In my not-too-distant past while living in Melbourne I became close to someone with a mental illness: schizophrenia. Thirteen Leaves is not so much a definitive portrait of that person, or mental illness as a whole, but is more about the relationship we had and a personal view of this friend and their state of mind at the time.
There is, I think, a different discipline involved in the making of small-scale works of art as opposed to larger-scaled works. There are things that I might do when working on a larger piece that just don't work on a small-scale piece and vice versa, the addition of a pictorial element, for example. I find I become a little more playful when working on images that are smaller in scale, a little more willing to experiment with texture, mark-making and so on. Much of this experimentation then finds its way into the larger pieces.
The experience of viewing small-scaled work can be a more intimate one than that of viewing larger works. Because of the smaller scale, you, the viewer, are not sharing the experience with anyone else; therefore, the conversation that takes place tends to be on a more personal level.
The other artists that exhibited were Kain White and Mark Stone and are both painters. With a good number of people through the door the show was very well received with a few sales.
One of most consistent comments we got from people was how coherent the show looked which we were happy to hear, in fact we said the same thing ourselves when we were hanging.
We last showed together back in 2007 and plan to do it again in the future.
You can see some of Mark and Kain's work by visiting their respective websites:
http://markanthonystone.com
www.kainwhite.com
Titled Floodline, the exhibition took place in February and featured more than twenty artists who agreed to donate all money raised through sales to The Salvation Army.
The show consisted of one piece from each artist and included paintings, drawings, photographic work, sculpture and ceramics.
Floodline was put together over a four week period and would not have been possible without quite a lot of help from a number of businesses, organisations and individuals for which I am grateful.
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