Congratulations to Vipoo Srivilasa for his exhibition ‘re/JOY’, which is currently at the Australian Design Centre and touring across five states over the next three years. These statues, standing 1.5 metres tall, centre a collection of broken ceramic pieces that were personally significant to a range of families and their experiences of migration. Fragments of teapots, tiles, and bowls from across the world are included in this reimagining of strength, community, and healing. The creation of these figures was inspired by a previous project of Srivilasa’s (of the same name - re/JOY) in Warrnambool, repairing people's broken ceramics that were too sentimental to be thrown away. Srivilasa continuously brings new life and joy to old pottery.

The exhibition is currently on at the Australian Design Centre, Sydney until 19 February 2025. The exhibition will tour Australia from 2025 to 2027.

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Ari Athans whose work ‘A ripple and a rock’ is now installed at Wentworth Point in Sydney.

This work is inspired by sedimentary rocks such as sandstone and shale which make up the ripple valley of Sydney Harbour.

Seeking to re-invoke the soft and natural elements of the area, ‘A ripple and a rock’ signals a place and a point of arrival along the urban coastline. The forms appear to have tumbled together and washed ashore, their shape framing the bay and supporting view lines across the water.

- Ari Athans

In collaboration with Urban Art Projects

IMAGE:
‘A ripple and a rock’ 2024
sandstone, cast aluminium, fabricated steel
dimensions variable

Congratulations to Belem Lett who is a finalist in the 2024 Redland Art Awards with his work 'Flight Path'.

The Redland Art Awards is a biennial contemporary painting competition open to all Australian artists, presented by Redland Art Gallery.

The finalists exhibition will be held at the Redland Art Gallery, opening Friday 6 December 2024.

IMAGE:

Belem Lett
‘Flight Path’ 2024
oil, clear primer on brushed aluminium
150 x 122 cm

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Bridie Gillman who is a finalist in the 2024 Redland Art Awards with her work 'See from sky'.

The Redland Art Awards is a biennial contemporary painting competition open to all Australian artists, presented by Redland Art Gallery.

The finalists exhibition will be held at the Redland Art Gallery, opening Friday 6 December 2024.

IMAGE:

Bridie Gillman
See from sky 2024
oil on canvas
153 x 137 cm

READ MORE HERE

We are thrilled to share that John Bokor is a finalist in the 2024 Kedumba Drawing Prize with his work 'After the Feast'.

The Kedumba Drawing Award is a $20,000 acquisitive award open to resident Australian artists working in the broad sphere of drawing. The winning work will become a permanent part of The Kedumba Collection, which is considered to be the most important collection of Australian drawings outside the National Gallery.

The finalists exhibition will be held from 17 November - 15 December, Kedumba Gallery, NSW

JOHN BOKOR

‘After the Feast’ 2024

charcoal, wash and collage

71 x 90cm

READ MORE HERE

We are excited to share that Belem Lett is a finalist in two categories of the 2024 Fisher’s Ghost Art Award. Belem is a finalist in both the open and contemporary sections of this annual award with his works 'The Foot Of The Mountain' and 'Light Speed'.

The annual Fisher’s Ghost Art Award is now in its 62nd year, and there is over $60,000 in prize money to be won across the categories. The Fisher’s Ghost Art Award coincides with Campbelltown’s annual Festival of Fisher’s Ghost. Held over ten days, the Festival dates back to 1956 and celebrates Australia’s most famous ghost – Frederick Fisher.

You can see Belem’s works in the finalists exhibition which will be held at the Campbelltown Arts Centre from Saturday 26 October – Friday 6 December, 2024

IMAGES

'The Foot Of The Mountain’ 2023
oil, gesso, marble dust on aluminium composite panel
150 x 122cm

• 'Light Speed' 2023
• clear coat, acrylic, gesso, wood putty, screws, wood glue, pine
• 73 x 57 x 53cm

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Belem Lett who is a finalist in this year’s Hornsby Art Prize with his 2022 work ‘Look At Yourself’.

Established in 2009, the Hornsby Art Prize is organised and sponsored by Hornsby Shire Council and delivered in partnership with the Hornsby Art Society. The non-acquisitive prize celebrates Australian Contemporary Art and has an overall prize pool value of $23,000, with the major prize being $10,000.

The Hornsby Art Prize Finalists’ Exhibition will be held at Wallarobba Arts and Cultural Centre, Hornsby, 25 October - 10 November 2024

IMAGE

‘Look At Yourself’ 2022
oil, gesso, marble dust on aluminium composite panel
90 x 74cm

READ MORE HERE

We are delighted to share that Paul Ryan is a finalist in the 2024 Paddington Art Prize with his work ‘Landscape. Unidentified floating object’.

‘The indigenous people of the Illawarra when they first saw the tall ships of the British floating past thought it was their ancestors’ ghosts returning.’

