Challenging work

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If a work is visually challenging is it less of a work? If it does not hang quietly on a wall to please and relax should it be let hang at all? Deepwater Blue is about man vs nature inspired by the tragic oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in 2010. The subject matter is challenging hence so is the work. Where does the eye settle or should it when contemplating such a human made tragedy. Metaphoric mother nature tries to stem the black tide. Which is the treasure the oil or the environment it ruins?

Deepwater Blue, 40×55, magazine mixed media © EJMunro 2010

A re-gazing homage to beauty

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This is a small (A4ish) work I have done recently. Whilst most of my work appropriates fashion images in a collage style this picture was an effort to reassure myself of the painting skills required to do semi-realist work intertwined with my love of printed imagery and fashion photography. It is only an iphone snap but it does enough justice to the work to prove my point. It is another box ticked on the list of requirements for my new body of work. I am excited! The original photo is by photographer Ben Hasset, google him he does gorgeous work. I hope I haven’t infringed on any rights!

Re-gaze the bathing beauty – Acrylic and paper on canvas – E J MUNRO 2012

Life changing

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I have come to an unexpected halt in regards to the idea of a regular blog documenting my run up to the planned exhibition in November this year. It is not that I am not keen but there is a life changing event hovering on my horizon which has me paralysed with ecstatic and joyful fear! It will change the nature of this blog. I am awaiting more news.

Happy Valentines Day

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This is a trip down my art making memory lane. Working with a variety of creative people on Eddie magazine was indeed an experience and more importantly immense amounts of fun way back in 1994 in Newtown in Sydney! I was very grateful to have my artwork on the cover of the LOVE issue. Something I treasure to this day. WOW it was such good value at $4.00! What were we thinking. Oh wait a minute that was almost 20 years ago and we all worked for free. It weren’t about the money, money, money…but it would have been real nice.

Thankfully my perception of love is a lot less pessimistic these days. xxoo John.

LOVE – Eddie Zine 1994. Cover art Elizabeth Munro (nee O’Neill)

Blog like there’s no one reading

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It has been a very long time since I have exhibited anything publicly let alone had a solo exhibition which seems funny (ha ha) as deep in my psychic nether regions I think of myself as an artist. ‘Comments up’ anyone else think of themselves as an artist and let life get in the way? For better or cyber boring worse I am going to blog about all manner of things past, present and future relating to my upcoming exhibition on Remembrance Day 11th November 2012 (date synchronicity). At the risk of overtaxing myself I won’t go on and  blah blah on…today as at this point there is no one looking except good vs evil bots.  I will leave you with an oldie but a goodie. A portrait I did from a B&W photo of a friend Stan (apologies for the photo glare). It is a collage piece (all magazine paper) I completed in the early 1990s and included in my solo exhibition in Surry Hills in 1992.

Stan – magazine paper on board – © -E J Munro 2012
Not sure of the actual dimensions but roughly 100 x 60 cm

Attachment

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The ‘Fill me with stories’ theme I choose for the sketch book project is proving to be very inspiring. I am intertwining some family history in a random fairy tale way. My great, great grandmother came to Australia from Ireland as an orphan escaping the ‘Great Potato Famine’ of the mid 1800s. I wonder about her family history before she fled Ireland in 1849. What was her lineage before her family was stricken with poverty and probably all died? It makes me ponder what the future holds for my children. The past and present is fascinating fodder for stories and all the more visually enjoyable with some surreal celtic design. As last year I think I will have to send a copy to USA. I don’t think I’ll be able to send the originals! Do any other artists have attachment issues???




Slow progress & celtic influences

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We recently went to Ireland for a couple of weeks. We spent most of our time in Dublin but did go to Ennis for three nights. Evidently my great, great grandmother came to Australia from Ennis as a young orphan escaping the potato famine. We saw the breath taking Cliffs of Moher and Bunratty Castle. In Dublin we went to see the Book of Kells. All these things I would love to see again without young children :) Celtic design is certainly inspiring my 2012 sketch book. I have a lot to do in less than 2 months.

SB 2012 - Elizabeth Munro

Art and Stories

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Deal
Deal, 84 x 59cm. Mixed media – Drawing with magazine collage and acrylic paint on board. (Earlier this century) copyright Elizabeth Munro.
This pictured is about a time in life when I felt lost, alone, isolated, paralysed, alienated, traumatised, unsupported and unloved. The lowest I had ever felt. It involved an obsessive amount of Tarot card use. I was trying to grab some wisp of possible future to take me far away from where I was. Things were so sadly not how I wanted them to be. Then painfully, and thankfully, one silly humiliating event tipped me over the edge and I killed my ego!*
In spite of all the woe I’d experienced in my life, self inflicted or not, I finally understood it was my life. I controlled how I felt. If I didn’t feel loved by anyone else it didn’t matter, I could love myself and that was enough. I packed away the Tarot cards (never to be used again) and stumbled forward, slowly, creating a life I wanted. There was no ‘magic’ secret involved, but I did have a malleable vision with love and art at the core. I have come a long, lovely way since then.
* Apparently the ego has more than one life!