Northern Beaches based visual artist and illustrator, Miguel Gonzalez a.k.a M-Lon, will tomorrow launch a three day roaming art exhibition in Brookvale, that allows attendees to bag a limited edition NFT.
‘Confused’ has been inspired and produced since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, documenting the artist’s experience during two lockdowns.
M-Lon’s solo show will be hosted as a roaming exhibition over three days, within three separate spaces in Brookvale. Commencing at La Crème Creative, the immersive show will then travel to independent gallery Our Place, and will wrap up at Bucketty’s Brewing Co.
Attendees who complete the exhibition by scanning a QR code at each location will be awarded a limited edition NFT from the artist.**
The culmination of two years’ work, M-Lon says the exhibition contains two aesthetics and styles, and describes his lived experience during both of Sydney’s lockdowns.
“Confused describes my own personal experience during two lockdown periods. It was my constant state of mind- quick changes in moods, looking forward to going back to normality, whilst simultaneously experiencing a desire to stay home with my family and thoughts.”
The first body of work in the exhibition presents still-life paintings of flowers and plants, alongside expressive oil pastel portraits. The work emerges from a deep emotional space, following the illness and loss of the artist’s mother a month before the first lockdown.
The second body of work in the exhibition was completed during the most recent lockdown where M-Lon started to explore new technologies by creating NFT platforms.
“The digital world has offered artists a platform where we can continue to express our ideas in spite of lockdown. I’m excited to experiment with this technology, but it’s also paramount that we bring the community together and support local venues and spaces. I wanted to incorporate both of these values into my exhibition, by hosting it at three local venues in Brookvale, and award people with NFT’s for attending every location.”
Many of the pieces embrace chromatic aberration – a technique that expresses a colour distortion along the edges of objects in a photograph, which M-Lon says comes from his experiences with presbyopia- the gradual loss of eyesight.
“The dissection of colours and the blur effect conveys my relationship with presbyopia. As an artist, it has been both disorientating and confusing to lose my vision, making it harder to focus on just one thing.”
A percentage of all sales will go to support the not-for-profit organisation, La Crème Creative, a space used by several Northern Beaches-based artists and creatives, that has been negatively impacted during Covid.
“The second body of work in the exhibition was completed during the most recent lockdown in New South Wales, which became the longest period of restrictions in the state’s history. As a founder of La Crème Creative, a not-for-profit creative space in Brookvale which houses a number of local Northern Beaches artists and creatives, it’s been a testing time for our community.”
The exhibition officially opens at La Crème Creative on Friday December 3rd, with wine and cheese from 5:30pm-9pm, and speeches at 7pm.
Following the health advice for December 3rd, fully vaccinated visitors are welcome indoors at all venues.
Opening and exhibition hours on the weekend are as follows:
Official Opening; Dec 3, 2021, from 05:30pm – 09:00pm
La Crème Creative (4/8 Orchard Rd)
5:30pm – 9:00pm – wine & cheese, speeches 7:00 pm.
Roaming Exhibition: Dec 4 – Dec 5 from 12:00pm – 04:00pm
La Crème Creative (4/8 Orchard Rd)
Our Place (unit 5/42 Wattle Rd)
Bucketty’s Brewing Co (26 Orchard Rd, Brookvale NSW 2100)
**(NFT stands for Non-fungible Token, which is a digital asset that is bought and sold online. The point of buying one is to have proof that you own the asset, i.e. you have complete ownership of a piece of art, music, or video that exists almost solely online.)
For more information or to learn about M-Lon, please visit: https://www.m-lon.com.au/
