3.19 The Nas Post Grad Review

Transcript

Okay, so it’s been a minute since we did this. It’s a Sunday afternoon. We’ve already had our hair of the dogs. We’ve had lunch. Thank you for making the guac, Aiden. It was

lovely. So yesterday we went to the Nas Post Grad Show, which we thought was really lovely. A bunch of really strong works in there and we’ve picked out like five artists that really jumped out to us. There was some work that like was really shit. Yeah. Some stuff that we’re not going to talk about. You know what’s actually crazy? One of our favorite works, the

same artist did my least favorite work. I like made fun of it out loud. And I was like, okay, like I’m a bit hungover. I’m a bit insensitive. The artist or their family could be here. Just chill. Well, that’s what you reminded me. Yeah. Which I agree with. All right. Fair enough. I do. I do feel like we should say something about when we don’t like something.

Yeah. Or like, I don’t know, like we should riff on that for a few minutes. Cause someone pulled me aside at a party and was like, yeah, we’re too mean and we’re too nice or like we’re not mean enough or some kind of shit like that. People in general. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. They weren’t explicitly saying about hung up. They were like, it feels like when I’m having conversations about art, it’s hard to be as honest as I want to. And they were kind of, it was a bit of like a

cokey convo, but I think the gist of it was like, we’re losing something by not like being comfortable with this type of conversation. Yes. Yeah. But we’re talking about like the role of a critic. Yeah. The role of a critic or also just like, cause you could imagine different shapes of discourses

in different places. Yeah. Like not necessarily just critics, but even artists and friends. Totally. I think like it’s, it’s healthy for like a sort of discursive ecosystem to have voices that can be critical and can show praise and like to be flexible with that and fair maybe

and like sort of, you know, useful praise, not just like gushing. Well, we gush sometimes. Yeah. I was going to say sometimes we be gushing. We be gushing sometimes. Um, but I think like what Aiden’s saying is that we, we do want to play around with taking that like sort of slightly harder critical tone. Well, just like our current like principle, just to lay it out,

it’s kind of like the schoolyard ethos. It’s like, if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all. So if we go to a show and we don’t mention the work, you’re in trouble. That means we fucking hate it. But like if we didn’t like something, we’re kind of just like, we’ll move along. Yeah. We’re not going to dwell on it. No. And I think the main reason for that is that I guess we’re like critics or something like that

in a sense, but you’re like, we’re aware of the size of the scene. And I guess we’re trying not to like stamp on things. We don’t want to shit on anyone. I think especially by the time you finish your post-grad, like you may feel like really attached to your practice, but I’m sure everyone’s been told, like, and everyone knows somewhere in their art brains that like, you are not your

artworks. Like we’re, we all, well, actually don’t really want to get into it, but we’re all aware of the death of the author and like the art versus the artist debate. And like, you know, to, to like have a fair criticism, like defined criticism, or even maybe, maybe feel, if it feels unfair, it just comes from your gut. Like, I think we should all be able to take that as like,

not necessarily a personal, like a comment on your person. It’s not, we never want to go ad hominem. That’s our whole thing is that we’re saying. Yeah, for sure. But like, we’d be talking mad shit. And I’m not just saying about like artists, but even like close friends. In general. Like when we’re just together. Yeah. Not on the pod. And everyone does. Yeah. We’re bitchy. We’re catty.

You’re like, yeah, yeah, of course. Like everyone is. And so I feel like just, I guess it’s something about like authenticity or just, or it’s something feeling in a sense that in private, you can talk freely. Yeah. And then by like, kind of hiding away from that in episodes, we’re kind of missing an important part of like how we all relate to work. Can I take like the devil’s advocate approach,

devil’s advocate perspective, just to try that theory out some more. So like, what if I said, there’s like a time and a place for that and it needs to be sort of ephemeral and it needs to fade away. Like you may not necessarily want to commit that to tape. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think then it works better from our perspective, like with the podcast format, if we post more,

it’s like, yeah, we said like a take that maybe doesn’t really land and like, it seems a bit unfair, but like, then there’s another one next week that kind of in some way replaces it or just like adds to the stack and like, yeah, yeah, no, a hundred percent. Look, there’s always going to be some discrepancy between, you know, the two of us in a car in complete privacy.

No, no, no. It’s all good. It’s the same. It sounds just like this. Yeah. It’s just this. Just this. You got, you got unadulterated, Aiden and Matt. Yeah. Look, I don’t have any conclusions. I just felt like it’s something that’s coming up and I’m, it’s something that everyone feels and criticism like is, and it just always will be tricky.

Yeah. Like even last night, someone was telling me about the podcast or the night before and was like, it’s too long. Like the episodes are too long. And it was like late and shit. And I caught myself getting a bit defensive because I normally feel like I’m okay at taking criticism. I’m like, okay, but this is why maybe like, you’re right. But I just like caught, like heard myself being like, no, you’re wrong. Like podcast listeners, like they don’t care about how long they like

long podcasts and shit. It’s like, whoa, like you can’t help it sometimes. Right. Like take it a little bit personally. Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. My first instinct is usually to defend. Yeah. I’m like, defend. Fuck you. That’s always perfect. I wrote a masterpiece. It’s like, no, you didn’t brother. Yeah. I’m glad that you brought this up. Thank you for being a good communicator.

