Post by Jessica Holburn. Translation by Maria Sigutina, Curator.

“Where there is power, there is resistance.” – Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality 1: An Introduction.

Russia remains a society where freedom of speech is denied, where authoritarianism and patriarchy continues to prevail, yet within this dire situation an art community thrives. I have the pleasure of meeting Moscow based painter and performance artist Vika Begalska the day after she arrives in Sydney. She is jetlagged, sandy and sunburned.

JH What are your first impressions of Australia?

VB We went to the beach today so I would say severe nature; hot sun, very salty water… Sharks!

JH How do you feel about life in Moscow at present? Are you disappointed? Cynical? Frustrated? Pessimistic? Optimistic?

VB Russia is in a difficult political situation, Putin’s longevity puts a strain on everybody, we are tired and annoyed at the prospect of Putin’s reign for another 12 years. I’d say I feel all of the above and then some.

JH Your paintings and performances have often been quite politically satirical and playful, The Severe Youth in 2008 depicts Putin posing in red hot pants with his dog and bicycle and in another portrait With a Choker you have Putin fingering a noose. In one of your video works, The Lord of the Rats and Nutcrackers, you show your subjects in the midst of the Red Square. How has the authoritarianism of the ruling regime in Russia shaped your understanding of art? Particularly in terms of censorship?

VB Politics influences my work a lot, my art is based around the effect the regime has on people and the whole notion of protest. Humour is my personal reaction to what is going on in Russia, a way of dealing with my frustrations, whereas I think others look at protest in a perhaps more forceful way. My portrayals of Putin are humorous in a dark sense, those paintings I did of him posing with the dog and with the noose belong to an exhibition entitled “Am I Really Bored?” This is a reference to a Russian saying, a joke that when times are bad, folks will say “Well, at least I’m not bored.” So yes I am making fun of the situation, but I’m also making a serious comment about being on the edge of things that couldn’t get much worse, to the point where you’d rather be bored. I also painted riots in this series of work, to exemplify the collective reaction against what is happening.

JH Do you feel that it is the role of the artist to be just as much of an activist as an observer in society?

VB No, I think there needs to be a separation. Art is indirect, it should not posit a single truth or impose any one view. The artist knows of multi-layered meanings, the activist is far more direct. For me to be an activist would mean too much involvement in that world to the detriment of my art. I also feel that in activism one might lose a clear understanding of what is going on, I’d like to have a more balanced vision. But if you take the infamous Pussy Riot as an example, you see where activism and art collide, this is “actionism” at best, attracting attention for all the world to see, a movement that challenges and exposes corruption, revealing just how far the government will go to oppose freedom of speech.

While I’m not an activist per se, I’m launching a collective project via a website feminkitchen.org, in which we are developing a union for sex workers, inviting the community to support and join the union. I want to integrate my skills as a filmmaker to communicate the objectives of the union, one being the legalisation of prostitution in Russia.

JH Your most recent show at Pop/Off Art Gallery in Moscow entitled “Sigi” (nickname for Sigmund Freud) features surrealistic portraits of deformed, sometimes smiling faces, they are like demented ink blots. Using bold and bright colours of Fauvist portraiture styles, this series has a playfully juvenile quality to it, although on another level it’s a commentary on psychoanalysis, of schizophrenic personalities, the struggle of identity, torment, anguish, disturbance, fetishized genitals and imaginary selves. Are any of these self-portraits?

VB They are not self-portraits, they are more impressions and manifestations. I want to tap into a creativity based on childhood memories and sublimation. I’m also trying to illustrate the way in which femininity is a social construct. And I also want to show how identity is becoming an increasingly anonymous phenomenon in society. I will continue this line of work here in Australia in my upcoming show.

JH Performance artist Marina Abramović once said she never got much out of therapy and that she always thought the more fucked-up a childhood you had the better the artist you became. She says “I don’t think anyone does anything from happiness. Happiness is such a good state, it doesn’t need to be creative. You’re not creative from happiness, you’re just happy. You’re creative when you’re miserable and depressed. You find the key to transform things. Happiness does not need to transform.” Do you agree with Abramović on this issue?

