IT was still raining

About 50 brave and dedicated art lovers honoured me yesterday afternoon by attending the opening of my South Australian Living Artists exhibition, After the rains at the Duke of Brunswick Hotel (the DOB). As one attendee observed as he brushed rain drops off his coat, it seems the rains hadn't actually stopped!

​Despite the wintery conditions, it was cosy in the DOB, the launch was a wonderful event and it was terrific both to catch up with old friends and to meet some new ones.

Many thanks to all who supported me and helped in practical ways to make it happen, including Malinda, Simon, Maria and Adele.
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Many thanks also to Katrina Lazaroff, who gave a beautiful opening speech. Katrina is the CEO and Artistic Director of The Mill, South Australia’s leading multidisciplinary arts organisation, opened the exhibition, and I felt greatly honoured to have her officiate.

The exhibition runs for the whole of August, so there is plenty of time for you to visit the DOB and see my works.

There are 12 paintings, all with an Augmented Reality (AR) dimension. What does that mean? It means that in order to enjoy the full experience when looking at the artwork, you need to view it through the Artivive mobile phone app and have earphones plugged in to your phone. This is because I have created unique animations with a 3D feel for each work. In addition, a soundscape composed especially for each individual work by sonic artist Simon Koehn has been added. That is why you need your mobile phone and your earphones with you when you visit the exhibition.

Here are some instructions for getting your mobile device ready to view the artworks:

If you have an iPhone or a Wi-Fi enabled iPad, find the Artivive app in the App Store or scan the above QR code with the device's camera to take you to the app store. Click INSTALL, and then OPEN. However, this only works for Apple devices. To install the app on Android devices, go to the Google Play app on your device, search for Artivive, click INSTALL and once it has installed, click OPEN. The Artivive app's icon looks like this:

Once you have installed to app on your device you can try it out on the painting below.  You'll need to get the painting up on another device or computer screen, then point your phone's camera at the painting while the Artivive app is open, and hey presto!

Scale and stone
 
A bearded dragon (pogora vitticeps) eyes some passing ants as it soaks up sun amongst some Sturt’s Desert Pea (swainsona formosa) and succulent Sturt’s Pig Face (gunniopsis quadrifida).

You can see the exhibition during the DOB's normal opening hours. It's actually a great place to have a meal, with a casual atmosphere and a completely gluten free menu! One tip about that: if you want a meal there you need to book. It's a popular spot.

And while you're there, have a look at the quirky, fun art of Meg Mader and Stu Nankivell. Coincidentally they had an opening on the same afternoon as I did, and double coincidentally, they have also applied AR to their artworks. So you'll need your phone loaded with the Artivive app to view their works as well. They are definitely worth a look. Click here to go to Meg's Facebook page.

Oliver Gerhard