Manukau Festival of Arts

Over then thirty events in 16 days- the biggest arts festival holding in Manukau. It is a feast of cultural delights from dance and performance to arts, fashion and music.

The third annual festival is loaded with a record number of events and kicks off on last Friday. This festival which included the variety of art activities, such as performing arts, dance group performance, fashion shows, and music performance.

However, it was the great experience to participate funniest and interesting art events. It is the wrathful activities which we can enjoy the different cultural events, and more understanding the different customs and culture behavior.

There is something for everyone that included some free events and it is all on Manukau’s doorstep. If people wanted to go to these events, there are some highlights of festival below:

Fashion
Villa Maria Cult-Couture: It is time for fashionist to Villa Maria Cult-Couture awards, a celebration combo of theatre, music, dance and fashion.

There will also be special performances form J Williams, Annie Crummer and ReQuest and more. And this event will be start on October 29, 8pm, Pacific Events Centre.

Performance
Strictly Brown: Kila Kokonut Krew is back for one night only with the sequel to last year’s hit Strictly Brown.

The show opens the festival and celebrates local talent performing alongside celebrity guests. They will also be plenty of giveaways, the event will be hold on 15th of October, 7.30pm, pacific Event Centre.

Reference from Manukau Courier,october 12,1010
Photo provided by Melissa Kinealy
Brith duo:(first) pil and Galoia Kollective reveal their self-titled shiw of art installations all the way from London.
Seaside story:(down) Atamira dance company creates a magical story honouring the life of a kuia in the show Taonga: dust,water,wind.

An Early Achiever and outstanding Artist- Yaniv Janson

While most 18 year olds boys and girls are beginning to think about what to do after school, Yaniv Janson is a working artist and a published author.

Yaniv’s journey is different than other normal kids, born with Asperger’s Syndrome, antism-spectrum disorder characterized by social awkwardness and difficulty in communication. He used to be high school student and has turned instead to expressing himself through his art work, painting and books.

Yaniv published his first book Portfolio which was the collection of his works from last year, and this year has completed his second book Changing the World one Painting at a Time. The second book was created with help by his lovely parents whom aim to help people to think about making life-style changes that will make a difference to global warming.

Moreover, Yaniv has contributed his several paintings with many public societies, such as Hamilton architects and he has gained the opportunity to create piece for the New Zealand Clean Energy Centre in Taupo and a banner for Microsoft NZ. In addition, Yaniv also designs the T-shirt which has been produced by Wellington-based Company Kowtow.

Now a day, Yaniv still working very hard as the professional artist, he cannot stop painting in his life, and he never give up because of his disability. As a matter of fact, he looks like the outstanding and a high achievement youngest artist in my mind.

Reference from Hamilton Press,September 1,2010
Photo by Shane Morton

Discovering Special Drawing

Today I have one day trip with my family in Auckland city, when we walked down through the Queen Street and saw an unfamiliar street artist Mark who I never seen before. He used the toilet paper to stain with the India ink and the sip of cooking oil to smear on the glossary photography paper, he only use five to ten minutes to finish each drawing. Also he used some yellow spread paint to spread on the background to make the effect of sunset.

However, I thought Mark was really great street artist who uses different medium to draw different landscapes of South Africa, and the nature environment. Overall, it was a great experience after we chatted about his works, and he gave me a valuable lesson about how to use those materials to make the beautiful compositions.

Discovering a Special Drawing

Today I have one day trip with my family in Auckland city, when we walked down through the Queen Street and saw an unfamiliar street artist Mark who I never seen before. He used the toilet paper to stain with the India ink and the sip of cooking oil to smear on the glossary photography paper, he only use five to ten minutes to finish each drawing. Also he used some yellow spread paint to spread on the background to make the effect of sunset.

However, I thought Mark was really great street artist who uses different medium to draw different landscapes of South Africa, and the nature environment. Overall, it was a great experience after we chatted about his works, and he gave me a valuable lesson about how to use those materials to make the beautiful compositions.