VB I like Marina’s work a lot and to an extent what she says is true. I wouldn’t create what I create if it weren’t for the things I observe. My childhood was not great. I remember living in Ukraine and we lived on the fifth floor of an apartment building and I could see the tip of a poplar tree out of my window. I was overwhelmed with a desire to escape my life there and to wake up one morning and not see the tip of that damn poplar tree ever again. But I think that therapy does have a place in society, I think it’s important for people to take care of their wellbeing and not necessarily feel the need to be self destructive for the sake of art. My psychoanalyst asked me if I wanted to get married, I said yes. My analyst then talked to my boyfriend to ask what qualities he wanted in a wife. They concluded that for me to not get jealous was the most desirable attribute and with that in mind we got married. But that was very hard for me to supress. Jealousy is a natural instinct and was the cause of many arguments. People are surprised to know that beyond my shy veneer I do have a very fiery personality, I’m emotional and sensitive, but also very social and cheerful, does that make me schizophrenic? No, but perhaps I’m a little nuts, a bit psychotic. Art is an effective therapy for schizophrenia and many artists that inspire me have been drunks and mentally unstable. But I make a point not to drink and paint.

JH In your work, sexuality is overtly eroticised. You maintain a strong opposition to pretty and superficial portraits through your depiction of subjects that deviate from norms. Would you agree that your work celebrates a post-feminist ideology? Do you identify with yourself as a post-feminist?

VB Yes. I read a lot of theory connected to sexuality and power, Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault. I also tend to Joseph Butler for his ideas about the transience of identity and so on. I’m in the midst of working on a project to promote post-feminist artists and to invite those artists to join the sex workers union in Russia. I believe in the legalisation of brothels in Russia to ensure that the women are better cared for if they are in need of medical assistance or legal protection. One of my endeavours while I’m in Sydney is to conduct interviews with union members and sex workers to gain some insight on what it’s like for women here.

JH Your work explores the aesthetics of the ugly, or as you have said in an earlier interview, finding “beauty in ugliness”. People are attracted to the unattractive, particularly when you consider Francis Bacon’s retrospective at the AGNSW for instance, his depictions of the body without organs, distorted faces, images of horror and terror, the show has had a wonderful public response. What is it do you think that artists and audiences alike share in their fascination with deformation? Is ugly the new Sublime?

VB I can’t speak for all artists but for me I am majorly influenced by the philosophy of Nietsche who claimed that the truth is ugly and that art is the thing that keeps us from perishing. It’s about deconstructing and exposing the truths of human existence that we are so fearful of: death, decay, degeneration. My work resides in the neo-expressionist vein of art, because as much as my work is dealing with darker themes and inner emotional turmoil, it uses more of a psychedelic palette rather than brooding colours. I really enjoyed the Francis Bacon retrospective, we saw it earlier today, but Bacon does differ from where I’m at aesthetically. I draw more from artists of the New Wild movement, of whom I would like to mention Kippenberger, Baselitz, Oechlen, Fetting, Immendorff, Lupertz and Penck. These artists influenced me as well as my favourite contemporaries, who include Daniel Richter for his intensity of colour and composition, Peter Doig for his abstract landscapes, Cecily Brown for her eroticism, Jonathan Meese for his postmodern allegories and sculptures. These artists are sexually provocative, offensive, some of them are also making commentaries on dictatorships in the way that I am.

JH In one of your video works, you step into a corporate building, presumably for a job interview, take your clothes off, lie on a CEO’s desk and erotically lick the soles of his shoes. This is clearly a comment on female subservience in the corporate world and it’s pretty confronting stuff. Sexual perversion and subjugation have been continuous themes in your oeuvre, do you find that you can express these themes through video in ways that you cannot through painting?

VB Painting always has layers of meaning. With video work the meanings tend to be far more straightforward. That video you speak of was a result of a friend who tried to get me to go to a job interview. I went so far as to buy the clothes; the high heels, the suit and everything. When I decided not to go to the interview, I needed to find something to do with all the clothes I bought, so I thought it would be a good idea to use them in my next video work.

JH Do you ever have doubts while you perform, do you ever think to yourself “is this shit?”

VB I am in such a state when I perform where I am so engaged and focused on what I’m doing that there’s no room for doubt in my mind. It’s a process, you never think of the result at the time – that comes after.

JH In your conversation with Anatoly Osmolovsky, you said that you would like your viewer to be emotional about your work, be it positive or negative. What has been some of the most astounding feedback you’ve had thus far on your work?

VB When somebody told me they were shocked that they were shocked about my art.

JH What’s your daily routine like in Moscow?

VB I get up early and paint all day in the studio, it’s like a 9 to 5 job I guess. And then by night I go to openings and support the art community. I think it’s an important part of being an artist, to support your fellow artists and be aware of what others are creating.

JH What ambitions do you have for the future?

VB To continue painting and performing. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.

Vika Begalska’s exhibition Podes and Antipodes will be held at Janet Clayton Gallery, 2 Danks Street Waterloo, opening Friday March 8 from 6 to 8pm. She will also exhibit video work and live performance pieces across several venues in Sydney including At The Vanishing Point at 565 King St, Newtown and an experiential installation show at Alaska Projects, Wednesday February 27.

