An On-Set Visit With Las Vegas Body Painting Artist & Skin Wars Producer Robin Slonina

-->

The sign on the entrance to Stage 7 at Hollywood’s Sunset Gower Studios reads “Closed Set – No Photography”. Filming of the third season of The Game Show Network’s popular SkinWars body painting contest is underway and the identity and progress of the contestants is a closely guarded secret until the ten episodes are screened. All the contestants are sequestered away during the six-week shoot without access to the potential distractions of cell phones and television until they are either eliminated or master the creative challenges to claim the $100,000 prize money. 

            Robin Slonina, Las Vegas-based artist and owner of Skin City Body Painting, has been a producer and judge for each Skin Wars series. She laughs, “We call it body paint boot camp, but we look after our contestants. They stay together in a house with a pool, barbeque and pool table, and the current group have been entertaining themselves by choreographing and performing song and dance routines.” 

-->

Taking a break from filming, Slonina and fellow expert body painting judge, New Orleans-based artist Craig Tracy describe what they will be looking for in the winning contestant. “Our three main criteria are creativity, technique and the execution of the challenge, and the artists must be able to work under pressure. It’s anyone’s game right up to the last challenge. A contestant could be winning the whole time, then make one mistake and they’re out”.

              Transformation icon Ru Paul completes the judging trio and X-Men star Rebecca Romijn hosts. Skin Wars season three is scheduled to screen early 2016.

An Artist Residency Experience at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas

-->

Completing an artist residency in a large resort on the Las Vegas Strip has definitely been one of the most interesting art experiences to date. The P3Studio residency is a partnership between The Cosmopolitan of LasVegas and Art Production Fund in New York City. The residency program is designed to provide guests with an interactive art experience, so there is always a participatory element to each project and artists change monthly.

When I open the studio doors to visitors for the first time on Wednesday, December 11, I am not sure exactly what to expect. I have produced two previous audience-participation collage projects – the first took place over a few hours at the London Biennale in Nevada satellite project and the second over a few days at the Life is Beautiful Festival. However, the House of Paper Birds project at The Cosmopolitan spans a few weeks, and at the end of the residency period, I estimate that visitors will have completed two collage panels inspired by the fruit of the Joshua Tree and a large reverse-glass window collage where bird-women reign over a desert landscape. I provide a starting point for each of the works, then with a little guidance, the visitors do the rest.

I hope that during the process, visitors will also enjoy the opportunity to browse a range of fashion, lifestyle and art magazines in the adjoining Reading Room. This area is inspired by the MOCA Grand Avenue Reading Room in Los Angeles and is designed for me by Patina Décor. I also envision conversations taking place around the large studio table amongst friends old and new, as visitors source collage material from the stacks of magazines.

As it happens, my hopes for cultural interchange are exceeded. The P3Studio visitors are of all ages and from all over the states, with many from other countries also. Christmas is fun. I Skype with family in New Zealand on our Christmas Eve, and spend Christmas Day in the studio meeting many family groups who are enjoying the bright lights and festive events on the Strip. There are little toddlers who paste paper strips onto the window collage and charm me by blowing me kisses. There are teenagers who talk about their love of art and leave me little drawings. Some people stay for a few minutes, some stay for an hour or more. And at the end of the residency, the collaborative collage works seem to almost vibrate with the convergence of their collective energy.

I am joined in the weekends by invited special guests who bring elements of the House of Paper Birds to life; artist Shelbi Schroeder appears as an aloof black swan watching us watching her, burlesque entertainer Lou Lou Roxy demonstrates the skilled techniques of the fan dance, fashion designer Mina Kahn exemplifies the exotic in her feathered creations on models Kathy C Liu and Tarah Una Robinson, and entertainer/fashionista Devi Amuro stages an intergalactic fashion invasion of the Reading Room with models Starza and Lashonza Ferguson.

In the same way that collage combines disparate elements and creates something fresh, the residency has brought together my favorite aspects of Las Vegas – fashion, flamboyance, performance and the dramatic desert environment – and created a singular experience within the wider cultural experience of The Cosmopolitan itself. In addition to the residency program, The Cosmopolitan curates the public art program Pause, also in partnership with Art Production Fund, where moving image works by artists such as Tracey Emin, TJ Wilcox and Laurie Simmons periodically take over the large-scale LED signs. The Cosmopolitan brings a wealth of contemporary visual art to Las Vegas, while incorporating local artists into the mix and offering visitors the opportunity to participate in building this creative culture. The positive energy I experienced in this process is something that will always stay with me.