You’re welcome. Everyone. You’re welcome. Everyone. All right. Should we jump in? Yeah. First cab off the rank. Yeah. Let’s go. So the first artist we’re going to talk about is Nina Redonja. Maybe Redonia. Redonia. Probably Redonia. I actually saw their work. I went to Brett Whiteley Gallery for like

the first time ever, almost accidentally. And it was all right. It was kind of cool. Okay. Kind of bad. A bit posh. It’s just super like, okay. When was he like, was he like seventies? Yeah. Seventies and eighties. Yeah. Well, there’s like cricket bats and Bob Dylan and stuff. It’s kind of for like, like posh people though.

Yeah. And it was beautiful. I was like, this was your studio. Like this is where you lived and worked like as an artist, as a dirt poor artist. Oh, it actually was his studio. I think so. It’s called like Brett Whiteley’s studio. In Surrey Hills, right? Yeah. Yeah. It’s like Surrey Hills. Yeah. Like a Burke street bakery thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know if there was always his studio. I’m not really sure.

Yeah. Yeah. But like it seemed like, cause they had all of his personal affects. Sure. But then downstairs they had some works by like a few artists that I recognized and Nina was one of them. And I really liked those paintings. So it was cool to see it spring up again. Yeah.

I think we quite liked all of them and they’re a little bit, a little bit different in flavor to the rest of the painting room. Yes. Like in this, this year, right? Yeah. Are these real stickers or are they painted? They’re painted on. That’s all painting. Yeah. It’s all painting. So why don’t you give us a quick description of this painting called The Apple.

The Apple. Okay. A little on aluminum. So yeah, go back up. Yeah. So it is a… Quick description. Yeah. Like 15 seconds. Yeah. It’s like a very blue painting with a blurry figure in the background. And what you could call the surface of the painting is covered with like Trump loyal.

How do you say that? Where it’s like a good illusion with paint. I don’t believe in that. Just say it however you see it. The surface is covered in like sort of very clever, accurate paintings of… I lost the photo. You lost the photo. So we’re just going off of my photographic memory.

You’re like, it’s very accurate, detailed. Paintings of stickers and masking tape. Okay. You got to go back to Safari on the left. Yep. Go down. Yeah. And down. No, no, no. That was another one. No, not that. Not that. No. I stumbled on Matt’s secret window. That’s not what it is.

Apologies. Young Lee. Okay. Oh, here we go. Accidentally. Oh my God. That explains it. Yeah. Wow. Fucking hell. Where were we? Fucking oath. That’s my description. Yeah. Good description. Yeah. And there’s like, it’s very like, I guess kind of like kitschy crafty. Like there’s little gold stars that you would have got in primary school.

Yeah. And there’s like stickers for kids. Yeah. Like there’s a bananas in pajamas sticker. Like a bandaid. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Honeybee. Like cute stickers. Cute stickers. All right. Just get this page sorted out, mate. We’re going fucking B mode on this. You got to look at it one letter at a time. I didn’t do this.

We had to crawl down the page. I didn’t fucking do this. Yes, you fucking did. How do I fix it? There you go. Boom. Okay. Something you did just fixed it. Kind of. You’re going to uncrop that image now. Oh my God. I’m like. No more. No more gestures. I’m wearing like four hats. I’m the audio engineer today. I’m also the.

What is this role? You’re the producer. Yeah. It’s tough work. Do I need to describe this again? I think we got it. I think we got it. There’s also like. Part of the. The painting has either been scraped back. Or it’s painted to look like it’s been scraped back. Yeah. It’s. It’s a really beautiful play on like.

What would you call it? Like. Like light filtering through. And bouncing off of materials. Like. The way that the. Masking tape. You see that like. Yellowy. Masking tape. Yeah. That one is like. Sort of translucent enough to see the doubling up of it. With the two layers. And like.

The star underneath that. You know. It’s like very considered. And like probably lots of research went into just that. You know. On its own. And then like. The stickers. Like. Really bright whites. Like. That’s how they come out of the factory floor. You know. Like. Great subject. And then I didn’t even. I don’t even know if I noticed this on first viewing. But now we’re looking at the pictures. There’s like. A figure.

It’s like a portrait as well. Yeah. In the background. Like this obscured portrait. Yeah. You can’t really make out any details. Just like a head. And like a torso. Yeah. Faded into the background. Yeah. Really stunning. Yeah. Really cool. Like daring. Stuff. Yeah. And I think I remember the. Aluminium. Were these like really thin? They were so thin.

I was like looking at the profile. Like a couple mil. I was joking. I was like. They’re the new like MacBook Air type canvases. Like everyone’s going super thin. Like. Did we see. I don’t know if we saw any canvas. I know we saw a couple of canvases in that. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. It’d be cool if everyone abandoned the canvas. That’d be a bit of fun. Yeah.

All right. We’re going to be going through pretty quickly. Because we’ve got a bunch of stuff to talk about. We’ve got a lot of stuff to cover. Yeah. Thank you Nina. Thank you Nina. These all. They mean something to us. They were great. They were gangster. Are you ready to go here? Yeah. Let’s do it. Okay. Cool. So. This one was the front room of the downstairs.

