Michael Grant's exhibition

We went to Michael Grant's Prelude closing exhibition yesterday. It was fitting for this weekend being ANZAC day on Sunday. Michael was inspired by the battlefields of Papua New Guinea during his two visits there. The little painting exploration on show was a prelude to his future exhibitions for this year. Very good show.

Westpac Bank Ballarat

Dawn just finished exhibiting at Gallery on Sturt and the owner has retained this painting to show off at the Westpac Bank in Ballarat.

It looks terrific hanging at the entrance of the Bank.

Hopefully, this will give more exposure for Dawn's art.

Dawn's artist statement

dawn lim

abstract art and my spirituality

“When I start to paint I have no preconceived idea of what I want to do, just a feeling in my soul that I want to paint. Then I choose some colours and I begin mark making, helping me to create. The technique of mark making was first introduced by The Surrealist Andre Breton. It was called automatic drawing. This method has been invaluable to me, helping me create, not just copy. My paintings are also informed by a few artists, Elizabeth Cummings, Aida Tomescu, Willem De Kooning and Tony Tucson.

I pray before I paint, that I may be inspired and that I may enjoy a spiritual experience while I work. The subjects of my paintings are elusive and take a while before I may see any subject in them at all. They may not mean anything, because they are abstract, but sometimes I find a reflection of my sub conscious, or spirituality within them.

Some are informed by the world around me, such as climate change, lack of morals, or the violence and hopelessness in the world today but of course I also have some light hearted paintings, because after all I believe we are here to have joy.”

Dawn is a Ballarat artist who has lived here for 27 years. She also takes private & group art classes, taking students from where they are at and helping them to move on.

Opening Night at gallery on sturt

Dawn's exhibition at Gallery on Sturt

Dawn is in a small group exhibition at Gallery on Sturt.

First one for 2010. Boy time flys!

The gallery space is quite nice and is in a block of cafes' and pub. The street has alfresco dinning and is a favourite eating spot in Ballarat and hopefully we should get a lot of passing traffic there. See you there.

Leonie

My name is Leonie and I am a current student of Dawn Lim.

I have throughly enjoyed each lesson and look forward to the next.

Since being a student of Dawn's she has not hesitated in sharing with me all she has learnt through her own experience as an accomplished artist. Dawn has not only encouraged me but also given me the confidence to allow my own style to come through with each piece of work. I too would like to encourage anyone who has desired to take art lessons, but never dared, to give Dawn a call.

Leonie has only being with Dawn a little while, but look at her progress. She takes her lessons very seriously and she learns fast. It was very good to know Leonie and she is not afraid to take on the task of a big canvas.

Affordable art show

Dawn put in a couple of her paintings in the Affordable Art Show at the Post Office Gallery of the University of Ballarat, this Christmas.

The show is an annual event for any artist in the area.

It is a nice space because it is right in the middle of Ballarat.

We would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Beaufort Show

Dawn put in a couple of her artwork into the Beaufort Show and one painting came second in the abstract section.

It was only a small exhibition of the local artists. Some of the art were quite good.

Upcoming exhibition is at Gallery on Sturt sometime in Feb 2010.

Wow what happened to the time, 2010 is only around the corner.

Dawn has been busy this year, teaching art classes and individual tutoring. Dawn has also put her art in another website, wonderart.com.au and a german art website too.

Dawn's present webpage comes up in Google first page for the search engine, when you search for original abstract art for sale in Australia. We are quite happy to see this as I have spend a lot of time doing the behind the scenes keywords and webpage, and a lot of money learning about this.

Wonderart website

We have found a wonderful art website to sell our art in addition to our usual website. This is an Australian website. Hopefully this will spread our online presence. Some artists think that advertisement and online websites are not good, or doesn't really do anything much. However, we think that websites are a good thing to have, because they are readily accessed online, and is one more avenue to make known our presence.

Art of giving Charity Art Exhibition

Dawn donated a couple of her paintings to the Art of Giving charity art exhibition.
The money raised will be given to Mind, a mental Health service provider which has supported people recover from mental illness and rebuild their lives.
All the money will go towards developing Mind's Ambassadors of Hope program which will raise awareness of mental health and allow people to communicate about mental illness.

Hybrid sculpture 2009

Last night we went to the Hybrid exhibition. It was so very enjoyable, the host was great. And we listen to Damon's talk. He had a lot of fun using his Travel Award last year. This years sculpture was very impressive especially the bottle tree. There were 61 artists' exhibiting.

Spring paintings

These two new paintings are going into ebay to test the waters.

It would be good to know how they are received at ebay.