Anne Judell is recognised by her peers as an artist whose abstract drawings achieve a remarkable purity, stillness and light.  In this speech to students at the National Art School, she talks of her practice, and how she reaches beyond the surface physically and metaphorically, searching for the perfect drawing. For a full transcript of the speech, click here.

I sometimes see my images in the natural world, but always after I’ve made the work and it comes as a shock of recognition, a pleasant surprise.

I’m not actually searching for an image – what I’m hoping for is a mood or a feeling, of stillness, a quiet peacefulness.  I never know how to get this, but recognise it when I see it.  This feeling of time standing still – I would like to bring the viewer to a standstill, also.  William Faulkner talks about this when he writes (and I quote)“the aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means, and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later when a stranger looks at it, it moves again”.

I cannot repeat the process of each drawing because each demands something different.  I can’t make the same soup twice, either, because I cook intuitively and don’t use recipes.     You never see anything twice in nature.

 The Magic comes from  transformation of an unformed idea into something “tangible” and new and unexpected.  In a real sense, it’s as if the images manifest magically under my hand – that I am just the means.  The most satisfying work comes when I truly step back.  It comes not from the personal but ideally touches a deeper, greater truth. 

I can now admit that I’m totally addicted to this process, watching each work evolve from the previous  – drawn by my curiosity into the studio to see what further images await me.

I know that I will never make the drawing that I want to, that they are all, in a sense, a failure, because they fall so short of what I desire.  Yet curiosity drives me on in an urgent but doomed attempt to express the inexpressible, like the storybook maiden who was ordered to spin straw into gold.  It’s absolutely impossible, but I keep trying.

Anne Judell 2012

During October, Janet Clayton Gallery and Syndicate Gallery at 2 Danks Street Waterloo will host an exhibition from Beijing Art Space, curated by Jin Sha, a Chinese artist who has spent many years living in Australia. The exhibition focuses on the tradition of Chinese academic art – fine brushwork on silk and paper – but with a very contemporary conceptual base.   Click here to preview some of the work which will be included in this show.

As this exhibition approaches, we are starting a conversation on our gallery blog and would welcome your response.  Challenge anything, ask new questions, give us your ideas. With your permission we will publish your thoughts…..

In the 17th and 18th centuries, when trade between the West and China exploded with tea, opium, porcelain imported in return for gold, the West went wild over oriental art. Artists, craftspeople, architects were entranced. Homes were filled with orientalia. Not all of it was good but society was bold enough to adopt cultural difference.

Today, Australia and China are experiencing another trade boom…. resources for manufactured materials. But are these closer economic ties opening our hearts and minds to the culture of the middle kingdom?

The answers will not be simple. Beyond the ubiquitous Chinese cuisine, the presence of the orient is patchy at least. We have literary translations from Chinese, but they are limited. Asian music scarcely penetrates our psyche, outside the Chinese diaspora. The visual influences of Central Asia have yet to make themselves felt in any significant way in contemporary Australian building.

But what of the visual arts? The Sydney Biennale, hugely popular, has exposed us to some outstanding contemporary Chinese artists – Gao Rong, Jin Shi, Yun-Fei Ji and Liu Zhouquan. Our public galleries have built fine collections of Asian art. 4A Gallery and White Rabbit Gallery draw in an unending stream of admirers. Satellite galleries give homage to the art of new China.. witness Ai Wei Wei’s ground breaking Under Construction in 2008 at Campbelltown Art Centre.

But in our personal spaces, in our homes, do our streamlined modernist tastes preclude the rich and intimate detail of traditionally based Chinese art? Or do we see the bold pop post-revolutionary figuration of major Chinese artists as curiosities which we will wonder at in public spaces, but hesitate to incorporate into our lives?

As China builds its presence as a global powerhouse, will the new Chinoiserie emerge?  Click on the email button below to send us your thoughts.

It’s an unusual scenario when a man in his 50’s undertakes his first solo exhibition. Perhaps the belated entry of architect-turned-artist Ross Thornton into the art world gives him a certain edge and humbled perspective on what it’s all about. While his work has an appealing aesthetic, there is a certain raw and tactile energy that is seldom found in younger emerging artists today. We talk to Ross about his show, his work and “happy accidents”….

JCG This is your first solo show. How are you feeling in the lead up to the opening?

RS A mixture of excitement and anticipation. I feel strangely relaxed about it. I feel a great deal of gratitude to Janet for giving me this opportunity, but also a responsibility to her because of it. I look at the list of amazing artists in Janet’s stable and pinch myself. I recently bought one of Anne Judell’s lovely works and I have a Graham Kuo.. I’m getting nervous now!

