Detlef Jumpertz

Yep, time for another update - well it 's only a month between entries! Firstly, I went to Sydney a couple of times during the break between entries, predominantly to transport, then view and then collect Noir from the Willoughby City Art Prize. I took the time on my last journey to Sin City to also catch up with some other exhibitions, namely the Dobell Drawing Prize at the NSW Art Gallery and the William Kentridge exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Both were excellent.

The Dobell Drawing Prize is one of Australia's top drawing prizes - indeed I've entered a couple of times but have never got close to being selected. The judge for the prize is usually a distinguished Australian artist - and the selected finalists tend to be the usual suspects/art mafia. Realist drawings are usually on the outer in this competition - some of the drivel selected in the past goes under the label avant garde - a serious misuse of the term. Sorry, but to my mind a few lines and squiggles that any infant can do is not innovative, it is plain crap (there I've got that off my chest). Thankfully, the majority of this year's entries were marvellous (apart from a few items of aforementioned crap) - I walked away inspired by some of the beauty of the portraiture and landscapes on display.

The Kentridge exhibition was comprehensive and brilliant, and dare I say it avant garde. Kentridge's work is fantastic in both its scale and diversity: from drawings to sculputure to animated film of his drawings - all with a powerful but subtle message.

As I was wandering to these exhibitions Sin City also revealed the particular urban landscape that I was after as the basis for a series of drawings. I took a few snaps as reference material and I'll get at least 3 drawings out of the one street intersection - hooray! I say hooray because Canberra (where I live) is such a young city that it's hard to get that gritty 1930s architecture.

And to round out this entry, yes more drawings have been posted - hallelujah. Hobby Horse #1 was actually finished a few weeks back, but it's taken me this long to load the f*cker. The drawing came about after I suffered a creative block and I asked one of my work colleagues for some ideas - instead, he submitted a list of obscure words starting with "H", including hobby horse. A bit more digging based on the origins of the words and their meaning led to HH#1.....and HH#2 which I'm currently working on. I've also added a drawing I completed at the beginning of the year called Wall, not quite sure what this one means and whether it is a bit too dark for most people's taste. Likewise I've also added Pier which was completed late last year when I was going through my noir phase (come to think of it I don't think I've left it yet).

As you can see a lot of drawing ahead of me, hey a lot of punting a head of me as well - bring on the Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate, Derby and Melbourne Cup et al. That's a wrap - apart from big congrats to Marie a successful Perfect Diary entrant for 2005, yep she's practically perfect in every way.

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