The Paddington Art Prize is a $30,000 National acquisitive prize, awarded annually for a painting inspired by the Australian landscape. The exhibition of finalists will be held at the Art Leven Gallery from 10 - 20 October 2024.

IMAGE:

‘Landscape. Unidentified floating object’ 2024
oil on linen
123 x 122 cm

READ MORE HERE

We are delighted to share that Peta Minnici has been selected as a finalist in the 2024 Calleen Art Award with her work ‘Rose Connection’.

The Calleen Art Award is a $30,000 National acquisitive prize, awarded annually to celebrate contemporary art practices and to foster originality, creativity and excellence in the visual arts. The finalists will be exhibited at the Cowra Regional Art Gallery from 28 September - 17 November 2024.

IMAGE

‘Rose Connection’ 2023
oil on linen
112 x 112 cm

READ MORE HERE

We are thrilled to congratulate Bridie Gillman on being selected as a finalist in the 2024 John Leslie Art Prize with her painting ‘Hanging, holding.’

The $20,000 Acquisitive Prize is named after John Leslie OBE (1919—2016), Patron of the Gippsland Art Gallery and celebrates landscape painting by Australian artists.

Bridie’s work will be on exhibition amongst the other finalists from 7 September to 24 November at the Gippsland Art Gallery, in Sale, Victoria.

Image courtesy Louis Lim

IMAGE

‘Hanging, holding.’ 2024
oil on canvas
137 x 198cm

READ MORE HERE

Curated by Vipoo Srivilasa, ‘Generation Clay: Reimagined Asian Heritage’, opens on Saturday 3 August at Bunjil Place, Victoria.

‘Generation Clay: Reimagining Asian Heritage’ is an exhibition celebrating the vibrant versatility of clay, presented by a new generation of Asian-Australian contemporary artists. Together, these artists are reimagining traditional and ceramic forms in ways that resonate with our current moment.

This exhibition will engage with a multiplicity of concepts – from personal histories and memories, cultural heritage and family ties to mythological and popular culture narratives. Curated by Vipoo Srivilasa, a recognised leader in the field of ceramics, ‘Generation Clay’ started with fourteen artists from across Australia being invited to create a new work using a palette of predominantly blue and white. The colour blue is also a unifying feature of the exhibition’s design, alluding to the wider discourses of blue and white patterning, it’s connections to global movement and its reinterpretation and translation through form and motif over time.

Nestled in the heart of the exhibition is ‘The Bloom Room’ a special making area where exhibition visitors can participate in a range of changing monthly activities, from hand-crafting origami flowers and tiny clay objects, to sharing secret powers and stories, ‘The Bloom Room’ is your space to create, connect and collaborate with the artworks and artists featured in ‘Generation Clay’.

3 August - 24 November 2024
Bunjil Place Gallery, Narre Warren, Victoria

READ MORE HERE

We are thrilled to announce that Vipoo Srivilasa’s interactive exhibition, “Marvellous Mythical Mates,” opens at Counihan Gallery in Melbourne this Saturday 3 August, 2024.

The exhibition explores the theme of belonging. Inspired by the sights, sounds, smells, and textures of Merri-bek, attendees are encouraged to create their own mythical dream pets from clay. Whether your pet dings like the Number 19 tram or gurgles like the Merri Creek, the possibilities are endless.

Contribute to a growing menagerie of Merri-bek creatures by proudly displaying your dream pet in the gallery. With every passing day, new creations will emerge, transforming the exhibition into a living habitat for fantastical companions!

Join the opening ceremony on Saturday, August 10 from 2 – 4pm.

The exhibition is current until October 27, 2024

READ MORE HERE

James Drinkwater has featured in ART-CLE Issue 02, 2024:

"Known for his raucous yet meticulously composed paintings, James Drinkwater is one of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary artists. Yet, the words ‘contemporary’ and ‘artist’ are not necessarily ones Drinkwater would use to describe himself. He prefers the term ‘painter’, and he is a gestural one at that, drawing on influences from the vast legacy of Australian, British, American and French modern art he became obsessed with as a child growing up in Newcastle, New South Wales. Drinkwater says he started drawing and painting incessantly from the age of five, after becoming taken with the small landscape paintings his aunt would work on at her kitchen table.

"Drinkwater’s talent was recognised and nurtured early on, not just by his parents and those around him but also by the art world itself. During our conversation, he fields a call from his dad, who wants to come around and see his recent paintings. “It’s never ideal, the time he wants to come,” Drinkwater says after hanging up. “But I’m never going to say no to that, it’s fuel. You talk about fathers not approving of their kids doing art… artists like Clarice Beckett, you know. My dad was there in the garage with me, standing with a ciggy and a chardonnay just going, ‘Oh, bloody brilliant James. Brilliant. Michelle, come look!’

