INTRANSIT

INTRANSIT 2024

2024

OCTOBER

The group exhibition - Artist to Ice - is currently on at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Works from a number of Australian artists who have ventured far south, including Bea Maddock, Jan Senbergs and Jorg Schmeisser plus myself will be on show until 09/02/2025. My winterover series - A GOOD DAY TONIGHT looks at the many shades of Antarctic dark. The meandering stitched lines within each work are the tracks of haaglund vehicles, strolls over the Ice and my cartographic wanderings. Black metallic shades of the Antarctic night form grid patterns and hint at “doing a winter.” The series peeks at the strong feelings of counting the days until the sun returns. A calendar of the fascinating grind of winter time. I do have vivid and fond memories of this period of my life and being stuck in one location was an interesting lesson for me. With no way out for anyone over the winter period I had to stay still and let the climate decide when I coud move. This was a little unsual for me but I was prepared and it enabled me to make a huge body of work that dealt with an incredibly strange place and rather strange times.

I still battle to stay in one place but I try to be as domesticated as possible. I have of course stayed still and become over the years a sort of local domesticated person in a number of locations including Mawson station in 2009 but staying still for me does not feel like my natural habitat. I can manage a settled lifestyle even though I have generations of sailors from my pre-history who continue to niggle at me and suggest that I move, travel, take a trip, wander off somewhere. There is this background noise that keeps my feet itchy. A yearning to catch a train or to embark on a ship or jump on a plane. A brisk stroll often eases this innate illogical want. Those sailing ancestors of mine did not trust the idea of home or a homely lifestyle. Perhaps home was a bit too unstable for whatever reasons and a nomadic lifestyle was ironically more stable ? Who knows? There are many ways to go and one way could involve a home. In the end there is no right or wrong way but we all do go someplace all the time and things never stay stable for too long. That I do know. Humans do love to move it seems as we have been doing just that for a very, very long time.

Speaking of making a house a home. Carolina is very busy in the garden and we have completed painting our home two colours now . Sky blue and bright grass green as the house sits someplace between that bluish place where the clouds cruise by and that other mostly verdant place where lawns, shrubberies, gardens and wild bush reside. Is this colour scheme modern Mediterranean, care-free Caribbean, pleasant Paraguayan, Fijian kava bar vibe or drunk hippy Bulgarian in style? Nobody knows but it is cosy and we seem to be planted.

JULY

Carolina and I were interviewed on RTRFM 92.1 radio as we were selected as artists of the month ℅ the Regional Arts West Australia. The on-air chat related to our dual show at Geraldton Regional Art Gallery and the complications of what home actually means to us both. A question I must admit that I still struggle to make full sense of. I am possibly just a slow learner as I do still find shoelaces complex and as for rocket science ...well I gave up on that years ago.
https://rtrfm.com.au/story/regional-arts-wa-artists-of-the-month-carolina-furgue-and-stephen-eastaugh/

OrRegionality

I live in a marginal place located at the southern bit of the world. A south western part of a large island currently called Australia. Far from the busy northern hemisphere where most of the human population live and where most power bases currently reside. I have lived in Argentina, another large but comparatively quiet fringe-land in the south of the planet and I have spent in total almost two years living in Antarctica, which is as remote as you can get on Earth. Further-more I kept moving like some lost soul avoiding capture from mysterious invisible evil authorities. Such nomadic behavior kept me slightly off the radar and in-transit for over 30 years. I often lived with extended geographical space between myself and Carolina, family and friends. This has not turned me into a hermit or anti-social, as I am indeed a social person when I need or desire to be but it has certainly kept me afar and I have missed a few birthday parties.
It seems that I am now located in a place called Regional. That is a place near Border or perhaps just down the track from Away. I make art in Regional. It is far from the Centre and sometimes difficult to get to but the view is lovely and the air is usually nice and clean.
To live and operate as an artist here one must be self-sufficient, self-motivated and self-disciplined as well as a bit selfish, self-obsessed and one must also be able to take the odd selfie.
Regional is a place urban people like to visit in order to recharge their batteries but many people don’t wish to live here as it is very far away from the so called “action”. Here in Regional you must make your own action and art in any form is excellent action to make here, there or elsewhere.