Of like the big painting show. Part of the grad show. Go ahead. One second. Are we sure this was. Was this the painting room? Was it all. Is this like. It wasn’t the printmaking room.

Well. These aren’t paintings. Yeah. But like. Neither was the neon. What neon? The neon was in the painting room. Yeah. Well I just want to. That’s important. Because these people want to be. Read as painters. Yeah. If this was the painting room. Yeah. I’m pretty sure it was. All right listener. We’re pretty sure this was the painting room.

And so. The next work we’re going to talk about. Is. Expanded painting. Yeah. So this is by. This was like a whole room by. Ali Tayahori. The works are three. Let’s call them like mirror paintings. And one projector.

Like projected sort of video work. Like short-ish loop.

And these are all. Yeah. They’re called hand cut mirrors on. What did it say? Plaster board. Plaster on wood. Plaster on wood. And the mirrors are cut up. As if they are like mosaics. Like there’s a tradition. There’s a big long tradition of mosaics. In the Middle East. And parts of like South Asia.

And like. Yeah. All over the world. But it’s famously a sort of Mediterranean. Decoration of palaces and stuff. And these works kind of have to do with. Like. They have some like political.

Comment on like. You know. Iran. And like what’s going on there. And stuff like that. They play with the space. A lot more than like. A lot of other stuff we saw. Like. So the lights in the roof of the gallery. Like bounce off of the mirrors. And each of those tiny little mirrors. Is obviously. It’s like a disco ball effect. Like they’re all offset a little bit.

So the painting kind of explodes. It’s light. Out onto its neighboring wall. And when you look at yourself in the mirror. You see this like fractured image. With just like maybe an eyeball. And a nose. Like everything’s kind of in the wrong place. But sort of in the right place. Like. Yeah. Yeah. Really interesting defamation. And fracturing of the self. And like.

You know. Obviously I had to take a little selfie in there. And like. Yeah. It looks cool. Which is. Which is like a funny side. Yeah. Bonus. Do you remember what the. One of the works had. Like. Sound playing. Yeah. I remember it was quite. It was classical music. Oh was it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. It’s cool. This was almost. This room was almost like its own little mini exhibition.

Yeah. Because it was. Like. They were all playing off each other. Yeah. I want to talk about the projection. Yeah. Because like. I really like wrestling. And this is like American. Like Olympic wrestling. I think. There’s a bunch of different versions of wrestling. But it’s something like that. Yeah. And I remember the video was like.

Kind of pixelated. Right? That’s right. Yeah. And it’s kind of like. Reflecting all the sort of. I guess you could call them like. Pixels in the mirrors. But. I’m not sure which work this is. But. One of the titles of the work. Yeah. It was that one. There is no queer in Iran. Yeah. This isn’t the video work though.

If you go up one more. That was the video. It’s this one. It’s called Kill Me Softly. But there’s definitely like a queer. Theme running through this. Yeah. I remember I saw like some meme. I have no idea who posted it. Sorry. I can’t credit you. But they were talking about like. Like PUA shit. Or like. Slightly red pilled shit. It was like some big like weightlifting dude. Like this is how jacked you have to get.

And someone was just like. This shit just keeps getting like gayer and gayer. And like. I love this like. Queering of like super. High test. Like masculine shit. Because like. This wrestling stuff. Like it. It does feel pretty gay. They had. They had a really good. Point about this. I think it was on. True and on. Maybe.

Or. Maybe it was on Chapo. I don’t remember. But. Yeah. I think it was. But it was basically. They had some researchers. Some people who are like researching that culture. And. Like. Red pill. Yeah. Like. Yeah. Like body. Building forums. Culture. Right. And she quoted this. There’s a famous. This. This. Post. On that forum. That has like.

Thousands of replies. Apparently. And it’s like. The post goes something like. Does anyone feel like. The female form. Is like. Just less and less. Like. Interesting. And like. It’s too soft. And squishy. And like. It’s too like. Sort of small. And fragile. And like. The guys like. Basically are all like. Sort of queering each other. In the thing. And there’s like. Just a bunch of dudes. Going like.

Yeah. I know. Like a nice big hand. Like. Yeah. It’s a beautiful. The frame we caught there. I forget. I think. This is kind of like. This move is something like. An oil check.

So. The top wrestler. Has got his like. Forearm wedged. Between. The legs. Of the guy on bottom. And the goal. In this type of wrestling. Is to pin. Your opponent. Basically. Like. Shoulders to the mat. Yeah. You start off standing. You take them down. You pin them to the mat. It’s one of the most intense. And. Athletic sports.

Like. Ever. It’s fucking crazy. Go check out. Jordan Burroughs highlights. He’s the. He’s my favorite. Cool. Nasty double leg. Yeah. Yeah. Good ref. But yeah. We caught it in this really. Kind of. Yeah. I mean. It always looked beautiful to me. But. The bodies are tangled. It’s this really kind of like. Yeah. It looks like three or four people. But it’s just. Yeah. It’s just the two.

So. I mean. That always tickles me. Like. And there’s another. Like. Kind of sports work. Was it just the two? It was. This and the F1. Oh yeah. Throughout the whole exhibition. Kind of playing at sport.