"Between the ages of eight and eighteen, he attended Ron Hartree’s now-closed art school in Newcastle and visited exhibitions whenever his parents could take him. He later attended the National Art School in Sydney—only for one year, before getting restless—and then moved to Melbourne, where he met his now-wife, the painter and performance artist Lottie Consalvo. The pair soon moved to Berlin, where they lived for three years before relocating back to Newcastle in search of cheaper studio space and a quieter life.

"In 2014, aged thirty, he won the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, which took his family— then-newly expanded to three with the arrival of his first child, Vincenzo—to the Cité des Arts in Paris for three months and a further three travelling. Fast forward to June 2023, almost a decade on, and a survey exhibition at Canberra’s Drill Hall Gallery—James Drinkwater: at mid-career, curated by Terence Maloon—announced without hesitation Drinkwater’s arrival at that often tenuous artistic milestone.

"Drinkwater’s paintings are defined by their expressive use of colour. They are rich in matter, working texture and colour into abstract yet familiar figures, landscapes and interiors that speak of his experiences both real and imagined. In subject, his work draws heavily on the intimacy of his family life, the oceanic environment in which he lives, the broader Australian landscape and the people and places with which he interacts in his movements and travels. As was the case for the 20th century painters Drinkwater has so admired, his own exploration of this personal iconography at once allows insight into his subjective experience and offers something of our shared world to dive into."

- Emma Pegrum, ART-CLE

Image: James Drinkwater, courtesy Nic Gossage

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Vipoo Srivilasa who has been invited to present his interactive art exhibition ‘Flower Bear Deity’ at the Fremantle Arts Centre as the lead artist for the 2024 Indian Ocean Craft Triennial (IOTA). The exhibition will run from 16 August - 20 October 2024.

The Indian Ocean Triennial Australia (IOTA) is a not-for-profit arts organisation based in Perth, Western Australia. IOTA presents the extraordinary work of contemporary artists and artisans from around the region; particularly those who build on the traditional skills and mediums of craft practices.

READ MORE HERE

Curated by Vipoo Srivilasa, ‘Generation Clay: Reimagined Asian Heritage’, opens on Saturday 3 August at Bunjil Place, Victoria.

‘Generation Clay: Reimagining Asian Heritage’ is an exhibition celebrating the vibrant versatility of clay, presented by a new generation of Asian-Australian contemporary artists. Together, these artists are reimagining traditional and ceramic forms in ways that resonate with our current moment.

This exhibition will engage with a multiplicity of concepts – from personal histories and memories, cultural heritage and family ties to mythological and popular culture narratives. Curated by Vipoo Srivilasa, a recognised leader in the field of ceramics, ‘Generation Clay’ started with fourteen artists from across Australia being invited to create a new work using a palette of predominantly blue and white. The colour blue is also a unifying feature of the exhibition’s design, alluding to the wider discourses of blue and white patterning, it’s connections to global movement and its reinterpretation and translation through form and motif over time.

Nestled in the heart of the exhibition is ‘The Bloom Room’ a special making area where exhibition visitors can participate in a range of changing monthly activities, from hand-crafting origami flowers and tiny clay objects, to sharing secret powers and stories, ‘The Bloom Room’ is your space to create, connect and collaborate with the artworks and artists featured in ‘Generation Clay’.

“I have brought together some of the most exciting ceramic talent and together we are creating, what I believe, is a first-of-its-kind exhibition – Asian Australian ceramicists interpreting the blue and white palette in new ways,” said Vipoo Srivilasa.

“I have also worked with the Asian diaspora on the exhibition design, construction, writing and photography of the show. The works, along with the participatory nature of the exhibition is something that I’m very proud of.’’

Bunjil Place Gallery, Narre Warren, Victoria, 3 August - 24 November 2024

Image courtesy Jessica Tremp

READ MORE HERE

It is with great delight to share that Belem Lett is a finalist in the 2024 Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award for his work ‘Wormhole’.

The Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award was established in 2009 and is organised by the Art Collection and Galleries Unit at Deakin University, Victoria. The award celebrates contemporary sculptures from artists around Australia.

The finalist exhibition will be held at at the Deakin University Art Gallery from 29 August – 11 October, 2024.

IMAGE:

'Wormhole' 2023
clear top coat, acrylic, gesso, wood putty, screws, wood glue, polyurethane glue, pine
53 x 66 x 52cm

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Belem Lett who has been selected as a finalist in this year's Gosford Art Prize for his work 'Snorkel'.

The Gosford Art Prize is a significant facet of the Gosford Regional Gallery’s annual exhibition program. The prize was initially organised by the community in the early 1970s. When the Gosford Regional Gallery opened in 2000, it became the new permanent home of the Gosford Art Prize. Both the main prize and the Ceramics Prize have grown in popularity and strength over the past 23 years, celebrating the diversity of practices from artists both on the Central Coast and from beyond our region.

