A Second Round of Art Exhibitions

Hello again and believe it or not, we're approaching the end of the year of 2025.

On my end, many things happened even when it's tough and good but overall, it's been a better year than previously. And still, my journey to become a legitimate artist persists.

Let's start off in February.

In February, SECAN kicked off this year with their first Affordable Arts exhibition. The whole idea is members such as myself exhibit our artworks we can sell with the maximum price of $100 AUD. There, I have displayed my drawing titled An Aussie Dimetrodon and my old Bored Face painting. But sadly, none were sold.

Regarding An Aussie Dimetrodon, this spurred my unique subject matter. That happened earlier as we're under the course of winter, I see people complaining about cold and miserable weather being winter. With the idea of featuring a Dimetrodon, I know for the fact they're prehistoric reptiles before the age of dinosaurs and being reptiles meant they're cold-blooded creatures. And that means the rely on the sun and warm weather to function well.

Compared to us humans, we being mammals are warm-blooded and our bodies maintain constant temperatures through winter and summer. At least the Dimetrodon when they were living had dorsal sails to help warm their bodies up using the sun.

And this leaves the irony how Australians whinge about weather; complaining how cold and wet winters get but come on. This is how our planet Earth functions. It spins on an axis. Both the northern and southern hemispheres have summers and winters and vice versa. Anyway, let's just finish this off. I've completed the rest of this picture with the Akubra hat and an Australian flag to team with the theme. And there you have it.

Next, there's another art show but outside SECAN.

My second round of displaying my artworks is at the Cardinia Art Show and that came about towards the end of last year, there's the expression of interest participating for this upcoming show until May when I've submitted 2 of my own. 

This was the first time I've been able to display this big drawing I've titled Ford Symmetry out in the public. The car is basically based on an EA series Ford Falcon sedan with the running gear intact whereas the rest of the body is the cross section. In the time when Australia when they produced Ford Falcons and Holden Commodores being big thrifty rear wheel drive family cars ruled our roads until utes, SUVs and some smaller cars became attractive making our domestic cars overshadowed towards oblivion. But this is a good reference of our culture in Australia.

My second artwork I have displayed is this little painting titled Kakuru Head. If anyone thinks this is a dinosaur, they're correct. This displays my lifelong fascination of dinosaurs since I was a boy. The pain for paleontologists has always been there are no complete skeletons of fossilised dinosaurs but the best thing they can do is to make educated guesses until more bones are discovered. And to sum it up, paleontology has been going on for hundreds of years.

With the Kakuru, the main bit of fossil remains is a leg bone that is apparently opalised. What paleontologists can figure out along with some dino nerds are that Kakuru are small predatory dinosaurs that roamed the Earth in where is now South Australia. I have interpreted the Kakuru as a troodontid dinosaur; small, slender and the largest brain-body mass index indicating how intelligent they are before they became extinct.

I have decided to feature this image of a Troodon as a reference. Extra things worth mentioning their fossil remains have been discovered mainly in Canada. And in the Cretaceous period when the climate is cooler and winter has started, this is when life with dinosaurs became more intriguing. With evidence of dinosaurs featuring feathers, that helps keep them warm and with larger optic lobes in their brains, that helps with their visions when winter nights are very long. Still needing to understand more? Here's another piece.

What you're seeing is the map of the Earth during the Cretaceous period. All of the continents in the present time are drifting out and within both the north and south pole, this is where the polar caps developed and you'll see how dinosaurs in those regions evolved to adapt including the Troodons in cold, dark winter nights that have prevailed.

And back to the Kakuru being an Australian dinosaur, you'll notice that Australia is attached to Antarctica and you'll get the idea what winters were like back then. And these are my educated guesses from those connections. These are the insights I have opened up in my years of doing art.

Sadly, there won't be any more dinosaurs as we'll go further.

We're back at SECAN in June. There, we've done the group exhibition called Imagine and our intention is to create artworks inspired by songs done by the Beatles. The canvases had to be the exact size of 60 by 60 centimetres (24 inches approximately). My work is my collage of strawberries referencing Strawberry Fields. Once I've obtained the canvas, I have painted the background using black acrylic paint and then with sheets of red and green cardboard, I cut them into shapes to create the strawberries. And this is how it is.

At the opening day, I have invited my parents and my uncle leaving them impressed after. Another task for visitors is to write down what Beatles songs the artworks reference. Why? SECAN have brought their rule to not mention the titles of the artworks displayed not even bringing out catalogues like other exhibitions. And then, here's the promising and exciting piece worth bearing in mind.