Both paintings are done this month.

Pipers by the Lake

Today we went to Pipers by the Lake to see 3 pieces of Dawn's painting that Emma from Arthur Gallery has negotiated with Pipers, to hang the paintings. We are grateful to Emma for helping Dawn to exhibit her paintings at a new venue in Ballarat, and Jen the manager at Pipers choosing Dawn's paintings.

Arhur Gallery warming

Tonight we went to the new location of Arthur Gallery for the opening night of the exhibition by Kat Barrand - 'Concrete Umbrellas'. The drawings were quite good and interesting. The venue was not large, but big enough for one exhibitor, there was quite a bit of wall spaces.

Cliff and Carolyn were there too. Doug, Ann and Loris were there too, Kat is doing her honours year with them I think.

New Paintings 2009

Dawn's new paintings 2009

DROUGHT: Perceptions & Propositions

DROUGHT- Creative Cross Cultural Collaborations. Curated by Lella Cariddi

Tonight we went to the drought exhibition and seminar. Dawn met Bruno Leti, a visual artist & writer, whose work is inspired by the poetry of John Shaw Neilson, and in turn, some one commented that Dawn's work was in a similar vein as Bruno, and finally Dawn met him. Bruno talked about his long collaborative engagement over the years with poets, Chris Wallace Crabbe, Alan Loney and Peter Steele and others.

Art Galleries in Melbourne

As a result of exhibiting at Melbourne Art Show 2009, Dawn was approached by a couple of gallery owners, to exhibit in Melbourne and Geelong.

So this week, we took 12 paintings down to the Elsternwick gallery for approval in our new combo van. The van was quite roomy for the paintings.

Hopefully, Dawn could be exhibiting there.

Graduation

Dawn graduated with a BA (Visual Arts) (Honours) this afternoon at the Historic venue - Her Majesty's Theatre in Ballarat.

It was a wonderful event and they had a march around the City Council Buildings. The weather was good, just a little cooler.

She was thinking about doing a Masters off-campus, she did not get into the Masters this year because they were making everyone do a research project. Not a fair thing for artists, she only got credit for her thesis, but had High Distinction for her paintings. The off-campus at Monash University offers a course work Masters, which would suit Dawn better.

Melbourne Art 2009

This is the second painting sold. Dawn painted this one early 2009.

Dawn made some good contacts with art professionals at the Show and hoped to be able to exhibit in Melbourne.

Dawn's art had very good exposure there, a lot of the visitors liked what Dawn has done.

The Australian public in general do not like or understand contemporary abstract art, but those that do, really enjoyed looking at Dawn's art and commented on how good they were.

Melbourne Art 2009

This painting sold at the Art Show. It was an exciting event for Dawn.

We did not stay overnight in Melbourne, but drove home every night. It was very tiring. 

Melbourne Art Fair 2009

Art Fair Melbourne 2009

This weekend, Dawn exhibited at the Exhibition Building on the Carlton Park.

Heaps of people came through, sometimes it was even difficult to walk against the traffic coming in. It was so crowded.

This was the first year they let artists' run their own mini-gallery.

Dawn sold one painting today. Tomorrow is the last day.

Exhibition at Arthur Gallery, Ballarat

We made a few bookmarks, for this exhibition. The show was good, but no sales.

There wasn't much walkin traffic and the gallery wasn't in a good position. The gallery will be moving to a better spot up the street.

Dawn's art at www.exexart.com

We met a couple who were doing up a gallery in Geelong and things lead to things, and we ended up with Dawn putting her paintings on their online gallery. We were thrilled to see that they have chosen one of Dawn's paintings to put on their homepage as seen here. www.exexart.com

2009 Exhibitions

This month, Dawn has put on an exhibition at Arthur Gallery. All the paintings are oil on canvas with sizes 1.5 m x 1.0 m or the reverse. These paintings were done last year as shown on older posts on this blog. 

Dawn's painting 2008

Dawn has started to sell her 2008 paintings.

This one has been sold to a doctor for his clinic. The doctor's wife bought it and was very lucky to get this piece. Some one had already wanted it and her husband did not like it. Another collector wanted it but thought it was sold.

Dawn is having all her 2008 paintings at Arthur Gallery in Ballarat. Then she is having another show with the Melbourne Art Show 2009. Hopefully, she might not have soldout, and leaving no paintings for the Melbourne Show. 

This lot of paintings was shown at her Honours year at University of Ballarat last year. She had received rave reviews of her paintings and awarded a High Distinction for her paintings. This sold piece was shown at the Uni's Post Office Gallery with another one, the Blue coloured paintings and was the first one to sell.

