”Baz can’t paint,” says Fantauzzo. ”And I can’t make films. But I’m often inspired by films, and he’s often inspired by paintings, and we wanted to come together and blur the lines. So we made up a story” – the subject of The Creek, 1977, a painting that won this year’s Metro Art Prize – ”and it’s something we’re still working on, something we want to develop over years.” Some day, they both hope, it will become a movie; in the meantime, it has grown into an installation, a work that can be seen in the Lobby Gallery at the Sofitel hotel.

The idea for an installation came from a time when they were both in Fantauzzo’s studio one night. He was working on a painting for which he had also made a video; he showed it to Luhrmann, who suggested projecting it onto the painting. ”And then we switched off a light, and the street light came through, with bars of the studio window directed onto it, and it brought the painting to life.” Soon, they were talking about highlighting additional elements, adding music and sound.
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For the first stage of The Creek, 1977, he says, he and Luhrmann talked about ”the heightened drama of Renaissance paintings, that they were like stills from a play or a film”. They came up with the idea for a painting that could be ”a still from a movie not yet made”.

The work draws on details from Luhrmann’s childhood, growing up in a service station in a country town, as well as Fantauzzo’s memories. They devised characters and a storyline to underpin what we see: a young man being pulled from a car that has crashed into a creek. He is a drifter who has arrived in a small town, and stays with a family of three boys. ”Accidents and scenarios start happening around him; is it his presence, is he causing those things for some reason, or is it just a coincidence?”

Where the specific details of the painting fit in – does it show the beginning of a film or the end, is the young man alive or dead, was the crash accidental or deliberate, was anyone else involved – is still to be determined. He and Luhrmann are interested, Fantauzzo says, in what other people make of the possibilities.

”Even though the image is quite literal, people have very different ideas about it.”

In the installation, the viewer enters a black booth, experiencing the painting, projections, lights, sound effects of a car crash and voices, and a brief score, as well as photographs and additional paintings, additional material that is a mixture of real and imagined images. A smaller version of the painting won the Metro prize; the installation has already been to the Hong Kong International Art Fair and the West Australian Museum.

Fantauzzo is further down the track with another cinematic reference project, The Return of Suzie Wong, a collaboration with director Barney Howells, with an exhibition on show in a Hong Kong gallery. It is based on The World of Suzie Wong, a 1957 novel that was made into a movie starring William Holden and Nancy Kwan.

Fantauzzo and Howells worked on casting and location scouting; Fantauzzo created black-and-white storyboards and painted 15 key images for the exhibition. Talks are taking place with Paramount about Fantauzzo and Howells directing a remake together.

The Creek, 1977 is at the Sofitel, Collins Street, until November 25.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/blurring-the-lines-from-one-image-to-a-moving-picture-20111031-1ms0q.html

Blurring the lines from one image to a moving picture.

Melbourne based artist Vincent Fantauzzo lives a very interesting life indeed – when he’s not painting portraits of identities such as Heath Ledger and Jess Hart, he travels the world undertaking a variety of art related projects. While in Perth for his Light & Dark Collection exhibition at the WA Museum, Fantauzzo reflects on some of the most memorable experiences of 2010.

“I started off the year with a trip to India, I rode a motorbike through Rajasthan and Delhi with Baz Luhrmann,” Fantauzzo says casually. “We raised money for a charity for hearing impaired kids. So we rode motorbikes, took photographs, had an exhibition and we spray painted murals in villages with kids, it was really cool.”

After being introduced to each other by a mutual friend, Fantauzzo and Luhrmann soon realised they were kindred spirits with similar ideas about the world, and decided to travel across India together to raise funds for a children’s charity.

“I’m really interested in film and he’s inspired by painting, so we bounce ideas off each other. I learned so much working with him, he’s an absolute perfectionist. He got his license a few weeks before we left, he had never ridden a motor bike before and I ride everyday and love it, so I convinced him that it was a good idea. He’s really brave – he jumped on and was fine, although he did crash four times and broke his hand along the way!

