Decoding Thoughts

Psst She Said, Helena Turinski 2015Psst she said.
The Pistols aren’t revealing secrets.
That which was once thought forbidden forever is trapped in conversations.
The first thing you’ll need is a pen to decode thought
and make your own word play
for there are no secrets here any more.

I really love assembling my random poems. It’s such an exciting and serendipitous process that evolves rapidly as I snatch up cut-out words that seem to fit whatever I am weaving under my hand. I never know where a poem is going to go either. I haven’t actually ‘written’ any for a while because I have such a huge backlog of poems that I have yet to turn into collages.

The words obviously inform the pictures, but sometimes the pictures themselves add an extraordinary power to one’s perception of the poem, such as in this image. The women were cut out from some innocuous advertisement, although for what I can’t recall. The blackness of the figures adds such a sinister tone, especially with the highlighted white teeth, as does the gun pointed directly at the smiling woman’s head; the metaphors are obvious. The strange and stark contrasts make me chuckle – that’s what society is like sometimes – but we should never ignore the undercurrents.

Hanging Poems

Getting ready to hangLast Thursday night I hung my exhibition at Brunswick Street Gallery. This is only my second group exhibition, and the first time I hung my own work. The method is pretty easy, and it was very satisfying to complete the task. Seeing how many pieces I had (I had originally intended to hang them all in two rows, and was prepared to pull some if it was too crowded) the curator generously allowed me to take up more space than originally allocated, which was fantastic.

Prints pinned

The works were printed by Karl at Lantern Printing, on cotton rag archival paper using archival pigment inks. They came up beautifully, and the crumpled antique papers look so realistic and three-dimensional. Two originals were float-mounted in oak frames, by Leigh at Auguste Clown Gallery.

Works on exhibit include prints of hard copy originals, and prints of entirely digital artworks Opening night was on Friday, and unfortunately I was far too busy talking to guests to remember to take any photos – tsk! It was a fun evening, despite a few nerves at the start. I was hoping to overhear viewers’ responses, but alas, again, too busy talking to eavesdrop!

Frames hung (not without errors prior to success!)At the conclusion of the show (two weeks from now), I will create an online gallery here for viewing. Most of the pieces on show are prints of traditional (hard copy) collages, but you can check out my digital pieces in the Random Poetry galleries.

The works are printed on cotton rag archival paper

Layering Dreams

I am excited to share the news that I am taking part in a group exhibition at Brunswick Street Gallery called Read What You Look At, which opens this Friday night, and runs for two weeks.

Although it is not my first group exhibition, it is the biggest one I’m showing in, with fourteen pieces of my ‘random poetry’ mixed-media collages on view. The series is entitled Layering Dreams, and is – you guessed it – all about dreams, sleeping, and waking.

Here is an abridged version of my artist’s statement:

From a very young age, I was captivated with telling stories through both words and pictures, often drawing and writing on found paper. At art college after studying the Dadaists, I became interested in writing poetry by reassembling random words. Recycling my magazine collection, I created a pool from which I could pull words to compile into ‘random poems’.

Always interested in dreams, and the surrealism intertwined with hidden meanings, this method of writing poetry appealed to me. Naturally, I choose words that I find appealing, but sometimes I deliberately choose ones that I don’t. This strange combination contributes to the elusive mood of Layering Dreams, often with unexpected results.

Sometimes a poem just starts with two or three words, and I slowly build on those. The poems are engaging and easy to read not only because of their brevity, but because of how they look. The fonts and colours culled from so many different sources interact with one another visually, encouraging the viewer to also ‘look at what they read’.

Returning to my roots of acquiring used paper (I’d pinch my sisters’ papers from their school folders!), I’ve sourced antique papers from the late nineteenth century to the 1950s, to use as supports for the collages. As well as traditional (hard copy) collages using only words, I also create digital works, combining scanned words and images cut from magazines with digital ink.

These many layers of ephemera, words, and pictures combine to evoke the otherworldly nature of dreams.

If you happen to be in Melbourne, I’d love for you to come and check them out in person!

Fancy-Shmancy Champagne

It’s the very last day of the year! Amazing! 2014 has flashed by so fast I can’t believe it. Did you achieve everything you wanted these past twelve months? I don’t think I did, although I managed to achieve some things I didn’t want this year! But, you live and you learn, I always say. And if you don’t learn, you can’t change and grow, and then what’s the point of spinning round on this old earth?

Fancy-schmancy champagne has a perfect finish every time, and friends will drink it in and forget whatever devlish double trouble and wonder conquered them.

This is from one of my new random poems: a sentiment I am very much looking forward to celebrating tonight. I’ll be drinking said champagne (topping up wild hibiscus flowers in syrup) with my friends tonight, ringing in the new year, and saying a very loud sayonara to the old. Happy New Year to you all!

Falling Down Forever

Fifteen DaysHere are a couple of little random poems I assembled in this last week – or should that be in the last 15 days? They’re daydreams with seasonal themes, and they stop me falling down forever … 

A Mermaid’s Deep-Sea Salon