Speaking of creative action - we went to see the impressive Melbourne band - The Dirty Three perform live in the port of Fremantle. I have seen these guys a number of times over the past few decades in a few different cities and once again they displayed their unique aural talents. Their mesmerizing brand of passionate urban dirge continues to delight me and their many many fans worldwide. It was great to get to see them and luckily we also managed to have a beer with the guys after the gig. Bravo and 1000 thanks for your dirty divine music.

And suddenly …it was late July 2024. Meaning birthday time for us so a little drive was in order to celebrate time which meant we travelled just a bit north of Perth to the Nambung National Park. Strange limstone structures made from ancient seashells much older than I am can be found and can be photographed. So thats what we did while avoiding rain, watching rainbows and rocks and a kangaroo or two. Espresso martini sipping was also on the menu.

I also have been working in the studio and dissecting signs. People love signs and there are many to be seen which ever way you look. Art itself is a sign and it can guide us in many directions. We can only hope that it is the right direction. I should sign off as I need to eat a few empanadas...

MAY

Above Image credit: David, Mullermind Creative.

Above Images credit: David, Mullermind Creative.

REMOTELYCLOSE opened at the Geraldton Regional Art Gallery on April 26h. This dual exhibition is all about travel as this was how Carolina and I met and also what we have been doing for decades. We have been to a number of extremely remote locations and we have also lived close by just up the road, around the corner nearby. The shows title REMOTELYCLOSE is a constructed oxymoron which hopefully conjures up our expansive movements as well as the intimate connection we have as a couple. We are together when we are apart and apart when we are together or perhaps somewhere in-between.
https://artgallery.cgg.wa.gov.au/news/remotelyclose-carolina-furque-stephen-eastaugh-i-am-no-longer-there-i-am-no-longer-here-27-april-23-june-2024/14784?c=67

Geraldton the town sits about 500 kms north of Perth on the west coast and looks out to the vast Indian ocean. It has been a major modern fishing hub for the past few decades and an important fishing area for the local indigenous mob for a hell of a lot longer. Roughly 40,000 people now live in this town which is a little remote but pretty busy with seafood, mining, wheat, sheep and occasionally art in GRAG - the charming local gallery. There are famous Dutch shipwreck sites like Batavia and Zeewijk at the nearby Abrolhos Islands (Houtman Abrolhos) and the local western rock lobster is renowned and adored by all who enjoy seafood. We ate some and I wanted to eat alot more…

Carolina and I held artist talks at GRAG and enjoyed a few brief swims in the city beach as the weather was ideal. The Shore Leave Festival occurred during the weekend we were in town so there was also a number of events on including local musicians playing just in front of our hotel. A large THANKS to all at GRAG and the town of Geraldton.
Back south in Perth and a bit further south to Boddington. It is autunm now and the lack of rain for many many months is not good. We want big rain storms. We also consider in a rather haphazard and organic manner what to do with the garden here. Whatever plants that dont require water will be selected but some herbs and plants that were already established here will be looked after somehow. I am also thinking of some kind of ridiculous ornamental shrubbery topiary but that may be just a demented dream. So I dream of rain and a kooky front garden full of orna-mental topiary.

APRIL

I have scribbled an article in the current IMPRINT magazine titled - Printing in Paradise which covers a residency myself, Carolina Furque and Jo Darvall attended last year. The time spent at Lancaster Press Fiji seems like many moons ago but it is still in my mind as a productive time and charming location to make art under cocunut palms. To be able to work under the guidance of master printmaker Peter Lancaster alongside dynamo Dinah Maclaren and their fabulous team was a treat. If the Pasifik calls you and art is of interest to you I highly recommend this residency program. As they say in Fiji - “Bula bula.”