Finalists are exhibited in all galleries, 24 August 2024 - 20 October 2024

IMAGE

'Snorkel' 2024

oil, clear primer on brushed aluminium composite panel

150 x 122cm

READ MORE HERE

Exciting news for Belem Lett who is a finalist in this year's Mosman Art Prize for his work 'Fire Walk With Me'.

The Mosman Art Prize is the longest running and most prestigious municipal art prize in Australia. Winning entries form the basis of the Mosman Art Collection, a valuable and historic collection that surveys Australian painting since 1947. The Mosman Art Prize is an acquisitive award of $50,000 sponsored by Mosman Council.

The annual exhibition will take place 10 August - 6 October.

IMAGE:

'Fire Walk With Me' 2024
oil, clear primer on brushed aluminium composite panel
150 x 122cm

READ MORE HERE

It is with great pleasure that we share the news that Belem Lett is a finalist in the 2024 Sunshine Coast National Art Prize for his work ‘A Love Song’.

The acquisitive Sunshine Coast National Art Prize is a dynamic visual arts award reflecting outstanding contemporary 2D and new media arts practice in Australia. The finalists exhibition will be held at the Caloundra Regional Gallery from 24 August - 13 October 2024.

Belem Lett’s work transcend representation and instead embraces gestural abstraction, delving into the interplay of light and colour. Lett transforms the canvas into a dynamic arena where paint and surface coalesce. Each stroke is laden with vibrant hues, embodying physical momentum that echoes the artist’s gestures and movements.

IMAGE

‘A Love Song’ 2024

oil, clear primer on brushed aluminium composite panel

150 x 122 cm
⁠

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations Vipoo Srivilasa whose work ‘Memory’ (2018) forms part of the Namedropping exhibition at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart. This expansive exhibition presents around 200 artworks and objects, examining the realm of status, influence and the power we place in a name.

‘Memory’ (2018) consists of five porcelain and cobalt pigment figures with gold lustre details, housed in wooden structures. Each figure relates to a childhood sporting memory from the artist and features different sporting equipment or uniforms to reflect this. The porcelain statues are each mounted in uniform L-shaped wooden blocks, inspired by an old trophy from the Australian Sport Museum collection.

On now and current until 21 April 2025.

IMAGE:

‘Memory’ (2018)

porcelain and cobalt pigment figures with gold lustre details

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Belem Lett who has been chosen as a finalist in the 2024 Waverley Art Prize for his work 'Body Language'. The Waverley Art Prize finalist exhibition is on from 6 July - 18 August at the Bondi Pavilion Gallery, Sydney.

READ MORE HERE

Image:B

'Body Language', 2024

Oil, clear primer on brushed aluminium composite panel

150 x 122cm

image courtesy Jessica Maurer

Congratulations to Belem Lett for his selection as a 2024 finalist for the The Vincent prize. Belem was selected for his work 'Pollinate' and can be seen at the finalists exhibition which opens this Friday 14 June 6-9pm at Scratch Art Space, Marrickville.

The Vincent Prize was established by art courier service Art Van Go for their customers that missed out on selection for The Archibald, Wynne, Sulman & the Salon des Refuses.

READ MORE HERE

Image:

Pollinate, 2024

Oil, clear primer on brushed aluminium composite panel

56 x 48 cm

Congratulations Vipoo Srivilasa whose work is featured in the Australian Design Centre On Tour exhibition SIXTY: The Journal of Australian Ceramics 60th Anniversary 1962–2022. Vipoo's 2019 ceramic 'Dvarapala (Ta-waa-ra-baan), Door Guardian Porter' is currently on show at Design Tasmania in Launceston until 21 July 2024.

The exhibition is presented by Australian Design Centre in partnership with The Australian Ceramics Association (TACA) to acknowledge this significant anniversary for the ceramics community in Australia.

"For this show, I created a pair of friendly Dvarapala. They do not only ward off evil spirits but also welcome visitors. Instead of holding a club, they offer flowers and leave to visitors. Both of my Davrapala come with their own “vahana “ or animal- vehicle which they travel on and keep their company. Both animals, cat and dog are the most popular pets in the world. They are not only our great companion but also a guard for our house and a therapy to heal our spirit."

READ MORE HERE

Image:
VIPOO SRIVILASA
Dvarapala (Ta-waa-ra-baan), Door Guardian Porter series 2019
stoneware, underglaze, gold lustre, acrylic, mixed media

We are thrilled to announce that Sally M Nangala Mulda has been selected as a finalist in the Sir John Sulman Prize with her work 'Amoonguna long time ago'.

We stay at Amoonguna long time ago. We went on the train to Maryvale.

