Imants Tillers, Tomb, 1987, oil stick, gouache, synthetic polymer paint on 48 canvas boards, nos. 17665–17712, 229 x 203 cm.
A solo exhibition of IMANTS TILLERS' is currently on display at The University Gallery, Newcastle, NSW.
Curated by Olivia Sophia, the exhibition From the Studio presents 10 paintings drawn from Tillers' personal collection, spanning four decades of his practice.
The exhibition continues until 26 May, 2018.
Janet Laurence, Natural History, 2008, Glass vials, botanical specimens, wood, steel, polished aluminium mirror.
JANET LAURENCE'S stunning Natural History (Landscape and Residues series), 2008, is included in the group exhibition Genius Loci currently showing at the Canberra Glassworks.
The exhibition considers the ways in which the landscape is a rich starting point for the exploration of a broad variety of topics. From the connection to Country of Australia’s First Peoples through to the contemporary re-imagining of what a landscape is, the exhibition celebrate the beauty, power and fragility of the natural world.
The show continues until June 5.
The Canberra Times Review >
Long & Stent, Art Collector, Issue 84, April - June, 2018
HONEY LONG & PRUE STENT are profiled in What Next? in the latest edition of Art Collector, Issue 84. The article introduces five artists coming up in the art world.
"Taking photos and making art together, in a way, has documented our process of growing up and reflected our changing thoughts and feelings," says Stent. Long adds: 'We document interactions between bodies, materials, objects and landscape and I think we focus on capturing the feelings that take shape in these exchanges."
JOHN YOUNG is profiled in the latest edition of Art Collector, Issue 84. After more than 70 solo exhibitions worldwide, JOHN YOUNG continues to innovate his artistic practice. Briony Downes surveys his evolution. Portrait by Zan Wimberley.
Fran Clark, co-Director of ARC ONE Gallery says, "He is a visual artist with a deep passion and understanding for the creative worlds around him. Whether visual, sound or thoughts, his knowledge is deep in conversation with human history and our place in these multi-worlds of human understanding."
John Young, Art Collector, Issue 84, April - Jun, 2018
Prue Stent, Fluid, 2015, archival pigment print, 108 x 72cm.
PRUE STENT's work Fluid has been chosen as the lead image for the Dark Mofo Société Anonyme costume ball happening on 10 June, 2018.
Dark Mofo, Mona's winter festival, delves into centuries-old winter solstice rituals, exploring the links between ancient and contemporary mythology, humans and nature, religious and secular traditions, darkness and light, and birth, death and renewal.
Dark Mofo runs from 7-24 June, 2018.
Two of JOHN YOUNG's works are currently on display in the exhibition Infinite Conversations at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. The exhibition looks at the creative practice of artists from mainland China and Hong Kong, a number of whom settled in Australia following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Using diverse modes of production, these artists confront and recount the challenges of making a new home with shifting degrees of grief, poetry and optimism.
John Young, Give and Take, Autumn 2001, digital print and oil on canvas, 2 panels, 212 x 132 cm each, 212 x 264 cm overall.
Maria Fernanda Cardoso, Actual Size II, 2015, pigment print on premium photo paper 300 grams.
Major works by MARIA FERNANDA CARDOSO, including Actual Size I and Actual Size II have been acquired by the Tate London and the Museum of Contemporary Art, as part of a joint acquisition program that aims to bring Australian art into the international spotlight.
These works were shown at the beginning of the year at ARC ONE gallery in the exhibition, The Art of Seduction. In this exhibition, Cardoso looked at the complex behaviour of miniscule animals to explore notions of sexual selection and how that might relate to our aesthetic sense. Along with the spectacular video work On the Origins of Art, this body of work also represented Australia in the Cuenca Biennial.
Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, Director of the MCA has said that the works will be shared by both major institutions.
IMANTS TILLERS' work Kangaroo Blank, has been acquired by the Tate and the Museum of Contemporary Art, as part of a joint acquisition program that aims to bring Australian art into the international spotlight.
The work was originally commissioned for the bicentennial exhibition, Creating Australia: 200 years of art 1788-1988 and according to the Sydney Morning Herald is a 'post-modern commentary on the way Australian has been misrepresented down the ages'.
Using his signature canvas boards, Tillers employs appropriation and textual references to create highly personal and thought provoking paintings that explore themes relevant to contemporary Australian culture.
Imants Tillers, Kangaroo Blank, 1988, oilstick, gouache, oil and synthetic polymer paint on 78 canvas boards.
Honey Long & Prue Stent, Ameoba Phase II, 2015, archival pigment print, 72 x 108 cm.