Is going to catch me. Yeah. Totally. And then. You know how to get this podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then. There was a second. This video wasn’t all wrestling though. It transitioned to something. It was like. More in your world. It was. Yeah. More in my world. Which is like. Videos from. Like. A nondescript location. Of like.

People working with. Old looking. Power tools. Cracking open big rocks. I think that was it. It was like. I have a jackhammer. That’s been. In use for 20 years. And I’ve been doing this for 40 years. This is my second jackhammer. And I’ve been. I’m cracking rocks open at the quarry. Like. All day. I think it might have been like.

Extracts from a little documentary. I actually really love these. Documentaries. Where they’re like. This is a group of like. Spanish men. That go up into the. Into the quarry. In the morning. And come down. In the night. With like. A whole bunch of like. Beautiful. Shale. Roof tiles. You know. I love that stuff. That’s called The Protagonist. The F1. Yeah. You want to jump into The Protagonist. By Tommy Carman.

Let me just. Let me just wrap up one more thing about. Sure. About this one. The mirrors. So. The.

The work is like. It really is weaving together. A lot of different elements. And I thought. I think we both thought. It was quite successful in that. So like. The mirror. And the reflections of the mirror. Like. Recall. Disco balls. And. The importance of disco. And house. And dance music. And queer culture. The reference.

The reference of like. Wrestling. And like. Everyone’s sort of. Like. Uncomfortable. Ness with like. The homosexual. Implications of. Two men wrestling. Like. Two people of the same gender wrestling. Um. Like. Added. To that. Video. Sort of cut to that video. Is like. Very traditional.

Conservative. Looking. People. Like. Like. The dudes that. If you. If you work with a jackhammer all day. Like. What are the odds of you being like. Really friendly about. Like. Queer people. I don’t know. Well yeah. And if. If it’s got like. The Iranian context as well. Yeah. Totally. And. Um. Like. All of that. Just reflected. Out of these.

Like. Very abstract. And like. Still. And like. Quietly. Brilliant. Mirror pieces. Like. I think if we’re going to put one on the post. It will be the one with like. The kind of. More natural looking shapes. Yeah. Um. The smashed iPhone version. Smashed iPhone version. Which is just such a gentle. Yeah. Power. But the.

The text in the. Mirror work. That. Is paired to the video work. Says. Objects in mirror. Are closer than they appear. Um. Which is just like a really fun. Sort of found poem. You could say that like. I don’t know. I don’t know if I have it in me. To riff on. How that ties into everything. That I’ve said. But. It’s just. It was a really beautiful. Little like. Room.

And so. I think that might have been our favorite. Thing. So I just wanted to say that. It’s funny. Because we actually blasted past it. And then. It’s the first room. And then we saw everything else. And we came back. It was kind of someone standing in it. And we’re like. We want it to ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then we’re like. Okay. Cool. We got to hang out here for a bit. So yeah. Good room. Good stuff. Yeah. Thank you. Ali. Cheers.

Um. Yeah. You want to jump into Tommy Carmen? Yeah. Here we go. We actually met Tommy once. At um. Albemarle. Right? Not sure if they still work there. Oh yeah. That’s right. Yeah. Hey Tommy. Thank you for the print. Thank you. It’s still hanging. Oh really? In my room. That’s nice. It’s like the one thing that I could hang.

Because my walls are so shitty. But there was already like a nice strong. It’s not even like a screw. But it’s something. It’s like. A nail. A proper. It’s like. A stud. It’s big. It’s a bolt in the wall. Yeah. It’s a bolt. It’s holding the whole house up. Yeah. Literally. If you take that out. That place. Literally. Crumbles. Crumbles. So one of the things that I love about.

Well yeah. We’re just going to talk about one of Tommy’s works. But one of them is like this striped. This is kind of off the mic. Yeah. You remember the other ones. Like the quality of this. It’s like a flag. Yeah. Is really unique. What was it? Acrylic on canvas. But it almost looks like it’s been like. Airbrushed. Yeah.

Exactly. Airbrushed. Yeah. Yeah. The protagonist. So it’s a copy of a photograph of like a very long shot. As in like a long lens shot of the pit crew doing the changeover. Like a pit stop of a Formula One car with the driver.

The driver’s in the seat, right? Yeah. Yeah. The driver’s in the seat. I can’t see the. It’s like Patronus or something. Yeah. That’s like an ad. Yeah. It looks like it’s a Mercedes. Yeah. They’re Mercedes. Yeah. Mercedes pit crew. It is. Yeah. This is pretty big, right? Yeah. They’re all pretty big. Big.

What? The size. Oh, this was quite a big painting. Yeah. The size of the work. It was like a meter on the short side. One and a half on the long side. It was big. Yeah. And it’s all done in this beautiful purpley, pinky purple. Yeah. They’re saying acrylic. Is it brushed on? Is it air brushed on? Who knows?

And like detailed. Like all of the ripples and sort of folds in their leather pit crew uniforms are lovingly lovingly rendered. Yeah. It’s detailed. And, but it’s also like kind of softly obscured. Yes. The way that everything kind of, it’s like sort of flattened and blended in. It’s kind of hard to make out the details of the car.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s really striking image. It’s cool. Yeah. Patronus. Patronus. Oh, isn’t that a fucking, oh no, I’m thinking of Patron. Patron, baby. Patron. We haven’t really said anything about this. No. Is that all they get? No. You, you, you had something to say though, didn’t you? Sports? About cars.

