Art Almanac November 2018 $6
Stevie Fieldsend The Commute Mirka Mora
Art Almanac November 2018
Subscribe Established in 1974, we are Australia’s longest running monthly art guide and the single print destination for artists, galleries and audiences. Art Almanac publishes 11 issues each year. Visit our website to sign-up for our free weekly eNewsletter. To subscribe go to artalmanac.com.au or mymagazines.com.au
Deadline for December 2018 / January 2019 issue: Thursday 1 November, 2018.
We acknowledge and pay our respect to the many Aboriginal nations across this land, traditional custodians, Elders past and present; in particular the Guringai people of the Eora Nation where Art Almanac has been produced.
We recently witnessed one of the greatest examples of an artist breaking ‘the rules’, and creating something in the process. Australia boasts a strong set of rogues as well. Noŋgirrŋa Marawili’s limitations free her, ‘The painting I do is not sacred – it is my own designs from the outside.’ Amorphous wall pieces by Stevie Fieldsend explore how the body and materials know no bounds. We reflect on the life of Mirka Mora whose fantasy coloured our reality. Artists in group shows ‘The Commute’ and ‘Possible Dream Theory #2’ embrace the entanglement and multiplicity of personal experiences from living culture to dreams.
Contact Editor – Chloe Mandryk cmandryk@art-almanac.com.au Deputy Editor – Kirsty Francis info@art-almanac.com.au Art Director – Paul Saint National Advertising – Laraine Deer ldeer@art-almanac.com.au Digital Editor – Melissa Pesa mpesa@art-almanac.com.au Editorial Assistant – Penny McCulloch listing@art-almanac.com.au Editorial Intern – Saira Krishan
Cover
Stevie Fieldsend, hereafter i, 2018, paper, pleated polyester textile on canvas, Tasmanian Oak, 51 x 34 x 4cm Photograph: Zan Wimberley Courtesy the artist and Artereal Gallery, Sydney
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artalmanac.com.au mymagazines.com.au Call 1300 361 146 or +61 2 9901 6111 for international callers Competition and price offer open to new, renewing or extending Aust and NZ residents subscribing in print to Art Almanac magazine for a minimum of one year between 1/11/18 12:01AM and 24/12/18 11:59PM. There will be eight winners chosen at random with each winner to receive a book set valued up to $150 each. Total prize pool valued at $1,200. The winners will be drawn on 26/12/18 at Promoter’s premises, 207 Pacific Hwy, St Leonards NSW 2065. The Promoter is nextmedia P/L. Authorised under: NSW Permit LTPS/18/02824. ACT Permit No. TP 18/00337. Full competition terms can be viewed at www.mymagazines.com.au
Artstate Bathurst ‘Artstate’ celebrates the creativity of the arts across regional New South Wales developed by Regional Arts NSW as part of a four-year project. ‘Artstate Bathurst’ is on from 1 to 4 November with a vibrant calendar of events including theatre, music, dance, film and a lively visual arts program. Exhibitions will challenge, compel and confront the audience with works by some of the most exciting artists from the region. Highlights include Central West artist, Nicole Welch presenting two new works Transformation and Mementos at Tremain’s Mill on Thursday 1 November, and the Artstate Conference on 2 and 3 November which sees keynote speakers including NAVA’s Esther Anatolitas, artist Jonathon Jones and others engage with the 2018 themes; A Sense of Place and Robust Regions. artstate.com.au Nicole Welch, Transformation, 2018, still Photograph: Bill Moseley Courtesy the artist, MAY SPACE, Sydney and Artstate, New South Wales
David Goldblatt:
Photographs 1948-2018
David Goldblatt (1930-2018) is internationally renowned for his portrayal of South Africa during the rise and dismantling of Apartheid; with their intense human focus, his photographs offer powerful reflection and insight into the country’s turbulent political and social history. Part of Sydney International Art Series, this exhibition features Goldblatt’s key photographic series as well as early vintage prints and never-before-seen material from the artist’s personal archive. Presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia until 3 March 2019, ‘David Goldblatt: Photographs 1948-2018’ showcases images that depict South Africa’s mining industry, white middle class, forced segregation of non-white communities, and stories of the country’s ex-offenders and their crimes. Goldblatt’s work resonates with human struggles across the globe, and the brutal history of modern civilisation, including that of Australia. mca.com.au Hold-up in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, 1963, silver gelatin photograph on fiber-based paper © The David Goldblatt Legacy Trust Courtesy Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg and Cape Town, and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney
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Ken Unsworth Anthony Bond OAM ARTAND Foundation
Anthony Bond and leading Australian art historians and curators including Daniel Thomas, William Wright, Felicity Fenner, Jill Sykes, Anna Johnson and René Block reconstruct a timeline of the practice of contemporary Australian artist, Ken Unsworth; from its origins in 1955, spanning six decades to the present. Essays and interviews fill the pages accompanied by images of Unsworth’s paintings, works on paper, sculpture and maquettes, performances, land art, public works, collaborations with the Australian Dance artists, and his recurring piano pieces. Together, with excerpts of Unsworth’s own poetry, they provide a unique insight into his artmaking; how certain childhood and lived experiences, artistic influences and ideas as well as the encouragement of his beloved wife informed the work.