Wallance Arts Centre- Discovering the New Zealand Creative Arts

Today we have gallery visit to Wallace Arts Centre, it was an exciting experience that we can look through many New Zealand artists works and support the foundation of New Zealand creative art as a group.

To trace back the history of James Wallace Arts Trust and its collection, James Wallace began collecting New Zealand art in the mid-1960s, with a particular focus on the work of emerging artists. And he continues to add to the collections and provides support for the arts in New Zealand in general. Besides, Wallace’s original aim was to assist emerging artists through both patronage and promotion through exhibitions.

Furthermore, this arts centre hosts a changing programmed of free exhibitions curates from the James Wallace Arts Trust collection as well as regional touring exhibitions. The art centre will also run ongoing community education programmes which targeting around Auckland schools and the broaden public.

There are so many exhibitions and displays around the gallery first and second flours, such as different sizes of paintings, sculptures, jewels, installations, and creations. However my first impression was John Scoot who drew the men’s portrait by using the acrylic and oil paint on the large canvas, the concept which contains the emotion and similar to the three-dimensional picture, when I stood in front image it looks like the real giant pop out in front of me. Therefore, the artist has great drawing skills by using delicate drawing method and remarkable drawing technique to depict the portrait painting.

Overall, there have varieties of art displays and paintings that we can spend time to look through and can use whole day to enjoy the fascinating New Zealand creative arts in the exhibition, however, it’s the worthy of experience to discover the new of the New Zealand arts in this place.

Healling Arts Fair-Arts and Minds

At Wintec (Waikato Institute of Technology) Ngahinapouri Hall has hosted the second Healing Arts Fair last week, everything there was spiritualy inspiring and there were many stalls that you can browse freely.

From encaustic wax art, reeks healing, traditional Chinese jade practitioners, psychis, soy candles, sharman drum healers, hormone dancing and spiritual art, organiser Diane Krippner says “we are a group of multi-talented artists and there’s plenty to open your mind to”.

There were so many activity that everyone can participate, especially the encaustic wax art was specialized art which used the small hot iron and wax crayons to create the images. “It is imaginative art” Diane Said. Therefore, this art fair offered the participants with the variety of experiments provided by exhibitors, so people can enjoy creating art by their unique art skills.

Moreover, another interested healing art was the traditional Chinese jade that offered practitioners healing through jade stones. By rubbing the stone on part of the body, the practitioner can obtained the information about their own health by reading the colour on the stone.

This art fair was really attached our spirit and soul that used different art skills to convey people’s mind and thoughts. By applying many art resources this event is able to finish successfully based on the interaction between participants and exhibitors. However, it was interesting and meaningful healing art fair that will worth people a while to participate and enjoy creating arts.

Reference from September 22,2010,Hamilton Press
Colour:Katie Luck and artist Diane Krippner's impression of her guide
Photo by Supplied

Arts Offer the Challenge- Lynne Sinclair Taylor

The well known Hamilton artists tutor Lynne Sinclair Taylor opened the Affordable Art Exhibition, a show of her new works last weekend. Most of Lynne’s work which represented the acrylics and oils, and come from a background in advertising and fashion design. Also she was doing more abstract and figurative work of female images. Lynne said “I have focused on stylized women in abstract, impressionist and realists styles”.

Furthermore, Lynne teaches children and adults and will launch a school holiday workshop for them, she said “I want to bring more messages into my art and provoke people to think about their life values and self esteem”.

Overall, Lynne wants to use her paintings to challenge those who view her works, and it was a great experience for most viewers whom do not know about the definition of her art, and a great opportunity that can deeply to seek around through her work and learn more from her workshop.

Reference from September 22,2010,Hamilton Press
Photo by Natascha Garland

Make Over the Power Box- Karen Beckett

Sometimes when we walk down through the street, we can see many buildings, walls, huge masterpiece or public displays are painted by using different colours.
Karen Beckett is part-time artists who enjoys paintings on but were pinched from the St Vincent de Paul op-shop in Frankton Hamilton recently. She was also redundant from her casual employment in a Frankton scrap yard last month.

