, Thomas Lynch III, Jon MacNair, Lily Mae Martin, Lee Misenheimer, Josie Newman, Rey Ortega, Gary Palmer, KRK Ryden, Dylan Sisson, Jason Smith, Jared Stumpenhorst, Tracy Tomoko, Ori Toor, and Adam Werther Industrial Squid is a curatorial project comprised of Stephanie Chefas, Rob Faucette, and David Radford of WWA gallery. Industrial Squid is a labor of love born out of a passion for contemporary art and those who bring it to life. Their aim is to curate inventive group shows, with themes that give artists a veritable playground to work within. Located in the Culver City Art District, WWA gallery’s goal is to present contemporary artists, both established and unknown, who have an individual perspective and clear vision and aesthetic. In 2010 will present an array of shows with a wide range of established and emerging artists such as Bob Dob, Frank Kozik, KRK Ryden, Miss Mindy, CJ Metzger, Rey Ortega, Rob Corless and Lily Mae Martin. For more information and an upcoming exhibition schedule, please visit WWAgallery.com

For additional press inquiries please contact:
Stephanie@wwagallery.com or 310.836.4992

9517 Culver Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232
WWAgallery.com 310.836.4992
Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 11-5pm

Here is a link to the gallery: WWA GALLERY
PDF of the press release
Hi-Fructose

A little profile of my work will be in the February issue of Juxtapoz magazine!

Go 2010!!

The Australian government plans to push their “Clean Feed” on internet users in Australia, despite backlash from citizens. Although it claims it is to ban websites that contain sexual violence and child pornography, it is quite clear that there are other objectives for this move. The ban will filter out websites containing other material, such as information on euthanasia, video games and even certain blogs.
The ban will be joining other countries that censor their internet such as China and Iran.
Although I do believe the internet can contain content that is questionable, I believe strongly, that this is the wrong action to be taking. The enforcement of censorship to this extent on people is wrong and should not be accepted.

Take action, protests will take place on JANUARY THE 23RD, 2010 Nation wide. Keep up to date on when and where in your local city here.

More information about the censorship available here:

NO CLEAN FEED

I received an email from Kim a few days ago. I was really excited to hear from someone else who draws, and when I looked at her work, I thought I should share it. Really exciting stuff. She has a website coming soon, I’ll post it when it is up and running.

Some more info is here:
Kim Buck Red Bubble.

Enjoy!

MILTON GLASER DRAWS & LECTURES from C. Coy on Vimeo.

Thanks to one of my favorite blogs, boingboing.net, I came across this short video of Milton Glaser (American graphic designer, born in 1929) drawing Shakespeare and talking about how drawing effects thinking.
I found this short video very inspiring. It is alarming how over looked drawing is becoming. It does play a vital role in how we look at the world, how we process information, how we develop our imaginations! I thought I would share it. So, enjoy. (And thanks boing boing!)

Nom’s new show titled “My Shadows Parade” will be opening on this coming Friday at 696. (696 Sydney Road Brunswick, Melbourne.)

I have had the pleasure of being at Nom’s last two shows, “A Trail of Rusty Melodies” at Utrophia in London and one in Bristol at the Knifesmith Gallery. Her characters have developed over the last year, the colours are more lush and the eyes more piercing.

So if you’re in the area, I’d get down there Melbourne people and enjoy these new works as well as mingle with some of the lovely people there!

After completing my degree I was exhausted. The duration of 2008 had been spent exploring a series in self-portraiture and I had confronted myself on many different levels. I had examined a lot of photos of me that I didn’t like, and began to question myself as to why I had such strong negative reactions to some of these photos. I decided to take these on and explore them in my artistic practice.

The ‘Bath’ image for example, was taken from a small series of photographs that Gene took of me earlier 2008. I can’t remember the exact circumstance of the night before but I know that at the time of the photo I was in a bath, hungover and very sad. When I saw the photo I was both angry and upset. I hated it. Gene loved it and he even did a tracing of it in Illustrator, however I still hated it.

