New backing cloth arriving have got some incredible colour, massive compositions and will arrive soon into Gertrude St.
We’ve just returned from a lengthy trip to the coast to collect native plant samples, Flowering Tea-tree, Leptospermum laevigatum, and Yellow Coastal Baksia for a complex building set in a botanical wonderland.
Above image shows the making of a direct exposure screen. Our new and very fresh backing cloths have captured the first prints ( strike offs ) amongst the layers of projects including the triangle forms from tantric geometry, a throw back to Stewart’s days in Sri Lanka.
Stewart first jobs out of art collage was in Sri lanka, working with the very extraordinary Barbara Sansoni, he had the huge honor of being asked to create a costume for the lead elephant for this most significant ceremonial parade, the Navam Perahera. coming up on the 19th of July.
The regal ‘Raja’ road testing the costume close to the Sansoni studio in Colombo. After half an hour walking the costume adjustments were made and Raja was ready for the real thing. His high cast was indicated by the pronounced bumps on his head, that coused problems for the sewing team. . On the night he carried a silver casket with holy Buddhist relics on his back.
The joy of backing cloth paintings, a wonderful mixture of references, collaborations and trials – endless variations of composition and palette.
amazing mix of asian and european influences, very modern, makes sense but wasn’t how imagined Australia – I want to be part of your new world !