Greener Pastures: exhibition

Showing posts with label exhibition. Show all posts

02 March, 2013

Current work: Liedekijn

I'm working on two non-Greener Pastures comics projects right now, one of which is a group gallery exhibition opening soon in Canberra. The interesting thing about the exhibition is that each piece of art involved is a single page in a narrative that makes up a complete story, The Song of Heer Halewijn.

The show is called Liedekijn and it has been organised by the seemingly indefatigable Emma-Jean Stewart. The story is a medieval Dutch/Flemish fairytale originally written in a poem. The translated poem was split into 23 plot points and those points were handed to the artists to illustrate. Some pages, like mine, are in the traditional comic book format of sequential panels, while others are single illustrations. Each page progresses the tale though, the tale of Machteld and Halewijn, a tale of seduction and murder.

There's a full colour art book to go along with the exhibition so that the story can be read once the show is over.

It's a very interesting project to be a part of and I'm really excited to be going to the opening night. Feel free to join us there on Thursday the 28th of March. Many of the artists will be in attendance. Details below.

By way of cajoling you into either viewing the exhibition or ordering the book, I present the pencils for my page below. My page appears about halfway through the story as Machteld and Halewijn meet for the first time. To see my finished inks, and to find out what happens next, you'll have to get the book. With a pre-order price of only $12 it's a steal!

Here are the details:
Venue: The Front Gallery. Shop 3, 1 Wattle Place, Lyneham, ACT.
Dates: 26th March - 8th April, 2013. Opening night: 7:30pm, 28th March 2013.

Exhibition website: liedekijn.com

Gallery website: www.frontgallerycafe.com

Opening night Facebook event page: www.facebook.com/events/389157271170276
Order the book: emmajeans.bigcartel.com/product/liedekijn-artbook-preorder

09 April, 2012

ACE in Sydney, opening night

Following on from the post I made recently about ACE: the Australian Comic book Exhibition, (GP TV. Ep02.) which toured the country from 1994 to 1997, I thought I'd share some photos from the opening night of the Sydney leg. The exhibition was hosted by the Westpac Museum at The Rocks (now gone), and the opening the night of 11th July, 1996.

The welcoming panels of ACE as one entered the exhibition. With the help of the Australian Cartoonists' Association (then called the Australian Black & White Artists' Club), as well as many Sydney-based comic creators, this particular leg of the exhibition's tour was greatly enhanced with numerous extra pieces of both reproduced and original artwork, some of which can be seen in the background here. I'm pretty sure that's Arthur Mather's Captain Atom and Stanley Pitt's Silver Starr over on the right.

Part of the additional exhibit items. Work in this cabinet includes Greener Pastures posters and comics, Jason Paulos' Hairbutt the Hippo comics, Issue One's CyberSwine and Zero Assassin comics (with art by Ant Larcombe), some Glenn Ford Phantom art, and other bits and pieces too. The big blank space was actually filled by another large print, like the Greener Pastures one on the left, of Zero Assassin #1, but it had been taken down by the time I got these photos.

An amazing group photo of many most of the cartoonists present on the night. I still feel honoured to have been able to jump into this snap.

1: Reginald Pitt. Co-creator of Yarmak, The Jungle King.

2: Ken Emerson. Cartoonist on The Warrumbunglers.

3: Eric Jolliffe. Cartoonist on Saltbush Bill.

4: Tony Rafty. Creator of Jimmy Rodney of the Secret Service.

5: Stewart McCrae. Cartoonist known as 'Pep'.

6: Stanley Pitt. Creator of Silver Starr.

7: Les Dixon. Cartoonist on Bluey and Curley.

8: Peter Chapman. Creator of The Phantom Ranger.

9: Monty Wedd. Artist/writer, Ned Kelly.

10: Yaroslav Horak. James Bond strip artist.

11: Jim Russell. Cartoonist on The Potts.

12: Norman Hetherington. For all intents and purposes, Mr Squiggle.

13: Lindsay Foyle. Cartoonist and historian.

14: Tim McEwen. Greener Pastures co-creator.

15: Chesty Bond. Australian advertising icon, created by Syd Miller.

16: John Clements. Australian comics enthusiast and historian.

17: Stan Clements. Creator of Tom Dunne, Scientific Detective (no relation to John at #16).

John Clements – Australian comics enthusiastic enthusiast and historian. Les Dixon – cartoonist on Bluey and Curley for nearly 20 years! Eric Jolliffe – cartoonist on Saltbush Bill and so much more. Jim Russell – Cartoonist on The Potts for a world-record-making 62 years! And me, Tim McEwen.

An unknown lady, possibly the daughter of one of the cartoonists in attendance on the night, and Monty Wedd, cartoonist on Ned Kelly, myself and my beautiful wife Bongo.

