Greg Ferris

Born 1964, Bankstown
Bachelor of Visual Arts
Graduation show: 1986
Graduation ceremony: 1987

Artwork in Space YZ  

I ain’t so bad, 1986
Single channel video with sound (Super 8 and VHS)
2:54 mins

I ain’t so bad (stills), 1986

The work that features in this current show, I ain’t so bad, is an animation made for the 1986 graduate exhibition, and was part of a series of works that include collages made from some of the cut-out elements featured in the animation. Aesthetically it sits within and is heavily influenced by the Australiana style of a number of artists working in and around Sydney at the time. From Martin Sharp to Mambo graphics, from the performance group the Castanet Club to the animation studio B Sharp, best known for some of the more eclectic music videos of Mental as Anything, alongside the influence of my printmaking tutor from Nepean, Geoff Harvey.

A series of fortunate events. 

I was born in Bankstown but moved to the Mid North Coast of NSW when I was five after my father had died. As a result, I always felt stuck between the city and the country, never quite at home in either locale. There was a feeling of nervousness mixed with excitement when I got on the train to return to Sydney in 1982, the day after I finished my HSC.

There’s a terrible lot of terrific memories of Nepean, but truth be told, I ended up there due in part to a misunderstanding about what the course was offering. I had applied for the production design course at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) but was told at the interview that I was too young and should come back in a year or two. It probably didn’t help that my portfolio wasn’t that great; one could even say it was ‘underprepared shite’… Nepean College of Advanced Education was my second choice. As the associate diploma was called Visual and Performing Arts, I thought I’d get some production design experience before I’d reapply to NIDA but, like most first-year students, I soon realised my passions lie elsewhere and stayed, initially for the associate diploma and then for the introduction of the BA. I realised I was at home. Best. Decision. Ever.

This was just one of several serendipitous events and decisions made over the last five decades (yikes!) that led to the right medium and associated career in the arts and academia, helped in no small way by exploratory teaching methodologies of Nepean CAE, later UWS, and the lifelong friendships made, both classmates and tutors alike. Shared subjects between the visual and performing arts allowed for a cross-pollination of ideas and indulged my interest (soon to be a disinterest) in production design, firstly through plays at Theatre Nepean and later through an internship opportunity with my classmate (and close friend) Davida Wiley, working on the AFTRS student film Clutch.

Davida’s high school friend Anni Finsterer was also at Nepean, albeit in Performing Arts. I’ve been lucky to have worked with Anni recently on one of my recent virtual reality projects, Sympathetic Threads (2018). Others to graduate from performing arts the same year include the film producer John Simpson and the actor David Wenham — known as ‘Daisy’ to the Nepean cohort.

While continuing to work in the more traditional mediums of the three ‘p’s’ - painting, photography, and printmaking - I started to revisit the time-based mediums of my high school art studies, Super 8 film, and animation, attempting to combine the painterly with movement through a technique known as rotoscoping. While the newly established degree didn’t have specific subjects related to animation, my tutors, especially Peter Charuk, explored and developed my moving image work. An advantage of being one of the few students working this way was that I had virtually free reign of the library’s newly setup (next to the darkrooms) audio visual facilities, from their film cameras to their newly installed VHS edit suites. There’s a lot to be said for the ability to play without restrictions and make mistakes within such a safe and encouraging environment. I feel extremely grateful for such access and Maria, Michael, and Leeone, who looked after the AV department. 

During this time, I also started to play around with the idea of using computers to make visual art, again encouraged by the Nepean tutors. The popular home computer, the Commodore 64, was way out of my price range; but there happened to be a selloff of the then defunct Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, which also allowed for simple animation and sound creation, created by loading programs up on either audio cassette or by sliding in cartridges — this was the start of an expensive fascination with the use of computers to create art that continues to this day, and many tens of thousands of (sometimes wasted) dollars later...

During this time, I was able to get my early student work shown on the telly. There was a short-lived youth-oriented television show entitled Edge of the Wedge (1986), hosted by David ‘Art’ Wales, that put the callout for student works, and it was in the days when you could simply ring up the ABC switchboard and be put directly through to the show’s production office. Not only did they accept my weird little abstract animations, but they also paid an artist fee!

After graduating from Nepean in 1987, I went into the Graduate Diploma at the City Art Institute, followed by a series of post-graduate degrees at the College of Fine Arts, culminating in a Doctoral Degree from UNSW in 2013. I’ve been fortunate to have my work shown nationally and internationally, in traditional art galleries and major film festivals, and have collaborated with several amazing friends working as visual artists, a number from UWS, some of whom are in this show. I was equally fortunate to return ‘home’ to UWS in 1995 to begin a career in academia, teaching between moving image and computer-based artforms, a career that continues, in what are uncertain times - for the university sector and art academia — to this day.