Porn & Politics With Angela White

Published: Beat Magazine #1245

At a young age, porn star and candidate for the Australian Sex Party, Angela White was a victim of bullying for being incredibly sexual. “My sexuality was something that people saw as a problem when I was a teenager,” says White, who will be running against anti-prostitution campaigner, Kathleen Maltzhan.

“For example, the two names that I was called the most in high school were ‘lesbian’ and ‘slut’.” At the age of 14, having been introduced to pornography by a friend, White discovered a place where she could finally be free to express herself sexually.

“I wanted to get into pornography from about the age of 14,” she explains. “I did the right thing and waited until I was 18. When I turned 18, I sent some photos off to a company I wanted to work with, and then what do you know? Two weeks later I was on a plane to Miami, Florida in the States to shoot pornography.” 

Interview: Delicate Mayhem

Published: Trespass Magazine

The intricate drawings of London-based artist, Laura Jordan, a.k.a. Delicate Mayhem present a world of wonderment. They are artworks you can sit and stare at for hours, personifying the notion of a picture painting a thousand words. A lot of the time, they expose an intimate snapshot of a city and its people; whether it be a social commentary on London, Manchester, New York and so on. They are artworks of familiar places, familiar people, the familiar clockwork that drives our everyday enveloped with a hint of mayhem, but of course, delicately bound.

Here, Laura gives us a lowdown on her artworks, life as an artist, and personal insights into her world.

Name: Laura Jordan

Occupation: Illustrator & Art Director of Delicate Mayhem

1.  Describe your style of drawing: Free line architectural with a touch of magic.

2.  When did you first get into art? I learnt to express my creativity when I was at school.

3.  Do you ever get artist’s block? How do you get over it?

Not really, I’m constantly inspired by the world around me; I always have a pile up of ideas to execute. I do though sometimes get bored or frustrated when working on a piece that’s not quite coming together so I move on to something else or go out to my favourite places in London to reinspire myself.

Read the rest in Trespass by clicking here.

Interview: Fiona Lee of Momiji

Published: Trespass Magazine

Momiji are message dolls. Hidden within each of them are personalised little messages inspired by friendship, love and little kindnesses. Created in 2005 in the humble beginnings of Momiji HQ, located in a little village in Warwickshire, England, the dolls have since been sighted all over the world including designs from Malaysia to Chile to Australia. Each doll is designed with a unique personality in mind, a particular favourite of mine is the Mika doll; she loves Spiderman and New York and makes up part of Momiji’s Itchy Feet Dolls Collection.

Momiji is also a collective that works with upcoming and emerging designers, and often source artists from colleges around England. Trespass chats to Melbourne-based artist, Fiona Lee who is Australia’s Momiji Designer. We find out more about the company and the new range of Christmas dolls (Pudding, Robin and Sparkle) that Lee has designed.

Tell us about your role in Momiji: 

I am the Momiji Designer Down Under! Momiji have designers from all over the globe and here in Australia, I work with the good people at Momiji to create designs for some of their packaging, support merchandise and most recently, dolls as well. 

Interview: Jacqui Vidal, Signed and Numbered

Published: Trespass Magazine

By chance one day, I walked into Signed and Numbered and was immediately drawn to the homely feel of the space. The gallery, which specialises in limited edition prints, was founded and run by the lovely Jacqui Vidal. The selection of (affordable) artworks is vast and capable of appealing to a range of personal tastes; in fact, some of Ian Mutch’s work – whom we interviewed last week – is showcased there also. However, what was most striking were the picture frames, which have been treated with a stunning acrylic finish and are also, frameless. Counterintuitive indeed, but these unique frameless picture frames make sense, and come in a myriad of colours created to draw one’s focus on the artwork rather than the frames themselves.

Name: Jacqui Vidal

Occupation: Owner and founder of Signed and Numbered

1.  Tell us about your store, Signed and Numbered: Signed and Numbered is a little gallery in Prahran that specialises in limited edition prints by some of today’s most exciting artists. We’re currently showcasing prints from over 30 artists including Vexta, Kelly Smith, Acorn, Miso, FAKE and Delicate Mayhem. 

Interview: Ian Mutch

Published: Trespass Magazine

Artist Ian Mutch won last year’s Tiger Translate ‘King of the Urban Jungle’ award. He was then flown to Bangkok to paint a mural alongside international and local artists, Spanky, Mama Cup and Clean.Mutch is currently based in Western Australia where he paints, surfs and runs Rhythm Media, his very own graphic design company, and also co-produces Kingbrown Magazine.

We chat to Mutch about art, winning Tiger Translate and what he gets up to when not working.

What first made you decide to submit your work to the Tiger Translate Global Art Exhibition?

