Introduction to Artbank
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.
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Artbank Sydney, photo Tom Ferguson
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.
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.
Artbank Sydney, photo Tom Ferguson
Zoë Rodriguez Director, Artbank
Kunmanara WILLIAMS Sammy DODD Postbag Painting, 2017 Painting Synthetic polymer paint on canvas mail bag; wood, kangaroo tendon #14817
Kunmanara (Mumu Mike) Williams (1952-2019) was a senior Pitjantjatjara artist born near Pukatja, a community in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY Lands) in north-west South Australia. Williams was a staunch activist for his community and Country. In 2019 his book ‘Kulinmaya! Keep listening, everybody!’ was posthumously published, just one example of his towering legacy as a passionate advocate for using the written word to teach his culture to all Australians. He wrote: 'I want my book to be in schools and read by politicians and young people everywhere, so that they can learn about Tjukurpa Law … I am hoping to start a movement of new awareness.' Williams started using text in his artworks for the same reason, painting on repurposed Australia Post canvas mailbags in Pitjantjatjara. These items are frequently adapted by the people in his remote community, where mail is only delivered twice a week by plane. By painting on this surface in his language and he riffing off the statements printed on the fabric, he makes a bold statement about imposed Commonwealth ownership and the eternal persistence of traditional lore. An excerpt reads: ‘Do not damage our cultural heritage. Theft of misuse of this Tjukurpa is a criminal offence. Penalties apply.’
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Alasdair McLUCKIE In the House of Mars, 2009 Textiles Beads, thread and linen #12448
Melbourne based artist Alasdair McLuckie (b. 1984) believes in the power and almost spirituality of art and art objects. Although always grounded in twentieth century modernism and beyond, MCluckie’s work also draws on other sources of “image magic”, handcrafted objects and ritualistic practices ‘In the House of Mars' is a beaded work that both draws on native North American weaving techniques that the artist learnt from his father; a collector of tribal art and artefacts. McLuckie made these works on his father's loom, and the bold zig-zag design against a black background echoes both western and non-western art traditions, while the title relates to astrology and horoscopes. McLuckie states: "My current practice adopts meticulous process to create work that is primarily concerned with reinventing folklore, embracing superstition and perpetuating myth."
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Alasdair McLUCKIE Glory Glory Glory (New Mars), 2009 Textiles Beads, thread and linen #12450
Melbourne based artist Alasdair McLuckie (b. 1984) believes in the power and almost spirituality of art and art objects. Although always grounded in twentieth century modernism and beyond, MCluckie’s work also draws on other sources of “image magic”, handcrafted objects and ritualistic practices ‘In the House of Mars' is a beaded work that both draws on native North American weaving techniques that the artist learnt from his father; a collector of tribal art and artefacts. McLuckie made these works on his father's loom, and the bold zig-zag design against a black background echoes both western and non-western art traditions, while the title relates to astrology and horoscopes. McLuckie states: "My current practice adopts meticulous process to create work that is primarily concerned with reinventing folklore, embracing superstition and perpetuating myth."
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John DOHERTY Bridge System, 1982 Painting Synthetic polymer paint on canvas #1970
John Doherty (b. 1949) is a well regarded realist painter, and even photorealist painter. Born in Ireland, he trained as an architect and town planner before establishing a painting practice after his arrival in Australia. 'Bridge System' reflects his architectural background, both in subject matter and draughtsmanship. Doherty's use of photography in his creative process can be seen in the composition and detail within the work. Interested in realism and its history, Doherty likes to record everyday objects and people within a particular scene. He has stated: "My interests are centred around how man survives in his immediate surroundings, whether city or country." What is fascinating about this painting is that it becomes a slice of time and history. The painting is so carefully and meticulously painted that many details are clear from the make of cars to the building of the Sirius building.
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Michael KUTSCHBACH Elainor, 2004 Painting Synthetic lacquer on aluminium on acrylic #11448
Melbourne born, Michael Kutschbach (b. 1975) makes paintings and objects that are a mixture of the technological and the organic. He is able to take mundane things such as a blob of paint to the heights of the surreal through his stylised and almost Pop art approach. The work is a hybrid version of many approaches from illustration and anime to high serious art history. Elainor, Hazel, Vernon & Ronald are a continuation of the paint ‘blob’ works started when he poured paint onto canvas and moved it around with his fingers in an effort to play with the artificiality and possibilities of a painted surface. This works are more highly and technically wrought. Although almost comic in their simplicity the works are self-referential by drawing attention to paint itself. Michael Kutschbach has exhibited at art fairs in Cologne, New York and Australia, and was part of the XII Rohkunstbau 'Childs Play' exhibition alongside Louise Bourgeois, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Marcel Dzama and others. Kutschbach won the 2005 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship.