Sally M Nangala Mulda, 2024

Sally M Nangala Mulda’s work is a form of documentary storytelling. In this painting, she references a time in the 1960s when her family moved to Amoonguna Aboriginal Reserve about 15 kilometres east-south-east of Mparntwe/Alice Springs, so the children could attend school. Sally was born in the camp of Aboriginal stock and station homestead workers on Maryvale cattle station. That camp was recognised as Aboriginal Land in 1978, and the residents have transformed it into the idyllic Titjikala community within easy walking distance of the old homestead.

Tangentyere Artists, 2024

READ MORE HERE

Artwork:

'Amoonguna long time ago' 2024

acrylic on linen

51 x 122 cm

It is with great joy that we announce the selection of Belem Lett as a finalist in the 2024 Muswellbrook Art Prize for his work 'The Mountains Await Your Return'

Since 1958, the Muswellbrook Art Prize has grown and evolved and is today one of the richest prizes for painting in regional Australia. Astute adjudication of the Prize over the years has yielded an excellent collection of modern and contemporary Australian paintings, works on paper and ceramics from the Post War period of the 20th Century and into the 21st Century, with the winning acquisitive works forming the nucleus of what is now known as the Muswellbrook Shire Art Collection.

READ MORE HERE

Finalists will be exhibited at the Muswellbrook Art Gallery from 2 April - 25 May 2024

Belem's next solo exhibition at the gallery is from 1 - 21 May 2024

Artwork:

'The Mountains Await Your Return' 2022

Oil, gesso, marble dust on aluminum composite panel

150 x 122 cm

Congratulations to Bridie Gillman who is a finalist for the The Elaine Bermingham National Watercolour Prize for her work 'Night Lines'.

Celebrating excellence and innovation in the watercolour medium, this non-acquisitive prize offers a winning of $20,000 generously donated by Elaine Bermingham.

Selected finalists will be exhibited at QCA Galleries, located within Griffith University’s Queensland College of Art and Design at South Bank, Brisbane from 30 November 2023 - 11 January 2024.

READ MORE HERE

IMAGE

Night Lines 2023

watercolour and ink on linen

102 x 115cm

Vipoo Srivilasa has won the Civic Choice Award as part of the 2023 Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture.

The annual Melbourne Prize, now in its 19th year, continues its objective to provide opportunities to Victorian writers, musicians and for 2023, sculptors, demonstrating the importance of recognising and rewarding creative talent.

Artists practicing in expanded fields of sculpture, including public installation, new media, performance, sound-based and socially engaged practice were encouraged to apply, plus entries from artists at all stages of their practice, including First Nations people and artists from all genders and cultural, linguistic and diverse backgrounds.

READ MORE HERE

BELEM LETT is featured in the latest edition of Art Edit.

Issue 36 draws on Belem Lett's exploration of preconceptions and how his manipulation of colour creates pieces of harmony.

Text by editor Rose of Sharon Leake and images from past exhibitions with Edwina Corlette Gallery, edition out now.

READ MORE HERE

Image detail;

'Limbo' 2022
oil, gesso, marble dust on aluminium composite panel
56 x 48 cm

It is with great pleasure that we announce Belem Lett has been selected as a finalist in the 2023 Paddington Art Prize for his work 'This Land Is Slippery'

The Paddington Art Prize is a $30,000 National acquisitive prize, awarded annually for a painting inspired by the Australian landscape.

Image:

'This Land Is Slippery' 2022
Oil, gesso, marble dust on aluminium composite panel
150 x 180 cm

READ MORE HERE

Bridie Gillman is a finalist in the 2023 Girra: Fraser Coast National Art Prize for her work 'Quiet, after the storm' (2023).

The inaugural Girra: Fraser Coast National Art Prize is a major acquisitive prize of $25,000, that seeks to explore our reciprocal and inextricable relationship with the environment through contemporary art.

Selected artworks provide unique perspectives on industrialised landscapes, the forces of extreme weather events, our relationship to domestic gardens, ecological concerns and speculative solutions, ruminations on the beauty and power of nature, and much more.

Image details;

'Quiet, after the storm' 2022
Oil on linen, glazed ceramics and soundscape
various dimensions

The finalists’ exhibition, is held at the Hervey Bay Regional Gallery 23 September to 12 November 2023

READ MORE HERE

VIPOO SRIVILASA has been selected as one of the four finalists in the $60,000 Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture 2023.

READ MORE HERE

Rhys Lee is featured in Issue 42 of Beautiful Bizarre.

Leesa Hickey, Director of Side Gallery in Australia, has selected 8 works in the market that she wishes to add to her personal collection. Amongst these 8 works is Rhys Lee's 2021 Polkadot Robe.

Image:

Rhys Lee, Polkadot Robe, 2021, oil on canvas, 95 x 78 cm

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to our artist Paul Ryan who is a finalists in this year's Mosman Art Prize for his work 'The King'. Exhibition open 23 September in Mosman, Sydney.

