The Dragon's Back ii

THE DRAGON’S BACK

In Chinese mythology, it is believed that dragons create clouds with their breath. They have potent and auspicious powers over water, bringing rain, causing floods, controlling the tides. The venue for this show lies at the base of Wollumbin ‘the cloud catcher’, a sleeping volcano, a gently breathing dragon. The clouds around it merge, scatter and disappear in an endless cycle over the ancient landscape. Wollumbin is like Fucanglong, the Chinese ‘hidden treasure dragon’, the underworld guardian of precious stones and volcanoes.

Three artists, Sue Fraser, Ruth Park and Louise Fulton have carved, molded, pressed, sculpted, glazed and fired each object. The work has been slowly made by hand using clay with its history far more ancient and widespread that any other art material. The vessels are based on forms built in universal and ancient metaphors of our human origin, the body as container of wishes and desires.

Contemplating on each artwork is a way to touch an existence beyond us like the first puff of opium when the smoker rides ‘the dragon’s back’. The dragon’s breath gives the explorer the raincoat of invisibility, allowing navigation between heaven and earth. Epiphany comes when the metaphorical essence of the artwork is inhaled. We are a container into which art is poured. We understand and experience one kind of thing in terms of another. Like food and water, we eat and drink at the banquet table of art.

Chinese language is critical to understanding Chinese culture. The nature of the artwork is a creative engagement with China not just a reiteration of traditional Chinese forms and techniques. The ongoing technical connection with celadon, porcelain and cobalt brushwork show these artists are China literate, not resorting to pastiche or appropriation.

The horses have dragon energy and dragon speed. The gourds are spawn of the dragon. The clouds are dragon’s breath. The fangs drip with dragon blood. The jade jars might contain the dragon’s hot ginger pickle. The moon jars have the beauty of imperfection and the lack of self-consciousness of a lunar landscape.

In seeking the dragon, the artist must take risks to find the pearl, to gain a benefit, to be granted a wish. The creative process is making connections, linking different concepts until the elusive pursuit of resolution is accomplished. Completely ephemeral, the ideas in ‘The Dragon’s Back’ are suggestive then evaporate like a summer cloud. Each piece has escaped the bonds of the artist and is unconstrained. Each piece tells of possibilities and explores the exotic. Each work is a piece of our culture, generation and time. It is something inexpressible and of the heart, something to hold and protect because it is indefinable.

21 March to 6 May 2012
Tweed River Art Gallery
Mistral Way, Murwillambah, NSW
Open: 10 - 4, Wed - Sun

The Dragon's Back

The Dragon's Back

Gearing up for our show, The Dragon's Back at Tweed River Art Gallery opening on Friday 23 March with Sue Fraser and Ruth Park. This wall mounted sculpture is called Fang and is a stylised element of the asian dragon. The embossing on each fang are patterns based on water aspects, that is, steam, waves, snow, clouds and thunder. Ruth has made an enormous work called The Dragon's Back which is shaped like the caldera rim and Mount Warning's eroded volcanic peak.

summer rain

I reconfigured these sculptures based on leaf profiles and they look like fallopian tubes and uterus. The work was in our exhibition, 'Swallowing Clouds'.

Fairytales in fairyland update

A review by Jeanti St Clair was posted on the local ABC site.
"The idea that fairytales can thrive in rural suburbia is an added theme that emerges for Dave Funnell, Rindi Salamon and Louise Fulton. Fulton has produced a series of 3D ceramic maps of Australia to portray different perspectives on the nation's development from the federation era reliance upon the wool industry to today's mining boom, from the anglisised suburb to multiculturalism."

work in progress

Making work for Tweed River Art Gallery show for March 2012. There will be a series of wall mounted clouds with Chinese cloud pattern in white slip. And another series of stylised dragon fangs which will have a red glaze highlighting embossing on the clay.

fairytales in fairyland

Pictured at Grafton Regional Gallery are works from my Fantasia Australis series. 'Endless summer', 'Spice mix', 'New Arcadia' and 'On the sheeps back' are four of the seven in the series. The text for the series follows.

Once upon a time, there was a place called Australis which flowed with cheap milk and there was more than enough of everything. Even the honey bees were top notch and exported first class to California almond orchards. Australis had golden migrants on 457 visas. They happily worked unpaid overtime to support the nation. Balmy tropical waters lapped the coast. The people of Australis developed deep tans. Meanwhile a villain silently went about bleaching their coral. Australis dug up 28% of the world's coal exports. It was hard work but necessary in their quest for a prosperous future. Big Red held the key to Australis's transformation. The promise was peace and security along with a quarter acre of feasting and fornication. Australis was a suburban paradise, a utopian poetic idyll, a safe haven free from infection, an unspoiled harmonious wilderness. Australis was gifted with people from many nations. They had many restaurants and cafes and lived together happily ever after.

Cataract Gorge

Kings Bridge Cottage at Cataract Gorge was built in Arts and Crafts style. It is a stunning setting for the artist in residence program auspiced through Launceston City Council. I spent most of the time working on drawings for the Hobart show 'The Strandline'. I also made some preparatory designs for my next series of ceramic wall sculptures based on casuarina trees.