We are still house renovating which for some people is an exciting chore. So exciting that many TV stations create competitive shows about fixing houses which I find rather odd. It is not bad to repair and change an old dwelling but if you fix one part of a wall then you must fix the next bit, fix that and you notice another fault, repair that and you realize that first you must change that other bit then you need more stuff and a special tool and then something else breaks and more time and money needed, Ahhhhhh… nothing stays the same and nothing lasts for ever. That I do know. Perhaps I will just stop and observe the organic slow decay as this may offer some pleasing rustic, distresssed/weathered style element to my endeavours.
The recent heatwave here in Western Australia has most likely fried my brain a little as once the temperature sneaks over 40C its hard to concentrate and operate properly. There is always the option to wallow in that special zombie mode. Meaning to stumble around slowly and clumsily doing as little as possible while avoiding any decision making, converstation or worthwhile activities. This brutish staring, grunting behaviour with the occassional nibbling of a snack alongside the consumption of alcoholic beverages is one possible mode. Zombies are extremely boring so not a great plan to stay in this mode for too long.
Dry heat is a little easier to handle than humid tropical heat as it involves less sweating but the recent numerous 45 C days were really not much fun. We should have jumped in the local river to cool down but there were house chores to do and a few hours of quality zombie-time was also sadly required. One productive chore was the harvesting of many kilos of figs from our large fruit tree in the back garden. A simple fig chutney was made as well as a tasty fig jam with cardamon and star anise. Next will be a fig strudel or a fig pie or both. Lifes small pleasures.

Art swirls around in my brain. What I have made, what I could make and how I could make it. Imagine an old but functional washing machine working hard as it swirls about a number of items in a gooey-gray fluid micro-space. I turn on the machine in my head and it swirls ideas, themes, experiments, thoughts and experiences. I tip in some cleaning or clarity products with the hope of formulating a path to the realization of nice clean future artworks. More swirling around and around and with luck the actual physical work with selected materials begins. In order for all this to happen the raw materials, lumps of energy and ample time must all be collected, begged for, borrowed or stolen and then synchronised. What a complex activity it is but it is also worthwhile and incredibly fabulous if a clean and fresh smelling new object/idea is formed. Besides artistic rumunations, renovating and removing dust from one place to another I occasionally wander along defunct railway tracks, watch kangaroos and emus hop about or flocks of black cockatos loudly squarwking in eucalyptus trees. If lucky I sometimes get away to the beach to watch the Indian Ocean wobble about.

We soon head 540 kilometers north to Geraldton as Carolina and I will present the first instalment of what is to be a dual travelling exhibition. First stop is the Geraldton Regional Art Gallery. If you are in the area the opening night is Friday April 26th. 6PM.

JANUARY

Xmas in Australia included wild weather here and there with 39 C in Boddington and a few very brightly decorated homes that somehow acknowledged the arrival of baby Jesus in the middle east some years ago or perhaps the coloured lights were signals to a chubby fellow who lives near the North Pole? There was no sign of any Santa character or reindeers at our place as it was probably a bit too hot but I did make a cement and rock outdoor table, inserting an illegal Argentinean folk saint into the rocky bench base. Gauchito Gil was some form of historical Robin Hood figure who was fond of the colour red and I believe he seduced a wealthy Spanish coloniser for which he was hung. There are many stories about this character and today 250,000 pilgrims visit his main sanctuary in Mercedes Argentina each year to offer gifts and pray for help.

Besides making our home homely we watched the world became more crazy or rather the number of crazy humans on the planet increase to a level where we find confusion, corruption, manipulation, greed, fear, stupidity and horror in abundance. I believe that there are now 8,081,168,898 people alive today as I type this and next year we shall add another 80 million or so people to the population which sounds simply suicidal. I really think we humans must calm down immediately. Lets guess that there are 0.001% of the figure above who are dangerous, silly, awful and lacking empathy; if so that means there are approximately 80,000 highly unpredictable, unpleasant people alive today. Not a small number. I best change the topic as its too depressing.
So the first part of the holiday festive season saw us in Boddington trying to be in holiday mode but simultaneously renovating our home. There is much to do including planting local plants in the garden, painting the entire house as well as fixing the sink and painting the post box. I also tried to perfect my ikan bilis snack recipe (fried anchovies with peanuts and chilli).
We then visited Perth for the finale of 2023 in order to see a few people, do a few things and to greet 2024. For new years eve dinner Carolina and I had a selection of liquid refreshments then a simple snack of my ikan bilis. The next day was 2024 so as many do in this part of the world we went to a beach to wallow in the the sea and cleanse ourselves from the filth of 2023. We also indulged in a little picnic brunch which was amusing as a few quite large wild lizards (King Skinks/Egernia kingii) decided to join our little beach party and wanted to invade the picnic basket. I politely asked them to crawl back into their rocky homes.