“India is a special place; it’s hard to explain in words but every time I go I have a different experience. We hung out with people in palaces in Rajasthan, we played with kids all day in villages and got to meet a whole bunch of Bollywood stars – we got to see all these contrasting sides of India.”

Traversing India on a motor bike was no easy feat and Fantauzzo and Luhrmann were faced with a number of challenges they never could have anticipated.

“You’ll be riding and on one road and you’ll have camels pulling giant hay bales the size of a bus and wild pigs and goats running across the road – everything you’d expect to see from watching National Geographic. There were chickens and pigs and all sorts of things running everywhere and then you’d get on a highway and there would be thousands of trucks but there are no road rules at all, it was like playing Frogger on a motorbike! It was like a video game. Just when you think you’ve made it to level 10 there’s a whole other level of danger!

“We were just lucky he made it back! He broke his hand and he went to a doctor in India and they said ‘oh it’s fine, you just have an infection’, I don’t know how they came up with that! So they just wrapped it up and he was in so much pain and his hand looked like a balloon and when we got back to Sydney he went to see his doctor and he said ‘your hand is broken in like five places’ and they put him into surgery that day.”

In between dodging livestock and insane truck drivers, Fantauzzo and Luhrmann hatched a plan for a collaborative installation entitled The Creek 1977, which is on display as part of his current exhibition at The Old Gaol.

“We had a movie idea loosely based on the fact that Baz grew up in a gas station in the country. We shot the scene and we cast the actors. The scene is of an accident, so we got a car and tipped it over, it was like doing a little film set. We took loads of photographs and even got ourselves in the image. Then he made an original score of music for the piece and it’s all shown in a black room and there’s lighting that illuminates the painting slowly, so it tells a bit of a story.

“Old paintings are like movies – they tell a story, so we wanted to recreate that but embrace technology a little by adding music and lighting. The idea is that people have a look at the piece and they can log on to a website we’ve created and they can have their opinion on where the story might go. Eventually, hopefully, the idea will be turned into a movie. It’s something we can keep collaborating on, whether it happens next year or in five years, we can just keep building the story.
In addition to The Creek 1977, Light & Dark Collection also features Fantauzzo’s acclaimed portrait of Heath Ledger, plus a few large scale portraits and landscapes inspired by West Australia.

“It’s a little bit of a mix of works,” Fantauzzo says of the exhibition. “There’s the painting of Heath, a painting I collaborated on with Baz Luhrmann for the Hong Kong Art Fair, which is a big installation that features painting, music and lighting; then there are about six works that relate to that painting and a couple of portraits and landscapes that I’ve done while in WA. The thing that ties them all together is the drama and the lighting.”

A painting that’s been exhibited and reproduced all over the world and is now on display in Perth, Fantauzzo’s portrait of Heath Ledger was entered into the 2008 Archibald Portrait Prize, and took out the People’s Choice Award.
“We had been planning to do it for years and years and it just happened that we were both in Perth one Christmas and we got together and talked about the idea and we had the same concept, so it was more of a collaboration. I think it was a little bit about being a public figure and being in the spotlight and what you keep to yourself. I wanted to convey that experience of having voices in your ears and wanting to say things that you know you can’t. You can’t let your guard down.”

By Emma Bergmeier

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“It’s like when you’re sitting outside a cafe and see someone walk past and think oh, they look interesting. Because I’m painting their por-trait. I have an excuse to talk to them.” Fantauzzo had the pleasure of getting to know the late homegrown actor Heath Ledger, whose portrait won the 2008 Archibald People’s Choice Award and now features in The Vincent Fantauzzo Light & Dark Collection. As a close friend of the artist. Ledger sat for the piece in 2008 – weeks before he died – prompting Fantauzzo to finish the work after the actor’s passing.

“We were at The Raffles and it was a busy night, and there were loads of people coming to say ‘hi’ to him.” he said. “Heath was always very polite to people. I thought it must be so intense to have so many people wanting a piece of you. “The central figure in the portrait is Heath muting his emotions almost, and the other figures are him telling himself what, or what not, to do. We came up with that concept together.” Fantauzzo fondly remembers his friend as dynamic and charismatic, and an inspiration to himself and their friends.