Congratulation to HONEY LONG & PRUE STENT for their inclution in Forbes' 30 under 30: The Arts.
"Creative duo Honey Long and Prue Stent are multidisciplinary artists whose work spreads across photography, performance, installation and sculpture. In their exploration of the fleshy female form and its expression of femininity, the pair use material or objects to disguise and veil the body, often in dreamy abstract contexts which reimagine and allude to a representation of the female form."
ROBERT OWEN's work is included in Another Dimension at McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery. The exhibition explores the dynamic relationship between form and content in contemporary art, by positioning sculpture as part of a broader two and three-dimensional spatial practice.
This exhibition will run from 1 April - 15 July, 2018.
Robert Owen, Model for Silence #2, 2012, painted stainless steel, 58 x 72 x 74cm.
Cyrus Tang, Lacrimae Rerum - 4505.00s, 2016, archival giclee, 100 x 100cm.
CYRUS TANG has been shortlisted for the 65th Blake Prize, one of Australia’s longest standing and most prestigious prizes which encourages conversation about spirituality and religion through art.
The winner of the $35,000 Blake Prize will be announced at the exhibition launch on 19 May 6-9pm at Casula Powerhouse Art Centre, Sydney.
Robert Owen, Endings #4 (Rothko died today), 2009, archival print on 310gsm, 104 x 72.5cm.
ROBERT OWEN's work is featured in Antipodean emanations: cameraless photographs from Australia and New Zealand at Monash Gallery of Art. The exhibition brings together Australian and New Zealand artists who push boundaries through experimentation, unearthing the elemental properties of photographic practice.
Exhibition dates are 10 March until 27 May, 2018.
Maria Fernanda Cardoso, Actual Size II, 2015, pigment print on premium photo paper 300gr, 152.4 x 152.4 cm.
MARIA FERNANDA CARDOSO's work can be seen in QUEENIE: Selected artwork by female artists from El Museo del Barrio's collection in New York.
QUEENIE features a selection of artworks by female artists across various media from the Permanent Collection of El Museo del Barrio. The exhibition brings together works which prompt a multifarious dialogue around society and gender through the artists’ varying perspectives and experiences.
As a collaboration between two East Harlem cultural institutions, El Museo del Barrio and Hunter East Harlem Gallery, QUEENIE provides a platform for the underrepresented presence of the female voice in the community. The exhibition runs 21 March - 23 June, 2018.
Guan Wei, Dow Island, 2002, synthetic polymer paint on 48 canvases, 317 x 913 cm, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
GUAN WEI's Dow Island, part of the National Gallery collection, is being included in the group exhibition Infinite Conversations: Australian Asian Artistic Exchange at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
The exhibition considers the creative practice of artists from mainland China and Hong Kong. In Guan Wei's enormous 48 panelled work, the artist explores the idea of journeys across time and place. This work is on view in the Australian Galleries, Level 1.
Read more here >
Anne Zahalka, Leisureland series, installation view, 2018.
The group exhibition, Incommensurable, featuring ANNE ZAHALKA's Leisureland series has been reviewed in the press.
Gael Newton's review here.
Art Almanac review here.
The Canberra Times review here.
The exhibition continues at ANU Drill Hall, Canberra until 8 April 2018.
Janet Laurence, The Matter of the Masters (detail), 2017, Installation View. Photo: © AGNSW, Christopher Snee
Revered contemporary artist Janet Laurence presents What Colour is the Sacred? at ARC ONE Gallery this March. Following her acclaimed exhibition, The matter of the masters, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Laurence will exhibit a new work using elements and concepts of the museum installation inspired by conservation research undertaken at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Laurence’s recent body of work investigates the intersection of art, science and nature through an analysis of artists’ materials and their origins. With a specific focus on the work of Rembrandt and other Dutch masters, Laurence explores the ‘physiology of a painting’ in her modular vitrines and haunting images derived from botanical illustrations and x-ray fluorescence scans. The exhibition harks back to the artist’s earlier alchemical works (with her research beginning 12 years ago) and reveals a view of colour from its source in the nature of the world.
From natural history collections she has sourced raw pigments and binders, commonly found in paintings, and presents these substances as scientific experiments or specimens in individual ‘cabinets of curiosity’. Interested in a scientific analysis of colour, Laurence likens her contained installations to an anatomy lesson, or a ‘medical examination’ of paintings. Elements such as eggshells, bone, and minerals are gathered, revealing the organic origins of the old masters’ materials and how they were subsequently transformed into powerful human stories and cultural objects. In providing an artistic interpretation of the palette of this era, Laurence stresses that all matter stems from the environment and that nature and culture are deeply entwined.