City activities were many and we did manage to see and do a number of cultural things but then it was time to escape the big smoke and return to Boddington as the list of things to do there continues to grow and grow. Yep it is time to grow some passionfruit as well as general everyday passion.
My art studio space has drastically shrunk from 400 sq. metres in Broome to 6 sq. metres in Boddington which has obviously limited my production but art activity still incubates in some manner. I keep thinking that it could be wise for me to revisit my interest in Persian miniatures.
I insert here a short essay that tries to cover the expansive topic of art residencies. I have attended 36 formal residencies over the years so I attempt below to collate my thoughts relating to all those travels with my art.

Reminiscing about past art residencies - Broome, Perth, Eire, Indian Ocean, Antarctica and Malaysia.

36 formal art residencies attended
40 YEARS OF REFRESHING AiR

The first formal art residency was probably created by the French Academy of Art in Rome in 1666 by Louis XIV who established the academy at Palazzo Capranica for selected French artists to spend a few years in Italy in order to study art and architecture. Today art residencies are almost seen as a necessary part of an artist's career. Spending time interacting and creating in an exotic studio far away from home has helped many artists to learn, experiment and to visualise a bigger picture.
My first Artist in Residence (AiR) spell was in Antarctica. In the year 2000 an Australian Antarctic arts fellowship took me across the Southern Ocean to Casey station in remote east Antarctica. I was invigorated by the Polar climate, the short but extreme human history, the brutal beauty, the unique geopolitics and the very new culture being created down on the Ice by the very few humans that spend time living and working there. I also strangely felt at home there as nobody really can call it home. Over a period of one month down south and some months afterwards I created a massive amount of work; presenting nine solo Antarctic exhibitions over the next two years in Melbourne, Amsterdam, Paris, Brisbane, Phnom Penh, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Manila and Broome. Since 2000 I have utilised art residencies as locations to make a great deal of art and to put a roof over my neo-nomadic head.

International art residencies have grown rapidly across all continents due to cheap airfares and connectivity via the internet. They range from a four star trendy hi-rise hotel in Shanghai to a tiny wooden cabin in Alaska. A few art residencies are simply a way for artists to generate an income by setting up a basic bedroom for rent, including a studio perhaps with an old easel and a view. These residencies offer spare space to create, connections with the local art community and perhaps much more.
There are also many professionally organised, complex and highly sought after AiR programs. Rimbun Dahan in Malaysia has gallery space and ample staff to run expansive programs while NKD in Dale, Norway generously offers a stipend, airfare costs and art material costs. Some residencies are just safe houses for young artists recently graduated from art institutions who feel they need to do a residency as a right of passage. Similar to gap year students who have just finished high school and wish to make an overseas trip before commencing University.
Residencies can be run by art loving philanthropists, massive well funded institutions or a tiny remote community. You can find funky or traditional AiR programs. Programs can be LGBTQIA+ friendly, networking hubs, educational, first nation orientated, collaborative, science driven, environmentally concerned or utopian dreams, Some are highly specific in what forms of art are to be made or what type of artists are permitted to apply. There are now digital on-line residencies where physically moving your body from home is not even required. You can find highly structured programs where a great deal is expected including ongoing excitable social activity and there are also programs which leave the artist totally alone and isolated in a foreign land.

As a child I had a massive green and blue world map on my bedroom wall into which I pinned tiny hand drawn flags while inventing exciting routes I could take. This topographical map gave me a fascination for cartography, led me to consider geography, to dream of other lands and eventually to hit the road. Like many Australians I had an adoration for travel and my prehistory encompasses many Dutch sailor genes all of which helped to construct my wanderlust. Applying for summer school in Norway at the age of twenty-one seemed almost necessary. I wanted to explore as I knew there was much more than suburban life and at the time I had no idea I was half Dutch. I was keen and some would say brave enough to be able to investigate further afield so I headed off to the other side of the planet. At Oslo University I met dozens of people from around the world busy with culture and all inspired me to continue to create, search and observe as much as possible. I realised that the average human lifespan was pretty short so I wanted to do and to see as much of this pretty blue and green planet as possible before I headed off on that final journey we all shall take.

