Artbank Artworks at Kurraba Apartments_401

Introduction to Artbank

Artbank is a unique Government artist support and access initiative. For over 40 years we have supported thousands of Australian artists, building an impressive collection of over 11,000 artworks. Artbank artworks enrich government, business and residential spaces, exposing a wide variety of people to contemporary Australian art.

The Artbank collection was founded with an endowment of 600 artworks from the National Collection (now the National Gallery of Australia) and has since grown to include more than 10,000 works spanning media including painting, sculpture, video and photography.

Through leasing works to individuals, companies and governments, Artbank lives up to its policy principle of promoting broad access to Australian contemporary art. Through our leasing of artworks to Australian embassies and overseas posts, we provide access to Australian contemporary art in approximately 70 countries across the globe.

Artbank has similarities with other collecting institutions in how we undertake aspects of the business, but we are very different in both why we collect artwork and how we promote Australian art to stakeholders, clients and the public. For the broader community, we make Australian contemporary art accessible in ways other collecting institutions cannot.

With Artbank artworks in workplaces and other public and private places around Australia and the world, we enable the broader community to access some of the best examples of Australian contemporary art.

This allows for a different, more everyday type of engagement with artworks than a gallery or museum exhibition offers. By displaying works in offices, government buildings and homes, we present artworks to many who would never visit a public or private gallery, breaking down traditional barriers to this art form.

Browse our collection

artbank.gov.au

@instagram.com/ artbankau facebook.com/ ArtbankArt

Subscribe to eNews: artbank.gov.au/ about-artbank

Artbank Sydney, photo Tom Ferguson

Director’s Message

Artbank is delighted to bring a refreshed selection of works to the walls of our clients.

As we enter our fifth decade, we are determined to continue managing this unique government program that supports contemporary Australian artists through acquiring their works and making them available in office and residential spaces.

We hope these works will help to enliven the workplace and serve as a reminder of the immense diversity and talent of Australia’s contemporary visual artists. We hope that they will spark conversations, stimulate creativity and build morale.

Zoë Rodriguez Director, Artbank

Artbank Sydney, photo Tom Ferguson

Kevin LINCOLN

Vase and Bowl, c.1981

Painting

Oil on canvas

#1760

Kevin Lincoln (b. 1941 Hobart, TAS) is one of Australia’s most prolific and well known painters. He is an artist who has explored and made contemporary traditional genres: particularly still life, portraiture and interiors. His sensitive consideration of these subjects has emphasised modesty, restraint and natural beauty. Formally what characterises his work are clear, contoured shapes that sit in large expanses of (abstract) open space. The works move from the amorphous and abstract to tight detail.

The work is often connected to more eastern approaches to composition and form. Lincoln is influenced by Asian aesthetics and also collects Japanese pottery. Items from this collection have appeared frequently in his works and this work is no exception.

In 2015 The Art Gallery of Ballarat held the highly regarded survey exhibition Kevin Lincoln: The Eye’s Mind. The exhibition featured a diverse range of work from over 25 years of the critically acclaimed artist’s career. A comprehensive exhibition catalogue accompanied the exhibition and the major monograph, Kevin Lincoln: Art and Life, written by Hendrik Kolenberg, was published in 2006.

John FIRTH-SMITH

Face of Time, 1981

Painting

Oil on canvas #1768

John Firth-Smith (b. Melbourne, 1943) is key figure in the story of abstract painting in Australia. In the 1970s, Firth-Smith was influenced as a young artist by seeing the works of American greats Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. Firth-Smith was at the forefront of an Australian art that looked to international models.

This work is from his Time Series, 1981. Other works in the series included Double Time and Lost Time. A number of the series included two black circles which could be the Time Ball on observatory hill or just cogs in a clock. Overall time is evoked through surface processes which recall maritime surfaces which have oxidised, faded or become caked with salt. In Face of Time, the paint feels scratched and pot marked, showing time and use. Firth-Smith highlights the existential effect of his paintings:

My painting is mainly concerned with man and his environment, the things he does - and his existence in the world, the conflicts, the contrasts and the complement of Nature and Man.

Constantine NICHOLAS

Foreign Place, 1994-95

Painting

Oil, ink and gold leaf on canvas #9017

In his work of the 1990s, Perth born, Sydney based artist Constantine Nicholas (b.1961) employed maps and cartographic drawings as the basis of his exploration of pertinent political, social and aesthetic debates. In 'Foreign Place', Nicholas layered gold leaf over a stained historical cartographic drawing that references the 'Southern Hemisphere', in a statement about both colonial Australian history and contemporary "notions of wealth, high capitalism and cultural destruction."

Chris FITZALLEN

Pattern and sentiment IV, 1995

Painting

Oil on canvas

#9099

Chris Fitzallen (b. 1959, Morwell, Victoria) is a painter with a strong sense of, and interest in, the elements and principles of design. He plays and manipulates both colour and texture in his work, creating an endless narrative. The heavily-worked texture of the piece invites the viewer beyond the elements of pure design and into the painterly.

Pattern and Sentiment combines a few design languages from 70s logos to potentially art nouveau. The bold monochromes also highlight the post-modernity in the work. The work is unified through the grid and the painterly surface.

