Exciting collaboration- Sound Work in progress!

March 29, 2025March 28, 2025 | Nat Rad

Linda Chambers & Collyn Gawned: 100 Chawan
10 April – 8 May 2025 | Vancouver Arts Centre

100 Chawan (tea bowls) is a collaborative installation reflecting the studio based practices and common interests of Albany ceramic artists Linda Chambers and Collyn Gawned.

With reference to historic and cultural use, the tea bowl became their inspiration for individual exploration into form, surface decoration and functionality.

They have worked the elements of earth and water, firing in gas, electric and wood-fired kilns, to create unique and considered pieces for this exhibition, complimented by an original soundscape meditation compiled by Albany sound designer, Nat Rad.

Dates: 10 April – 8 May 2025
Days: Monday- Friday
Time: 10am – 4pm
Location: Vancouver Arts Centre, 85 Vancouver St, Albany

Voidscape 2.0

November 16, 2024November 15, 2024 | Nat Rad

Translating from a video still, these works represent the complexity of layering sensations into one space. The images below begin with the still and documents the layering of paint to the final work

Voidscape 1.1 Oil & red gum resin on canvas 410 x 510 $850

Voidscape 1.1 Oil & red gum resin on canvas 410 x 510 $850

Suburban dreamscape

August 10, 2024July 26, 2024 | Nat Rad

Winter Sun Nat Rad Vision and Audio

“Video of back fence in a cold morning as sun intensifies. Steam emanating from the fibre board fence.

Using filters to section the video into a dreamlike state until the final frame in golden glow. Sound is the water pouring between tea-cups, tapping on tea cup and glacial waters of Lake St Claire, Tasmania.”

Voidscape

August 3, 2024July 26, 2024 | Nat Rad

Voidscape 1.2 Oil on canvas 41cm wide x 51cm high $850

More Voidscape works in progress.

Transparency of image interaction.

After making a short film with soundscape earlier in the year, I am now looking to translate a couple stills into paintings. Documentation of process.

Translation

July 26, 2024 | Nat Rad

“Katrine Summer” Oil on canvas 46cm wide x 30cm high $650

I feel a process is emerging.

The first small study concentrated on blocking in areas with charcole in a loose way, underpainting in complementaries then final layer with body added to the paint.

To translate a work into a larger format, I found the muscle memory of the composition stronger.

“This work is taken from 2023, a day painting at Katrine, outside Toodyay, WA. Behind the farm stay a hill of golden wheat was being harvested over the days, imprinting the landscape with lines. A November sun blurred the vision by day but at dusk the mauves combined with a softer yellow. I wanted to work in a freer fashion after again working with stencils on the project before. This work focused on colour, line and texture as I tried a new paint thickener.

Painting last summer

April 20, 2024August 29, 2025 | Nat Rad

As summer melts into autumn, I am back in the studio.

Last summer I spent many hours in the shade of a cape lilac tree watching a harvester mark a field while staying at Katrine, near Toodyay. As the shadows lengthened in the golden hour, I watched as the harvester lines and hillside changed into a painting in my mind.

In this first study, charcoal defined the composition before underpainting in purple and gold. Juicier paint applied for final layer.

Study is a very small work which will be translated into a larger canvas with more space for the eye to get lost in.

Creative Pathways collaboration with ASHS students and the Vancouver Arts Centre

November 25, 2023August 29, 2025 | Nat Rad

ASHS student recordings of the school today pared with archive images of school.

Through developing a project from begining to end, the ASHS students decided to record the sound bytes of their school lives. Setting them loose with a letter giving permission to use their phones to record, they scattered and returned to me with sounds I would never have though of!

A school clock ticking, the canteen microwave, drinking out of the water fountain and pumping up the balls in phys ed. They also recorded interviews with their peers from a set of questions developed by the students for both present and past students.

I got to edit the sound bytes into a whole and pair with the archive images.

Truely it was so much fun working with their ideas….. check it out!

“Oh My Days” – process

November 22, 2023August 29, 2025 | Nat Rad

Around the third contact class with the particpating Albany Senior High School students of the Cretaive Pathways Project, we possed a couple of really big questions to the group What project? What do we need to consider?

Explaining that the resources we have and the time available to deliver of the project are major challenges, we asked for the students to think creatively about the content of their final exhibition.

This image from the exhibition currently on show at the Vancouver Arts Centre, is a great example. The group identified that a loud ticking clock was important to the “My Room” section. We discussed finding the right clock which had a loud enough tick tock, we thought through the logistics of adding a speaker with a recording of a clock or how we could add a microphone to the clock to amplify the sound in the space. All were difficult to achieve with the limited resources and time.

This is the elegant and effective solution, which is the students own work.