. CH: Todd, you won the Lloyd Rees Memorial Youth Art Award Prize back in 2009, how did the prize money help support your art practice?
TF: Not long after winning this award I was notified that I was the recipient of the Storrier/Onslow residency to the Cite Des Arts in Paris through Friends of the National Art School and the National Art School. With this in mind I invested the money and then used it to help pay for some of the expenses associated with the residency. Strangely Paris was cheaper than Sydney so the prize money went quite a long way. It helped pay for short trips to London as well as new animation and drawing equipment that I used while working throughout my time at the cite`. I also found books in Europe to be wonderfully affordable so it has helped me establish a useful reference library full of literature and artists that I have brought back to my studio in Sydney.
2. CH: The art work that won this Award was the animated drawing Watt Art? With Permission and I noticed that you have made a number of other animated drawings since, can you tell us a little about your process and what the animation means to your work?
TF: I think that cartoons have had a large impact on not only me, but my generation of young artists. In the nineties there was a morning ritual in which animation and cartoons accompanied the morning breakfast routine, they were engrained in our daily life. When I was young I was always doodling these cartoon characters, who are essentially moving drawings, later in life I worked in cartooning so it seemed logical that I should attempt to make my drawings (within my fine art context) move. I also spent a great deal of my teenage years studying dance so with this in mind it is a wonder my drawings were not moving sooner.
When I worked in cartooning I would draw on stage in front of crowds of children, once you use nothing but a few lines on a page to silence a room full of kids you realise the sheer power of drawing. Some people think about drawing as a secondary act which supports other disciplines such as painting and sculpture but for me drawing is the core to everything!
This is why I love animation, it is a celebration of the magic of drawing. It is a process in which every single mark is savored and given due attention, it is not just about the static resolved result but rather the entire process and journey. Animation allows every mark, mistake, realisation and moment to be given some attention. When I animate, I photograph every single action, every line of charcoal, splash of ink or stroke of paint and every scrape of the eraser is recorded. It takes a great deal of time and an intense dedication to the process. It is almost a ritualistic dance back and fourth between the canvas and the camera in which looking and re looking helps the drawing rapidly progress. Once I have a series of photos they are then sequenced and edited to fill a block of time which ultimately becomes a film.
My early animations were about exploring drawing and then I moved onto using it to tell stories. I try and use animation to develop a narrative without concealing the marvel that is drawing. Drawing remains the silent star of the stories I weave. Even when I sculpt it is derived from the logic of observational life drawing. I think this is why I think of animation and drawing as the ultimate story teller.
3. Winning the Storrier/Onslow residency to the Cite Des Arts in Paris from the Friends of the National Art School & NAS must have been amazing. What did you work on over there and how do you think Paris impacted on you art work?
Months after returning I am still processing the amazing experience and wonderful people I met in Paris. I learnt so much about myself as a person and as an artist and I really struggle to articulate the extent of my gratitude and personal growth while in Europe. I did not treat the experience as a holiday and adopted a disciplined approach to the time and tried to do all that I could. That said there was so much to do and see that it is really impossible to do it all. Paris allowed me access to the old and the new of the art world. I would draw from the masters but also experience the latest and greatest of the contemporary commercial art world. I added poses, techniques and characters to my repertoire.
One of the biggest impacts has been on my career, this period showed me how small the world truly is, especially the art world! It gave me access to information and opportunities as well as the confidence to begin showing my work elsewhere in the world. As a result I have recently been included in group shows in England and America. Traveling made me question my work and how it sits in an international context, it also made me more aware of the Australian context from which I make my work.
4. You are involved in a number of curatorial projects, like Sculpture in the Vineyards and now a new project with the Cessnock Regional Gallery. Can you tell us about these projects and what you find interesting about the curatorial process.
I believe engaging in as many aspects of the industry as possible and that each has something to teach. I love to write and I also work as an educator while curating and of course art making. Each of these processes continues to strengthen my artist practice as well as each another. I really love the Hunter Valley and Newcastle, they are where I grew up and I love the diversity and strength of work taking place up there.