During that first European jaunt many surprising adventures occurred and the desire for more was amplified as ongoing and broad stimulus from travel was directly funnelled into making art. Art and travel became inseparable and travel became my muse. I was certainly aware that stimulus, romance and memorable experiences could be located at home but my wandering and wondering ways persuaded me to befriend and expand two basic human traits - adaptability and empathy. Excellent tools to navigate life even if you never move away from your place of birth. Travel also taught me how to prepare a few spicy tropical dishes, how to survive a blizzard on an icecap and how to say thanks in a dozen languages.

Residencies specifically designed for artists makes the complications and logistics of travel easier to navigate. Travel can be daunting, expensive and unsettling for anyone so an established residency program makes relocating faraway much less complex. All AiR programs are a two way street as guest artists are supported and energised as are the hosts. Those nearby the residency site are also impacted in a multitude of ways.
Cultural bodies and government agencies realise that art and artists are great instruments for soft diplomacy and can assist city make-overs so many policies mention art residencies in their strategic planning as there is ample positive proof of successful programs. It is a fact that no place stays the same. Considered activation of overlooked spaces or the more tricky gentrification process can be sped up by creatives moving into an area as artists often automatically beautify and rejig the ambience of a building or a street or even an entire town which then attracts others to visit or even settle. The city of Melbourne hopes to locate creative spaces in the Arts Precinct for artists to work and possibly stay as do many cities around the globe.
There are no set rules for art residencies and now there are so many to apply for that you can eventually find what you desire and where you desire if you look long enough or wait long enough. NASA employed the performance artist, Laurie Anderson in 2003 as an official AiR. No doubt there will be an artist heading to Mars sometime soon. AiR is certainly popular and a growing cultural industry.

I have been operating as a transnational visual artist with extreme wanderlust since 1982 and the past two decades I have inhaled plenty of AiR. In total I have been an official artist in residence at thirty-five formally organised art residencies which totals to just over five years. For another thirty-five years I constructed my own informal, mobile, organic studios in about one hundred countries. An assortment of functional habitats from rented rooms, to tents, ship cabins and once a large cupboard were all part-time homes as well as operational studios. Some spaces were used only for a week, others for many months and some I revisited; importantly in all of these makeshift studios I managed to create art. Basically the process was the same each time I relocated. Gather funds, arrange accommodation, plan travel mode then pack the rucksack including a small sack of art materials.

Art residencies have certainly helped add to my materials and skills list. Often an art shop was nowhere to be found so I worked with what I found. For instance in 2002 I was installed in a self made studio in Ulaan Baator Mongolia trying to create new work. I had very little paint, no paper nor canvas but I did have medical bandage and a sewing kit. This began an ongoing series titled - Travailogues. Over the next fifteen years in many lands and on many seas I created these small works on bandages. I subsequently held sixteen solo exhibitions of Travailogue works in Australia, Cambodia, Taiwan, Netherlands and onboard many icebreakers.

Once installed into a formal or self-organised studio I observed, engaged, collected ideas, visited museums and galleries and experimented with mediums, styles, local recipes and beverages. I also traced local artists, met local people and often held exhibitions of my work. Whenever need be I searched for work to keep myself fed and to enable my ongoing roaming. This modus operandi has kept me financially poor but rich with experiences and almost continuously on a meandering painter’s pilgrimage for most of my life. Long term mobility or rather instability is not for everyone but a stint at an art residency can place you in a very different place from where you normally are and send you towards a new direction. It can also confuse you, teach you, push you, bore you or make you homesick. In some way or another it will make you.

All that AiR time has made me a rambling person who is well adept at packing my bags and acclimatising. The year 2004 is a good example of my geographical promiscuity as over this twelve month period I took this wobbly route - Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Sydney, Bangkok, Taipei, Mount YuShan (Taiwan), Hong Kong, Helsinki, Murmansk (Russia), Franz Josef land Arctic, North Pole, Murmansk, Franz Josef Land, North Pole, Murmansk, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Amman (Jordan), Dead Sea, Petra, Amman, Amsterdam and finally I spent that new years eve in Berlin with Scandinavian artists I had met in Taipei wondering where I was.