David Griggs: Between Nature and Sin Campbelltown Arts Centre
‘Man, so what do you want to know?’ sparks a conversation between artist David Griggs and Michael Dagostino introducing this survey of 12 years in Manila where the artist focused on understanding through film, photography and painting. Amid chaos, social and political struggles, relationships and personal experiences Griggs communicates ‘my own being and where I’m at.’ One receives a visceral sense of the ‘incandescent energy’ that Megan Monte writes, propels him and later we hear from Siddharta Perez about the content and context of his work. Jarrod Rawlins muses on the intersection of creativity and psychotropic medication and posits that for his friend an ‘obsessive, fragile, romantic’, art is not only a way to exorcise the mind but a salve and key to autonomy. 18
Mirka Mora: Pas De Deux – Drawing and Dolls Melissa Pesa A noted colourist, Mirka Mora’s (1928-2018) works are often bright and bold, illuminating life in art just as she did in reality. Having survived the horrors of the Holocaust, the Parisian-born artist, along with her husband Georges, and infant son Philippe emigrated from post-war France to Australia in 1951 and found refuge in Melbourne, settling rapidly in its bohemian cultural scene. The decision to move to the Victorian city was swayed by Henri Murger’s book Scenes de la Vie de Boheme (1851) in which the protagonist, a photographer, frequently visited Melbourne to earn money and returned to France to help his friends – poets, musicians and painters. Mora was inspired. From their apartment/studio in the ‘Paris End’ of Collins Street to their landmark European-style cafés and restaurants, the pair attracted a new wave of artists, writers, collectors and intellectuals, many of whom went on to become luminaries of Australian art; John and Sunday Reed (founders of Heide now Heide Museum of Modern Art), Fred Williams, Joy Hester, Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd and Charles Blackman. Simultaneously, Mora’s own artistic career began to thrive – remaining firm for the next six decades to become a prominent figure in Australia’s creative landscape. With a primary focus on painting, Mora broadened her practice to include a wide range of media: ceramics, embroidery, soft sculpture, public mosaic murals scattered across the city, as well as
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Possible Dream Theory #2 Emma-Kate Wilson
What happens when art and dreams collide? Galerie pompom director George Adams has curated the work of eight diverse artists for ‘Possible Dream Theory #2’, which will see the seemingly random morph into a vivid dreamscape and prompt us to question reality and fiction. Subconscious and the preconscious are on the table revealing what dreams mean to different artists while examining the art cannons they are created within. Studying the post-human body or personal ambition through the intimate gallery space, ‘Possible Dream Theory #2’ offers insight into the essence of humanness. Our bodies are encouraged to explore desire, as well as lean into a dislocating experience where multiple personalities might occupy the mind. However, can dreams unmask truth or enlighten us? Kenny Pittock’s fantasy of finding an abandoned lottery ticket on the back of the shopping lists he collects in Sydney’s Newtown has inspired a sculpture of the mystic ticket, questioning certainty and the value attributed to found objects. Extending into a continued narrative Pittock creates space for dreaming to finish in a warped reality. This interpretation, opens the other side of dreams, the aspiration side of dream theory, entering a more philosophical argument, rather than psychological. The psychological underpinning of dreams that Freud and Jung explored, inspiring the Surrealists from the 1930s, creeps into the magic work of Emily Parsons-Lord. The soft, slow dripping of gallium – a material that invites the bizarre through its low melting point of 30 degrees, a metal that melts in your hand – oozing out of the gallery wall. The passing of time as an unconscious act plays out through Parsons-Lord’s work, metamorphosing dreaming through an object. Likewise, the surrealist dreamscape is the centre of Drew Connor Holland’s art; his recurring motifs of cowboys and unicorns nod to a dysphoric future with appropriated cultural nostalgia and representation of shared virtual space. A provocation to reality is found in works by Matthew Harris and Philjames, faces and places are not what they seem and require another glance. The classic notions of nightmares, clowns and demons, play in the constructed narrative. Philijames says his paintings ‘convey that eerie dream feeling of reality vs fantasy [that] you sometimes wake up feeling.’ Harris 28
