Lou Young

[louyoungart]

Kiln-cast lead glass (lost wax technique), ceramic stain colors, ground, sandblasted.

[louyoungart]

Rainey uses the human torso as a sculptural vehicle to address the body and time. He says: “Sometimes I feel like an archaeologist on a dig, and I tap away until an idea is revealed. The sculptures are fragments that were once coherent and complete, until time reduced them.” He often includes references to the history and mythology of Northern Ireland, where he was born, as well as to recent events. The name of the exploded red torso, Omagh, refers to the Omagh bombing, which was carried out in August 1998 by an IRA splinter group. The attack, in which 29 people were killed and more than 200 were injured, was the worst single act of terrorism experienced in Northern Ireland.

[louyoungart]

Janet Laurence

[louyoungart]

Sydney College of the Arts: The Fight for Visual Arts Education

The esteemed university which I attend in the hopes of learning something new, is to be shut down and shoved into a design college, UNSW Art and Design. All of our staff will lose their jobs, with the “Opportunity” to apply to UNSWAD. We will lose our glass working facilities. We will lose the biggest printing press in the southern hemisphere. We will lose our studio spaces, where we settle down to create work. We will lose our studio based practice, and be limited to learning about making instead of actually learning by making. We will lose our student parking, which is surprisingly important, especially for those of us, like myself, whose practice involves making large scale works. This dissolution of SCA represents the attack on arts and culture in general in NSW. The current state government is doing all it can to suck us dry, use our art for money making events like Vivid, where millions of people come out in the freezing cold to engage with our art, and then throw us away.

We are fighting back. We are saying no god damn way, SCA is here to stay. 

If you’re on Facebook, like our campaign page:

https://www.facebook.com/letscastay/

Even if you like and then unsubscribe from the posts it will still help immensely.

Sign our petition:

https://www.change.org/p/vice-chancellor-michael-spence-save-visual-arts-education-at-the-university-of-sydney-no-to-the-closure-of-sca

This is the art world’s most important fight right now. We are standing up for our rights as students. 

[louyoungart]

So I made an Instagram for my art stuff, @lou_young_art, where I’ll be posting all my art works from now on. Here’s a sneak peek of some of my recent work, ‘terrestrial’ 🌿💐🍃  (at Sydney College of the Arts)

[louyoungart]

Sneak peek of my installation! These stickers were screen printed before being stuck onto candles.

[louyoungart]

FX Harsono, Ranjang Hujan (The Raining Bed), 2013, wooden bed, stainless steel, pump machine, water, ceramics, fabric, LED running text, 200 x 250 x 200 cm. Installation view (2016) at Carriageworks for the 20th Biennale of Sydney.

[louyoungart]

The moment of truth: revealing how a lino print went. This is another final work for the semester.

[louyoungart]

Here’s an edition of an etching I did! This will be presented for assessment with my other final works for this semester.

[louyoungart]

Jamie North’s Succession (2016) at Carraigeworks during the Sydney Biennale of 2016.

“Sydney-based artist Jamie North explores the concurrence and conflict between manufactured architectural structures and the biological world, combining the waste products of industry with native Australian plant species to create living sculptural installations. Initially working with photography, North’s interest in native plants and their ability to survive in the most unlikely circumstances led him to experiment with cast concrete and the bi-products of industrial processes, producing poetic sculptures that become miniature landscapes where native plants grow and regenerate, gradually reclaiming seemingly hostile environments”

[louyoungart]

Sand casting demo by our studio tech Marcus. I cast a small babushka, resulting in the above awesome lump of glass. Currently cold working this one to actually look like a babushka.

[louyoungart]

A work in progress. This digital illustration will become a screen print when its done!

[louyoungart]

These cast glass figurines are part of a larger work in progress. 

As part of my glass casting class, we are learning the lost wax process. 

First, a wax object is made. I chose to make a pinkysill mould of a virgin mary figurine, because it fits into the conceptual frame work of my print media installation work. Once you have your wax object, you make a plaster mould of it, and steam out the wax. Then, it is placed in the kiln, and the glass is melted and fired in over a few days, resulting in the above objects! 

I have more being fired currently, and cold working will follow on the two pictured to get rid of extra bits of glass formed by air bubbles in the mould.

More coming soon!

[louyoungart]

Irish illustrator Laura Callaghan’s latest show, Aspirational, “seeks to deconstruct the double-edged sword of online living. Below we caught up with the illustrator to discuss false body positivity, our lives being marketed back to us and the cynicism of positive affirmation.”

“Instagram feeds have become a sea of profound statements used with wild abandon. When these bits of advice or encouragement are applied to real life situations they are useless, the meaningful becomes meaningless. It feeds into a larger issue of our identities being packaged and sold to us, you can just post the ethos you want to subscribe to and let the world know how you feel through someone else's words... Inspirational quotes are a way of saying ‘this is me’, ‘this is what I'm about’ with a quick copy and paste.”

Jokes on Laura though, her illustrative style is super inspiring and I love her use of bright colours!

[louyoungart]

Etching inspo from Grayson Perry’s My Pretty Little Art Career show at the MCA in Sydney. This print was done from two HUGE plates, using various etching processes which I’m busy learning at the moment. Really great textures in this piece and really gr8 jokes

[louyoungart]

My open cast glass work completed! So much fun to make, lots of challenges in the cold working process.

[louyoungart]

Work in progress shots of my first open faced mould. A clay model is made, and then a mould of this model. The first image is the mould after the clay model has been removed. Then, the glass is fired in to the mould, and here is the result! Cold working and polishing follows this, the results of which I will post later this week.