Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

In 2012, our wonderful friends Roz and John gave us a great gift. They introduced us to the world of contemporary art.

From that first visit to Carriageworks, I was hooked. Now, four years later, Pete and I are members of the MCA and we make a concerted effort to get to as many local exhibitions as we can.

In Sydney, we’re truly blessed to have access to the White Rabbit Gallery, a privately funded space housing the extensive contemporary Chinese art collection of Kerr and Judith Nielson. Entry is free and the entire gallery is re-hung twice a year.

Their current exhibition is titled Heavy Artillery and I personally think it’s the best one I’ve been to so far. I’m a great fan of large works, and White Rabbit have really pulled out the big guns this time. Let me share a few of my favourite pieces with you…

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This enormous creation – European Thousand-Armed Classical Sculpture by Xu Zhen (2013 – 2014) – is a carefully positioned line of classically Western sculptures. When viewed from front on, they cleverly resemble the multi-armed Buddhist deity Guanyin…

The artwork is enormous, filling up the entire lower ground display area. I took this photo from the first floor balcony…

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Chou Chu-Wang has five paintings hanging in the exhibition. This is just a small section of The Hours (2015). When you see the painting initially, it’s hard to believe that it’s a) two dimensional and b) not a photograph. Instead, almost unbelievably, it’s meticulously hand painted.  The artist creates his works with minuscule paint flecks – around 350,000 dots per square metre…

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He Xiangyu’s Tank Project (2011 – 2013) is a recreation of an old T34 tank in Italian leather. Sitting like a giant collapsed handbag on the top floor of the gallery, it invokes memories of Tiananmen Square while making a statement about China’s obsession with expensive designer goods.

One interesting thing to note is how brilliant the curatorial decisions made by the White Rabbit Gallery are in terms of display. Apparently the artist was delighted with how Tank Project was exhibited – on a black vinyl floor (note the amazing reflections) with black rusty painted walls…

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Hsu Yung-Hsu’s 2011-27 (2011) is an interesting and substantial porcelain creation. The entire work was handmade by the artist…

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Shinji Ohmaki is a rare Japanese artist in the White Rabbit collection. His Flotage-Tectonics (2013 – 2015) comprises 283 acrylic cubes, assembled to create a floating wall with meticulously copied map contour lines. The artists reflects on what the earth’s memory might look like. Because of the translucency of the acrylic and the design, the lines and patterns appear to interact with each other as the viewer moves past them – something which is impossible to capture in a still photograph. It’s definitely an artwork to view in person if at all possible…

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Liu Wei’s Density 1-6 (2013) is glorious! He has recreated 3D geometric shapes on a gigantic scale – these appear to be made from concrete or stone but are actually created from compressed paper taken from used textbooks. I found the display very soothing…

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Finally, a very poignant set of  fourteen prints by Jiang Zhi.

Love Letters (2014) is a tribute to the artist’s wife Lan (Orchid) who died at 37. Each is a photo of a flower set alight and captured in that brief instant during which both the flower and flame are “in bloom”. I found them hauntingly beautiful, as if the burning flowers were on the verge of ascending through the flames to a higher plane…

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This is just a small snippet of the Heavy Artillery exhibition at the White Rabbit Gallery. The artworks are so substantial that it’s hard to do them justice in photos – if you’re based in Sydney and enjoy contemporary art, it’s definitely worth a visit in person!

White Rabbit Gallery
30 Balfour Street
Chippendale NSW 2008

Heavy Artillery is open 10am to 5pm, Wed-Sun.
The exhibition runs until 7 August 2016

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It’s been a funny old week.

They’ve been a couple of difficult moments, punctuated as always by lots of laughter. Let me share some of the good bits with you…

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No matter what else is happening, I try to make a point of beginning each day with a mindful ten minutes, sipping hot chocolate from my Steve Sheridan tea bowl and studying the rising sun as it paints patterns on my dining room wall…

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My cousin Dilys needed to return an item to Costco, and while we were there, we encountered these giant 8′ bears. They were $290 each and there was no chance of fitting one into Dilys’ Honda Jazz…

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I caught up with girlfriends for lunch at Bistro Cocotte – lovely Jay saved a calf liver plat du jour for me…

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A 40th reunion of our year 6 class is being planned…(edit: in the end, we found everyone!)

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I had a perfect decaf piccolo at Coffee Alchemy in Marrickville. A blissful 15 minute break in a hectic week…

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Whilst I was in Marrickville, I stopped by the Black Forest Smokehouse and bought this bag of fresh chorizos. It’s a brand new product they’re developing for a retail customer (who has ordered 9,000 kilos!). The sausages are raw rather than smoked, and the flavour profile is slightly different to their regular chorizos…

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After years of reading about American half sheet pans, I was quite excited to discover them at Costco for just $10 each. I brought home a pack of two, and promptly decided to attempt a “sheet pan dinner” – I cut up a whole chook and combined it with potato slices, chopped tomatoes, garden zucchini and pieces of the fresh chorizo. After seasoning and tossing in olive oil, the pan was popped into the oven to roast…