Noŋgirrŋa Marawili from my heart and mind Jeremy Eccles
‘The painting I do is not sacred – it is my own designs from the outside.’ This seems to be the essence of Noŋgirrŋa Marawili’s uniqueness amongst Arnhemland’s bark artists. As her brother, the artist and cultural leader Djambawa Marawili points out, ‘I can only operate within the strict rules of our clan designs that have been passed on to me. She is much freer’. And that spontaneity allows his sister, ‘to cry for the land; while my job is to speak for it,’ as Djambawa distinguishes their work, almost jealously. The siblings grew up in an extraordinary family in which their father Mundukul Marawili, a famed leader/warrior who had ‘uncountable wives of the Marrakulu, Djapu and Galpu clans’, according to Will Stubbs, the long-term art coordinator at both artists’ Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre in North East Arnhemland. The family group was 50-strong, and they lived nomadically, moving on both land and the waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria by canoe as food sources, ceremonial responsibilities and climate demanded. In all three, Noŋgirrŋa experienced the Madarrpa clan estates and sacred sites that would become the subject of her later paintings, prints and bone coffins/larrakitj. But Mundukul died in 1950 when she was just 11, so was unable to pass on to her permission to paint those Madarrpa clan designs. But paint she was determined to do – at first with husband Djutadjuta, who acknowledged her assistance on a two metre bark of ‘Mana’ The Sacred Shark in 1994 which required a mass of cross-hatching and outlining by her which Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) curator Cara Pinchbeck says gave ‘depth and movement to the sacred waters in this work.’ By 1996, she was collaborating with their daughters Rerrkiwanga and Marrnayula on an even larger, three metre bark. In 1997, Djutadjuta would take out Best Bark at that year’s National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA). It’s interesting how blinkered the NATSIAA judges can be. For Rerrkiwanga Munungurr won Best Bark in 2009, but it took until 2015 for Noŋgirrŋa to be recognised. Her ‘problem’ is an inability to make neat straight lines! Or as Stubbs put it to me, ‘She is untainted by the linear/hierarchical judgemental handicap of Western artists! She simply lives in the moment – the past and the future are now.’ Perhaps it didn’t help that Noŋgirrŋa was supposed to be painting the familiar grid of small squares that represent the fish trap (Dhawurr) created in mythical times by two spirit men on the Gurriyalayala River at Waṉḏawuy. As the Buku-Larrnggay website describes it, ‘The fish trap was made of upright posts forked at the top with a long crosspiece sitting in the forks. The space between was filled in with more upright sticks interwoven with horizontal sticks’; ie. it should only consist of straight lines. But Noŋgirrŋa’s Waṉḏawuy (2012) has both the randomness of a child’s noughts-and-crosses board stretched almost to infinity – a ‘random form of geometry’ – and different colour tones to represent different states of the water in a way that experts compare to Noŋgirrŋa’s father-in-law, Wonggu Munungurr, a major contributor to the legendary drawings commissioned in 1947 by anthropologists, Ronald and Catherine Berndt. 32
Emma Fielden
Mollie Bosworth
Between stars, between stones
The Nature of Blue
Emma Fielden’s background in classical music and jewellery with a focus on hand engraving and mark making, has instilled in her a fixation with minute details and repetitive actions. Her practice, which encompasses drawing, sculpture and installation, constitutes minimal monochromatic works that explore ideas of the infinite and the infinitesimal – as both metaphysical and mathematical concepts, from the largest astronomical structures and the smallest constituents of matter. They are informed by philosophical concerns, science and art history; balanced by an intuitive and meditative working process.