Fitzallen has held many successful one-person and group exhibitions since 1985, and his work was shown in the important biennial survey ‘Perspecta’ at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, in 1989. Fitzallen is represented in the Art Gallery of Western Australia and Curtin University of Technology Collection.

Franz EHMANN

Speechgrill, 2005

Painting

Synthetic polymer paint and gouache on paper #11656

Franz Ehmann (b. 1963 Graz, Austria) is an accomplished writer, curator, photographer, performance and installation artist who has emerged as a significant figure in Brisbane's art scene. For Ehmann writing, photography, installation and performance collapse into one continuing creation that contains his clearly defined aesthetic. He invests everyday objects with new importance through a reflective and poetic approach to the world. Speechgrill is a particularly sparse and minimal work of gouache on blackboard paint. A Speechgrill is the grill between a priest and the congregant in confession. The work is about writing and speaking, and silence and gaps. Each mark is perhaps a word spoken.

As a performance artist Ehmann was part of the major survey of performance art in Australia at the Ivan Doherty Gallery and the IMA Brisbane.

Ivan NAMIRRKKI

Lorrkon, 2009

Sculpture

Natural earth pigments on wood #12585

Ivan Namirrkki is a highly regarded artist from Maningrida, located in western Arnhem Land in far north Australia. Painting enables him to share his culture and traditional knowledge of the land. This work 'Lorrkon' is a ceremonial hollow-log coffin painted with traditional clan designs associated with funeral rites. Originating from Arnhem Land and the islands off the northern coast of the Northern Territory, lorrkon are predominately produced for the art market, however for artists such as Namirrkki they will never lose their sacred cultural significance.

As Senior Curator Judith Ryan wrote in the catalogue: 'The body of rarrk that is stretched over the entire surface of each lorrkon, in which image and essence resonate, reveals his identity in the land, his lineage and his understanding of inside layers of ceremony.'

Sebastian MOODY

Opinion Fatigue (black feather), 2022

Painting

Acrylic on Marine Plywood #16602

Sebastian Moody (b. 1979) currently lives and works in Brisbane. His art provides opportunities for philosophical contemplation in busy urban environments. His public commissioned works respond to their physical context and are sufficiently memorable to stay with the viewer. Equal parts gravitas and humour, his text is always concise and digestible. Offering statements that challenge as they reassure, Moody nudges his audience into a critical awareness of self and our place in society.

In this new body of work, Opinion Fatigue Moody fuses his love of modern painting, language, and meaning. These paintings continue in the tradition of 1960s and ’70s Australian concrete poetry, which used mechanical and commercial applications of text to expand possibilities for artmaking. Unlike Moody’s previous text works where the meaning of the words is central to the concept, Opinion Fatigue problematises our logical understanding of language by moving away from poetry and closer towards abstract expressionism.

Moody’s projects have appeared at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane), Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane), Brisbane International Airport, and New York Art Book Fair (New York) among many others.

Sebastian MOODY

Opinion Fatigue (flower mooooon), 2022

Painting

Acrylic on Marine Plywood #16603

Sebastian Moody (b. 1979) currently lives and works in Brisbane. His art provides opportunities for philosophical contemplation in busy urban environments. His public commissioned works respond to their physical context and are sufficiently memorable to stay with the viewer. Equal parts gravitas and humour, his text is always concise and digestible. Offering statements that challenge as they reassure, Moody nudges his audience into a critical awareness of self and our place in society.

In this new body of work, Opinion Fatigue Moody fuses his love of modern painting, language, and meaning. These paintings continue in the tradition of 1960s and ’70s Australian concrete poetry, which used mechanical and commercial applications of text to expand possibilities for artmaking. Unlike Moody’s previous text works where the meaning of the words is central to the concept, Opinion Fatigue problematises our logical understanding of language by moving away from poetry and closer towards abstract expressionism.

Moody’s projects have appeared at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane), Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane), Brisbane International Airport, and New York Art Book Fair (New York) among many others.

Caring for your collection

Follow these tips

In welcoming Artbank works into your space, follow these tips on looking after them for us;

• Advise any cleaning staff to take great care when cleaning areas around artworks.

• Contact your consultant if a work needs maintenance like dusting or cleaning.

• Please ensure the artworks remain untouched and left where they were installed.

• If you need the artworks moved – just call us! We will arrange this straight away for you.

• If you notice damage to any work let us know straight away so we can save the artwork.

Telephone: 1800 251 651

Artbank

Sydney enquiries@ artbank.gov.au

1800 251 651 or +61 2 9697 6000

By appointment (Monday – Friday)

222 Young Street Waterloo NSW 2017

PO Box 409

Surry Hills NSW 2010

Contact Artbank

Artbank

Melbourne enquiries@ artbank.gov.au

1800 251 651

By appointment (Monday – Friday)

18—24 Down Street

Collingwood

VIC 3066

PO Box 1535

Collingwood VIC 3066

Artbank

Perth enquiries@ artbank.gov.au

1800 251 651

Mezzanine Level

Hyatt Regency Perth

Level 1

99 Adelaide Terrace

Perth WA 6000

PO Box 409

Surry Hills NSW 2010

Artbank acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia.

Yaltangki, Malpa Wiru (Good Friends) , 2015.

page: Artbank Sydney, photo Tom Ferguson

Get in touch with an Artbank Consultant today and help support the Australian contemporary artists of tomorrow!