READ MORE HERE

Image:

PAUL RYAN
'The King' 2023
oil on linen
138 x 122 cm

Congratulations to our artist John Bokor who is a finalists in this year's Mosman Art Prize for his work 'The Flowering Plant'. Exhibition open 23 September in Mosman, Sydney.

READ MORE HERE

Image:

JOHN BOKOR
'The Flowering Plant' 2023
oil on board
140 x 120 cm

Bridie Gillman completed a residency at Córtex Frontal, for a 6 week placement in an 18^th century building located in Arraiolos, Alentejo, Southern Portugal, in April 2023.

Córtex Frontal is a multidisciplinary cultural project created in 2016 by the Cultural Association Córtexcult, in Arraiolos, Évora, Alentejo. The artists in residence program aims to provide the time and space to develop a project, fostering the sharing of experiences between artists and the community.

Bridie's new body of work directly inspired by her time spent at Córtex Frontal will be exhibited in her upcoming show, Watching Walls at Edwina Corlette Gallery 4 October - 24 October 2023.

Córtex Frontal is part of the Portuguese Contemporary Art Networks RPAC.

READ MORE HERE

On Sunday the 30th of July, PAUL RYAN featured in the ABC Art Works episode focusing on album cover art. Hosted by Namila Benson, this episode of ABC Art Works allows Paul to tell us his story as an Australian painter and about his collaborations with American musician Bill Callahan.

Even though they've never met, Paul Ryan and Bill Callahan share a mutually beneficial friendship. Paul has painted several of Bill's album covers and Bill's music has inspired Paul's paintings.

Paul shows us his process and eclectic studio, personifying his practice and shining light on his emotive connection to the landscape so often seen in his pieces.

You can watch Paul Ryan's feature on the ABC iView website HERE

Congratulations to Belem Lett who is a finalist in this year's Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award for his work 'You Are The Centre Of The Universe'.

The biennial Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award is a significant national exhibition that aims to elevate the status of work on paper while supporting and promoting artists working with this medium.

Finalists will be exhibited in the Main Gallery at Hazelhurst Arts Centre in Sydney from 16 September to 12 November 2023.

Belem's next solo exhibition at the gallery is from 2 – 16 December 2023

Artwork:

You Are The Centre Of The Universe

Oil, gesso on Stonehenge paper 245gsm

228 x 168 cm

2023

Congratulations VIPOO SRIVILASA who has been shortlisted for the prestigious Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award for his work The Kiln God Altar. Vipoo has been selected as one of the 40 finalists out of 422 entries.

The selection process was led by a panel of judges, including the renowned Australian artist Lisa Roet, the esteemed Curator Antony Fitzpatrick from TarraWarra Museum of Art, and the representative from Deakin University, Leanne Willis.

The finalist’s exhibition will open to the public on Wednesday 23 August at the Deakin University Art Gallery and the launch and announcement of winners will take place on Thursday 31 August.

Vipoo Srivilasa

'Kiln God Altar' 2023

A collection of Kiln Gods, created with various clay types, techniques, firing range and artistic style, symbolises the diversity within the clay community.

Displayed together on one stand, they represent unity, interconnection and shared spiritual traditions among clay workers worldwide.

READ MORE HERE

Tim McMonagle's painting ‘Plaza’ 2005 is currently on view at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in the "brick vase clay cup jug" exhibition.

Guest curator Glenn Barkley selected the artworks in 'brick vase clay cup jug' by typing the words of the exhibition title into the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ online collection database, retrieving objects linked only by a word or medium. Unlike the typical approach to making an exhibition, where works are grouped conceptually according to meanings or historical associations, this selection process is non-hierarchical and echoes the random groupings seen in gallery storage. Usually guided by pragmatic considerations – maximising space and access or caring for the collection – these incidental groupings can create inspiring and surprising links between disparate objects, art-handling equipment and exhibition furniture.

Barkley has then taken cues from these search results, either aesthetic or conceptual, to cast a wider net through the collection, creating new connections – many of which are personal, visual, intuitive and emotional – between artworks.

In addition to the 270-plus collection objects, the exhibition also includes a new iteration of The Wonder Room, a house decorated with terracotta tiles made by communities of the Shoalhaven, NSW in a project with Shoalhaven Regional Gallery, Nowra. A video work by Dean Cross, Untitled (self-portrait as water and clay) 2015, on loan to the Art Gallery, is projected inside this space.

Until January 2024

'Plaza' 2005
oil on linen
180 x 180 cm

Congratulations to Belem Lett who is a finalist in this year's Waverley Art Prize for his work 'Smile'.

Belem is one of the 38 finalists chosen from over 700 entries. Recognising his striking choice of colour and form, Waverley Woollahra Art School credits his signature technique of forcing the eye to follow the shifting stark palettes.

The Waverley Art Prize celebrates excellence across the local arts community and greater Australian contemporary Visual Arts sector, ultimately showcasing the brilliance of early to mid-career Australian artists.