Working from her rainforest studio in Kuranda, artist Mollie Bosworth has created new wheel-thrown porcelain vessels and works on paper and silk, to consider the spectrum of the colour blue. ‘The Nature of Blue’ is the first major solo exhibition for Bosworth surveying the key elements that drive her practice; materiality, surface and light. Botanical designs inspired by her garden have been water-etched or applied as laser-decals to the forms. She experiments with cyanotype printing using leaves foraged from home and Tropical Queensland’s sunlight.
Dominik Mersch Gallery 1 to 24 November, 2018 Sydney
Orb, 2017, hand-crushed ferrite magnets, iron oxide pigment, rare earth magnets, linen thread Photograph: Document Photography Courtesy the artist and Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney
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Cairns Art Gallery Until 18 November, 2018 Queensland
Wheel thrown vessels from the Droplets Series, 2018 Photograph: Michael Marzik Courtesy the artist and Cairns Art Gallery, Queensland
Jonny Niesche
Yanni Floros
Moving Picture
UnVeiled
These new pieces continue Jonny Niesche’s fascination with the qualities of surface, and experience of sensation and memory. However, for the first time his pictorial works are devised in the landscape format – a shift away from a direct relationship with the human body that past works inspired. Also on view are tall gradient works that are the artist’s exact height, framed on three sides with gold mirror and have been referred to as a kind of self-portraiture.
Adelaide artist Yanni Floros celebrates the female form as landscape with a series of new charcoal drawings on paper inspired by some of the world’s most picturesque locations; the Sahara desert, Niagara Falls, the snowcovered mountains of Alaska and the River Seine. There is a duality to the works in that they can be viewed as realistic or abstract representations.
STATION Until 17 November, 2018 Melbourne
A sudden blush, 2018, voile and acrylic mirror, 184.5 x 26.5 x 15cm Courtesy the artist and STATION, Melbourne
Hill Smith Gallery 1 to 17 November, 2018 South Australia
‘The ‘Veil’ represents not only the shape of land, lake and mountains but also the internal and external landscapes of the human body,’ says the artist.
Bermuda, charcoal on paper, 71 x 81cm Courtesy the artist and Hill Smith Gallery, South Australia
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Elizabeth Gower Cuttings
Geelong Gallery Until 25 November, 2018 Victoria In her first major survey since the early 2000s, Elizabeth Gower presents work from the past two decades as well as a new 21-metre collage. The artist is known for her expert manipulation of traditional decorative motifs, elevating them to a fine art context. Her socially minded approach sees designs from quilt making, mosaic tiling, knitting and embroidery patterns shift, visually and conceptually. Materially they take on the advent of consumer waste with the artist cutting and collaging remnants of discarded ephemera.
Prismatics, 2006-07, paper on canvas, 100 x 100cm Photographer: Andrew Curtis Courtesy the artist, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne and Geelong Gallery, Victoria
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Allusion & Illusion: the fantastical world of Valerie Sparks Monash Gallery of Art Until 18 November, 2018 Melbourne
Valerie Sparks questions the digital limits of photography, merging art and design as she incorporates photomedia into large-scale immersive environments, enticing the viewer with idealised, unobtainable landscapes depicting flora, fauna and taxidermied animals. This exhibition brings together key works that chart the history of Sparks’ practice; from her ‘Le Vol’ and ‘Prospero’s Island’ series to her reinterpretations of 18th century French scenic wallpapers, frescoes and contemporary three-dimensional lightbased installations. Each work deals with concerns over the destruction of landscape, post-colonialism and globalisation.
Prospero’s Island – North East, 2016 from the series Prospero’s Island, pigment ink-jet print, 140 x 220cm Monash Gallery of Art, City of Monash Collection acquired 2017 Courtesy the artist and Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne
Artist Opportunities We have selected a few galleries and funding bodies calling for submissions for Art Awards, Artist Engagements, Grants, Public Art, Residency Programs, Exhibition Proposals and more. Enjoy and good luck! 2019 Samstag Scholars
The University of South Australia (UniSA) announced Elyas Alavi, from South Australia, and Georgia Saxelby, from New South Wales, as the recipients of the prestigious Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarships, introducing their socially engaged art to a global audience. A cross-disciplinary artist, poet and former refugee Alavi’s practice is driven by ideas of social justice, memory, displacement and exile. ‘Exploring agency through personal narratives of identity, memory, displacement and cross cultural integration, Elyas Alavi merges the personal and the poetic with strong geopolitical contexts,’ says artist Nike Savvas, 2019 Scholarships selection committee member. ‘His works tantalise with suggestion in a transcultural dialogue that resists conventional boundaries of place and identity,’ adds Virginia Rigney, UniSA commissioned writer.