JCG When did you decide you wanted to pursue art professionally?

RS About six years ago I was working for architects Allen Jack & Cottier, when one of the architects Jane Johnson had the idea to have an art exhibition of staff works. I wound up being the curator of the exhibition. It made me contemplate ‘what is art’ and what would I do if I was to create a work of art. I hadn’t thought seriously about these questions since school. A short time after the exhibition something just clicked in my brain. I quit my job and decided I wanted to be a professional artist.

JCG What inspires you to create?

RS I am one of those people that just naturally needs to be creative. I get very restless and annoying if I don’t have something creative to think about. There are so many things and talented people that inspire me in all the creative arts, not just architecture and the visual arts. I just try to suck it all in like a sponge.

JCG How do you approach the creation of a work: spontaneously, or ritualistically, or other?

RS When I first started doing the works on plywood, I really went about it as I would as an architect. I started with an idea, then did some pencil sketches which became coloured computer drawings to scale. I fine-tuned the design on the computer, ordered the ply cut to size, painted and assembled it. For this exhibition I decided I wanted to change this process, to become more spontaneous. I still started with a concept idea, but not a formal idea of what the form of the work would be. I wanted to use my intuition more and allow things to develop more dynamically than would be possible previously. I also now have my own circular saw, which provides many more options and allows the work to develop as it goes. With the works on paper I started with the materials – paper and gouache, I wanted to create a technique that took advantage of the fact that gouache is so soluble when water is added, but so rich in depth of colour. I began these works with really no formal idea of what I was going to do. I found this quite scary at times, and felt I was out of control at times, but it was an exciting way to work for me, allowing the happy accident to lead the way forward in the process.

JCG Why did you decide on “Two Worlds” as your exhibition title?

RS One of my obsessions, and really how the idea of the stripe came about, is the notion of complementary or opposing forces that create the whole emotion/intellect, man/nature, man/machine divide. These forces are not always equal or balanced. The title “Two Worlds” comes from the works that are inspired by the idea of man’s intervention with nature, hence the natural world and the man-made world. For me the image of a road cutting through the landscape is a metaphor for this relationship.

JCG Would you prefer an interpretation of your work as beautiful or interesting?

RS I am interested in the idea of beauty, what we perceive as being beautiful, and how this changes over time and from culture to culture. Marcel Duchamp criticized works for being “retinal”, meaning they were about how they were perceived by the eye, rather than about ideas. I am interested in both image and idea and the balance between them. I’ve always liked the famous architect Mies van der Rohe’s quote – “I don’t want to be interesting, I want to be good.”

JCG The most difficult question somebody could ask you is..

RS Probably this one! As an artist the question by someone of “what does it mean” is difficult to answer. The Catalan artist Antoni Tàpies compared an artist to a magician. I like this analogy. Just as a magic trick loses mystery and magic if the secret is revealed, so too can a work of art. I want people to sense that my work has some meaning. I give a hint with the titles, but I also think the observer should be welcome to their own interpretation.

Image: Ross Thornton, Man, Nature… Nature, Man, oil paint and galvanised metal on plywood, 150 x 146cm

View more of Ross’s work here

The exhibition opened. There was both relief and excitement. The Ambassador was gracious and I think impressed by the sheer number and indeed size of the works. People with cameras everywhere. Flashing, snapping. There were formalities… speeches, greeting lines, handshaking. Unheard of in Australia, an alcohol free opening. Cakes were delicious. Nervous and without lunch, we wolfed them down. It was hard to gauge the reaction without a grasp of the language, but a prominent Beijing art magazine is doing a piece and those whose language stretched far enough were visibly and it seemed audibly npleased.

Now that the opening is over, there are so many other details to take care of….media follow up, packing instructions (the show closes on 25th), shipping arrangements. Most exciting is the long conversation with Jin Sha about what we might do next in Beijing.

We are getting to know our little bit of the city here. Crossing the road with aplomb, weaving between trucks, overladen scooters and cycles, fast mercedes cars. Popping into the supermarket for some essentials and surprises. Picking up nicknacks. And of course absorbing ourselves in the wealth of art at 798. I have been too busy, but Tuesday is my day.

Yesterday was the Great Wall. A place of the imagination now come to life. Sue, David, Sarah, Hanna, Kate sketching and taking photos. Then an exhausting drive through monumental traffic and thick haze to the Summer Palace, then back to the hotel wedged in 10 lanes of immovable traffic. Infuriating, but the power of this huge city is palpable.

Time to eat. Dumplings? Soup? or perhaps some Duck and mushroom skewers with shallot pancake.