The Finalist Exhibition for this Waverley Art Prize is held in Sydney at the Bondi Pavilion until August 13, 2023.

Artwork:

Smile

oil, gesso and marble dust on aluminium composite panel

150 x 122 cm

2023

"Early recognised as an exceptional talent, James Drinkwater has never toned-down the intensity and bravura of his approach to painting. His work has mined a vast legacy of modern art – Australian, British, American, French – as if all of it remains relevant, fresh and available to him. Now, on the brink of turning 40, this is the first survey of his prodigious past. While his paintings evoke figures, landscapes and interiors, they are also meticulously composed abstractions, distinctive for their complex and opulent fusion of texture, colour and spatial intrigue. This exhibition will be accompanied by a major publication. AT MID-CAREER: James Drinkwater is curated by Terence Maloon."

- Drill Hall Gallery

The exhibition is open 23 June, 2023.

Image: James Drinkwater, We are clumsy now on this southern beach, 2016, mixed media on board, 140 x 120 cm. Private collection.

READ MORE HERE

Grace Ebert featured Vipoo Srivilasa's exhibition 'Solitude and Connection' in the article 'Exquisite Porcelain Figures by Vipoo Srivilasa Express the Ineffable Nature of Beauty and Connection'.

"Flowers in gold lustre and cobalt, small portraits of mythical creatures with feathers and polka dots, and various geometric motifs embellish Vipoo Srivilasa’s porcelain figures, which celebrate abundance and joy through opulent details. On view now at Edwina Corlette in the artist’s solo show Solitude and Connection, the sculptures are otherworldly in form as they meld human anatomy with flora and fauna, exploring 'the diverse ways in which love takes shape.'"

READ MORE HERE

We are thrilled to announce that Peta Minnici features in 'Clayton Utz Art Partnership, The First Five Years'.

Published in Conjunction with Clayton Utz, 3:33 Art Projects, and Bandicoot Publishing Pty Ltd, Alexandria, NSW, Australia. Editors: Bruce Cooper, Kon Gouriotis and Max Germanos. Contributing writer: Dr. Judith Pugh.

The Clayton Utz Art Partnership brings together a unique collaboration between two outstanding Australian artists and their firm.

READ MORE HERE

Image Courtesy to Peta Minnici

Arrernte and Southern Luritja artist Sally M Nangala Mulda alongside Arrernte and Western Arrarnta artist Marlene Rubuntja have developed their practice to be completely recognisable and representative of the place in which they live, Mparntwe/Alice Springs. Working from Tangentyere Artists and Yarrenyty Arltere Artists (art centres), these senior women have established themselves as two of Australia’s leading visual artists.

The third Artbank + ACMI Commission, Two Girls From Amoonguna, encompasses video, soft sculpture and paintings, with the centerpiece the animated work titled Arrkutja Tharra, Kungka Kutjara, Two Girls.

Arrkutja Tharra, Kungka Kutjara, Two Girls delves into the reality of First Peoples’ experiences in Central Australia by chronicling the artists’ successes and struggles. The work centres Sally and Marlene’s voices, as well as the voices of their younger family members, who can be heard in the animation. It was made in collaboration with Ludo Studio, the Emmy-award winning production company behind Bluey, Robbie Hood and The Strange Chores, along with script writer Courtney Collins, Left of Elephant Sound and Tangentyere Artists producer Ellanor Webb.

Figures from Marlene’s soft sculptures and Sally’s acrylic on linen paintings star in the animation, embedded on top of Marlene’s ink on paper works of the Central Australian landscape. Bringing together both artists’ practice, Sally’s iconic cursive painted lettering produce the subtitles.

Having grown up at the Amoonguna Settlement outside of Mparntwe/Alice Springs in the early 1960s, the two friends wouldn’t reconnect until much later in life, after both of them had seen their fair amount of hardships; now having achieved so much, they are immensely proud of one another.

Two Girls from Amoonguna is an exhibition about two of Australia’s leading artists and their journey to get there.

Watch Two Girls from Amoonguna HERE

Read more HERE

Sally M Nangala Mulda is a finalist in the 2023 Sulman Prize.

Old man pay day

Daughter and father drinking beer. Down the creek one woman got two tail. Two man coming with the beer two rum with the bag

Two rum and two coca cola in the bag

Woman taking tail

Man taking rum and coca cola with the bag

Man taking beer at the creek

Sally M Nangala Mulda, 2023

Sally M Nangala Mulda’s work is a form of documentary storytelling. She started painting in 2008 and has frequently portrayed town camp life since the 2007 Northern Territory intervention: people camping in the riverbed in swags, council rangers moving people on, people cooking kangaroo tail down the creek. Her practice represents an important catalogue of lived experience of town camp life and colonisation.

Read more here.

