EXTENDED VISION – PRESS RELEASE (Fringe Booklet)
‘New Epoch Art’ is a composed art form using a language for painting. Sets of paintings are written as scores using a unique visual notation system – New Epoch Art (NEA) language. Other artists can then interpret and perform the score either by themselves or in a collaborative fashion… and create new works.
The NEA language, like musical notation, can be read but must be interpreted in order for the artwork to come alive.
The symbols and lines are simple and repeated – embodying what the composer feels is essential to a subject – but the visual rhythms of this Thematic Orchestration never repeat themselves exactly. Each rendering of the score is also different, just as no two performances of a concerto will ever be the same.
The idea of performance, of a universal painting language, the theory of music and the importance of interpretation are themes of this exhibit, but the subject matter varies from Nursery Rhymes to bushfires. Each of the artists has focused on what has been closest in their own lives over the past few years.
The gallery walls will show solo works by each member of Extended Vision, Baden Johnson, Euan Graham and Philip Graham as well as collaborative works: scores written in a tag team fashion and displayed to emphasise the interpretive nature of the language.
If you are 5 or 85, you can participate in New Epoch Art performances. At the opening night, a demonstration of notation painting will be given and the audience is invited to participate.
My paintings from this exhibition were largely derived from childhood fables, songs and bedtime stories, as my main topic had been “fatherhood Feelings” since starting a family in 2005. My preoccupation with children’s toys and the rhythm of play had seen a large collection of paintings and drawings accumulate, and it was quite natural for this to then lead into a notated form. Scores were written for many of these works though some are missing on account of successive relocations.
“Drum Major” and “Sleeping Beauty” Acrylic on canvas 45 x 45 cm
“Hickety Pickety” and “Hey Diddle Diddle” both Acrylic on canvas
“Silver Bells and Cockle Shells” 2009 Acrylic on canvas
“All the Kings Horses” Mixed media on paper 2009
“Round and Round The Garden” 2009 Acrylic on Canvas
Baden Johnson “Fire Line” 2009 Acrylic on canvas
Baden Johnson “Rejuvenation” 2009 Acrylic on canvas
Exhibition and Performance at Gas Works Arts Park 2010
“Pitta Patta Raindrops” 2010 Duet composition by Euan B Graham 2010
“Across The Universe” score by Baden Johnson performed at Gasworks Arts Park as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival 2010.
