barrier reef bommie

This piece is based on a coral bommie with an anchor point and small piece of dead coral attached. In the end it turned out a bit like an animal with its four legs. It was part of my 'Hide nor Hair' show at the Tanks Arts Centre. I used paperclay as it is so easy to use even if it dries out and you can make very fine attachments. The barnacles on the bottom were made as sprigs then attached. I have several glazes including a magnesium one that becomes like foam.

Tanks Arts Centre

'Hide nor Hair', artwork by Louise Fulton at the Tanks Arts Centre Cairns, Queensland, 2 - 16 August 2013. Sculpture and drawings on the story of Eliza Fraser from the artist in residence program funded through Cairns City Council.

Artist in residence house

The Tanks Arts Centre residence on Collins Avenue is an elevated timber house and has Saltwater creek on one side(the occasional crocodile has been spotted) and the Flecker Cairns Botanic Gardens on the other side. The back veranda is wonderful on a hot day.

Hide nor hair drawings

'Hide nor hair' launch on 6pm Friday 2 August at Tanks Arts Centre Gallery, adjacent to the Cairns Botanic Gardens. These are some details of drawings that I have been working on at the artist-in-residence house on Collins avenue over the past fortnight. I was thinking about the poignancy of Eliza giving birth on board a lifeboat and the baby being resigned to the deep. I used canavalia rosea vine, also known as Beach bean as the vine most likely to have been used by Eliza to cover her loins.

Hide nor hair pre-exhibition

My new exhibition, 'Hide nor Hair' will be showing at the Tanks Arts Centre Gallery from August 2 - 16 at the Cairns Botanic Gardens. I will be one of their artist's in residence for July and August. I've been making work based on the story of the heavily pregnant Eliza Fraser who was ship wreaked on the Great Barrier Reef in 1836. She had a baby boy in the lifeboat in front of 11 sailors. The baby died and was buried at sea. At sea for six weeks, they finally landed on Fraser Island (named after her husband, Captain James Fraser). They swapped clothes for food with the indigenous people. Eliza lived with the aboriginal women, helping collect fire wood and food for two months before a party from Moreton Bay came to find the missing ship's crew and passengers.

grafton regional art gallery

Two of my submissions for Grafton Regional Art Gallery were selected for their Accessible art collection. Jude McBean has asked artists to respond to two dimensional works within the larger collection that can be accessible to people with disabilities such as visual impairment. The work in this photo shows Godwin Bradbeer's moody 'Man in a squared space" and my touchable version for blind visitors to the gallery space. My other work selected responded to a drawing of a netsuke hidden in a riverbed of pebbles by Darren Chard.

Doppelganger

This drawing is called Doppelganger and continues the theme of conjoined twins, evolution and humans place within the natural world. It won a Works on Paper prize at the Coraki Art Prize recently

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The Dragon's Back

We packed up The Dragon's Back show a couple of weeks ago. Tweed River Art Gallery is such a beautiful gallery and has such wonderful staff to help with installation etc. This is one of the pieces which sold called Elements of the Dragon. I modelled parts from the mythical Chinese dragon in stylised form in clay, fired them then used gold leaf.