Les Dixon, standing at the panel that showcased the strip he was most famous for, Bluey and Curley, as well as the cover of Greener Pastures #1 (first printing). This group of panels was titled and themed 'Strictly Australian'.

Me, posing with one of the pages of Greener Pastures original art that toured with the exhibition.

Massive thanks to Steve Panozzo of the ACA for helping me identify all the cartoonists in the photos, and to Matt Emery too. Feel free to let me know of any corrections to any attributions I've made here. I'm not an expert and there's many more knowledgable people on this subject than me on this subject.

24 February, 2012

GP TV. Ep02.

This is the second in a series of videos that in some way feature Greener Pastures. Broadcast on February 2nd 1995, I think this is the second time Greener Pastures was seen on TV, once again on Bert Newton's Good Morning Australia. Bert must have loved comics at the time!

The wonderful Annette Shiel is interviewed for her role as curator of ACE: the Australian Comic book Exhibition, which toured the country in two mostly identical travelling exhibitions from 1994 to 1997. It was a very good exhibition from an historical point of view and even spawned a book on the subject called Bonzer: Australian comics 1900s-1990s.

Greener Pastures #1 gets a great look-in at the 5 minute 30 second mark, featuring the cover for quite a while and being used as a prop in one of Bert's jokes.

Big apologies for the wavering sound – this has been digitised from a 17 year old VHS tape.

Cartoonists work shown:

Jimmy Banks

Jim Russell

Norm Rice

Eric Jolliffe

Ant Larcombe

Keith Chatto

Sam Young

Will Donald

Tim McEwen

Glenn Lumsden

Cartoonists and/or their work I can't recognise or can't remember also appear. My apologies for any omissions. I'm not an expert on most of the really historical stuff, so off the top of my head I can't name a lot of the creators there.

Hosted by Bert Newton

Aired February 1995

On Channel 10

29 January, 2012

Unrealism exhibition photos and sketches.

Following on from my earlier post with the footage from the Unrealism exhibition, I dug up some photos from the opening night, 30th June 1993.

I remember this night as also being the first time I was interviewed for radio. I have an audio tape of that somewhere. Maybe one day I'll be able to digitise that too.

Thanks to Stuart Hale, one of the exhibition curators, I've been given the name of the fellow I couldn't remember before who was part of the Cyberspace gallery where the show was put on – David Lawford. These photos have reminded me that Brendan Boyd was also one of the organisers of the show.

Sorry about the poor quality of the photographs/scans.

Michael Michalandos and I proudly in front of some work from Greener Pastures #1. Yes, that's four Cerebus badges and five Astro Boy badges that I'm wearing on my denim jacket! And yes, that is a ponytail I'm sporting.

Also in this photo are partly obscured art from the brilliant Clint Curé (left) and brilliant Gerard Ashworth (right).

Stuart Hale prepares to give a welcoming speech. In the crowd you might spot David Lawford, Doug Bayne, Tim Danko, my beautiful then-fiancé now-wife Anne-Maree, Paul Rebec, and David James.

Brendan Boyd also had some words of welcome, with Stuart Hale standing by.

Art on the walls belongs to Jason Paulos, Clint Curé, Tim McEwen, Gerard Ashworth and Sam Young, as well as another I can't place.

A bit of on-the-spot drawing. I'm not sure what the date of this was, but it probably wasn't opening night. I have a feeling it was the 3rd of July.

At the table, besides the few kids, is Gerard Ashworth, David James, Tim McEwen, a fellow I'm not sure of, and Brendan Boyd.

From what I can tell, there's art on the walls in the background by Jozef Szekeres, Clint Curé, Tim McEwen and Gerard Ashworth. The other stuff I can't quite make out. Feel free to fill in the gaps in the comments.

More drawing! At the table, amongst others, are Trudy Cooper, Doug Bayne, Gerard Ashworth and David James.

My famous sketchbook collection had already been started by this time, and here are some pages from it, some from opening night, some from after, all done on A6.

Peter Galmés.

Dave Owen.

12 January, 2012

GP TV. Ep01.

I have a collection of (I think) every time Greener Pastures has ever appeared on TV. The following story from a July 1993 episode of Good Morning Australia is the first time images from Greener Pastures were ever broadcast. They really only flash up for a moment and don't actually appear until about three minutes 21 seconds into the piece, but the whole five and a half minute clip is definitely worth watching from an historical point of view anyway.

The story covers the Unrealism Exhibition which showed in the Sydney suburb of Glebe in early July 1993. It was organised primarily by cartoonist Stuart Hale and another fellow whose name I can't remember (though he does appear briefly at about the 1:15 mark). A couple of pages of Greener Pastures #1 featured in the exhibition before that issue had even been printed.

Unfortunately it looks like some footage is missing from the beginning of the story and a little cut off from the end.