Elyas Alavi, Naan/Bread, 2017, installation view, detail, video still, Middle-eastern bread, LED light, acrylic on wall Photograph: Grant Hancock Courtesy the artist and Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art
Saxelby is an interdisciplinary artist living and working between Sydney and the United States. Her participatory practice engages with issues of public social space, collective ritual behaviour and notions of sacred space in both ancient and contemporary cultures. ‘Saxelby’s work is highly charged, informed, feminist, inclusive, and relational – inviting participation from women across different
cultures, countries, social and political spheres,’ says Savvas. ‘Her work gives a loud, credible voice to the unrepresented and those without a voice.’
Georgia Saxelby, Lullaby (detail), 2017, still from video performance, in collaboration with Viva Soudan and Bailey Nolan Photograph: Kristin Adair Courtesy the artist and Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art
The Scholarships provide each artist with a twelvemonth living allowance of $48,000 (USD), as well as travel expenses and the cost of institutional study fees at a leading international art school of their choice. The 2018 scholars, Sasha Grbich and Julian Day, are commencing their study respectively at Maumau, Portugal and Columbia University School of Arts, New York.
Arte Laguna Prize
Entries close 27 November 2018 Entries are open to all artists for the Arte Laguna Prize. This international art contest has been promoting contemporary art for 13 years, collecting thousands of applications from artists from all over the world selected by a jury for the exhibition in March 2019 in the spaces of the Arsenale of Venice, Italy. Participants also have the chance to win several awards in collaboration with companies, foundations and galleries, including cash prizes. There are ten categories: painting, sculpture and installation, photographic art, video art and short films, performance, virtual art, digital graphics, land art and this year’s new entry, urban art, design. Prizes include; six cash prizes of €7.000 each, an exhibition, publication of a bilingual catalogue, four collaborations with Made in Italy companies, participation in four Festivals and collective exhibitions, four exhibitions in international art Galleries, nine Art Residencies, two collaboration with Art platforms and Supporters. Also, ARS Prize for plastic: main theme ‘Art and Sustainability’, promoting a sensitisation of creativity, of design and in general of the visual and performing arts towards the Reuse Recycle Reduce strategies, dedicated this time to PLASTIC. www.artelagunaprize.com
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RMIT Gallery
344 Swanston Street, Melbourne 3000. T (03) 9925-1717. E rmit.gallery@rmit.edu.au W www.rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery Free admission. Lift access. H Mon-Fri 11.00 to 5.00, Thurs 11.00 to 7.00, Sat 12.00 to 5.00, closed Sun and public hols. Like RMIT Gallery on Facebook. Follow @ RMITGallery on Twitter. To Nov 17 Dynamics of Air – capturing the beauty, dynamics and sensuality of air in our built environment and its critical role in designing for a zero carbon future, Dynamics of Air features specially commissioned works that explore radical innovations for creative sustainability. Artists and designers – Transsolar: Thomas Auer (Germany); Breathe Earth Collective: Lisa Maria Enzenhofer, Markus Jeschaunig, Bernhard König (Austria); Friedrich von Borries (Germany); CITA: Phil Ayres (England), Danica Pistekova (Slovakia), Maria Teudt (Denmark), Petras Vestartas (Lithuania); Chris Cottrell (New Zealand); Edith Kollath (Germany); Mikael Mikael (Germany); Philippe Rahm Architects (France / Switzerland); Enric Ruiz-Geli (Spain); Little Wonder: Gyungju Chyon (Korea), John Sadar (Canada). From Australia – Jane Burry, Helen Dilkes, Leslie Eastman, Natasha JohnsMessenger, Mehrnoush Latifi, Phred Petersen, Daniel Prohasky, Cameron Robbins, Malte Wagenfeld and Simon Watkins. Performance and artist talk: Thurs Nov 1, 5.30-6.30pm Explorations of Air – Malte Wagenfeld and Jane Burry. Curator’s talk: Thurs Nov 8, 6-7.30pm Wind generated drawing systems – Cameron Robbins in conversation with Malte Wagenfeld and Jan van Schaik. See ad page 12.
