Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Tight knit: I had plans to write today about the W’bool City Council election campaign being in full swing – it started with the knifing of the CEO and has gathered full strength now that Cr Mike “The Real Chief” Neoh starts popping up in the paper with all manner of either un-costed, outlandish or recycled ideas from years ago…..BUT…..

BUT this is too good not to share.

It’s a visual map put together by a reader showing a tiny corner of the spider web that operates in Warrnambool between our public boards, public institutions and authorities.

By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”]T[/dropcap]he greatest compliment you could pay young artist Bronwen Arnold, who works under the name Bronwen Rose, is that you find her work disturbing.

Because that is exactly what she wants it to be.

“I am fascinated by a world where everything is beautiful and everything hurts,” she says.

The 20-year-old, who was raised in Dunkeld but now lives in Warrnambool, believes that art should take the viewer out of their comfort zone by twisting the familiar with the unexpected. Hence most of her works, be they digital painting, traditional painting or sculpture, look appealing at first glance: but then reveal a darker side.

Doe-eyed, pixie-faced characters are missing limbs, or have been disembowelled. Eyes are bloodshot, teeth are crooked, skin is disfigured.

It doesn’t make for pretty work, but it is absolutely memorable in that it is confronting, yet clever.

“A lot of (artists) in Warrnambool are inspired by coastal scenes and while they are beautiful to look at, and you can say ‘that is nice’, that is the end of the conversation,” Bronwen explains.

“I want my art to be unsettling and for people to talk about it; I want it to have an ugly beauty.”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”]B[/dropcap]ronwen is in her second year of a Diploma of Visual Arts at South-West TAFE where her teachers include the wonderful Jeanie Gleeson whose work explores the boundaries between comfort and discomfort and what is regarded as “beautiful” art. (See our earlier story on Jeanie here).

Another influence – or even a hero – for Bronwen is contemporary artist Patricia Piccinini, whom she met while volunteering at the Warrnambool Art Gallery during Patricia’s recent exhibition that, despite its confronting themes, was among the gallery’s most popular.

“I love how people react to Patricia’s work. One of my jobs (as a volunteer) was to invite people to touch this little furry, strange critter (made by Patricia) that I was carrying around and most people refused to even touch it,” she laughs.

While Bronwen may sound like a dark thinker, she is in fact the opposite.

Her preference for wearing black, the striking arm tattoos on the soft underside of her forearm, and a 24mm gage tunnel in her ear (kind of like a sleeper on steroids) belie the fact she has an easy laugh, and the down-to-earth charm of a young woman who grew up in the country.

“My parents bought the Dunkeld Post Office which is, like, as old as old (it dates back to the 1850s), and I grew up there. Yep, in a post office,” she smiles.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”]B[/dropcap]ronwen also admits that her favourite colour is not black or blue, but pink, rose pink.

“My bedroom looks like an explosion of grandma florals – pink everywhere – with my collection of teapots all around the place,” she shrugs.

This is not the space of a tortured soul, but someone who loves playing with the juxtapositions of life: the gaps between pretty and ugly; black and pink; teapots and tattoos.

Her next series of work will explore skin and its many variations. Bruises, birthmarks (Bronwen has one), discolourations, pigmentations, freckles, albinism and a condition called vitiligo, where patches of dark skin lose their pigment, will all come under scrutiny.

“I saw a woman once who had vitiligo, and she had the most chocolate, velvet skin with white patches. She was absolutely amazing, so beautiful. She looked absolutely beautiful,” Bronwen explains.

I wondered how many times that particular woman had been told, because of her imperfection, that she was “absolutely beautiful”?

And therein lies the secret to the work of Bronwen Rose.

[box]Bronwen is the recipient of the Lukasz Chomentowski sponsored studio space at The Artery, Warrnambool. She will be part of Arts on the Grass at the Fletcher Jones Garden Christmas Market, Sunday December 14, 11am-3pm and you can also view more of her work on the South West Arts Atlas.[/box]

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[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] M [/dropcap]ark Rashleigh is the last man standing at what was once a flourishing School of Art and Design at Sherwood Park, Warrnambool, and, come mid next year, he too will be gone.

It is indicative of how much things have changed that Mark, a lecturer in graphic designer and illustration, now has an office in the Faculty of Business and Law at the Deakin University campus because the former visual arts studios are closed due to various structural concerns.

A similar, if metaphorical, corrosion has also claimed the art school that will officially end next year after starting life under the former Warrnambool Institute of Advanced Education in Timor St (now South-West TAFE) in the late ’60s, before relocating to the Sherwood Park campus in the 1980s. There, as a university degree, it became part of the Deakin merger.

“When I first started here, in 1985, there were about 13 staff teaching a very broad visual arts degree that included painting, sculpture, art history, photography, print making, graphic design and ceramics,” Mark, who will retire in June, said.

At that time, the teachers – most of whom were established artists – would mount joint exhibitions, maintaining a tradition that began when the school first started.

A document held by the National Libraries of Australia, for example, records some of the names in a joint staff/student exhibition held at the City of Hamilton Art Gallery in November 1970 and it reads as a virtual who’s who of the early South-West Victorian arts scene: Ken Daniel** (lecturer), Ron Quick (lecturer), Graeme Birt (lecturer), David Wormald, John Elphick, Jill Fitzgerald, Jennifer McConnell, Christine Taylor, Ken Saddler, John Rogers, Trevor Morrison, Peter Bond, Lilian Baxter, Alan Murdoch, Frank O’Brien, Chris Carroll, Gary Sparks, Judith Lovell, Gary Heath, Lorrain Callow, Michele Hill.

 

 

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] I [/dropcap]n its prime, the airy studio space at Sherwood Park was alive with the sound, movement and colour of artists in action and gave the campus its energetic heart, usually to the beat of a paint-splattered cassette player set up in a corner.

Students pursuing somewhat more subdued degrees in economics, marine biology or primary school teaching could wander over and see what the “hippies” of the campus were up to.

The halcyon days of the 70s, 80s and 90s, however, crashed into the economic rationalism of the 2000’s when university degrees around Australia were no longer about providing knowledge and skills, but also a financial return.

In this new climate, art schools were in a hopeless position.

And while Mark can’t speak about Deakin directly, he can reflect on the challenge facing all visual art degrees.

“A visual arts degree is a quasi-industrial process: they cost a lot to run. There is the high cost of the studio spaces, and the high cost of running courses for small groups of students, because that is how the learning happens, in small groups, not in a large lecture theatre,” he said.

Skilled staff who leave or retire are not replaced, and, suddenly, painting is no longer available, or sculpture, or perhaps print making, and the degree is reduced to a husk.

 

 

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] A [/dropcap]t the same time, Australians love art: according to the ABS, more than a quarter of us visit a gallery or museum at least once a year.

“The returns on the investment in art schools and courses cannot be measured in dollars, but in what we get back – as a culture – from the artist,” Mark said.

Yet Mark remains optimistic. As he closes the door on his career, and that of the school, South-West TAFE is refocussing its visual arts courses at its new location in the Timor St complex.

The wheel has turned full circle.

“Art changes its address, but it’s not going away,” Mark said.

** Ken Daniel established the art school at WIAE in 1970. When the school amalgamated with Deakin University around 1985, he was appointed Dean of the fine arts across all Deakin campuses.

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