Yeah. Do you like, I don’t know. I’ve never watched an F1 race. Are you pro or anti cars? I’m pro Formula One cars. Cool. I’m anti. Road cars. Road cars. All right. So what do you think we should all get drive around and drive to the shop? Have you seen the fucking, have you seen what the fucking wheels look like? They look like video game controllers.

On the. Like in the F1 cars. Have you seen a fucking picture of this shit? Brother, have I seen a picture of a Formula One car? The wheel. You know, you know me, Aiden. Oh, I don’t know. Tell me, you, Aiden, listen. So, listener, Matt is now going to see an F1 wheel for the first time. No, I have two copies of Gran Turismo 4.

I have two copies. See, doesn’t that look amazing? Yeah, it looks good, bro. You’ve never seen this before, huh? Yes. When? Yes, I have. When have you seen this? In every racing video game of Airplane. Bro, stop trying to be cool. I know we got like this super local podcast and shit. You don’t need to impress me, my brother. Fucking stop gaslighting me, dickhead. I’m one of your oldest and dearest friends. Oh my God, dude. You can look at me. Sometimes you don’t know the reference and that’s okay.

No, for real. Dude, I’m going to fucking stop. I’m going to fucking come over there. If anyone meets Matt, like he seems like super chill, super cool. He’s actually like super easy to wind up. I’m really irritable today. You’re pretty easy to wind up, bro. It’s because I had a big night. What was the last one? The last one was really funny. Anyway, don’t worry about it. Should we talk about Jess?

Jess Callen. Yeah. Thank you, Tommy. Thank you, Tommy. Beautiful. Yeah, so good. Was that NFS? No, not only is it not NFS, it’s sold. Oh, it’s sold. Hey, also just real quick. Why are we going black stickers? What happened to the good old fashioned circle of red of it’s sold?

Good question. You know what I mean? That’s one question to our listeners at NAS, if you could answer. And also another one is like, I’m sure there’s many reasons, but why would you make something NFS? Like, what are the main reasons? Yeah. If someone could write in like… The best one I’ve got is like, it just means too much to you. That’s like the first thing that comes to mind. That’s a really cool answer. Yeah. But yeah, I don’t know about the rest.

Please write in with, if you have a not for sale work. Is it like, it could be worth more later? Oh yeah, true. It’s like, I’m going to hang on to this. Yeah. It’s like… I trust myself to 10x that. Maybe NAS takes a car and you’re like, fuck you. Oh yeah, true. So you say it’s not for sale. You take it home with you. Boom. Sell it to him. Three grand. Flat. Yeah, right, right, right.

No dealer required. Yeah. It’s like going off the marketplace. I got the independent hustle. Yeah. Locked down. Straight up. I don’t need you assholes. Yeah. Cool. Respect. All right. Cool. Okay. Jess Callen. Jess Callen. At Bogan Recessive Gene. At Bogan Recessive Gene. So these works are three. Well, two of them are paintings and one, I would say, a ceramic.

It’s a pencil on primed wooden. I know it’s not. Yeah. Pencil. It’s this one. Pencil. And polymer clay. Yeah. And polymer clay. Yeah. I’ve always wanted to play with some of that, but guess what? I have enough hobbies already. And if you’re a good boy, I’ll get you some for Christmas. Jess, these are stunning. These are lovely. I think, like, in that room, this and Nina’s one, to my eye, showed the most, like, in terms

of just research and, like, thought put into color. Like, the, ah, man, it’s going to be hard to get the names of these. Wait, we got it. Spiral. Slow down, brother. Slow down. We’ve got Underwater Sopranos and Spiral Swirl, which are two, yeah, they’re paintings, but they’re colored pencils. And then we’ve got So Long Space Cowboy, which is more like the ceramic work.

And the two sort of paintings, yeah, they just show this, like, real, like, very impressive sensitivity to color and, like, very deep research in, like, yeah, form and the way those two concepts or elements, like, can sort of compete and harmonize in the composition.

Yeah. Compositions rock. Like, not only the colors, though, I mean, this one, the one on the left, this is called Spiral Swirl. Yeah. And they’re definitely, I feel like this research is giving, like, nature stuff. Yeah. Like, Fibonacci nature stuff. Yes. There’s this, these kind of, yeah, this, it almost, it’s a bit like the cyclone emoji. It’s like a curling conch in the center.

Totally. And then there’s these almost, they look kind of like starfish figures and they’re kind of being, this, this is Spiral Swirl, but yeah, this almost, like, feels like underwater as well. Totally. The way these, that’s like, almost like they’re adrift in a current. Yes. Kind of swaying and bending. Yeah. They could be like a meba. Yeah.

I don’t even think I saw these live. Yeah. But yeah, they’re very pleasing. Yeah. They are very pleasing. Yeah. Actually got a shout out. Jess gave me a painting on my birthday. So thank you for that. I love the way the clay work, like the way it got picked up by the camera.