However, Karen cannot stop out and keeps doing to brighten the place up. She never thinks about giving up her interest. She still keeps her enthusiastic in working everywhere and helps out the Frankton Markets by painting murals on electricity boxes and Telecom boxes, and participates the Hamilton City Council’s anti-graffiti adopt a box campaign. No matter how difficult situation is, Karen shows her insistence and persistence her goal. Now she is still doing painting and decorating the public displays around the city, and makes the subjects looks more conspicuous and artistic.

Reference from September 15,2010,Hamilton Press

Making Crafty Cards into Business

Rebecca Mead’s workshop is a small kitchen table and she was festinated by making craft work which she learnt while she was a child and learnt to sew by using paper instead of using cloth.

I am interested in Rebecca used her child-hood sewing skill to generate
“card-making”. Also she utilized the other people’s paintings, drawings, printings,
patterns, and some of graphic into her creation job, and then Rebecca casted and
sewed them to make the beautiful cards. Normally, she using a medium-gauge white
card. Besides, she looked for a variety of interesting papers, such as the textile,
Patterns, sequins and wallpapers to decorate on the top of card.

Overall, it is a great idea that designer combined different medium and skills to design her own craft work, and turned into a small business and settled on making arty, innovative cards. I like the idea that she sold her compositions on the cards and offered some blank space inside so that purchasers can fill them with whatever they like. Rebecca was so proud of her creative job and she said “It has been amazing how easy they are to sell. They seem to be quite accessible. I’m just a small business at the moment, but hope to get bigger.”

Reference from September 8,2010,Hamilton Press

The inspire art from cinema- Sarah Mitchell Munro

Sarah Mitchell Munro is a full-time artist and she trained as a physiotherapist who always loved art. Last week she opened a “Through the Window”, which was an exhibition about the domestic space and was presented from women’s viewpoints. Also the whole idea was inspired by her loves- cinema. In addition to, she collaborated with her friends Wendy Richdale to fulfill the whole display.

In her work, she took a lot of footages around her home in which was at Victoria villa in Hamilton. She represented this theme by using fairy tale, and classical atmosphere. The idea of her work was inspired from the French cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. Sarah said that “I love the way Kaminski frames his shots and his use of lighting and colour, the work he made was elusive quality”.

No matter, Sarah worked very hard now and won an outstanding prize previously. She still wanted to keep studying before she turns fifty years old. I am really impressed with the way which Sarah’s thinking in her arts and her sprite in leaning arts.

Gallery Visit- The Walters Prize

In my point of view, Walters Prize is an exhibition which shows the artist experiment about art and design, also it representing the great skill from artist idea. The exhibition has separated in four spaces which presenting by four artists; it has showing different art skills, such as oil paint, architecture, installations, moving images, and so on.

Each artist has showing the abilities of their own viewpoint about making arts, and the interesting thing is most of the art work is untitled, unless the titled of the subject, the artists just give details of the material which they used. It is hard to understand what aim for is, and what is the point that the artist tried to present their works without the definitions in some of the display. One of finalist artist Dan Arps he displayed a broken table and chairs, and the recycling box with papers inside and some of antique stuffs around the space that called “Explain things”. For me it is hard to make clear the compositions of contest, because the artist only used the simple idea to “explain” everything could be art and can make art.

Overall, it is a good experience to observation the artists’ works, and learning more skills from their displays. Therefore, I more understand that contemporary art is very wide; everything can make as an art and installation art.

The Walters Prize 2010

The Introduction of Walters prize

50,000 biennial Walters Prize is awarded for an outstanding work of contemporary New Zealand art produced and exhibited during the past two years. The winner also receives a trip to New York and the opportunity to exhibit their work at Saatchi & Saatchi’s world headquarters.