While in residence here, there and elsewhere I have met a great many people including my partner who I bumped into in the elevator at an art residency in Paris at the well known Cite Internationale des Arts. I have experienced a myriad of places which makes me an extremely lucky person but it has also been a tricky lifestyle as I have had to discard many opportunities in many lands in order to keep moving. I have ruthlessly avoided possessions and the sinking of roots in any single place but things change and I really must find a home as I now wish to cultivate a garden. This garden may include aerial roots waving in the wind and tumbleweeds but it will be a garden located at a particular point of longitude and latitude with local shrubs, exotic plants and probably a few weeds that have travelled from afar.
I am now sixty-three years of age just back from a residency in Fiji. Is it time for me to locate a proper home yet? Time to make a base studio? Some place local or someplace globalised or someplace both? I wonder if I can reside and make art someplace ‘glocal’ perhaps with a tropical cactus shrubbery or a hothouse full of arctic moss.

36 formal art residencies attended.
2000
1. Australian Antarctic Division. Round trip residency. Casey Station.Antarctica. (1 month)        `
2.Tower Studio, Queens College, University of Melbourne. Australia.(1 month)
2001
3. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Moya Dyring Studio, Cite Internationale des Arts. Paris. France. (3 months)
4. Asialink. Self organised residency. Hong Kong. China. (3 months).
2002/03
5. Australian Antarctic Division. Summer residency, Davis Station. Antarctica. (4 months)
2003
6. Artspace Gunnery Residence/studio. Sydney. Australia. (2 months)
2004
7. Australia-China Council. Taipei artists village studio residency. Taiwan.(3 months)
8. Quark/THEME Arctic Residency Yamal Icebreaker. Arctic. North Pole. (2 weeks)
9. Quark/THEME Arctic Residency Yamal Icebreaker. Arctic. North Pole. (2 weeks)
2005
10, 11, 12. Quark/THEME. Antarctic Residency. M.V. Orlova. Southern Ocean. (3 Voyages. 2 months total)
2006
13. Quark/THEME.Antarctic Residency. Kapitan Khlebnikov. Ross Sea. (1 month)
14. Victorian Tapestry Workshop Residency. Melbourne. Australia. (1 month)
2007
15, 16. Quark/THEME. Antarctic Residency. M.V.Orlova. Southern Ocean. (2 Voyages 2 months total)
2008
17. MetaHouse. Phnom Penh. Cambodia. (1 month)
2009
18. Australian Antarctic Division. Winter residency. Mawson Station. Antarctica. (11 months)
2010
19. Retreat Residency. Upernavik. Greenland. (1 month)
20. Turner Gallery Artist in Residence. Perth. Australia. (2 months)
2011
21. Hafnarborg Residency. Iceland. (1 month)
22. Experimenta.Hong Kong. China. (1 month)
2012
23. 24HR Art / Asialink International Residency. Beijing, China. (3 months)
24. PAC Plymouth Art Centre. UK. (1 month)
25.Tanks Art Centre. Residency. Cairns.Queensland. Australia. (1 month)
2014
26. Pushkinskaya-10 Residency. St. Petersburg. Russia. (1 month)
2016
27. NSAF Residency. Hue. Vietnam. (2 months)
2017
28. NKD Dale i Sunnfjord. Norway. (3 months)
29. Rimbun Dahan. KL. Malaysia. (2 months)
2018
30. Australia Council for Arts. Maritime residency. Indian ocean. (1 month)
2019
31. 18th St. Art Center. LA. USA. (3 months)
32. Cill Rialaig. Residency. Cork. Ireland. (1 month)
2022
33 .Northern TAFE Perth. Australia.(1 month)
34. Fremantle Art Centre. Perth. Australia. (1 month)
2023
35. Treasure Hill Art Village. Taipei. Taiwan. (2 months)
36. Lancaster Press. Fiji. (2 months)