It was delicious and sooo easy! I think I’m going to enjoy these sheet pans…

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We managed to catch the El Anatsui Five Decades installation at Carriageworks just before it closed. The renowned Ghanian sculptor creates large scale pieces from recycled aluminium and copper wire. This huge piece – titled Drainpipe – was made using the bottoms of tin cans…

Awakened uses flattened aluminium bottle caps (the screw on variety), “sewn” together with wire. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, most of these pieces are worth millions of dollars, so it was a great privilege to be able to see them for free as part of the Sydney Festival…

Finally, a video of the ethereal Womb of Time, which uses the same bottle caps as above, only with their silver sides out…

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Wishing you all a happy start to the new week! ♥

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Sometimes, when we’re a bit out of sorts, it’s easy to forget that life is actually hilarious. Here are a few things that have made me laugh this week…

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My gorgeous neighbour Emmeline attempted the Focaccia Tutorial for 23 Year Olds a few days ago. She came up the road and picked up bakers flour and yeast, and then made this vegetarian version with olives, baked ricotta and sundried tomatoes when she came home from work. She was so excited that she couldn’t wait for it to cool before cutting, and I was so excited that I met her on the footpath at 10pm (in our pyjamas) to taste it. As Emm pointed out, we looked like we were doing a drug deal. Luckily the neighbours all know that we’re bonkers!

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Small Man, who was born hilarious, has started uni. He’s studying linguistics, and has just had his first week of lectures. Mad boy that he is, he took himself off to Orientation Week, got sunburnt and attended just one advisory seminar – “Managing your Student Finances” (sigh).

He then came home and announced that it was too expensive for him to buy lunch at university and that he needed to take lunch from home. Which is why he too has now learnt to make his own focaccia (with black olives and cheese). Proving that the tutorial for 23 year olds works just as well for a 19 year old.

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I’ve been getting…um..hot, and have decided to embrace my old Asian woman-ness by carrying a folding fan in my handbag at all times. My mum thought this was terribly amusing and bought me a stack from her local Chinese emporium (they’re only a few dollars each) so that I could hand them out to my equally old, getting hot, girlfriends. Carol texted to say, “please thank your mum for my menopausal fan”.

Honestly, middle age hormones are the funniest things, when they’re not inducing rage and making you want to punch people out.

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Monkey Girl brought over these ridiculously hot instant noodles. Apparently there is some sort of internet challenge to eat an entire packet. Anyone with half a brain would have given it a miss – Korean food is already blistering hot, so any Korean product that has “extremely spicy” and a photo of flames on the packaging is going to be scorching.

I’m proud to say I made it through the entire bowl! Of course, this was followed by Zantac, bad stomach cramps and unpleasant toileting the following day. I might not be able to keep up with the kids at sport, but eating is my speciality.

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Sometimes my kitchen creativity gets a little out of hand (we don’t mention the Apricot Lamb Incident). A couple of days ago, I decided to make a quick dinner out of all the leftovers – so I cut the crust off my sourdough, sliced it and laid it at the bottom of a baking tray, then topped it with cooked rice, pulled pork from the freezer, a tin of beans, and green beans from the garden. This was baked briefly and then a layer of corn chips, frijoles, chipotle salsa and cheese was added. The whole thing was then baked until crisp and golden.

Small Man sat down to dinner and said, “um…what is this, Mum?”.

“Meat and three carbs, lovely. Enjoy!”

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This sight made me laugh! Uncle Steve (Pete’s brother) has been helping us repair our leaking bathroom. In this photo, Pete is shining a torch as Steve silicones the edge of the tiles. I sent the photo to their sister Penny and said, “this is how big boys play pirates!”.

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My fossil collecting has been picking up speed in the last couple of years. You might remember that I recently purchased several small ammonite pairs to use as pendants. I’ve got  big plans for a couple of them (hopefully I’ll be able to show you soon).

In the meantime I’ve been wearing this one. Uncle Steve drilled a hole for me to wire a bail on, and then Pete epoxied the sterling silver finding on the front. I can’t be trusted with glue (I once ended up in casualty having glued my eye). I love when something new captures my attention and I can allow myself to be immersed in the experience. The fossils have been spread over the dining room table and the magnifying glasses are out!

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Finally, back to bread. Ever since Bonnie inspired me to get more creative with my slashing, I’ve been practising. Pete is, as always, encouraging in his own way. He described the round loaf above as looking like it had been “slashed by a serial killer”.

The weather has been so warm here in Sydney that it’s been playing havoc with my bread baking schedule. Earlier this week, I woke at 2.30am to pee, and noticed that Priscilla (my sourdough starter) was super bubbly and keen to play. So I made up a dough in the middle of the night (without my glasses on), then went back to bed.

The following morning I ambitiously tried to slash a “C” into the middle of the round loaf on the right. My fingers are covered in fine razor cuts and I’m not sure my slashing is improving yet, but I’m having an absolute ball trying. Luckily I have many willing eaters in our neighbourhood. Pete’s comment? “It looks like Inigo Montoya has been practising his slashing on your loaves” (#PrincessBride).

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Wishing you all many happy moments this week!

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