Named in honor of the late New Zealand painter Gordon Walters, a pioneering modernist artist, the Walters Prize was established in 2002 by founding benefactor and principal donors Erika and Robin Congreve and Dame Jenny Gibbs, working together with Auckland Art Gallery.

Major donor Dayle Mace celebrates the nominations by awarding each finalist $5000.

Reference from www.aucklandartgallery.com

The great designer and sculpturer- Liao Tian Zhao

The stone teapot exhibition is an elegant object art which the artist made by his own hand, he wants to convey his culture and the custom of drinking tea in Taiwan, however, his work is attractive and stylistic by carving different forms of teapot, most of teapot can really make tea, some of just the decoration.

Furthermore, in one of his work called “Exhibiting world’s smallest teapot” which won the Guinness World Records. This object looked so tiny that we only can hold by two fingers, and looked similar like mini toy. This mini teapot not only was the smallest decoration, but also can make one “drip” of tea.

The artist had tested and did a lot of experiences by using different stones, such as the shale, granite, and some of natural stone with nature colour. Then before the carving he investigated the stone’s shape, substance, length, high, and done the further research about the stones, because it is important to understand the accurate skill to carving the stone. Also it looks really complicated to observe multiple functions of carving stones.

It was really great opportunity to understand of using natural materials, and difference skills to make the object. Besides, Liao Tian Zhao is a great sculpture artist and a designer who apply his culture ideology to his artwork, when you really see his work; it has included the vitality and elegant essence in his works.

Stone Teapot Exhibition- Liao Tian Zhao

About the artist
Liao tain Zhao is the founder of the art of creating stone carved teapots which he began 40 years ago in Taiwan. He is fastidious in the modeling of each teapot which have sense of aestheticism and practicality in that they cana lso be used for making tea. During the past 30 years he has created more than one thousand teapots; each one a different size and unique shape.

Recently he has changed to creating different styles of carving but continues to use stone as the medium. For Liao Tian Zhao stone evokes a special emotion within him. He says that life is very short for the stone, because it comes from nature, will last forever and in this way he can record his life in something solid and tangible; retaining the beauty of nature and integrate his own creative ideas.

Reference from FGY Art Gallery, Manukau, Auckland 16 Stancomb Rd.
www.fgs.org.nz

The gunpowder artist Chi Guo Qiang

I read the article about the famous gunpowder artist Cai Guo Qiang recently, and this make me more realized the meaning of creative art, and his work is so amazing, stronger, and elegant that I can not forget. He is one of mine favorites artist who used the gunpowder to create the series of compositions, also some of work which has combined with the western art, such as the oil paint.

In my point of view, the artist works harder to tried to focuses on studied the difference of gunpowder to make simple experiences on papers and canvases. And he learned to measure the fan properly to blow the wet paint, and so on.

The artist used to contribution his art can be served for socialism and revolutionary politics, however, he give up the ideology of traditional culture, then uses his own subjective idea. Also he creates the new , fresh, even dangerous art which represents the astonishing vision effect by using the gunpowder.

Furthermore, his art can described like media shower, and it represented the surprising, aesthetic, and mysterious feeling that impress me a lot. For instance, the “Project for Extraterrestrial” which he made series of work and were the most biggest project that made around the world wide. The artist believes the relationship between human and universe, then he used the “explosion” to communicate his art work can approach to the universe if sequences of explosions. Besides, the context of these work which reflection our earth problems , such as population, pollution, also he used his work to remind people to more concern our earth.

Moreover, in his famous work “Cultural Melting Bath- project for the 20th century” it was the well-known installation work that replaced by 18 of Tai Hu rocks from China, a big bathtub, and a root which was hang on the ceiling. The interesting was viewer can really have hot bath in the installation art work.

However, it is really fresh and new in artist work, as I see his work has becoming better and better that showing the new processes and new creations by using the gunpowder, and challenging to use the dangerous elements to make the compositions.

References from “Coming Up- Chi Guo Qiang,” www.anb.org.tw