Lister paints a mural at blank_space gallery


Oliver Heath films Lister and talks about Lovelace:

I had the chance to follow up my video of Lister getting up in LA and this time catch him painting a mural at our friend Simon Lovelace‘s Sydney gallery, blank_space. Although often on canvases in major galleries these days, Lister still burns them out like a street boss.

blank_space is a great spot. I’ve heard high-art aficionados express disdain for the (lack of) quality of work there, stating that a place that is sometimes a pop-up store shouldn’t properly call itself a gallery, and that a gallery must be tightly curated. Nonsense. I think they had ‘gallery’ confused with ‘museum’. I for one can’t get by on retrospectives, I want to be at the first show not the last one. blank_space is democratic in its accessablity and in that it is affordable to artists. It doesn’t even have an overeducated committee like many government-funded ARIs and, most importantly, it has big windows on a busy street in the middle of a metropolitan city. Basically, it gives tremendous opportunities to artists.

The artist that the snobs love in the institutional show had their first solo show here, sold their first work, built hope that an art career wasn’t just a dream. It’s a wonderful thing, and I have a lot of love for Simon and how he’s managed to keep it going while pursuing his own art career. He’s the cheeky silver fox with the three-legged dog. Kinda hard to miss. Ask him about some of the people he’s had through his door while they were starting out.

So, clearly I was stoked when Lister decided to do a mural on the blank_space wall as a gift to Simon. Nice nod to the man and his gallery. Looking around Lovelace’s studio, the collection of artworks that are hiding amongst his own suggest that we are not alone in our high opinion of the place.

Words and video by Oliver Heath.