Category Archives: Shadows

PhD Application Portfolio by Julia Featherstone

Posted on 2015-11-05 | Leave a comment

Download the Powerpoint portfolio with links to my movies (Vimeo) in Powerpoint Slide Show view.  Julia_Featherstone_PhD_Portfolio_9.6MB

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Posted in Absurd, Shadows, Surreal, Venus Codex

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Moonlight Sonata

Posted on 2015-07-24 | 2 comments

Moonlight Sonata explores the emotional impact of the full moon and artificial light on human perception when alone at night in the desert landscape. Looked interesting when projected onto the roof of a workingman’s cottage @ Beams Art Festival, Chippendale Creative Arts Precinct, on 18-19 September, 2015.

Kenso Street

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Posted in Absurd, Invisible, Landscape, moonstruck, Shadows, Surreal, Video Stills

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The Red Desert Project

Beneath Horizons: Australian Desert Landscape - MFA exhibition14

The Red Desert Project installed 2.5 billion grains of red desert sand on the floor of an urban gallery for city-dwellers to walk barefoot and be ‘out there’ in the emptiness. This immersive exhibition was integral to my studio-based Master of Fine Arts degree at COFA, UNSW. The images are video stills from HD video projections. Left: Moonlight Sonata (Simpson Desert, SA); Centre:  Gibson’s Compass (Simpson Desert, SA); Right: Alchemy of the Sun (Lake Disappointment, Little Sandy Desert, WA) >  See MFA14

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Posted on 2014-06-02 in Abandon, Absurd, Firenze, Invisible, Landscape, mapism, moonstruck, Music, Perspective, Place, Sand, Scale, Science, Shadows, Surreal, Video Stills

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Stuck in the Mud

Posted on 2013-06-29 | Leave a comment

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A ceramic work that is part of a series about getting bogged and stuck in the Simpson Desert for 11 days,  3-13 September 2010. Alasdair Macfarlane drove over 12 kilos of Keane’s Stoneware33 clay wrapped in gladwrap.

IMG_3144I let the clay  dry for 2 weeks, then bisque fired, circa 1,000 degreesC. Painted  3x  glazes – Satin Black, Copper Red and Chun. Finally, Petra Svoboda, COFA ceramics, reduction fired the work in a gas kiln for 10 hours, circa 1280 degreesC. Big thanks  to COFA ceramic lecturers, Jacqueline Clayton and Julie Bartholomew, for advice and help on how to realise the work.

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Posted in Abandon, Absurd, Ceramic, Fracture, Landscape, mapism, Place, Shadows, Surreal

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Gibon’s Compass

Posted on 2012-07-03 | Leave a comment

The video explores  internal compass,  beliefs, mis-beliefs and the desires for new horizons. Inspired by the Gibson Desert and Alfred Gibson who, in 1874,  lusted after Ernest Giles’s compass, even though he did not know how to use it.  The video opens with a  red compass resting on a slatted wooden table.  A figure enters,  picks up the two objects, and walks across the claypan, shrinking towards the vanishing point on the horizon line. https://vimeo.com/45287392


Alasdair Macfarlane and I  took  11 days to winch and pull ourselves through the muddy claypans of the Simpson Desert to Birdsville. Gibson disappeared in 1874 when he went searching for water with Giles’s compass. His body was never found, despite days of searching and the Gibson Desert is named in his memory.

Exhibitions:  Blake Prize 2012 Director’s Cut Exhibition http://www.blakeprize.com/galleries/directors-cut?yr=2012&page=3;          Desert Equinox Festival, Night-Sun-Days screening, Broken Hill, 1-23 September, 2012;  Half a Desk exhibition, Kudos Gallery, Paddington, 15-18 August, 2012.

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Posted in Abandon, Absurd, Place, Sand, Shadows, Surreal, Video Stills

Michaelangelo’s Cave

Posted on 2012-05-08 | Leave a comment

May 6: Postcard: Michaelangelo’s Cave: Sculptor Lea Ferris sent me a postcard of the quarry in the Apuan Alps near Pietrasanta, Tuscany, Italy,  where the marble for Michaelangelo’s David 1501-04 and other white marble sculptures was mined. I love the steep slopes, texture and zig-zag road… and memory of place

May 6: POSTCARD:  Michaleangelo’s Cave after digging in Photoshop > Filters > Stylise > Find Edges

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Posted in Abandon, Absurd, cubism, Firenze, mapism, Perspective, Place, Sculpture, Shadows

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My Guitar and Picasso

Posted on 2012-05-05 | Leave a comment

May 4:  Present: My guitar is very special as it enables me to write songs. I’m a fan of Picasso’s multiple perspectives and I wanted to pay homage to AGNSW for bringing his exhibition to Sydney

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Posted in Absurd, cubism, Shadows, Surreal

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Across the Universe

Posted on 2012-05-04 | Leave a comment

May 3:  Free choice  I loved Elizabeth Abraham’s New Year’s Resolution for a year of LIGHT. I remembered that my word for 2012 is MUSIC, especially lyrics, invisible electro-magnetic waves and colour. Thanks Elizabeth!

I listened to John Lennon singing “Across the Universe” as I tried to respond to the music and lyrics within the electromagnetic waves… I found it poignant that he kept repeating “Nothing’s gonna change my world” and of course his world changed dramatically. This led me to rip and tear the lyrics to distort memory and hope.

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Posted in Absurd, cubism, Invisible, mapism, Music, Shadows

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Mexico meets Sydney

Posted on 2012-05-03 | Leave a comment

Every Day in May 1: Landscape:  I’ve joined this global sketching group which draws a different, nominated subject each day during May.  For the 1st May, I sketched the succulent garden in the Sydney Royal Botanical Gardens with the iconic Centrepoint tower in the background:  Mexico meets Sydney.


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Posted in Landscape, Place, Shadows, Surreal

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Kimberlea in the Wild

Posted on 2012-03-26 | Leave a comment

My watercolour 56×76 cm is finally framed in a hot Napthol Red Medium  (Golden) frame… like pyroclastic plasma after a volcanic eruption!


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Posted in Shadows