Dawn's 2008 Honours degree art

Dawn has completed her honours year and these are a sample of her work.

Her results:
painting High Distinction
seminar High Distinction
and 2 other Distinctions
and a credit for her exegesis.

Arts Academy exhibition

Today, we drove back from Kyneton where we have had a holiday. We dropped into the Post Office gallery to look at the art of some of the students from the visual art department at the University of Ballarat's Art Academy.
Dawn couldn't find her piece of art there and worried that the frames of that painting had buckled, or the canvas was damaged.
Then when we went back to the opening tonight, she found her painting was in the only window of the gallery, and passers-by could see her painting. It was in the most prominent display of all the gallery and an honour.

Luddite turns

Dawn was given a computer in addition to her scholarship. She has never own a computer. And besides, she was not very technical minded, I used to call her a Luddite, people who dislikes technology. Now she is having a lot of joy on her own computer.
Dawn has nearly completed her exegesis, nearly finished Chapter One. She also has to talk about her art in three weeks time. She has done well, and worked consistently whenever she has a chance and goes to her studio at uni.
Everything looks good for her Honours year in Painting.

uni scholarship

Exciting day for Dawn, she has been awarded with a scholarship to pay for educational costs for her year in the Honours degree in Bachelor of Visual Arts - painting.
Now she can buy all the canvas and paints she wants. After not hearing anything about her application, she was pleasantly surprised to receive the news.
At uni, Dawn has been working hard, painting and researching her proposal. Her mentor, Lois Button has been very helpful to her, she is a very nice person and teacher. I think Dawn will progress in leaps and bounds now. Some of her new works are already suitable for the end of year assessments.

Easter already over

Easter is over already and the uni is closed for holidays. Dawn has finished exhibition at Radmac and now she is preparing to exhibit at Mad Gallery. 'Fresh Abstraction' is the exhibition and will feature a lot of 2008 artworks. Carolyn will also be exhibiting at the same time.

A preview of the exhibits is at www.dawnlim.com
3 of the paintings is already approved for her Honours degree end of the year. Dawn is very thrilled.

Dawn at Uni

Dawn is busy, painting at her studio as an honours student. She has now enrolled in the Bachelor degree in Visual Arts - Painting with honours. This course will be for this year only.
Dawn has been enjoying painting this series. She has been experimenting with colour and line in a painterly manner ever since she graduated.

Uni

Dawn was accepted to do an Honours year next year at the University of Ballarat in Fine Arts. She is very excited to get in. She will have to juggle hairdressing and art class teaching, with painting and writing a thesis

"Chair" @ Mad Gallery

Today we went to the opening of the "Chair" exhibition at Mad Gallery. A group of artists were aksed to put on an exhibition with theme of "chair". Dawn put up a painting that was placed at the entrance of Mad Gallery. Dawn painted a "dimension travelling seat". It reminded me of Salvador Dali's pink lips settee because of the bright red upholstery. I tried to upload my video of the exhibition, but I had an error with this. Just trying to see if videos are any good for a blog.

Mental Health Week

Tonight we went to the opening of the Mental Health Week art and craft exhibition at the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, one of the best regional galleries in Victoria, Australia. The paintngs were hung very well, the venue was splendid, very popular and was in the hub of the art world in Ballarat, next to the University of Ballarat's art school.
Dawn put in 4 paintings at the exhibition.

Art Classes at Radmac

Dawn has started to give art classes at Radmac, in Ballarat.

She absolutely loves it. It gives her an opportunity to share what she has learnt in painting, both representational and contemporary abstract art. Dawn started giving lessons to the ladies at church and now she is renting an art room at Radmac.

Holidays at Mildura

During June of this year, we went for a week's holidays at Mildura to recharge and be inspired by the various different sceneries there, from vineyards, orange fields to the native forests and the Murray river.

We took some photos for Dawn to paint from and she was very much inspired by the native scrubland. She painted a couple of these sceneries in the vein of "managerie" and "puppy love".

The gnarled and twisted treeforms were quite intriguing. The depth and shade of the forests were quite interesting too, which gave her a platform to start.

Encore?

Dawn had a sellout exhibition at Mad Gallery, and she has been invited to put on another exhibition there at the end of this month, June 2007. With the money she earned there, Dawn has bought some new canvases and she is busy painting.

Dawn's friend, Carolyn is also exhibiting there at the same time, she is the main attraction, and is a very good wildlife and animal painter. The eyes of the animals are so alive!

Carolyn's art can be seen on http://carolynart.spaces.live.com/