Blog — Page 119 of 284

Karl Hagemeister - Das Licht, das ewig wechselt

Wienand Verlag

“…das Licht, das ewig wechselt” is a tribute and compendium of Karl Hagemeister’s oeuvre.

Now, chances are that the villages in the German region of Brandenburg, which is where Karl Hagemeister grew up and remained focussed on with his artistic endeavours, is all Greek to you.

However, the impressive way and dedication with which Hagemeister captured and portrayed natural phenomena catapulted him to the forefront to the German impressionist movement, where his position as a luminary remains undisputed until the present day.

With his credo being that you need to surround yourself with the subject matter you are depicting, he did not create his paintings from the removed confines of his atelier but from the midst of nature, in a bid to be deliberately impacted and affected first hand by the same challenging phenomena and adverse conditions he was depicting.

There is a quality to the resulting realism that gets under your skin – literally.

Hagemeister channels his alchemy in a way that eliminates distance and makes movements, seasons and even temperatures palpable, e.g. ripples on water and surfaces; the interplay, projections and impact of light and shadows and the way wind plays with everything in its path.

With immediacy at the core at any given point, Hagemeister’s approach is clearly informed by the endeavour to break down barriers instead of elevating art into abstract academic spheres. An approach that is further cemented by his connection to his natural habitat, which he ever really left.

As the title of this tome suggests, i.e. what roughly translated to “…the ever changing light”, the paintings depicted show nuances at a level that do not only please aesthetically but make one reassess and revisit how one perceives natural phenomena and how they impact one’s outlook on life.

The Triffids

Fremantle Press

Vagabond Holes: David McComb & The Triffids

Despite having left a legacy of fantastic music and an album that should not be missing from the record collection of anyone remotely into independent music (my entry point recommendation would be the classic  “Born Sandy Devotional” album), the reverberations of which can still be felt on terra australis, the Western Australian post-punk band The Triffids are not exactly a household name.

However, aficionados can be found around the world, especially amongst acclaimed musicians of which quite a few contributed to this tribute in literary form, many of which are esteemed luminaries from the realm of Australian independent music and if you are not familiar with some of the names, this book can serve as the ideal trigger for a journey down the rabbit hole of Australian musical greatness. Needless to say that big ticket names such as Steve Kilbey and Nick Cave are there as well to contribute to-the-point elaborations on their appreciation for The Triffids.

Eye candy is delivered courtesy of Sean Dower along with photographic depictions and poetic writings and fiction, which round out this book and tackles the sujet nicely from different and up until now unexplored angles.

The book is not a chronologically narrated biography but essentially a printed shrine for Triffids fans and the uninitiated those who would like to be inducted through an elegant compendium to a band that captured the context and DNA of their time of existence in Australia like no other.

With the loving and gritty recollections of fellow artists on one hand and borderline academical essays on the, Vagabond Holes manages not only to catapult you back to the times of a band that was led by their enigmatic front man David McComb and his undeniable talent but also portrays his uncompromising commitment to his art.

Beautiful Waste

Having left an evocative catalogue of music after his untimely departure in 1999, part of David McComb’s artistic appeal was his lyricism and poetry that dealt with addiction as well as the mundane and metaphysical in equal measure.

Beautiful Waste is a collection of his literary emissions during his most productive era, i.e. his Twenties and Thirties, when The Triffids were at the height of their career and in essence, a complementing volume to Vagabond Holes.

Given that it is the first time that McComb’s poetry is published, ordering it alongside Vagabond Holes should be mandatory as it lends both depth and perspective to what drove and concerned the creative force behind The Triffids.

Water of Life - Kings Cross Distillery

It was about high time for Sydney to have its own locally grown gin distillery and since July this year. While Australia has a myriad of gin distillers, up until July this year there was a King Cross Distillery shaped hole, i.e. a dire need for a local hoochery that not only honours the tradition and DNE of what has become known as Australian gin making but is also paired with a stylish watering hole.

Kings Cross’ might still be known as being Sydney’s red-light district, however, it has not exactly been a prime go-to nighttime spot over the last couple of year.

In essence, Kings Cross Distillery draws its inspiration from a decade that ultimately culminated in WW II, i.e. the age of the “blue ruin”, the Thirties, which due to the prohibition was a time period that became a hotbed for the creation of clear distilled grain spirit infused with botanicals.

While traditions and original recipes are honoured, Odelia Potts, the lady behind KCD, channels her alchemy in an idiosyncratic was as she employs the single shot method, refined by the utilisation of her two hundred litre still. Apart from the staple botanicals, i.e. juniper beans, cardamom and coriander, a local Australian twist is added via the infusion of extract from local myrtles.