Since the end of the exhibition, 5 of the artworks have sold within that month. Next up is the Who Are You? exhibition.

From there, this exhibition is basically more portraits. This one of mine titled The Unmerciful Lowe has been given an honour hence why it's been placed on this particular section of the wall. Despite being called The Unmerciful Mr Lowe on the catalogue, I was surprised when the president of the arts hub mentioned to me regarding the painting. And that's how my latest portfolio of paintings, this one included emphasises this subject matter of conveying messages ordinary people wouldn't notice. And still in this month and meanwhile, I've been working on a little painting. Here it goes.

Earlier when SECAN had their swap sell, I bought this canvas board with the frame and as time went under uncertain bits I'm under, I have decided to initiate this project as a tribute to Fatman Scoop who's recently deceased.

Whilst this is a work in progress, it's been displayed along with The Unmerciful Lowe.

Towards the end of the year, my participation at the Noble Park Art Show and SECAN's Challenges exhibition will be my second time.

I'm at the second participation in the Noble Park Art and aside from displaying my Ford Symmetry drawing and my Strawberries collage artwork, I have displayed different subject matters including my drawing titled The Notorious Big Bass. This is more neurotypical as I'm currently on the autism spectrum. The Notorious Big Bass is a quirky hybrid which I came up with mashing the largemouth bass and the long deceased rapper The Notorious BIG.

The fourth artwork I have submitted is the second painting I've displayed from my portfolio of paintings titled Oppression Against Individuality. The message that conveys is the idea of not being accepted for being different and unique marking how conservative societies get.

And finally, we now reach my second participation at SECAN's challenges exhibition.

To recap if anyone's new to seeing my blog and/or to remind. Challenges exhibitions at SECAN are run every December with the whole idea for us to initiate art projects following each word given every month we meet up. In this section, a few of these artworks are under Shadows. The black and white painting with the big shadow is mine titled Just a Shadow marking the third and last of my portfolio paintings to be displayed for this year. But I'm not going to end here because I have opened up something completely new, for me anyway.

The word 3D Paper will be my biggest highlight for the year. I took the challenge using pieces of cardboard boxes particularly from cereal boxes to cut them up and in the end managed to come up with these horned dinosaur heads which are of the Styracosaurus and the famous Triceratops. Not only they look impressive, this opens up the ideology on recycling especially making artworks and other products from waste materials.

Before we wrap up, I like to mention a few bits.

During the course of this year, I've been doing a series of drawings. Going along the line with The Notorious Big Bass and An Aussie Dimetrodon, I drew this picture of the crash test kangaroo. The reason I came up with this idea came at the moment when I hit a kangaroo on my way to work. Despite being freaked out fearing I've killed the kangaroo, it astonishingly got up and hopped away. For my car, it didn't suffer a great deal of damage and it's a blessing that my car has ABS (anti-lock braking system).

I've been thinking of the possibility of selling my artworks as products like posters, prints, cards and even assembly kits for the horned dinosaur heads but more on that later.

There are also times artists will need to offload their artworks or they'll get cluttered up. I've managed to do so when I have given away this painting of mine titled The Passion of Rear Wheel Drive to a work colleague of mine named Cody who got his driver's license along with his first car.

The second artwork to my surprise has been sold and that is the Strawberries collage artwork sold at the Noble Park Art Show for $60 AUD.

After being displayed twice this year, it's been a great privilege to take up this project which is as I speak someone elses.

I took the time on Sunday when the art show wraps up before participants pick up their artworks to have one last look at this picture before it gets picked up by whoever bought it to be hung on a wall in their house. From 4 artworks I have submitted, I ended up taking 3 for a change.

I've also been getting to know other artists as well and who not only participate at SECAN but the Noble Park Art Show and the Cardinia Art Show.

Along with Kalina and Criss who are currently SECAN members, there's another emerging artist who's named Warda. This is one of her paintings and no doubt this is mesmerising. I first met her at the Cardinia Art Show after seeing her paintings displayed and it's been a good experience worth opening up hopefully more communities will take note. To sum it up, art has been a great privilege to start again and with bigger and better intentions. Even staff members at the Doveton Repco store where I work expressed keenness.

But as usual with life, things aren't straightforward. Although there is a proud purchase and acquisition worth sharing.

I bought myself the Mechpro foldable trolley to help myself transport the artworks for the Noble Park Art Show and as you can see in this photo, this is one handy piece of equipment I proudly own along with one comment from another participant at the time we're all picking up our artworks which he mentioned I could start a trend.

And that's all for this year and like everything else including art, it all shall continue on. Have a merry Christmas and I shall all see you next time!