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Bronek KOZKA Pre-Dinner Drinks, 2009 Photography Digital print #12872
Bronek Kozka (b. 1970) is a photographer who defines his work as an "elaborate tableaux". Like other artists such as Jeff Wall, Kozka remakes and restages memories and events or ficitonal scenes that he imagines or has experienced. The restaging, through the artifice of Kozka;s camera becomes realer than the real. 'Pre-Dinner Drinks' was taken on location and Kozka creates a painterly affect by lighting each detail within the scene giving the photograph a sense of hyper reality. This work is part of Kozka's ‘Suburbia’ series, which sought to examine the notion of the perfect 1950s homemaker as seen in movies and commercials. Kozka states: "I am interested in the disparity between how suburbia is shown through these mediums and to people's own memory of growing up in suburbia. It's a partly truth and partly myth concept, exploring how memory can confuse, and also assure one’s construct of suburbia."
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Andrew McLEAN South Melbourne Landscape, 1981 Painting oil on canvas #2564
Andrew McLean (b. 1946) is an artist and award winning children’s book illustrator. His artistic practice involves large scale still life paintings as seen here of urban Melbourne. He has won numerous awards for his illustrations including the 2001 Centenary Medal for is contribution to children's book illustration in Australia. With his wife Janet, as co-author, they have written a number of books including The Riverboat Crew and Hector and Maggie. South Melbourne Landscape would be more rightfully called a rooftile scape. Looking over the roofs the viewer can tell industrial and residential buildings of urban Melbourne. The red roofs become almost abstracted like a large horizontal desert.
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Paul ZIKA Post Italy 6, 1992 Sculpture Synthetic polymer paint on wood #8541
Paul Zika (b. 1949, Albury, New South Wales and now based in Hobart) was born in July 1949, within two months of his parents and two brothers’ arrival at Bonegilla Migrant Camp as refugees from postwar Czechoslovakia. He grew up in North Blackburn in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. His father (in partnership with Jim Armstrong) established San Damiano Religious Art Studios in Box Hill in 1959, and as a teenager Paul often assisted his father. Zika has always been fascinated by artifice and architecture and his work often presents painting in the expanded field. Focusing on visual artifice and theatrical effects, his work as been spoken about as neo-Baroque. Over the last twenty years, series of artworks have emerged in direct response to field trips and residencies overseas. The Post Italy series (1990-94) followed a residency in Tuscany and Rome; the Monstrance series (1995-98) developed in response to time spent in Prague. 'Post Italy' is a series based on architectural decorative elements that he developed into a complex relationship between space – actual and illusionary – and surface. The resulting wall-reliefs come to life as eccentric compilations of carefully noted and obsessively rendered details.
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Jason WING Parramatta River Dreaming, 2010 Painting Spray paint on aluminium #12958
Jason Wing's (b. 1977) Chinese and Aboriginal heritage plays an important role in the Sydney based artist's practice. His materials, themes and techniques draw from a wide variety of contemporary and historical references: the stencils, for example, invoke the markings of early cave painters, as well as techniques of historical documentation. Similarly the bold graphic style marries a Chinese paper-cut aesthetic with contemporary street art and western art movements like Pop. The boy is a recurring motif that symbolises Wing himself. Here he straddles a three-eyed fish holding a lotus flower, both emblems of his Chinese heritage. The background is a graffiti tag on a road sign; its command - WRONG WAY GO BACK - signifies mainstream society, its regulations as well as mankind's increasingly devastating impact upon the natural world.
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Samuel VILLALOBOS Everlasting Gobstopper, 2009 Photography Lamda print #12684
Samuel Villalobos (b. 1981) is a Sydney based artist, photographer who finds his inspiration in objects and moments that surround him. Often drawing on personal memories and nostalgia, Villalobos restages and remakes images. Often using the monumental C-type photograph, Villalobos heightens and celebrates objects and memories of the everyday. In 'Everlasting Gobstopper', the artist has carefully photographed, almost like a scientific document, the cross section of a gobstopper sweet. He depicts confectionery to comment on the nostalgia embedded in the passing of time from childhood to adulthood. Referencing Roald Dahl's beloved character, Charlie, and his experience in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory as an example, Villalobos states that the "ultimate encapsulation and bliss of the moment eventually ends and we move to new relationships, experiences and activities." The work recognises that the idea of 'forever' is not always everlasting. Villalobos sweetens this melancholy notion by seducing the viewer with playful vivid colour which from afar looks like modernist painting.
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Caring for your Artbank collection
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
Contact Artbank
8 min Surry Hills Station Artbank Sydney
3 min Green Square Station
Artbank Sydney
9 min Charles St Tram Stop 8 min Peel St Tram Stop
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Artbank Melbourne
6 min McIver Station 10 min Port of Perth Ferry
Artbank Perth
Artbank Perth
enquiries@ artbank.gov.au
enquiries@ artbank.gov.au
enquiries@ artbank.gov.au
1 800 251 651 or +61 2 9697 6000
1800 251 651
1800 251 651
By appointment (Monday – Friday)
By appointment (Monday – Friday)
222 Young Street Waterloo NSW 2017
18—24 Down Street Collingwood VIC 3066
PO Box 409 Surry Hills NSW 2010
PO Box 1535 Collingwood VIC 3066
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.
Tiger Yaltangki, Malpa Wiru (Good Friends), 2015. Next page: Artbank Sydney, photo Tom Ferguson
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Get in touch with an Artbank Consultant today and help support the Australian contemporary artists of tomorrow!