These blacks look so black. Yeah. These are paintings to live with for sure. Yeah. For sure. Hell yeah. Cool. Thank you, Jess. On to the next. Mate, we’re smashing through these. Spiral Swirl wasn’t bought at the time. Yeah. So. So. Still for sale. There’s still, there’s still chance to get it.

There’s still time.

Okay. We’re going to jump into one of my favorites. One of our favorites. Nick Fern. The title of this work, this painting, I suppose, is subscribe now to receive 20% off testosterone replacement therapy. And it’s woven cotton.

And yarn. And yarn. And metallic cotton. Recycled embroidery. And aged linen. You see, listen, Aiden gets really annoyed when he sees typos. And the, whoever wrote this little bit of copy for the tag, put and and yarn without a space in between them.

And yarn. And now he’s like getting red in the face. He’s shaking. He’s quivering. Now I’ve ruined the whole. Okay, put down the knife. Put down the knife. Now I’ve ruined the whole episode. Put down the knife. Put down the knife. Now I’ve ruined it. Please. Please. Okay. And we’re back. We’re back. And scene. Have a breather. Go for a little walk. Yeah. So yeah, there’s this lovely big piece of, what the fuck do you call this shit?

Textile. Yeah. There’s lovely wall hanging. And it’s kind of, yeah, it’s pretty like coarse and rough around the edges. But there’s like a lot going on. Yeah. There’s like. It’s a weave, I guess you could say. Yeah. There’s all these colors. And like there’s all these, what are these like kind of loose threads everywhere. But yeah, the like narrative, like, uh, like general imagery of it is there’s like this

figure that takes up a lot of space. This naked figure. Yeah. And it looks like a man and they’ve got like the hand on their chin. Well, actually, hang on a second. I think there might be sort of hermaphrodite vibes. Do you think? Like if you just look at their genitals. It looks like a penis to me. And then, but look up at the top genitals.

This part? Yeah. I thought that was just like hair and stuff. No, no, no, no. Up at their breasts. Do they have breasts?

Hard to say. It’s tricky. Okay. Let’s, let’s, let’s just read it as, as we see it. Yes. Like the way. So yeah. So that’s kind of this like pondering nude. Fucking big. And then there’s like 10 bullet points, which are like, uh, reflections. On like body image. And like, I guess like, yeah.

Masculinity. But yeah, maybe you’re right about the, well, let’s read the text and see where we get to. Okay. Yeah. Uh, they’re, they actually, the text actually kind of like. The converge. Yeah. It begins to converge and become illegible. Yeah. But you can make out a few things. Yeah. It’s like one big noses rather than dainty.

Tiny. Big hands. Esther. That was two. Can you read any of these? Three. Deep. Zoom in a bit more. Four. Uh, four. A pronounced. Okay. He’s back on three. Deep. Robust. Something. Baritone. Oh yeah.

Four. A pronounced. Maybe that’s like Adam’s apple or something. Yeah. Five. Muscular. Physique. Yeah. Six. Six. Testosterone. Levels. Levels. High sex drive. Seven. High sex drive. Big banana. Big banana. Big boner. Big bones.

Big bones. Nine. Big something. Ten. Tony or? Body. Yeah. Tony? It’s not Tony. I had it earlier. Anyway. The text is, the text is like, uh, wonderfully obscure.

We, we always love, uh, we always tend to dig obscured text. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. And it’s also like, there’s something about, you know, this way of writing. Like it’s, you know, it’s, it’s textile. Like it’s slow and painful and hard and it’s laborious.

Yeah. True. This, this is really beautiful to me. It almost feels like a vortex or maybe it’s a rug. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So on the, so it’s like the big sort of nude on the left and then the text is sort of emanating from their right most extremity and then kind of coming in underneath that text is a sort

of another spiral concentric circle kind of figure. Cool. Yeah. We, we loved this one. The, the sort of ponderous thinking figure, like with all those sort of body worries in their head, it’s just, um, it’s very, it’s very beautiful and sort of, I think a noble way to like show that sort of battle that a lot of people have, you know, like who doesn’t

have body dysmorphia or gender dysmorphia? Like everyone’s got some kind of thing going on. Full on dysmorphia, but. No, no. Some, some issues for sure. Everyone’s like, my nose is too big. At least. At the very least. Yeah. Someone told me recently that they had like a story of a story, uh, that they had like,

they’re having like big, small penis problems. What the fuck is this? What the fuck did you just say? A story of a story that they had big, small penis problems. Okay. This is what happened. Listener. I was like, we’re going to talk about something sensitive. I don’t want to like dox the person.

So I was trying to obscure their identity. And then Matt was like looking at me like, yes, I understand. No, I don’t understand anything about it. We’ll see if it sticks. Yeah. I heard a story about a sexual encounter in which the person was like really worried about the size of their banana.

And they were like questioning their sex partner, like post act, like really intensely. Like, is it big enough? Like it was interrogation. Was it big enough? Is it big enough? How does it compare? Was this a **** story? Bro, don’t blow up the spot.

No, I can’t tell you whose story it was. Not yet. Okay. I can ask them if I can tell you. Okay. Fair enough. The answer might surprise you.

Okay. Yep. It was Gemma’s story.

Yeah. It’s Gemma’s story. And it’s my story.

So I’m there. I’m like, is it too small? Like, how does it? Wait, so you’re asking the questions. That’s just the joke. Anyway. Now we’re making fun of small penises. Sorry. We’re not. No, we would never.