2008 saw me go through some massive changes personally. It was one of the first times in my life that I felt very alone; my social networks had broken down and even though I had a loving partner, life was pretty tough without the support of my friends. In this year I faced a lot of bullying and manipulation from my social groups. It was pretty distressing and I didn’t act as the person I would have liked to. I am ashamed of some of the things I said and did, however hindsight has allowed me to understand why I reacted in this way.

I have always had strong female figures throughout my life . Strong in a way that has been of detriment to my own growth. I have always been dominated and manipulated by these women. As I grew up I began to realize that these people where not really looking out for me so we parted ways, however I have still repeated this pattern. Even to the extent of letting people I am not close to get quite a hold on me. I have allowed myself to feel inferior to some of the most insignificant people I have come across, but I am working on changing all of that.

“Me, Myself” is the first piece that I began and finished after relocating to Berlin. I was trying very hard to get the creative ball rolling again. I struggled a lot as I was in a country where I knew nobody, couldn’t really speak the language and was really missing certain people back in Melbourne. When I get stuck creatively, it feels like the end of the world to me. I become a mess. I am only now learning to avoid this by writing and getting on with life.

This piece is about my shadow self. She has kept all the negativity that I have felt towards myself, combined with other people’s words and my own voice. She is the ultimate mocker! The figure looking directly at the viewer is me directed at me. It gives me an opportunity to take a good hard look at myself, and to take note of what it is, that I do to myself.

I can’t answer for every image I draw. I don’t analyze my work to a point where I cripple myself and just talk rather than draw. However I think this new image needs some explanation. There is a series forming amongst the portraits of people looking crazy/disturbed, (however you like to put it). The subject of the series is a female figure, almost contorted, sometimes repetitive, but always a similar figure. Images from this series have been banned from myspace and from a gig as they are deemed too offensive. When I compare my works to other available images on myspace I think that what separates mine from the unbanned material is the pubic hair.

When I proposed the idea of this particular drawing, “Touchy Subject”, some of the response suggested that I was engaging in a work that would be considered ‘pornographic’. There is a distinctive difference between pornography, and sexuality. Pornography, and art. Pornography, and my drawings exploring the female form and female sexuality.

Female sexuality is still a touchy subject. There are still woman out there my age who are uninformed about their body-parts, let alone what they are for or what to do with them.

When I was a young, sexually active girl I had a few problems with my vagina and went to the doctors. The problem was of course that I had washed myself so much with soap that I actually had hurt myself. The doctor told me that woman don’t need to use soap on their genitals and that in fact it could cause many health problems. She also told me a story about another girl who used to wash herself with the antiseptic ‘Dettol’. Why do we think that we are so unclean? So dirty? Why are we not taught about the difference between the vagina and the clitoris? Why are we so unwilling to teach our children about their own bodies? Of course there is the bigger picture; I know that there are woman are in far worse circumstances than most of us in the West. But if we are so advanced why are there girls out there who don’t know how to take care of their own bodies? Why are there girls out there who don’t know what their bodies do? Is it so scary to let girls know that their bodies can be pleasurable? Ridiculous. What century are we in again?

UPDATE:

Within hours of adding this image to the gallery of my facebook fan page it has been taken down.

Boing Boing is a site my partner reads quite a lot, and for a few years now, and I have developed a habit of reading over his shoulder and getting him to send me links. It’s a blog about interesting things, from art to politics, computing to the very random. It has something for everyone.

Today Gene found an article they had posted about Ralph Lauren and a bazar / offensive ad campaign of theirs. Where they have photoshopped the (probably already emaciated) model to the point where her head is literally bigger than her pelvis. The original post of theirs was posted a month ago, but the article I have attached is about how Ralph Lauren’s legal team are asking for it to be removed. Infact, they are threatening to sue.

I wanted to write about this for two reasons:  Firstly, the original marketing image produced by Ralph Lauren is so offensive it makes my skin crawl And secondly I cannot believe a fashion range thinks it has the right to sue someone over something such as a critique on what they are ‘offering’ to people. See, if you don’t want critique, don’t be in the public arena.

Here. This is the article about Ralph Lauren having a hissy fit.

Here is Boing Boing itself.