I received a submission callout email thru a friend and thought it would  be a good opportunity to enter. I had just come back from Indonesia and the following week was relatively quiet with work, so the extra time allowed me to concentrate on a submission piece. I also knew about the Tiger Translate series of events thru their global website so was pretty keen to get involved. 

Interview: La Carmina

Published: Trespass Magazine

Canadian born and raised Japanese Goth fashion blogger, La Carmina is a travel TV host, author of 3 books (Penguin USA and Random House), and writer for CNNGo.com and Lip Service. She has also been featured in major publications (The New Yorker, Washington Post, WWD, Village Voice, Time Out New York, Fox News, LA Times) and has appeared on shows as diverse as The Today Show and Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods. To add to her already overflowing myriad of achievements, La Carmina will soon be the Asia host for the educational travel TV series, Project Explorer.

Name: La Carmina

Interview: Visible, Multicultural Arts Victoria

Published: Trespass Magazine

A concert showcasing local artists of diverse backgrounds will soon hit Melbourne’s Arts Centre on November 21^st. Visible, in association with Multicultural Arts Victoria (MAV) has its heart very much on the music, but it’s also an event to pave the way for culturally diverse musicians into mainstream art.

“Our purpose is to promote multicultural arts and finding pathways into the arts,” says Anita Larkin, Project Officer at MAV. “So it’s not just about keeping multicultural arts outside of the mainstream like a fringe arts kind of thing, but getting multicultural arts into the mainstream.”

Events like Visible aid the artistic professional development of artists particularly from recent arrival and refugee communities. This year the ticketed event, hosted by John Safran, is largely focused on the music of several African countries with a line-up that includes Afro Habesha (Ethiopia), Afro Mandinko (West Africa) and Blak Roots, an Afro-Reggae act. However, the pre-show entertainment is a free event and will take place at the Arts Centre’s Smorgon Family Plaza with Akoma Beat and Kundalila.  

Beardo Exhibition

Published: Beat Magazine

Welcome to the curious and ever-fascinating world of beards and the people who grow them. Some, like Hans Langseth who died in 1927, decided to grow his beard to a world-record length of 17 and a half feet. Others, like Steven Raspa, decided to trademark his magnificent chin mane – a dreadlock-esque, over-shoulder beard beautified with a single flower at its tip.

Beardo – so rightly named – is Town Hall Gallery’s latest exhibition on all things related to the beard. The showcase blends work from the gallery’s permanent art collection as well as work from contemporary artists and includes painting, textiles, photography and installations.
“I noticed that we have a lot of historical paintings and photographs of these men sporting really fantastic beards and great facial hair,” says Mardi Nowak, curator of Beardo. “They’re the kind of things that rarely get shown other than in historical contexts, and I sort of thought it would be really great as a way of getting them out there.” 

Disney: Dreams Come True

Published: Beat Magazine

For so many of us, Disney films defined our childhood. The animated films were our introduction to the land of fairy tales (albeit bastardised versions of the originals), and in some (naïve) instances, our first insight into the notion of ‘true love’.

The ubiquity of Disney, and in fact, the ubiquity of anything, can often lead to the under-appreciation for something. At the time we experienced our first Disney film only the storyline mattered, or the characters, or the wonderfully melodious songs, such that the laborious process of bringing the whole feature together was often overlooked. However, a few numerical facts might remedy that.

Before the digital age, many old-school Disney films often required 24 sketches to create one second of film. This meant that an entire movie could consist of up to a million sketches – hand drawn, no less. Bambi, for instance, created footage that stretched 6,259 feet. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the Walt Disney Research Library hosts up to 60 million artworks. 

My Name is Rachel Corrie

Published: Beat Magazine

The death of Rachel Corrie is a chilling reminder of the tragedy of war, and the fatal fate many non-military people have encountered over the years. In 2003, as part of the International Solidarity Movement, 23-year-old Corrie ventured to the Gaza region as a peace activist. Three months after her arrival, she was killed when a bulldozer crushed her while she was stood in front of a Palestinian home in attempt to protect it from demolition.

Performed by Hannah Norris with direction by Daniel Clarke, My Name is Rachel Corrie is a one-person show about the short life of Rachel Corrie. The play was compiled and edited by actor Alan Rickman and deputy editor of the Guardian, Katharine Viner. “This play is all taken from her journals, her emails and her diaries, and has been compiled into a script,” explains Norris, who recently won the Best Female Performance award for her portrayal of Corrie. “The first half sort of tracks her life in Olympia in Washington, U.S.A. and we get to know the person that she was; things that she dreamt about and believed in. The second half is when she arrives in Jerusalem and heads into Gaza.”