Cessnock Regional Gallery is a very unique institution which offers the Cessnock community access to some wonderful art and artists. The Gallery is relatively new so it offers this area access to something which I did not necessarily have when I was growing up there. With this in mind I am delighted to be apart of the CRAG team. I feel like I am making a difference and look forward to continuing my work through the recently awarded Sidney Myer Curatorial initiative mentorship program, which was administered by NAVA. The show we are currently developing will open in August and is focused on our regions mining heritage. It will bring together contemporary art and historical artifacts. It is exciting to be exploring our history in detail and we hope to present an exhibition which will really instill some pride in our regions fascinating history.
Sculpture in the Vineyards is a completely different endeavor and one which I am blessed to be apart of. I am joining an amazing team and am already learning a great deal from my colleagues. This particular sculpture prize is one of my favorites and I think it offers some unique opportunities for sculptors. The outdoor exhibition is three months in duration and spread across an array of breath taking sites in Wollombi. I really encourage any aspiring sculptor to check our the competition at http://www.sculptureinthevineyards.com.au/ .
I love the curatorial process for a variety of reasons. Coming to curating from an art making background puts me in a good position to empathise with the artist I work with to help ensure that their work is shown in the best possible manner. I am only twenty two but I love the places that curating is taking me and the people I get to meet. It is great to step out of my own way of thinking to work with other artists to try and give strength to what they are saying or doing. I am still quite new to curating and am more than aware that I have a great deal to learn, but am excited about the projects I have ahead of me.
5. Your last exhibition with the Brenda May Gallery was a group show of figurative sculptures, featuring men in bunny suits, made from terracotta, ink, wood, acrylic and astro turf, can you tell us what inspired this work and what are you planning next?
My work and the stories it tells are currently concerned with masculinity but there is a lot more going on in them than this. I have an ensemble of characters which have been developing over the last few years. I utilise the characters in different ways to convey a variety of meanings but I am always aiming to evoke humour, pity, speculation and contemplation. I have a pair of lovers named Billy and Elliot who are a coal miner and a ballet dancer, they are both large, bald and round. There is also a tin robot, a petrified bather, the fallen angels and of course my men in bunny suits. I let my imagination go wild with their narratives, and over time their tales are getting more layered and are exposing more and more of my own personal story and personality. Some of these pieces are choreographed to offer thoughtful moments of contemplation while others are designed to provoke a deep belly chuckle or evoke a sense of theatrical drama.
The men in bunny suits come from an animation titled 'burrow' (feel free to check it out at www.brendamaygallery.com.au), it is a bizarre story about a man who finds comfort in a bunny suit after losing a partner who also happened to wear the bunny suit. The bunny suit is flamboyant and obvious but innocent guise which alludes the to softer more tender sides to these very male plump characters. However the suit is only worn in private, in the mans room or in a park late at night when he dares to sneak out. I have taken this bunny suit motif a step further and begun flocking my ceramics so that their suits surfaces are actually soft and sensual.
From this particular animation evolved an on going narrative about difference and belonging. A fat bald man continually emerges who wears the bunny suit in defiance of the nine to five practical world. He finds others like him but even when paired on in a group of fat men in bunny suits, he finds himself very alone. This character somehow locates a friend and together they brace themselves against the world. This was the preface to the 'together' sculpture from 'sculpture 2011' at Brenda May Gallery.
As for What is next.....
There are plenty more characters waiting in the wings but they won't emerge until they are good and ready.
The most important thing I am currently planning is my next exhibition with Brenda May Gallery. It will be my first solo show with the gallery so it is shaping up to be extremely exciting. The show will include animation, drawing and sculpture as well as some integrations of the three mediums. I have designed the exhibition like a good soapie, it has characters you will love and others you will love to hate, twists and turns, moments of hope and others of intense personal struggles, drama and suspense and at the end a cliff hanger that will leave you wanting more....I hope.
This exhibition will be open to the public from the 2nd of August while drinks with the artist will be on Saturday August 6th.
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