Lister has his next show at Chalk Horse, Surry Hills, Sydney.
When: 25/11/10-18/12/10.
Check the ChalkHorse website out for more info

The S, The U, The P, The E, The R.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUR8BfcCivs[/youtube]

Im excited to be featured in the latest Hi-Fructose magazine that is currently in stores worldwide. I have been following Hi Fructose for a few years now and privileged to be involved. Its also worth checking this issue for the amazing works of Oliver Vernon, David Cook, Caitlin Hackett and Stephane Blanquet.
Check the Hi-Fructose website for more info and distribution. Nice.

“That painting’s upside down”  someone remarked.  No, the bird’s upside down.  Once you figure this out, it does make you wander about the composition of all the other bird portraits.  They’re very deliberate.

I dropped by the opening of Scottie Neoh’s ‘Birds on Oak’ exhibition last night.  I wasn’t surprised to see three of the paintings had sold in the first fifteen minutes of the doors opening. Scottie has an eye for painting animals and capturing their characteristics beautifully.  He’s an avid birdwatcher and if you get a chance, be sure to ask him about the birds featured.   “The blue wren has a terribly short attention span, like it has ADD,” he tells me “It can’t stand in the one place for longer than a few seconds. Whereas the kookaburrow – which I prefer –  can sit in the one place all day practising it’s song.”  I explained to him that I often have little birds come perch on my windowsill and tap on the glass.  “Yeah yeah,” he laughs “thats probably a blue wren.  They hop around tapping at their reflection.”

Over the last few months, I’ve noticed a recurring motif of wood, branches, leaves and other artifacts from nature finding their way into Melbourne galleries.  Are the artists reacting to one another and merely embracing a ‘natural’ aesthetic or is there a collective unconscious yearning – amongst the city dwelling artist- for the country? I can’t speak for all the other artists but for Scott, the depictions of nature in his work could be drawn from any view from his home.  He’s not a city kid.

Scottie lives in the sticks, about an hour out of Melbourne on a 50 acre block.  His friends out there are the animals that frequent the surroundings of his little mud brick cottage.  He was telling me that earlier this week he opened his living room blinds in a flash to see a 6ft kangaroo standing a meter away.  The kangaroo was paused in it’s tracks staring him down with it’s arms flexed infront of it like a bodybuilder.”It’s arm were built!” he told me.  I knew what he meant, I remember seeing a roo in Queensland that had such defined biceps it looked like it had been doing push-ups all day.  The roo outside Scottie’s window didn’t cause any trouble, it soon hopped on about it’s business.

‘Birds on Oak’ is showing until the December 1st.  I recommend you go check it out and then you go bird watching.

So dope

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mgFdn4lfrE&feature=player_embedded#![/youtube]

KAMI and SASU (HITOTZUKI) putting the finishing touches on their debut Australian exhibition at Backwoods opening tomorrow.

Westsyde Connection is an independently run skate shop in Dulwich Hill, in Sydney’s inner west. During it’s relatively short existence of a couple of years, it has quickly manifested into what could be better described as a collective hub than your usual run of the mill skate store. Not only do they cater for skaters of all levels, they also support the local arts by hosting regular exhibitions in their gallery space and showcase some amazing art on their walls from emerging artists to the more established players on the scene…which brings us to the issue at hand.

It seems that their neighbours The Salvation Army have taken issue with one wall in particular, this being their common boundary wall and now Westsyde Connection has a Supreme Court lawsuit on it’s hands.  The wall displays a massive mural that was completed over the course of 2009 and 2010 by a whole bunch of Sydney and Melbourne crew. After having a chat to Westsyde’s RJ Williams, it was decided to leave the artists involved names out of this post due to legalities.

What is hard to comprehend is that the wall actually faces back into Westsyde’s backyard, better known as “the compound” and in no way does it encroach upon the Salvos or anyone else for that matter. Infact it has livened up an otherwise massive ugly brown brick wall. I bet If the fellas from Westsyde had chosen to slap up a few sheets of lattice and plant some climbers the Salvos wouldn’t have any issues. So what has become apparent is their sheer ignorance and awareness towards their community’s youth culture (the youth who they claim to support) and creativity in general. Surely the dollars would be far better spent on more charitable causes rather than wasted on pursuing ridiculous lawsuits upon their neighbours.

Salvos, practice what you preach…Matthew 19:19 “Love your neighbour as yourself”.

Yeah right.

Check the mural below that has created the shit fight and be sure to sign the petition to show your support!

RJ Williams and the the Westsyde Connection Mural. Pic supplied by RJ.

What a great day and about bloody time!!! After hearing the amazing news of the release Aung San Suu Kyi -Burmese political prisoner of 15 years – I decided to put my Sunday afternoon to good use. I went to the OBEY website and downloaded Shepard Fairey’s amazing portrait poster of Aung. *NOTE Shepard encourages anyone to download this poster and put it to good political use. GET BUSY PEOPLE! I added a message to the bottom of the poster and had it printed 6xA0 size and then taped it to the footpath of Melbourne’s busiest meeting area, Federation Square. The response was awesome!

This Burmese couple were so happy about the news they came up and thanked me for posting. So stoked!

This little guy was well in to it. Take a good look buddy this lady is a living legend!

I actually posted it in two different places. I tried to post it next to the performance of a street busker. He was bohemian looking guy so I thought he would have been cool about it BUT NO. Instead, he threatened to burn my poster with his juggling torche! The crowd of a couple of hundred people started booing him. AWESOME response Melbourne!!!!! I ended up moving the poster just beside the crowd and WAY more people paid attention to it. So thanks a lot you busking douche bag!

Even this cleaner didn’t have a problem with it. The cleaners and the security were actually really cool about it…

So far it’s managed to stay there for over five hours. Fingers crossed it stays there for a lot longer!

Please keep in mind, this isn’t the first time Aung has been released. She was released one time before and that release was supposed to be unconditional – the Burmese government changed their mind. More pressure needs to be put on the Burmese government to NOT change their mind again and to release the remaining political prisoners! In the spirit of Shepard Fairey’s free download, I’ve also made my adapted poster of his (with added political message) also available for download here

Tokyo street art originators are currently in town preparing for thier debut Australian show OMNI launching next Friday at Backwoods.

Click here for the details.

They’re painting the Melbourne central wall, should be completed tomorrow.