 

The Three Wise Guys visit P3 Studio

The lounge area in front of the P3 Studio at The Cosmopolitan was a very comfortable venue to listen to readings by The Three Wise Guys - Dayvid Figler from Las Vegas, Gregory Crosby from New York and Geoff Carter from Seattle. Current P3 Studio artist-in-residence Jerry Misko invited the trio to perform and created a signature print to commemorate the occasion.

studio visit with Anthony Bondi

Entering Anthony Bondi's back yard is like finding yourself in an art installation playground designed to appeal to adults as much as children. In recent years Bondi has developed a reputation for installing large interactive works at the Burning Man festival, including Merry-go-down and Jigglator in 2009, Iron Curtain in 2005 and Deus Ex Machina in 2004.
After these works have been enjoyed by the huge festival crowd, Bondi looks for ways to give them a longer lifespan. Deus Ex Machina aka Homey Paradise (top left) has spent time at the Lied Discovery Children's Museum and some of the larger pieces now decorate Bondi's back yard patio. Always considering the visual potential of objects, Bondi has reinvented these installations as photo-shoot environments. His 2010 series of photographs feature seductive women frolicking within these tactile installations - the kind of behavior not usually condoned in art museums.
Bondi, however, has a vision of freeing up the entrenched ways we view and participate in our environments. Having witnessed many viewers either refraining uncertainly from touching the artworks, or sometimes being too enthusiastic in their play and over-stressing components, Bondi is always considering ways to make the artworks robust enough to allow interaction, while maintaining their delicate, mobile aesthetic.
Earlier collage works also evidence this interest in interactions within environments. Influenced by the themed Strip hotels, Bondi has created a collage featuring Lady Liberty reaching out to an MGM lion, while an Excalibur knight charges in to effect a rather unnecessary rescue. Bondi succinctly sums up the development of Las Vegas "We will take disparate objects and find an order amongst them and define a culture".
The image bottom right is courtesy Anthony Bondi's website.

Post-Op Lollipop Remix EP Release Party

Candy Warpop have just released a remix EP 'Post-Op Lollipop' featuring some great local electronic music producers and deejays. The collage artwork for the cover is by yours truly with design by Corlene Byrd. Artifice hosted the release party with a performance by the band as they've never been seen before...

From Abroad (Vent 10)

The exhibition From Abroad has just opened at Thermostat Art Gallery in Palmerston North, NZ. All the artists in the show are scattered around the globe but have links to the gallery. I contributed the top two mixed media works, and Matt and I collaborated on the bottom two works - the first time we have worked together like this.
The other artists in the show are Shelley Malcolm from London, Barnard McIntyre and Clare Firth-Smith from Melbourne, Victor Berezovsky and Sandra Schmidt from Dresden, David Boyce from Hong Kong, Christian Hogue from Bangkok and Leahlani Johnson from Sydney. The exhibition runs through to 21 July.

and I've been working on this collage commission...

making ceramics...

Matt has been busy in Whanganui making some very cool ceramics.

from the studio...

Bottom right is my Miss January work in the 2011 calendar produced by the Rayner Brothers Gallery.

Pop2 paints

I'm loving the colors of my new spray paints sourced from Pop2 in the LV Arts Factory. Much more than an art supply store, Pop2 truly is a cultural hub. If you follow the link, the 'Quick History of Pop2' makes interesting reading.

ceramics

Seattle has a strong reputation for ceramics. Top left is work by Kendra Sparks and top right my ceramic tooth by Charles Krafft. Below are photos from the University of Washington Ceramic and Metal Arts campus where we were invited for an informal barbeque.

2d meets 3d

A friend was flattening out a watercolour painting using small ceramic jars...

farewell to the studio

It was great to be part of the creative community that is the Old Chronicle building. Thanks Ross! I set out some artworks and general parephenalia that I didn't want to pack, and we had a few people drop by to help us farewell the studio and clear out some stuff...