Soaking in the Art

The Art Gallery of NSW

Rob hanging out in the 'main street'

On Wednesday, May 7th Rob and I decided to make a trip to the Art Gallery of NSW (New South Wales) because we haven't been to and art gallery together for quite some time. Also, it's free to the public, which is pretty fantastic. This Art Gallery is a nice little mix of Modern, Classical and all art in between. There was some Australian Aboriginal art, there was a special exhibition of publically collaborated art... it was just a nice mix.

And because it was free, we didn't feel pressured to see everything there, knowing that we could easily come back another time and pick up where we left off. There was certainly some beautiful work there (and some work that I'm not so into), and here are some of our favourites.

The main hallway was a pretty cool introduction to the gallery. There were all these flapping tinsle-like streamers hanging from the ceiling. This was an installation from Sydney-based artist Nike Savvas. The installation, called Rally, is this vast, fluttering field of colour suspended above the Gallery’s entrance court. It is made up of more than 60,000 strips of coloured plastic and stretches more than 50 metres through the building. It's one of the largest individual works ever staged at the Art Gallery of NS, and it definitely felt like a giant welcome rug as well walked in!

Another artist that I really was drawn to was Afghani artist Khadim Ali. His work revolved around the concept of displacement, distrust and war-torn culture. He currently lives in Sydney, but his family has been tossed around between Afghanistan to India then to Pakistan. Because he is Afghan Hazara, he and his family live in fear of the Taliban and this fear has followed Khadim Ali and his family all his life.

His work is called The haunted lotus and depicts the demons that continue to haunt him. It includes fine gouache and ink paintings; a series of large-scale, richly coloured rugs; and videos that represent the artist’s working methodology. This exhibition contains Ali’s first handmade rugs – as carpets are so much a part of life in Afghanistan – and represents a turning point in his practice.  

I definitely found both his paintings and his rugs to be absolutely beautiful, sad, poignant, and extremely well executed. I loved the muted colours that contrasted with pops of gold foil and bright contrast colours. I could have spent hours looking at the handful of piece in this exhibit. 
 

Left:  A drawing of one of the mythical demons Ali uses to represent his concept Right:  A hand-made rug based off of this original piece.

A typographical design featuring a poem that I remember from highschool; my friend, Iulia, used to love this poem and I haven't heard it since then!

Aboriginal art sculptures. The Kangaroo reminds me of Rila!

Sol LeWitt (America, 1928–2007) was one of the most influential artists of his generation

More Sol LeWitt

A fun little pixelated sculpture

Rob's favourite; a flock of fruit bat sculptures on a clothes line.

Best quote of the day (by yours truly) "It's proportional to real life without being realistic"

 Stay tuned; so much more to come!