“It’s gone on to have a life of its own – looking at it, I feel quite emotional – it is definitely the most significant work I’ve ever made.”

The collection also includes portraits of Aussie filmmaker Baz Luhrmann.

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via Yahoo!7

There were 798 entries, but for the gallery’s packing room workers, the winner was easy to pick. A portrait of celebrity chef Moran wielding a butcher’s knife in front of a carcass was the clear favourite.

Head storeman Steve Peters said: “For me it was a no-brainer. It was by far the best picture we’ve seen during the week. It was getting a little depressing for a while and this one came in and it sort of hit you. Beauty.”

The winner of the Packing Room Prize never has gone on to win the Archibald. Mr Peters is convinced the curse will be broken. “Usually it’s the kiss of bloody death, but I just think it’s a fantastic picture,” he said.

Winning artist Vincent Fantauzzo was not cast down by the $1000 prize, saying the curse “should be broken”. Melbourne-based Fantauzzo, who won the People’s Choice in 2008 and 2009 for portraits of actor Heath Ledger and Australia child actor Bandon Walters, said the standard of the entries this year was “amazing”.

via Adelaide Now.

Melbourne artist Vincent Fantauzzo said he and Moran were best friends and both had left school early to become chefs. “Except Matt was successful at it and I wasn’t – so I painted him instead,” the Melbourne artist said. The Packing Room prize winner … Vincent Fantauzzo’s portrait of his friend, celebrity chef Matt Moran. Fantauzzo said he was pleased to capture Moran’s “cheeky” grin in the portrait, entitled Matt, after experimenting with several poses. “Matt is one of my best friends, I’ve known him for years,” he said today.

Moran said some people might think the portrait was “gruesome”. “But to be honest it’s what I do every day, it’s not foreign to me,” he said.

Fantauzzo won the Archibald’s People’s Choice Prize two years running, in 2008 and 2009, for his portrait of the late actor Heath Ledger and actor Brandon Walters, who played the Aboriginal boy Nullah in Baz Luhrmann’s film Australia. Born in England in 1977, Fantauzzo came to Australia as a child. He has a bachelor of fine art (painting) and a master of fine art from RMIT University, Melbourne.

Moran is now a household name from his appearances on television cooking shows including MasterChef, The Chopping Block and My Restaurant Rules. Moran and his business partner Peter Sullivan own the Aria restaurants in Sydney and in Brisbane. Moran is also the author of two cookbooks.

The $1500 gong came as 41 finalists from nearly 800 entries were unveiled at the Art Gallery of NSW in this year’s Archibald competition for portrait paintings.

The portraits include those of Cathy Freeman by Craig Ruddy, Cate Blanchett and her children by Del Kathryn Barton and Margaret Olley by Ben Quilty.

The Packing Room Prize, the first of the annual awards to be given in the Archibald contest, is awarded by art gallery staff who receive the entries. But head storeman Steve Peters holds the majority vote. “Ninety years of Archibald and 20 years of common sense with the Packing Prize,” he quipped.

The Packing Room Prize was first awarded in 1991, but has never been the Archibald judges’ choice for the main award, whose winner will be announced on April 15. All finalists are to go on public display the following day at the Art Gallery of NSW. They will be exhibited until June 26 and then go on tour to regional NSW and Victoria. The gallery also unveiled the finalists in the Wynne and Sulman art prizes, held in tandem.

by Adam Fulton

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His recent work “30 Portraits 30 Days NYC” involved Vincent painting 30 portraits to represent the diversity of New York during September 2010. His 2008 entry into the Archibald Portrait Prize of the late Heath Ledger won him the runner-up and the People’s Choice award and in 2009 his entry of the child actor Brandon Walters in Baz Luhrmann’s epic ‘Australia’ again won him the People’s Choice award.

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