Tolarno Galleries
Level 4, 104 Exhibition Street, Melbourne 3000. T (03) 9654-6000 F 9654-7000. E mail@tolarnogalleries.com W www.tolarnogalleries.com Director: Jan Minchin (member of ACGA). H Tues-Fri 10.00 to 5.00, Sat 1.00 to 5.00. Nov 10 to Dec 15 Sky light mind by Brendan Huntley.
Flinders Lane Anna Schwartz Gallery
185 Flinders Lane, Melbourne 3000. T (03) 9654-6131. E mail@annaschwartzgallery.com W www.annaschwartzgallery.com Director: Anna Schwartz. H Tues-Fri 12.00 to 5.00, Sat 1.00 to 5.00. To Dec 21 KINDNESS IS SO GANGSTER by Mike Parr.
ARC ONE Gallery
45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne 3000. T (03) 9650-0589. E mail@arc1gallery.com W arcone.com.au Directors: Fran Clark and Suzanne Hampel (member of ACGA). H Tues-Sat 11.00 to 5.00. To Nov 10 Surface Zero by Peter Daverington. Nov 13 to Dec 20 Chivalry by Guan Wei.
BLINDSIDE
Nicholas Building, 714/37 Swanston Street (enter via Cathedral Arcade lifts, cnr Flinders Lane), Melbourne 3000. T (03) 9650-0093. E info@blindside.org.au W www.blindside.org.au H Tues-Sat 12.00 to 6.00. Nov 1 to 10 BLINDSIDE B-SIDE – a fundraiser celebrating 15 years as an ARI that supports creative experimentation with works by artists who have contributed to our vibrant arts community. Nov 14 to Dec 1 Endless Projection by Stephen Palmer, and Being There by Mia Middleton.
Chapter House Lane
Phred Petersen, Supersonic soda, 2016 Courtesy the artist amd RMIT Gallery
66 Melbourne
Entry via Flinders Lane, Melbourne 3000. W www.chapterhouselane.org.au Nov 1 to Dec 31 (opening Thurs Nov 1, 6-8pm) Seven Year Itch – Tarik Ahlip, Matt Arbuckle, Ted Barraclough, Stephen Benwell, Sandra Black, Robert Brain, Kirsty Budge, Aaron Carter, Alan Constable, Lane Cormicj, Archer Davies, Naomi Eller, Bern Emmerichs, Emily Ferretti, Matlok Griffiths, Kez Hughes, Emily Hunt, Caroline Kennedy-McCracken, Maddison Kitching, Robyne Latham, Tina Lee, Justin Lee Williams, Julian Martin, Alasdair McLuckie, Dan Moynihan, Pia Murphy, Grant Nimmo, Nabilah Nordin, Charles O’Loughlin, Alexander Ouchtomsky, Toby Pola, Oscar Perry, Sarah Poulgrain, David Ray, Kate Robertson, Jonas Ropponen, Ben Sexton, Tai Snaith, Petrus Spronk, Vipoo Srivilasa, Georgia Szmerling, Kate Tucker, Ronnie van Hout, Prue Venables, Peter Waples-Crowe and Gerry Wedd.
Newcastle Central Coast Finite Gallery
60 Caves Beach Road, Caves Beach 2281. T 0419-471-660. E info@finitegallery.com W www.finitegallery.com H Fri-Sun and public hols 10.00 to 4.00. Fine Art & Crafts. Classes and workshops for all ages. Dec 1 to 23 Patchwork 2 exhibition of collectable miniature paintings.
Gallery 139
139A Beaumont Street, Hamilton 2303. T 0434-886-450. W www.gallery139.com.au H Thurs-Sat 11.00 to 4.00, Sun 11.00 to 2.00. Nov 7 to 18 Dino Consalvo. Nov 22 to Dec 9 Director’s Choice celebrating 4 years on Beaumont Street.
Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery
First Street, Booragul 2284. T (02) 4921 0382 F (02) 4921 0329. E artgallery@lakemac.nsw.gov.au W artgallery.lakemac.com.au Free entry. H Tues-Sun 10.00 to 4.30. To Dec 2 STEEL: art design architecture explores the most innovative ways that steel is being used by artists, designers and architects in Australia in the 21st century. A JamFactory touring exhibition. Also, Your Collection: Hunter Steel photographs by Charles Collin from the gallery’s permanent collection. A gallery project curated by Rob Cleworth. Artist Focus: Matthew Tome. A gallery project curated by Rob Cleworth in consultation with the artist.
