On Thursday afternoon I was walking around looking at galleries and the street art in Richmond and Cremorne. Why not they are just on either side of the Richmond train line. Well, Block Projects is further down Stephenson Street than that but there was some street art to keep me amused along the way.
Block Projects had a great exhibition by Richard Grigg. At first I thought have I walked into an exhibition by a group of intellectually challenged individuals. It looked awkward, stumbling and obvious. “It is a very brave exhibition,” Malcolm, from Block Projects told me. It is indeed; he is letting it all hang out, as they would say in the sixties. Grigg’s unconscious is so close to the surface you can see its periscope, conning tower and the wake
I walk around again to appreciate just how much Grigg’s is pushing himself in all directions. There is the crude, the childlike, the doodle-like, comic book, symbolic, text-based, graphomania, and ultra-fine drawings splashed with other stuff. Grigg’s large pencil drawing on paper are excellent, especially the sleeping crocodile being teased by branches and bladders in “tickle, tickle, I will save you” and the pile of dead animals in “after the flood”. It is all wonderfully surreal in an entirely contemporary way.
Across the railway tracks I wandered the back streets looking for galleries and street art – a few good pieces including this magnificent side of a house by Reka. Finally I found Place Gallery amid the many warehouse conversations.
Reka, house wall Richmond
Place Gallery had an exhibition by Glenn Morgan. There are 8 paintings along with 3 of the wood and tin diorama sculptures that are Morgan’s signature work. Morgan is also letting it all hang out with his art; in his large panoramas he shows the turmoil of everyday life in detail with speech balloons. There is a series telling the personal story of his relationship with his uncle.
Glen Morgan is also exhibiting a series of paintings that tell the story of Victoria’s drought. There is including one great, epic history painting, “Global Warming” that shows drought, bushfires and floods. You don’t get many history paintings anymore; they used to be so popular.
It struck me looking at Glen Morgan exhibition and considering Richard Grigg’s exhibition that Glenn Morgan doesn’t appear to be such an outsider artist anymore. It is not that Morgan’s art has changed the world has caught up with him. On the streets and in the galleries the artists are letting it all hang out.
Black Mark 