What best materialises mixed with dried lemon peel and tonic water is a devil’s left hand that beautifully meanders between citrussy, treacly floral and subtly spicy coordinates.

With gin not normally being my first poison of choice, I found KCD’s first emission immensely enjoyable, even while sipping it on its own and it made me curious about their physical incarnation, which is fabled to be housed in what apparently still emanated the charm of hybrid of a den of vice and an ex-adult book store. Talk about authenticity and paying homage to the illustrious history of its location.

Once COVID-19 restrictions lifted, a visit shall become mandatory as I will not only have to inspect their personalised gin lockers have but word around the campfire has that Kings Cross Distillery will apart from proffering its own vapour infused creations also have a well-curated premium selection of whiskies alongside of Australian and international spirits on offer.

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image from company website

Thus Let Us Drink Beer – The Velvet Sledgehammer

If Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art – MONA is not of your bucket list of places to visit, we cannot be friends. Opened at the beginning of 2011, October of the same year saw my first visit and a love affair that has seen me return at least once a year as operations evolved, blossomed and branched out in a range of wonderful directions, with the core of its bars, cafés,  restaurants, and accommodation, winery, cellar door and cemetery only being a few of them.

The inception of Moo Brew predates the museum and is an endeavour to create beer reminiscent of what David Walsh, the man behind MONA, found during his travels overseas. So, he built a brewery. Logical, right? Easy.

Not unlike everything that emanated around MONA, be it festivals or otherwise, the brewery became quickly Tasmania’s largest craft beer brewery and accumulated accolades internationally with kicked into overdrive when head brewer is Jack Viney took the reins to further refine the brewing process under the watchful eye of former head brewer Dave Macgill.

Now, one thing to look forward to every year during Australia’s winter is the annual emergence of Moo Brew’s legendary stout.

Truth be told, I am not much of a stout aficionado – too rich, too heavy and I prefer IPAs to complement boilermakers with heavily peated water of life.

However, as with nearly every of Moo Brew’s idiosyncratic emissions, it proved difficult to subdue smacking my lips once the “Velvet Sledgehammer” tickled the top of my mouth.

With Viney channelling his alchemy, it is everything one would expect from a well-made stout, i.e. it is dominated by syrup and roasted maltiness along with a higher ABV content, yet it is more delicate and much more drinkable than any other stout I’ve had so far. Velvety indeed with enough punch to justify the allusion to the sledgehammer.

Given that it will disappear in September, it is not further wondrous that beer lovers make a run for it and stack up on time, making it a coveted brew.

MONA is heavy on curated branding. There are not coincidences with what you will see emerge from the museum. A lot of thought has gone into every aspect and Moo Brew is not exception with its art making a statement as well.

Leigh Carmichael, now Creative Director of Dark Mofo, forged the idea to use John Kelly’s iconic series of paintings, which started off as a deliberate affront again the Australia Council for the Arts in a bid to counteract the commercialisation of art.

While the beer labels might look simple in nature at first sight, the different interpretations and embedding of the sun and kangaroo within different contexts, one of them being a reimagination paired with art from Sidney Nolan, makes it the perfect eye candy to adorn the Moo Brew cans and it elevates the drinking pleasure quite a bit.

Apart from the recently launched Club – which much to my annoyance sells out its limited-edition emissions within days, Moo Brew has an overly stylish merchandise collection which manages to strike a near perfect calibration between being striking and subtlety.

Jeremy Kirwan-Ward: You Can See It From Here

Fremantle Press

One of the qualities of art is to offer to grind a new lens and the opportunity to transform and change viewpoints, which can result in one recalibrating one’s outlook. With Australia’s unique rugged landscape, there are a myriad of a spectacular phenomena to be experienced, be it on the surface of the ocean, the bush or in sunburnt territory, specifically in the Western part.

Jeremy Kirwan-Ward is a master when it comes to depicting ever unfolding and reforming shapes and enhancing the experience by using reflective colours that help to illuminate nuances such as the change of winds or microscopic dots of light or the rhythm of the sea.

If I was to pinpoint what Kirwan-Ward channels his alchemy in, I’d describe it as the ability to highlight a separation of his art from the real world while shedding light on the underlying processes of its layered creation and and by that, juxtaposing shifts and continuous movement with stasis.

Mesmerising and intent on reassessing the art of looking as contrasts and counterbalances are amplified to then suggest that perception is in the eye of the individual beholder.

This beautiful tome comprises the five-decade long career of an Australian artist that due to being located in one of the most remote parts of the world, is not widely known.

With a depiction of over one hundred of Jeremy’s painting and framed by compelling essays, Kirwan-Ward’s oeuvre is contextualized in the canon of not only the local Western Australian, but also the national and international context.