Interview: Lara Pacillo // Main Photo: Praxis ARTSPACE
Bowden contemporary gallery Praxis ARTSPACE’s current exhibitions feature the work of multidisciplinary artists Michael Carney and Thomas Maguire, both exploring layers and surroundings in their own realm.
We had a chat with both Michael and Tom, unpacking the inspiration behind the pieces, their creative processes, and how art makes others and themselves feel.
Michael Carney: ‘Transhuman nature’
Tell me a bit about your exhibition.
So I’ve been working on this since about December. Conceptually, it’s a little bit all over the place, but it’s kind of like the dark and the light side of nature and pushing them across each other.
What was the inspiration behind it?
A lot of the inspiration comes from the digital world – movies and video games and all these kinds of things that I’m just interested in anyway. It’s my experience of nature and really breaking that down. I’m not very often in nature; I’m seeing it in the woods in a video game, or I see a garden occasionally on my way to the studio, or a forest in a movie. So, it’s just kind of like a suburban tech-obsessed person’s version of nature.
What are the different art forms in this exhibition?
There are all kinds of things I was exploring. There’s projection mapping, I worked with Miles Dunne on that. He’s a wizard with projection stuff. It’s a projection version of a painting essentially. Then there’s faux fur with acrylic paint on it. There are ceramics, 3D printed pieces as well. One I made wearing a headset. You can plot elements of them in VR. It’s mixing all different things and how they can all talk to each other and work together.
How long does it take you to make each piece of art, and what’s your creative process like?
It depends. If I’m lucky, I can do something in about two weeks. Then sometimes it’s a month. It starts out impulsively. It’s just like, “What do I want to paint? What do I want on my wall?”.
With this exhibition, I’d be painting a very bright outdoor scene and then maybe in one section there’s a dark grotto. If the painting starts to read as too positive and too idealistic, then I kind of layer something a bit more uneasy or a bit more sinister.
Then I just keep layering those ideas over and over each other until it’s a little bit of a mismatch of them both. That’s kind of what I’ve done for all of them.
I haven’t really refined the creative process to make it more efficient yet, but a lot of it is planning in Photoshop, collaging, and layering. Some have a completely different painting underneath and I’ve just been layering and layering until I’m happy with it.
What inspired you to become an artist?
I was a graphic designer, and I just really didn’t enjoy it. I came to the realisation that I’m not going to do well unless I love it and I’m in it 100 per cent.
What do you want people to take away when they view your work?
I just like the idea of people being inspired creatively from seeing my shows. I think having contradicting things triggers creativity in people’s minds. So, they can look at a painting, and it seems confusing to them, and that sort of gets your brain in this problem-solving space. So, I just want people to go home and get out the paints and start making their own stuff really.
Do you have any advice for aspiring artists?
I would say just keep making art as much as you can. If you’re an artist making one work every two months — it might take a long time to improve, and people won’t see your work because it’s not getting out there. It’s just about quantity, and you’ll improve as you go. Just make lots of work, look at art, and immerse yourself in it.
Thomas Maguire: ‘BETWEEN WORK AND HOME’
Tell me about your exhibition.
My art varies from looking at lived experiences. This exhibition is about the two places I spend the most of my time at, being home and work — kind of about my work life balance, my suburb, and just everyday driving past the same houses, that sort of thing. Then the more still life works are about everyday objects, what I use at work in conservation, what I eat during the day. It’s going back to that everyday monotony of life.
How long did it take to make the pieces and what’s your creative process like?
With everything together, it took about six months. Everything here, including the boards, I’ve made myself. For individual pieces, the collage ones take longer because there’s a lot more layering. I have to wait for patches to dry and then do a few more marks and so on. It’s taking photographs, making a collage, then repetitively photocopying that, cutting it up, abstracting the original image further and further.
All of these still life ones, none of them would have taken more than half an hour. So, I paint the same thing really, over and over again, repetitively. I’ve got a rule that if I get up from the painting, then it’s done. It’s more so limiting myself so I don’t fiddle around with it too much. It’s kind of like trying to figure out how quickly I can paint that with as few brush strokes as possible.
Then the lightboxes are printed images of photography of the collage pieces. It’s a multidisciplinary practice, bringing a lot of elements together.
How does this exhibition differ from ones in the past?
I’ve moved more towards everyday objects compared to my last few exhibitions, which focused more on food and kitchen kind of stuff. Or even before that, it was more tools or more architecture, and then rural and remote Australia.
What inspired you to become an artist?
I grew up for most of my life in the Clare Valley and used to go to the Mintaro Institute with an artist called Roland Weight who lived in Riverton. He basically taught me how to paint still life. He’s an amazing guy. That’s where I started painting.
I don’t really know why I do it. I suppose I was pretty young back then. After art school, I was like, I’ve painted for more than half of my life, it would be a shame to throw it away. I started making more time for it. Going into my studio and doing a few hours of work – I get the same feeling of like going for a run or something. It’s almost like my brain just shuts off.
What do you want people to take away when they view your work, particularly with this exhibition?
I guess I just want people to smile and have fun, have a bit of nostalgia. Everyone knows a Bunnings sausage.
Do you have any advice for aspiring artists?
Just keep working, don’t stop, even if you’re not working towards something. Just keep painting because that’s something I actually struggle with too if I’m not working towards a show. But I think the most important thing is to keep creating and stay in the art community.
Michael Carney ‘Transhuman Nature’ & Thomas Maguire ‘Between Work and Home’ // Praxis ARTSPACE 68-72 Gibson Street Bowden 5007 // Until May 19