The Lock Up
90 Hunter Street, Newcastle 2300. T (02) 4925-2265. W www.thelockup.org.au H Wed-Sat 10.00 to 4.00, Sun 11.00 to 3.00. Oct 27 to Dec 2 (opening Sat Oct 27, 5.30pm) The Sea: Luke Cornish a solo exhibition. Cornish’s powerful stencil paintings track the artist’s experiences with the people of Syria during three visits to the country. Each artwork constructed from up to 1,000 sheets of acetate stencils and up to 243 different colours of layered aerosol paint take on a photographic realism. Stencil art was one of the earliest forms of social and political activism and Cornish’s practice doesn’t stray far from this intention. The work not only reflects on the destruction that years of war have had on the country, but also captures the everyday lives of people caught in the middle.
Dino Consalvo, First anchor, 2018, gouache on paper, 40 x 30cm Courtesy the artist and Gallery 139
Gosford Regional Gallery
36 Webb Street, East Gosford 2250. T (02) 4304-7550. E gallery@centralcoast.nsw.gov.au W www.gosfordregionalgallery.com Free entry. H Daily 10.00 to 4.00. To Nov 18 Gosford Art Prize.
Luke Cornish, Zero to the right, aerosol on aluminium sublimation, 144 x 94cm Courtesy the artist and The Lock Up
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Adelaide ACE Open
Lion Arts Centre, North Terrace (West End), Kaurna Yarta 5000. T (08) 8211-7505. E admin@aceopen.art W www.aceopen.art Free admission. H Tues-Sat 11.00 to 4.00. South Australia’s leading organisation for contemporary visual art and artists. To Nov 17 my parents met at the fish market by Jason Phu (NSW). Plunge into the psyche of rising Australian artist Jason Phu in the gallery-wide installation my parents met at the fish market. This new iteration of the work, originally commissioned by West Space, showcases the breadth and depth of the artist’s ability to navigate his Chinese/Vietnamese cultural upbringing, family and nostalgia, across five distinct spaces.
Adelaide Central Gallery
7 Mulberry Road, Glenside 5065. T (08) 8299-7300. E info@acsa.sa.edu.au W www.acsa.sa.edu.au H Mon, Tues Thurs-Fri 9.00 to 5.00, Wed 9.00 to 6.45. After hours by appt. Oct 27 to Nov 16 Wish you were here! – visit Adelaide Central School of Art’s annual fundraising exhibition of postcard sized works for your chance to purchase a mini-masterpiece. Works are generously donated by a stellar array of local and interstate artists.
Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art University of South Australia
55 North Terrace, Adelaide 5000. T (08) 8302-0870. E samstagmuseum@unisa.edu.au W www.unisa.edu.au/samstagmuseum Free admission, all welcome. H Tues-Fri 10.00 to 5.00, Sat 12.00 to 5.00. Closed public hols and during exhibition changeovers. To Nov 30 Starstruck: Australian Movie Portraits. Also, The Waiting Room by Molly Reynolds and Rolf de Heer.
Art Gallery of South Australia
North Terrace, Adelaide 5000. T (08) 8207-7000. W www.artgallery.sa.gov.au Free entry. H Daily 10.00 to 5.00. Guided tours daily at 11.00 and 2.00. To Jan 28, 2019 John Mawurndjul: I am the old and the new – this exhibition presents the masterful fusion of traditional and contemporary art from one of Australia’s greatest living artists. John Mawurndjul has been celebrated internationally for his innovative bark paintings and the radiance of their meticulous rarrk (cross-hatching). This first major Australian survey of his work assembles more than 160 paintings and sculptures from collections worldwide. It illuminates connections between land and ancestral power in Mawurndjul’s Kuninjku homeland and vividly reveals his linking of past and present.
Tarryn Gill, postcard artwork for Wish you were here!, 2018 Courtesy the artist and Adelaide Central Gallery John Mawurndjul, Kuninjku people, Northern Territory, Female Lightning Spirit, 1984, earth pigments on Stringybark (Eucalyptus tetrodonta), 54 x 37.5 x 2cm Photograph: Andrew Curtis Private collection, Melbourne © John Mawurndjul/Licensed by Copyright Agency, 2018 Courtesy Art Gallery of South Australia
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