Cafes and Food

Since the demise of the fabulously named Stomach Takeaways, my newest favourite name is a takeaway between Royal Oak and Onehunga. Only wish I could pronounce it. I will have to venture in next time I am going past.

Below is a Mexican dish at the Ponsonby Food Hall.

Stylish in design, and tasted great too. The Mexican stall does provide the most decorative and enticing options.

 

Art Tour Cities 1 - Brisbane

Most people consider the art and culture centres of Australia to be Sydney and Melbourne, and generally consider Brisbane to be somewhat less endowed with contemporary art. While Sydney and Melbourne do host the lions share of events and hold a good deal of the best contemporary art practice, other centres do have a lot to offer.

Brisbane's Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) form part of the cultural precinct, including the State Library, Museum and performing arts centre (QPAC). The focus for us here are the art galleries, which have a habit of attracting blockbuster shows. Highlights of the past include Warhol, Matisse, and the recently finished American Realism show from the Met.

GOMA also has a strong affinity and tes to the asia pacific region, and this is documented with its Asia Pacific Triennial, starting this year in December. The APT started in 1993, and this year will be the 6th event.
APT6 will show over 100 artists from 25 countries, and has become an important event in anyones calendar.
There will be an overlap in 2010 with the 4th Auckland Triennial which starts in mid March

On a recent visit in May there was an interesting show of  chinese artists entitled The China Project. Though they had darkened the far wall with a bright red film which near blinded me, some of the works were fascinating.

A quick peruse of the Art Almanac lists a variety of galleries to visit, and of course there is also the important
Institute of Modern Art, directed by Kiwi Robert Leonard.

Brisbane is not without its cafe, bar and restaurant scene. On our recent visit we found some great cafes and bars a few minutes walk south of the South Bank area, and of course there is the couple of blocks of cool north of the CBD.

Of course Brisbane is in close proximity to that kiwi tourist magnet - the Gold Coast, but for me it's not much further on to Byron Bay, which has a simililar pull from a tourst point of view. Byron does have a good mix of food, culutre and beach, providing a great atmosphere, and a little more sophistcaion than you may get in places closer. It has a great alternate art scene, and the whole Byronshire is stacked full of small towns that each offer their own charm. My favourite was the small town of Bangalow, 10 minutes inland, great cafes, and when we were there a fantastic retro and vintage store - which I can not find a link to.

Art Tours will be visiting APT6 with Sue Gardiner from 19 - 22 March 2010, flying Air New Zealand from Auckland and staying at the Sofitel.
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Space

Space defined

Our property backs onto the local primary school, very good it is too. While some of the neighbours may complain about their view being blocked, lucky for us it stops right on the edge of our boundary. We have been able to watch the building works grow from the ground up, where once there was nothing there are now frames, foundations, the roof is going on over the pretty pink framing timber.

The concept of space being contained or defined has been interesting to follow over this project. It has helped start a small series of works. These relate to the patterns formed by the timber frames as they begin to define and enlose space. They have stood for weeks as a skeleton waiting for a skin, waiting for the finished product which will no doubt impress the neighbours in the end, to be formulated out of vacant nothing.

Works in progress