Anyway. And the person, they didn’t like know them very well. It was basically a hookup. And they were like super direct. And they were like, well, since you’re pestering me so much, it’s the smallest dick I’ve ever seen. Whoa. And the guy was apparently just like. Heartbroken. Yeah. Damn. You mess with the bull. You get the horns.

Yeah. That’s a tough one, isn’t it? That is a tough one. I mean, to get interrogative after a moment of indice. It’s kind of on you. But like, if you’re so insecure that you’re becoming interrogative, it’s kind of hard to also hate on you. Yeah. Like everyone loses in this story. Yeah. Right.

Sexual harmony. There’s nothing you can ask. It was a short break now. Yeah. All right. We’re going to take a break. Do you want to rap? Postgrad. But to you, we’re going to take a break. But to you, it’s just going to sound like one second.

You want to get your hands back on? I kind of wanted to say something about the drawing room. Okay. Let’s just turn this off. Yeah. What’s up? What’s on your mind? So the drawing room was really cool. Yeah. There was like a really harmonious selection of artworks. And it was in this beautiful high ceilinged like studio, like massive tall studio.

Small in width and length. Impressive in height. Yeah. And it, yeah, no, it just really made me feel good. Yeah. Like there was a really cool Amelia Skelton work in the middle, kind of taking up. It was interesting because it’s kind of a loud work, but it was sort of, I don’t know, it was just really well curated. Yeah, but it sort of divided the space.

It made it more of like a circular space than just an open plane. That work was interesting. It was kind of like, it was a bit cheeky. Yeah. It was just like heaps of just like textiles, just basically laying over a pole. Yeah. Like hundreds of textiles. Like found objects and maybe some like made stuff like Vinny’s and like from the studio.

Yeah. Quilts and like just pieces of material. And like, there’s some stuff that I’m like, Matt has that. Matt has that pile. Yeah. Totally. The green and black. Yeah, totally. My mind for some reason went to like, it’s like an apocalypse scenario. The nukes dropped and we’re all locked up in NAS and it’s like, we’re going to use that to stay warm. Yeah. Like through the winter.

Yeah. You know, it was cute. There was like these little, like, they’re almost like, you know, when you’re trying to like, I don’t know, hold up like a poster or something and you got like the sandbags on the feet. Oh yeah. Yeah. The sandbags themselves were like little textiles. I noticed that too. Yeah. Little pretty drawings. A little pretty, not drawings, but maybe they are drawings. Maybe.

What’s a drawing? Yeah. What is a drawing? You know? When you really think about it. Okay. And then I know we’re meant to be done, but I quickly want to talk about Sarah Furness. Yeah. Sarah Furness, whose work kind of like grabbed me. I was really just feeling it that day. Like I was finding this stuff like exceptionally beautiful. So let’s just like quickly scan it. Cause I was like, no, I don’t want to finish.

It’s time for dinner, but I do need to talk about this. Yeah. Let’s go. Spit. These works, the way they’re presented is there’s like three sculptures on like a plinth, like pretty small. Like there’s one kind of looks like a dollhouse. It’s like an open box. One is like a small serving bowl with this like egg, this cracked egg in it.

That’s what I see. And then like a pair of undies or like knickers. And then behind on the wall behind is like a three by three grid of drawings, like really detailed kind of drawings, very like beautifully rendered. There’s lots of like references to craft and like kind of. Yeah. There’s like, there’s like patterns or nets.

Like the net of a shape. Yeah, exactly. Like a little matchbox net. And it’s actually had a red heads, like the matchbox brand. Yes. Like drawn, like really beautiful. Oh yeah, that. Hand drawn on red heads. Yeah. Yeah. These are like, I remember doing these in school and you can like fold it up. Right. Right. You like fold up a cube or whatever.

Yeah. Oh, this cute little dog is ironing a tiny pair of shorts in an apron. They’re just really like, I guess they’re kind of like twee and it’s not something that would normally like in my own conception of the kind of art that I like, like jump out at me. But on this day, it really did. Like it really struck me. Yeah. I wouldn’t have thought you would go for stuff that has like twee in it, but yeah, no, we

both really liked these a lot. What is this? Yeah. Sewing patterns, sponge, fabric thread. Yeah. This egg. It’s like this little serving bowl with like what looks like a cracked egg. Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of like egg drop soup. Have you ever seen that? You like crack an egg into hot soup and the egg kind of cooks and like, yeah, kind of,

but it’s, it’s, it’s almost like poached, but it’s like threads. Yeah. Right. Because it like splits and, but yeah, I don’t know what that material is, but it just, it’s just this like white, kind of fluffy fur, but it just, it’s like an, an egg, but like a cloud. Yeah. But yeah, they’re just, they’re very kind of like dainty and crafty.

Yeah. But they just tickled me. And oh yeah, what I, what I wanted to say, what I was thinking about with these works was like just your mood. And it’s something that I come back to, but like your mood dictates like maybe, you know, you go to a show, you go to a show like this, which is an end of year show. And if you’re feeling a certain type of way, like I felt like being kind of like safe and

calm. And I, and this room just had like the combination of that lighting and just made me, I was like, there’s like a big, beautiful kind of a chair in there. And I was like, Matt, lay down on that. Normally the chairs are like, but this one was like a bed. Like a single bed. Totally. Yeah. But yeah, this is, I don’t know. This just really hit.

