Birds in Victoria Park - photos

 Greetings were exchanged, as well as some sledges and ribbing. Members jostled as they take their places for a sitting of the Parliament of Birds

 

 

 

Citizen Seagull, with Speaker of the House Ibis and sundry backbenchers

UV Lamps

 

 

With Xanthe's invaluable help brushing the shellac out and sanding, I started sprucing up some of the prototype lamps I put together for "Out of the Dark" and "The Spark", my 2 Ultraviolet and glow in the dark shows in 2020.

 

I need them for the GoodSpace pop up festival that would have run from mid april to mid June but now, due to uncontrollable circumstances has been postponed to probably open in early September in the top floor and on the roof of Broadway shops carpark

 

The Parliament of Birds, continued

While the people were locked down the birds of Sydney gathered in Victoria Park to discuss what to do about them.

 

 

 

 

I took a pile of photos by the pond in the park today of ibises and moorhens as well as seagulls, pigeons, little black ducks and a peewee

 

 

The Speaker - Ibis 079 - at his post

 I was going to be exhibiting this painting now at Goodspace in  the top floor(as well as the roof) of Broadway shops carpark, but the council changed its mind about whether a separate development approval was necessary to mount the show so now it looks like the pop up festival will be from early september through October, after the paperwork is redone.

Its a big disappointment but OTOH the wet weather should be over for a while. Even if la Nina is going to crank up again next summer, it dies off by mid winter and spring is the driest time of year in Sydney. And it will be spring! not winter. My paintings and lamps will be dry on the floor below but the main stage on the roof will be great in spring sun And hopefully a change of government will make for a friendlier vibe all around.

Meanwhile I'm going to add some more birds, and keep finishing everything more, esp the foliage. I was in the park today and the rain had brought a bunch of birds to look around and feed - ibises and mooorhens with their purply sheen dancing over the lotus leaves in the lake, as well as ducks, and seagulls, and a peewee. I had a camera so I took more photos

You can see earlier work on this big triptych here

(its 3x1.5m in size, painted in oils on linen)

Flaming Willy Willy / Colorado Firetwirl

 

A willy willy on fire, or maybe a small tornado, somewhere in Colorado

 

Under UV lighting. Next I want to put a bit of green in the ground
 

 

 

. This is the daylight version,

This is painted in oil on linen, about 20x15cm

 

Mushroom Cloud - Erskine Creek pyroCB

 Another piece for my postponed UV show that would have opened about now that will now go ahead in Spring sometime

 

 

 

 

A pyro thunder cloud above a fire in the Blue Mountains, with the 3 Sisters in the left fore/middleground - this photo has a mix of white and UV light(I think)

 

 

Under UV light 

Some earlier versions of this piece can be found here, along with some other pieces

 

Its oil on canvas, some of the pigments fluoresce , abot 1mx1m

Flood and Fire

 A house burns up in the Lismore flood in early March 2022, 

 

 

 

Under UV lighting

 

 

Daylight

It's one of the light andUV paintings I've been preparing for the now postponed GoodSpace festival at the top of Broadway shops carpark. In short the council changed their mind about whether a formal DA was required. LOL I guess that should have been expected

 

 

Daylight only

 

 

UV only

 

 

 

This is with mixed lighting, mostly daylight/ white illumination, with some UV

Below are some photos of versions of the painting leading up to this point

 

 

House ablaze in the floodwaters. This is under UV lighting

Tmber Frames

 

 

A couple of frames I put together from the huge pile of salvaged timber in our yard, the big tree painting has its made from 50x75mm pieces of Australian hardwood(ie 2x3 inch when they were cut 100 yrs ago)

 

 

The frame for Gladys Berejiklian is from some Meranti(?) slats pillaged more recently from SE Asia

 

Fire

 These are some of the UV paintings I'm preparing for the good people at GoodSpace up at the top of Broadway shopping centre carpark. There will be 3 pop up venues on level 3A, and another straight above on the roof, which has a spectacular view. 

The show opens on Friday april 15 (2022)

These images are of catastrophic fires, climate emergency events, the first from the suburbs near Denver Colorado that burnt 500+ houses in a night last Christmas, an unprecedented season for fire there. The other 2 are from the 2019-20 catastrophe in Eastern and Southern Australia, one is a pyro CB cloud over a fire in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, and a closer view of burning forest is somewhere in southern NSW.

The invasion of Ukraine is about fossil fuel. Russia has refused to modernise the basis of its economy, as against the military industrial complex. (But in a kleptocracy even that sector is an illusion, and the Red Army is a hollow facade, equally monstrous in its attitude to its own personnel, but no longer effective unless it has utter air superiority). Fossil fuels give their owner power over their customers, creates enormous wealth imbalance and drives geopolitical gangsterism. Generating your own energy - the basis of economic production and wealth - and trading/sharing it in a grid with your peers, reduces some of the imbalance. Social Democracy or oligarchy?

Vladimir Putin thinks Russia is very cold so climate change = good. A profound miscalculation. The Taiga already sees massive fires, and is probably the place, alongside Canada, where we will find out just how huge in area  a pyro cumulus can became in decades to come. The steppe and the forest will move north in a fire driven process, as is already being seen. Bark beetles can survive further north, infest and kill non-resistant tree species.