The exhibition also features Laurence’s iconic mixed-media wall work, including a long frieze with a series of panels moving between fluids and images, matter and light, fractured and fragile landscapes. Her Plants bleed lakes depicts a spectral range of colours sourced from plants paired with their botanical illustrations to reveal the scientific roots. Colours created by plants, often referred to as ‘lakes’, are transparent and fugitive by nature, like nature. Taking her title from Michael Taussig’s book of the same name, Janet Laurence’s What Colour is the Sacred? is an intelligent and beautiful meditation on the mysteries of colour, creative alchemy, and the enduring primacy of the earth.
Janet Laurence is a Sydney-based artist who exhibits nationally and internationally. Renowned as one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists, her practice examines our physical, cultural and conflicting relationship to the natural world. She creates immersive environments that navigate the interconnections between organic elements and systems of nature. Within the recognised threat to so much of the life world, she explores what it might mean to heal, albeit metaphorically, the natural environment, fusing this with a sense of communal loss and search for connection with powerful life-forces.
Her work is included in museum, university, corporate and private collections as well as within architectural and landscaped public places. Key collections include: NGA, Canberra; AGNSW, Sydney; NGV, Melbourne; QAG, Brisbane; AGSA, Adelaide; Artbank Australia; Macquarie Bank Collection; and Kunstwerk Summlung Klein, Germany.
Recent significant projects include: Listen, to the Sound of Plants, Australian Tapestry Workshop, Melbourne (2017); The Pleasure of Love, October Salon, Belgrade (2016); Deep Breathing: Resuscitation for the Reef, for the Paris Climate Change Conference (2015) and the Paris International Contemporary Art Fair (2015), followed by the installation Deep Breathing at the Australian Museum, Sydney (2016); Tarkine for a World in Need of Wilderness, Macquarie Bank Foyer, London (2011); In Your Verdant View, Hyde Park Building, Sydney (2010); Waterveil, CH2 Building for Melbourne City Council; Memory of Lived Spaces, Changi T3 Airport Terminal, Singapore; Elixir, permanent installation for Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Japan (all 2006); The Australian War Memorial (in collaboration with TZG Architects), Hyde Park, London (2003); In the Shadow, Sydney 2000 Olympic Park, Homebush Bay (2000); Veil of trees, Sydney Sculpture Walk (with Jisuk Han); 49 Veils, award-winning windows for the Central Synagogue, Sydney (with Jisuk Han, 1999); The Edge of the Trees (with Fiona Foley), Museum of Sydney (1994); and The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Australian War Memorial, Canberra (with TZG Architects, 1993).
Laurence has been a recipient of Rockefeller, Churchill and Australia Council fellowships; recipient of the Alumni Award for Arts, UNSW; and is currently visiting fellow at the NSW University Art and Design; Australian representative for the COP21/FIAC, Artists 4 Paris Climate 2015 exhibition; visiting fellow of the 2016/2017 Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg (HWK) foundation fellowship; and artist in residence at the Australian Museum.
Her work, The matter of the masters, was recently shown at AGNSW in association with the Rembrandt and Dutch Masters exhibition.
PAT BRASSINGTON's work can be seen in The Design Files latest article about Buxton Contemporary. The Gallery dedicated to The Michael Buxton collection will open Friday 9 March.
To read the full article, please click here.
Pat Brassington, By the Way, 2010, Pigment Print, 72 x 90 cm
Congratulations to PAT BRASSINGTON for receiving the Australia Council Award for Visual Arts 2018! The prestigious peer-nominated award recognises and celebrates the significant contributions of eight leading artists from different fields to Australia’s artistic and cultural vibrancy. The recipients will be honoured tonight during a special ceremony at Carriageworks, Sydney.
More information here.
Art Guide Australia article here >
JOHN YOUNG will be discussing the collaboration between contemporary art and literature, based on the history of Macau, with VCA scholar Edward Colless and poet Hayley Singer on Thursday 8 March, 6:30pm at Readings, Carlton.
Young will also be signing his latest publication Macau Days.
Find out more here.
Guan Wei, Loong (Dragon), 2018.
GUAN WEI AND GUO JIAN's spectacular Lunar Lanterns are now on view as part of City of Sydney's Chinese New Year Festival. GUAN WEI's Loong (Dragon) can be viewed on the forecourt of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and GUO JIAN's Rat in the East side of the Circular Quay in Sydney until 25 February.