day thirty one

Night Time is for the Boy Who Can Fly
New Installation by Ashlee Laing; OPENS July 3 6pm; Bus Gallery; 117 Little Lonsdale St Melbourne; runs until July 21

day thirty

Click To Play

heather & i in poland; circa 1997

day twenty nine

Click To Play

Our 86km bike ride over the Easter weekend

day twenty eight

due to the swimming championships here in melbourne and for the government to not be accused of only funding sport; as they "fund" sport and culture; they had a wee arts festival to coincide with the FINA world championships down at birrarung marr behing federation square; i ended up going the day they pulled everything down; not realising it was only on for a weekend; the swimming is on for 10-12 days but the culture is only on for a weekend - hmmmm

anyway was delighted to see a real yayoi kusama in the flesh!






















click yayoi kusama to go to her website

day twenty seven

friday march 30 - sin bin

day twenty six

Some pics of Matina and I on another one of our marathon bike rides. Today saw us depart my place in Thornbury and ride to Werribe (can't spell anyway its a big sewer!) to visit her mum. 54.9km. And have to say over the past 6 weeks I have gone from a c cup to a b cup! Hope i got that right i think b is smaller than c, yeah?

It was a delightful ride. Headed into the city - rested at Fed Sq, watched a really bad performance sponsored by ANZ for the swimming comp on here! Fuck I wish ANZ would stop sponsoring bad public events. Then it was off down southbank on the "bike" path to the westgate bridge where we caught this awesome wee motorised punt that takes peds and bikes across the river so we can ride to Williamstown. 3 bucks what a fucking bargin! Was very fun ended up with wet feet from the waves of the bigger boats splashing onto the punt

On the otherside (approx. 8 mins later) were back on the bikes on another path to Williamstown - once there it was a caffine hit and back on the bikes through the industrial landscape - The beautifully ugly oxymoronic.

After riding fucking miles and with only an entrance to a freeway bound for Geelong we opted to catch a train from Altona to Hoppers Crossing then back on the bikes for another 10mins to Matinas ma's house only to find the bitch NOT home. So then back on the bikes to try and track her down. matina and I ended up having a beer at this pokie club/bar which is part of a fucking shopping centre! freaky is all i can say - anyway rode bake to her ma's house and she was home this was 2 hours after we arrived.

Hung there for while then we had decided to train it all the way home to thornbury which would have been about an hour with s change at flinders st. At yarravile matina starts suggesting that we ride from the city back to mine - as she was feeling like a cheat so i go ok and said well lets get of at kensington or north melb so we dont have to ride through the city - as we are pulling into nth melb we see 3 inspectors ready to board the train - thank fuk we got off as we have expired tickets





















anyway it nearly killed us riding the last leg of the 54k's but am 200 bucks richer!





















check out the name of the street

day twenty five

Things have been hectic; exhibition down; went to port douglas to luella & dylan's wedding; back at work; pottering in studio; bought a bike; swimming in the mornings; the list just goes on and on.

exhibition went well; see entry below; luella's wedding was great fun; although will never understand why peope would want to go on holiday in the tropics let alone live there; so oppressive; was great to catch up with everyone; i love fiona's chris; fantasies of eloping with him at the wedding; hahahahaha;

being back at work sucks; nah it's good; but let's face it would rather be paid to potter around doing my own stuff; sometimes i wonder what it is i am doing there; most of the time i know.

i have managed to hang in my studio over the past few days; its been over a month really since i spent any time there; am working on a new painting; very large; a panel of four; shite thing is only one of the panels is coming along; the rest suck.





















i have also been working on a few submissions; funding; exhibition; i dropped of a proposal/application for the mcclelland sculpture survey and award last saturday; find out march 16 whether i have been selected; fingers crossed; pananyiota and i went down there last saturday and checked it out

day twenty four

wee campbell on the fiddle and chloe on the gheetar - auch what fun

day twenty three

the darkness of me and him
midsumma 07 queer city; HABITat; upstairs flinders lane gallery;
(double click on images to enlarge view)

catalogue essay
midsumma visual arts
by leigh raymond

The Darkness of Me and Him
Midsumma Festival Visual Arts Project

In a dark gallery space, Ashlee Laing has concealed eight lights in metal sheaths, and hung them above and spotlit eight stained bed pillows embroidered with text in English and Korean about himself and a Korean man, their separation, sleeping arrangements, rules and boundaries. He has added to the pillows, where washing instructions or labels might otherwise be, slogans and labels for queer men in both cultures. He has set the pillows on plinths, lacquered in the style of contemporary, generic Asian homewares, seven in black, one in red, each in a pool of rising and falling light. The light levels are programmed to change like natural light in a sleeping room, in a theatrical scene, or a sauna cubicle.

These men’s story is told in signs varied and repeated across the space. If you want to follow their story, you have to follow the changing pattern of light which illuminates a plinth and its statements in sequence. The installation has a rhythm of poetry, and its formality and stillness are elements of ritual and artistic practice from both cultures.

Laing recently spent two and a half years living in two South Korean cities. Out of this experience, the Darkness of Me and Him was created. In many Korean cities, including the ones he lived in, there is an emerging Korean-Western style gay or queer culture with many of the now standard features such cultures exhibit worldwide: bars, saunas, queer rights organisations, media, festivals, cyberspace and various models and practices of everyday life, identity and relationships.

In Western terms, Korean culture and Korean-Western queer culture in these cities are sometimes characterised as ‘conservative’, meaning that from a Western perspective they are on the one hand oppressive or homophobic, and on the other, responding to and shaped by violence, censure, indifference and other hostile forces and institutions. They show some of the same characteristics that a Western city’s culture might have in the early days following the rise of the gay liberation movement in the 1960s.

Gay travel internet sites document through Western eyes, the sometimes bruising encounters between these cultures and their effects on individuals – confounded expectations, pain, frustration, internal damage and constraint; and resignation and contentment from those who, somehow, have fashioned an apparently more positive ways of living. These accounts are somewhat one-sided, and their explicit assumption is that Western queer cultural values, the filter through which the encounters are invariably viewed, is a universal good.

Although it is developed from a similar cultural territory, Laing’s installation has a different reckoning and mood. Here is a space for shared symbols and metaphors, a place for expression, exchange and sensuality; but also, of necessity, a space of darkness, with occasional spots of light. It conceals as much as it reveals; and what it reveals, is revealed only for a time, then concealed again. Is this darkness our old friend? Or is it, as the Western view has it, something to be transformed to produce enlightenment, to sustain everyday life, or indeed to make art.
Leigh Raymond

day twenty two

.....and it begins with this

day twenty one

day twenty

mark and i are off to this on australia day

day eigheen

some new paintings i've been doing for fun; pardon the poor documentation; they are a lot more light and airy than pictured here

linear spasm (double click on image to enlarge)

linear spasm panel I

linear spasm panel II

linear spasm panel III

liner spasm I (detail)





















linear spasm II (detail)

day seventeen

mark and i went to this party last friday; best party i've been to in years; hot men; durty sounds; and a good laugh!

day sixteen

here are some pictures of the completed amenity project we had to do at work in order to get a planning permit


overall form with rosemary wearing orange crocs and alix (boss) in the sunnys

overall bench

another angle

more angles

angles angles angles

my fave shot!

detail (arm and planter)

detail (planter)

detail (bench)

detail (planter and arm)

detail (planter and seat)