Silicon Pulp, Sydney's small but stylish animation and cartoon gallery,
gets sand between its toes this August when it launches a wet and wild
exhibition of the surfing lifestyle in Australian animation, design,
caricature and cartooning.
A long-overdue, first-of-its kind project,
Tubular Cels features the
work of Australia's most well-known surf artists. Surfers and the
surfing lifestyle are depicted in mediums ranging from animation cels
and animated videos to caricature portraits, cartoon strips and spots,
oil and watercolour works - even cartoons created on ceramic plates!
Surf cartoons? What the hell do cartoons and surfing have in
common? Well, both arts provide stress-relieving pleasure for their
aficionados. They can be executed with immense complexity, using expensive
tools and at great cost - or achieve the same level of brilliance by
combining simple creativity with cast-off materials found down the back
of a shed. Both undertakings have been criticised for decades as causing
pollution of the mind and delinquency in the young. Due to their
monosyllabic use of words, surfing and cartoons have also been claimed
to provide the worst examples of the downfall of the English language!
The exhibition embraces wavebreaking cartoon art from the early 60s
innocence of Murph the Surf (an American drop-in) to the 70s pop
outrageousness of the legendary Captain Goodvibes and the 21st
century hard-core cynicism of Felch and his desperate cronies.
The show's curator is
Jodi Adams, a journalist and surf culture enthusiast who works as
a volunteer media director/educator with the Surfrider Foundation
conservation organisation.
Artists exhibiting works include:
· Mambo's Reg Mombassa (famed for his icons of Australian suburbia);
Jim Mitchell (co-designer of the notorious Pauline Hanson "Redheads"
shirt);
Gerry Wedd (top-selling cartoonist, remarkable ceramicist
and jewellery designer);
· Australian Surfing Life's
Steve Cakebread (creator of the
infamous Felch cartoon) and Steve Case (whose caricatures also feature
in the Daily Telegraph);
· Ben Brown (surf and rock posters, Silverchair art, astonishing
surfboard paintings);
· Rosco Kermode (globe-trotting legend from the wilds of
Western Australia);
· Gus Gordon (noted children's book illustrator and creator of the
Mungbean cartoon);
· Heidi Ledwell (internationally popular Earth Nymph t-shirt and
postcard designer);
· Mark Sutherland (prize-winning artist/animator, creator of
legendary Gonad Man);
· Robbert Smit (special guest - renowned animation director
of Footrot Flats, Blinkey Bill and The Magic Pudding).
Tubular Cels will be launched on
Friday August 17, with opening
night entertainment including live music played in the classic surf
guitar style of groups such as The Atlantics, and the showing of some
rarely-seen Australian surf cartoons. A range of other events, including
"meet the artist" cartooning classes and surf video nights will also be
held during the exhibition's run.
anigal@siliconpulp.com.au
