Alan Brydon – Photographer
Alan Brydon is Contributing Artist at the Ellerslie Flower Show 2010.
Despite being involved with photography for virtually my whole life, it is in the last 20 years that I have become immersed in expressing the body as a photographic subject.
My inspiration is found in nature, jazz, ballet, the art of Matisse, the sculpture of Auguste Rodin and Henry Moore, the photography of Ruth Bernhard, Wynn Bullock, Andreas Bitesnich, Howard Schatz and many more.
I’m fascinated by the ways we express our spirit through our physical body. For a while we get to use this vehicle, amazing in its form and function, exquisitely sensual yet so vulnerable to age and injury.
My involvement in the Tim Mark Project evolved out of a photographic essay, The Sculptor and The Sculpted which I did with Tim Mark in the summer of 2006 in New Zealand. In this we explored the relationship between the sculptor and the stone. Does the sculptor mould the stone or is it the stone which sculpts the body of the artist.
In The Kinetics of Stone performance the dancer releases the kinetic energy of the sculpture, building a dance from the static form, his movements contoured around the sculpture.
Jody Beck
artists statement:
As we connect more intimately with our landscape, both individually and publicly, we will not only have chances for greater resilience but also for greater joy.
Jody Beck received his Bachelor of Architecture from Rice University, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines, and is a registered architect. He received is PhD in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania where he wrote a dissertation about the political underpinnings of John Nolen’s landscape design. Jody is on the Board of Directors of the Association for Community Design and is currently a lecturer in landscape architecture at Lincoln University in New Zealand. His current research interests include the impact that global declines in oil production will have on our patterns of landscape inhabitation and encouraging greater interaction between people and their landscapes.
Russ Campbell
Russ Campbell is a contemporary New Zealand artist living in Christchurch.
Russ, whose career has been as diverse as financial management, commercial flower growing and operating a bed and breakfast has returned in the last ten years to complete his artistic journey.
This journey was interrupted in his teens by his father telling him:
“An artist! No money in that boy, you’d be better get a job in an office”
Russell’s artworks intially attract your eye with the playful use of bold, rich, warm colours on large canvases however on further inspection you begin to appreciate the layering of colour, textures and the subtle shadows.
Utilising all manner of palette knives,brushes, fingers, scrapers and even the canvas itself Russell manges to conjure up various feelings.
The viewer is transported back even if just for a moment to think about their own story, often compelled to touch the artwork, to interact with it physically as well as emotionally.
Russell draws inspiration from people he meets, their experiences and life struggles.
Award winning artist
Represented in private collections in Australia, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom,and throughtout New Zealand:
Exhibitions:
- Oct 2008 Guest artist South Canterbury Art Society
- Dec 2007 “Demolitions & Constructions” Solo Exhibition
- Second Prize Craft Darfield Art Week Oct 2007
- Christchurch Yacht Club Solo Exhibition May 2007
- April 2007 Selwyn Gallery “5 Art week artists”
- Dec 2006 COCA “Gates & Journeys ” members exhibition
- Dec 2006 Gallery O “Threes a good colour” joint exhibition
- Sept 2006 First prize Sumner Art Society 47th annual exhibition
- May 2006 Gallery O “Like a wine with your abstract ” Solo Exhibition
- Nov 2005 Windsor Gallery ” Latest works” Solo Exhibition
- Sept 2005 Cloisters Gallery “Distracted by abstract” Solo Exhibition
- Dec 2005 Selwyn Gallery “Small works” joint exhibition
- May 2005 Selwyn Gallery “Our Land” joint exhibition
Andrew Mark
I am a PhD candidate at York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies. Having finished my ethnomusicology M.A. on the role of academia in the spread of Zimbabwean music to North America, I am now turning my focus towards the social practice of music as it contributes to sustainability in rural and utopian communities. In particular, I am planning to move ahead with ethnographic research with musicians from Hornby Island in British Columbia. The artistic work I produce in the process of my research reflects the intersecting mediums of sonic expression I encounter, from soundscapes to interviews and musics of all kinds.
Elbert Watson
Elbert Watson is Contributing Artist at the Ellerslie Flower Show 2010.
Elbert Watson is a dancer, choreographer, director, coach, administrator, artistic advisor and teacher. A former principal dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The Staatstheater of Kassel, Germany, The Pearl Primus Earth Theater, and The Joan Miller Dance Players, he studied classical ballet at the New York Conservatory of Dance with Vladimir Doukodosky and Nina Stragonova. He has taught at colleges, universities and schools across the nation, and is the former artistic director of the Nanette Bearden Chamber Dance Group and former ballet master of the Virginia Ballet Theater. He has served on the advisory boards of Learning Bridge, the Portsmouth Redevelopment Dance Project, and Young Audiences of Virginia, and has done choreographic collaborations with the Virginia Symphony and the Chrysler
Museum. He received the Norfolk Academy Teacher of the Year Award presented by the Tunstall Student Council in 1996 and received the Lower School Waitzer Award in 2006 (Teacher of the Year). He is currently a member of the Norfolk Commission for Arts and Humanities. He is the founder of the Tidewater Dance Collective and co-founder of the “Kinetics of Stone” project in Christchurch, New Zealand. He is the dance master at Norfolk Academy, where he introduces dance not only as an art form, but as a communicative bridge between athletics and academics.