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If you live in a town or suburb where there are only two or three newspapers or magazines, pitch to your favourite one or at least to the newspaper and the magazine which you feel will best suit your ends. Make a connection with the editor if possible and let them know that you won’t be sending the same information out to their competition. If you do this you’re more likely to have a published verbatim alongside the excellent quality photograph you submit along with the media release.
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My entrée into environmental artwork was not my first shift in media and style. I began my artistic life as a figurative painter, attracted to that form of expression for its narrative qualities. During art school I had moved from figurative paintings to more abstract work.
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Although one of my favourite places to exhibit is in New York, I also love to show in many places on the international stage. I’ve been accustomed to exhibiting my art in many places other than my home country Australia, because of a number of reasons. I believe the primary reason is because of my work being different from standard practice.
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My work with driftwood assemblages and sculptures began in 1998 and has continues to be a major part of my creative output. An article described these driftwood assemblages, which I exhibited in a solo show in Australia in early 2004, as having been created with: “A sheer depth and determination…Including, death-defying moments grabbing the perfect piece of wood.”
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The ‘Absolut Dahlsen’ commission was a really wonderful experience, mainly due to the team I was working with throughout the whole project. This included the executives from Absolut who worked with me most surprisingly, in a very lateral manner. This really helped keep an exciting flavour from the beginning through to its completion.
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I’ve always loved the ocean since I was a boy. My mum and dad used to take us kids to the beach each weekend to enjoy swimming in the ocean walking along the beach and just generally exploring. We used to go to very remote locations because my dad is a bit of an adventurer, and later in my life this became something that was very inherent in my system.
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I have often been asked, “What is environmental art?” and “Why are there so many different approaches to environmental art?” I am able provide answers to these questions by going into depth about my own specific approach to the subject and mention a few other artists who I am aware of that have also had the environment feature strongly in their work. I largely came into making this type of art by accident.
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Read through the entry form and conditions thoroughly and ask around to see if the particular prize is reputable and recognized.
If the prize is an international one, check the details very clearly. Many young artists have fallen prey to paying large fees and attending exhibitions and competitions internationally because of the perceived boost for their career and recognition, only to later discover that the particular exhibition was not what they expected.
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Whatever it is you do, you need to discover the inner nourishment that brings fulfilment to your life.
One time an interviewer asked the Australian painter Brett Whiteley, “What is more important for you art or life?” He responded by saying: “Life is”. I couldn’t agree more.
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Dahlsen, by comparison, is an optimist. To begin with, he’s already made a positive statement by clearing off the unsightly stuff that is lethal to fish and fowl. (Australia’s wildlife conservancies adore Dahlsen’s work, which was hardly his intention, but so be it.)
He wanted to impart a kind of Minimalist stability to his jumbles of deep true colours. One early assemblage of coffee lids, cooler fragments and bottle tops shared the ethereal white-on-white aura of a Robert Ryman abstraction or a William Bailey still life—only much more energetically. Piling up black combs, disposable razors and pieces of rope yielded a Louise Nevelson-like sculpture with attitude.
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Speakers need to be able to sell what it is they’re speaking about. This can range from information about modern art, or about sculpture for example.
You need to understand that when you are standing in front of an audience delivering a lecture, making a public speaking engagement, you are selling whatever it is you’re speaking about.
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There is a key factor at work here and that is unique to trigger your audience and emotionally. Let’s go through it step by step.??
One. First thing is to secure the audience’s attention.
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Dahlsen has collected his “found” material all along the northern NSW coastline, a latter-day beachcomber. “I’ve even been to South Stradbroke Island, where I was artist in residence at Couran Cove at one stage,” he says.
“I walked up and down the 17km of beach there, and over a couple of weeks collected 70 or 80 jumbo garbage bags full of things that had washed up on the shore.”
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During the latter part of 2005 and into 2006, I created a new body of environmental artwork, a series of Synthetic Polymer paintings on Belgian linen, based on the subject matter of plastic “purges” – plastic fabricator machine end waste. ??This work, considers cycles and recycling. I began re-presenting paintings of sculptures that are inherently plastic fabricator machine end waste. The use of plastic materials and their place in the evolutionary motions of recycling are important to me in constructing these images.
I see the real need for the massive social transformations that are essential, to adequately deal with such crises as the depletion of fossil fuels and climate change. I hope this work can be a timely reminder to us all of the limited supply of these petroleum based materials, which is a direct result of our current collective global mass consumerism.
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Coke bottles become translucent pools, puddling under wall sculptures of other found plastic bottles. ??Straws found on beaches become characters in compositions that seem to dance in a coloured frenzy reminiscent of Jackson Pollack. ??Found driftwood comes back to life in assemblages that become meditations on symmetry and environment in one.?
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When he first started, he stumbled upon vast amounts of plastic ocean debris, collecting them in 80 jumbo garden bags full of beach-found litter. “When I first piled this collection up in my studio, I had friends drop by asking if I was okay!” he adds.
John didn’t see a giant mound of trash – rather, his unseen intelligence was at work. He saw a giant painter’s palate of colours and shapes, hues and forms: selections of yellow coloured plastics, the red, then the blues, the rope and strings, the plastic coke bottles, the thongs… the list goes on.
“As I worked with these objects, I became even more fascinated by the way they had been modified and weathered by the ocean and nature’s elements,” says Mr Dahlsen.
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For over ten years Dahlsen has been creating his environmental assemblage art and has garnered much recognition. He holds regular solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia, Europe and the United States.
In 2000, he won the prestigious Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW and was selected to be a cultural ambassador and represent Australia at the Athens Olympics of the Visual Arts “Artiade” Exhibition 2004.
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One can picture Dahlsen as this peculiarly animated creature bobbing up and down along the beach collecting, sorting and imagining, then leaving with the spoils to construct another day.
The artist mimics the activities of sea birds as they go about their existence jabbing, picking, chasing and prying. The work is physically demanding; so much to see and collect!
Dahlsen’s work is alchemical in that found objects are transformed from the mundane to the extraordinary and mystical. In between is the artist’s aesthetic intuition and determined will. He encourages us to see beauty in the ordinary.
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What role do you think art plays in prompting public dialogue about all those things?
I think art can play a significant role in this kind of dialogue. Art really has a place to be an informer. All the way through history, artists have been at the forefront of responding to contemporary issues in society and being a bit like beacons for the general public, for society at large.
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Creating wealth as an artist
Everyone knows the stereotype of the poor starving artist. For you, this can become an irrelevant notion of the past. As presented in my seminars, I have created a systematic, practical approach to creating a platform using the Internet to share your creative endeavours.