That’s interesting. I just realized the like last eighth of these vertically is just blank in all of them. But yeah. And, and they do have this really nice kind of, um, like the color palette, not the color palette, but like the, the like object references, like they look, they’re both detailed, but then you can also zoom out and just, it’s very pleasing and like patterned and like these

ones, like very orderly. Yeah. But yeah, these really fucking slapped. And I really like it when, you know, I’m caught off guard, like for myself where I’m like, Oh shit. Like I love this and I can’t help it. Yeah. And it doesn’t necessarily fit in with what I think I like, you know? True. True. That’s always exciting. Yeah.

Um, and maybe we could just real quickly chat about the other text works in this show. Unless there’s something you’d prefer to talk about. Let’s see what you mean by that. I mean the, the, those mountains.

Yeah. Do you want to talk about this for, for a hot second? Yeah. Yeah. Let’s do it. And then we’re going to wrap up and go. Yeah. Uh, okay. So this is Taya Tay or Tia Tay. And it’s, uh, we learn nothing from history is the name of the work. Graphite. Gesso. Is it gesso or gesso? Gesso and acrylic on marine plywood.

Not for sale. Um, and just taken as a whole, it’s three, wait, is it maybe four? One, two, four big canvases that have these kind of heaps of, um, words on them in different languages. This looks like Sanskrit to me. Um, and then this is English, I guess it says rip, rip, rip, rip.

This one looks like Mandarin or Chinese. And that one, we’re not sure what that language is, but there’s four different languages. Um, lovely, scratchy. Like it just looks like, it’s just graphite. Like it just looks like a pencil. It is. Yeah. And it’s got that like, um, effect of like up close, it’s got that like graffiti effect or like you went over and over and over and like you create this kind of like, you know,

you go over in pencil and you create this like etching in like your desk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it’s got that kind of like, um, neurotic. Yeah. Like, you know, um, conspiracy theory. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Rip, rip, rip, rip, rip. It’s like dark and light in places and it’s so minimal. Yeah. But then when you zoom out, yeah, they’re like.

They’re these beautiful, gentle heaps. And like, they all have their own sort of like what they call an engineering, their own angle of repose, which is just like the, the sort of natural angle that a slope will wind up at once things have like toppled. And it’s different for like different materials, but like some of them sort of stack up higher.

Some of them are just little slopes. Um, and yeah, I think like, you know, I don’t think we’re going to get too much into the meaning of it. Like, I think because it’s, it’s very opaque from where we stand, but just visually they’re a stunning like collection of, of works.

We would love to know why you are not selling these. Yeah. And one last like visual thing, it’s cool. There’s like some of the like panels have been filled, like pretty much like 80% of it is filled with these characters. Yeah. You know, the same iteration of the character over and over. And then like one beside will be, one is like almost empty.

Yeah. And that’s just like, it’s such a simple effect, but then it’s almost got this like, something in like my like, um, concrete poetry brain is really like turned on by these because it’s like allowing you to, uh, really play with words in a visual way.

Yeah. You know, kind of it’s somewhat separated from their meaning. Yeah, totally. Yeah. These were really cool. And yeah, they kind of like, just like these did feel again, like not sure about the meaning, but there was a certain tension and like, you know, the coarseness about these ones. Yeah. This like, yeah, maybe this feels a little bit dystopian to me.

And that was troubling the room a little bit in terms of like, you know, there’s some warmth and a lot of prettiness in this room. And then this one was a bit like, oh shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. We learn nothing from history, bro. Yeah. Yeah, bro. There’s like knickers exclamation mark. Although actually I can’t even say that because Sarah Furness had like one of those works had

a bunch of like pins all scary and like a soft foot. Yeah. True. There’s fucking tension lurking behind every cute little dog ironing their booty shorts. Totally. There’s some great work in here that we just don’t have time to talk about. There was so much. Yeah. There’s so much more. And if we could have visited again, but that’s the nature of it, isn’t it?

Yeah. That is the nature. All right. Cool. I got to go, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s go, man. Let’s have some steak. And we’ll be back next week or the week after talking about your work. Whoever submitted. Yeah. We’re going to talk about it. We’re going to do what we said we would do. We’re going to talk about your work. And if you want us to talk about your work, just send it in.

To the hungup.au Instagram account DMs, include a pronoun if you would like us to use a specific one. Otherwise, we will guess.

All right. See you later, guys. Okay. Bye. I don’t think we can say that. Yes, we can. Wake up, filthy. In Poland.

I took the walk to Poland. I took the walk to Poland.

I took the walk.

Show notes

in this episode we establish that we are art critics after all and that we’re allowed to be mean some times. We cover some of our fave works from the NAS postgrad show, featuring: Nina Radonja @Nina_radonja_art Ali Tayahori @alitahayori Tommy Carman @tcarman_art Jess Callan @boganrecessivegene Nic Fern Amelia Skelton @milskelton Sarah Furness @sarahfurnessart Tya Tey @tya.tey  Episode pic: Cuddles - Judy-Ann Moule