Fragments Interview

Well the interview was played on Radio Adelaide on Saturday and if you missed it you can now have a listen online. Head here if you want to hear more about the show, which opens at the Reading Room on Wednesday night this week :) 6pm. I love the name Jennie from Streetcast gave the interview.

A fragment of Time With Ula Blocksage 

Ohhh and here is the listing for the show on the Reading Room blog. 

Hope you can all come along.

Radio Interview, Exhibition, Masters

This year is literally flying past, I have been back in Adelaide now for a time which seems like forever, but let me just say that it has been a good time. With less than 2 months left of my Masters at University the pressure is beginning to set in... however, I feel as though I am doing alright. I had my mid semester assessment yesterday which went well, I also did an interview with the lovely Jennie at Street Cast – Radio Adelaide 101.5FM yesterday afternoon. It was loads of fun... being in a sound proof room, head phones on, mic before me... just like recording music... yet there was no guitar in my lap and I was rambling about my art instead of singing out my memories. I had a brilliant time. The interview will air tomorrow (Saturday) between 12-1.30pm... You can listen to the station on the internet, so if some of you out there are not living in my neck of the woods, you can still tune in. Head here for the official website of Street Cast.



If you live in Adelaide city you may have seen these flyers floating around the place.

Head here to the facebook event for my exhibition ‘Fragments’ which will open at the Reading Room on Hindley Street, Adelaide, 5000 on Wednesday 3rd of October at 6pm. Do pop past and have gander if you fancy looking upon some dreaming, melancholic memories.
Better get going now... I’m off to read some articles on Wet Plate Collodion Printing and New Romanticism.

X Ula

A visit to Richter

Ema (Nude on a Staircase) Ema (Akt auf einer Treppel) 1966

Last week I visited the Tate Modern… I was having one of those days when things just don’t feel right… and when things don’t feel good, I find the best thing to do is to go to a gallery and visit your friends… Degas, Pollock, Picasso and on this particular day… Richter.

Gerhard Richter is an amazing artist, compelling, distinct and at times beautifully contradictory. His diversity as an artist is almost incomparable to that of his contemporaries. He has the ability to produce works, which are gestural yet mechanic, ordered yet expressive. He is an artist that can place multicoloured abstraction alongside monochrome figurative work. He explores perspective and tests the capacity of vision.

My favourites are Richter’s photo paintings. In the 1960’s Richter began to emphasise the materiality of paint by dragging a squeegee or brush across a freshly painted surface to blur the figuration into semi abstraction. By doing this he was also highlighting a photographs ability to capture movement.   

Gerhard Richter Panorama is on at the Tate Modern from the 6^th Oct 2011 – 8^th Jan 2012 – Do check it out, absolutely stunning. 

Just a little self promotion... en français

Here is a little article written about my show in France... Lovely word! There have been talks of another newspaper being interested in interviewing me about my work too... I will keep you posted :) 

Parlez-vous français

Saturday was the opening of my first solo show in Europe. It is being held in the city of Rouen at Le Rêve de l’escalier for the month of October… so if you are in the area please do pop past to say bonjour Michel (the lovely owner) and have a look at the show.

On Saturday Michel informed me that the Paris Normandy Newspaper had heard about my exhibition and was requesting to interview me for the paper. I ofcourse said yes, what an honour. Michel later informed me that Philippe (the journalist) did not speak English… Uh oh… with no translator available aka ma soeur, I went along today with the hope of explaining my artistic practice with my rather basic French vocabulary.

Luckily it turned out that Philippe could speak English so we managed to understand one another very well. He was very impressed with my French… and he said so too, in-between a few chuckles here and there. We had a coffee, (moi un café au lange et il un cafe grandes crème) and talked about photographers, influences, shows, cameras, photographs etc. We then headed back to the space to have another look at the show and so Philippe could take my photograph for the paper eeek!

What a wonderful day!

Now… I'll ask again, parlez-vous français???

Here is my artist statement en français… but if you cheat and use google translate it will ofcourse make no sense… goodluck!

J’ai toujours eu le désir de revenir en arrière, aux grandes époques du passé que me semblent mieux correspondre à ma personnalité et ma mentalité. Depuis mon enfance, le romantisme de ces époques a toujours occupé mon imaginaire. Ma pratique de la photographie me permet de visualiser et d'explorer les sentiments associés au désir, la perte, l’isolation (physique et temporelle) et la mélancolie. Mes travaux sont des métaphores symboliques et des narrations romantiques qui communiquent la beauté, la douleur, le silence et l’immobilité des souvenirs. Ma recherche sur les procédés alternatifs de la photographie, comme les techniques utilisées au 19eme siècle ou le Polaroid, renforce l’influence du passé sur mes œuvres et je l'utilise comme un véhicule pour explorer les rapports sujet/photographe. Il s'agit pour moi d'une relation d’égalité, je vois le sujet au lieu de le regarder comme un objet; je cherche à m’identifier à lui, à le comprendre, le mettre à l’aise. Cela me permet de capturer intuitivement des moments éphémères ou une beauté qui autrement resteraient cachés. Mes œuvres sont des miroirs, des réflexions de la mémoire, des façons de voir.