Off the Kerb is a favourite for street artists exhibiting and the exhibitions that opened last Friday night were very much about street art.
“House of Ghosts” by Barek features both paintings and sculptures of Barek’s whimsical ghosts. A large ghost house model serves as centre-piece for the exhibition, visible from the street through Off the Kerb’s shopfront window. Barek’s ghosts and other characters have a narrative sense but often they seem like the ghost of rabbits frozen in the headlights of the artists vision. Although he has long had a presence on Melbourne’s street’s with his paste-ups Barek is now based in Melbourne after moving from Brisbane.
“Hard Boiled Wonderland & The end of the World” by Akemi Ito and Drasko (who signs his work DB) is an exhibition of stencil art. Akemi Ito looks to Japan for inspiration whereas Drasko looks to America. They also have a different approach to stencil making; Akemi hand-drawn stencils emphasis the line whereas Drasko uses the blocks of colour to create his images. Drasko’s spray painted rubber floor-pieces are both effective and unusual.
“Tinkyville: Land of Folly” by Tinky packs in 30 of her Lilliputian models to one of the upstairs rooms. Her tiny HO scale figures are often oblivious of the larger scale objects that they are set in. The humorous scenes are full of action, their titles adding to the narrative and the joke, like “Sam knew this was going to be his most impressive topiary attempt yet”. Even at this scale Tinky’s work can also be found in Melbourne’s streets; I first saw her work in Presgrave Place.
Mie Nakazawa, Untitled
“Same Same and Different” Mie Nakazawa monoprint line drawn heads; I hesitate to use the word ‘portraits’ because they are all untitled. They looked inspired by the Austrian Expressionist artist, Egon Schiele. Unlike all the other street artists Nakazawa is a Sydney-based contemporary printmaker who has also painted a few murals in Sydney.
There were galleries with exhibitions opening all along Johnston Street on Friday night. There was a group exhibition with work by more of Melbourne’s artists associated with Melbourne’s streets. Be Free, Baby Guerilla, HaHa and Suki amongst almost twenty artists exhibiting at a pop-up exhibition at 178 Johnston Street, as part of the first birthday celebrations for Qbank gallery from Queenstown, Tasmania.
Black Mark 