Sally M Nangala Mulda

Old man pay day

acrylic on linen

59.5 x 91.5 cm

Belem Lett is a finalist in the 2023 Omnia Art Prize with his works 'These Peaks Watch Over You' and 'Eclipse'. The Omnia Art Prize is one of Australia’s premier art awards and exhibitions for contemporary art. Read more here.

Artworks:

These Peaks Watch Over You

oil, clear primer on brushed aluminium composite panel

150 x 120 cm

2022

Eclipse

clear coat, acrylic, gesso, wood putty, screws, wood glue, pine

82 x 42 x 28 cm

2023

Congratulations to Belem Lett who is a finalist in this year's Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize with his work 'Vertical Horizon'.

Established in 2015, the Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize is a celebration of contemporary Australian painting. The finalist exhibition brings together a broad range of artists, both established and lesser-known, whose varied approaches to the painted medium conveys the breadth and diversity of painting in Australia today.

READ MORE HERE

Image:
BELEM LETT
Vertical Horizon 2023
Oil, gesso, marble dust on aluminium composite panel
122 x 94 cm

Congratulations to Vipoo Srivilasa who has been awarded the Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy (VACS) Major Commissioning Projects grant. Vipoo is a recipient of $100,000 to realise a major project 'Re/JOY' in collaboration with the Australian Design Centre. 'Re/JOY' is a collaborative, community-driven project designed to engage with overseas-born Australians.

'Re/JOY' will examine the emotional connection we form with objects by retelling migration stories and experiences. The project aims to provoke the complex feelings associated with overseas relocation and the difficult process of gaining Australian permanent residency.

READ MORE HERE

Image: Vipoo Srivilasa and the Happy Australian Sculptures at the National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Liv Cameron 2023.

Ari Athans was featured recently in the Qantas In-Flight magazine in an article written by Noelle Faulkner.

Vipoo Srivilasa's work 'Happy Australian' will form part of the National Portrait Gallery's exhibition 'Portrait23: Identity'.

'Portrait23: Identity' is a major exhibition of new work from multi-award-winning contemporary Australian artists and collectives working across every state and territory. Street art, textiles, performance, photography, ceramics, painting, drawing, soft sculpture and bronze challenge the boundaries of portraiture. Many of the works move eloquently between installation, video, and animation, inviting you, the viewer, inside the portrait.

Twenty-three artists and collectives present dramatic, ambitious and thrilling work about who they are and what it means to represent themselves, their communities, their histories and contemporary society. They break open the genre with deeply personal evocations of themes that resonate collectively, such as cultural knowledge, feminism, visibility/invisibility, activism and journeys of migration.

10 March – 18 June 2023.

READ MORE HERE.

Image details;

Four works from Happy Australian, 2022 Vipoo Srivilasa. © Vipoo Srivilasa. Photograph by Simon Strong

Ari Athan's work 'Strata Sample One' is featured in the current issue of Belle Magazine inside Anna Spiro's home.

IMAGE:

Ari Athans

'Strata Sample One' 2022
Ceramic, wood and acrylic paint
57 x 20 x 20 cm

Noelle Faulkner from QANTAS Travel Insider Magazine spoke with Vipoo Srivilasa about his art practice. "With a playful approach that marries European-Australian and Thai motifs, this Bangkok-born artist’s figurines are full of charm."

READ MORE HERE.

Image details;

Pieces from Vipoo Srivilasa’s Always Better Together series (2022)

Belem Lett's bold artwork 'Move Me' (2022) is featured on the recent cover of Belle Magazine. Belem's piece celebrates the power of colour and is shown in an exclusive look inside interiors star Anna Spiro's home.

BELEM LETT
Move Me 2022
Oil, gesso, marble dust on aluminium composite panel
122 x 94cm

Congratulations to Belem Lett who has won the 2022 Omnia Art Prize for the most outstanding work in any medium.

The prize was judged by Charlotte Day, Director of Monash University Museum of Art. The exhibition is open until 30th May at St. Kevins College, Toorak.

READ MORE HERE

This Sun Burns For Us 2022
oil, gesso, marble dust on aluminum composite panel
152 x 150cm

The Dobell Drawing Prize is an unparalleled celebration of drawing technique and innovation. Presented by the National Art School in partnership with the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation, the biennial prize explores the enduring importance of drawing within contemporary art practice. The 2021 exhibition showcased work by 64 finalists from around the country, demonstrating the vitality and scope of current Australian drawing.

Minnici's drawing are formed intuitively using a gradual technique of mark making, creating a blurring of focus and a slowing of viewing time; emphasising the tonal structure of each image through the loss of edges and turning the photographic image into a series of atmospheric sensations reminiscent of a memory.

READ MORE HERE

Looking into Bundanon 2019
ink in saunders paper
83.5 x 66.4 cm

Peta Minnici has been featured in the book 'Still Life' written by Amber Creswell Bell, published by Thames & Hudson.

Congratulations to Christopher Zanko and Paul Ryan who are finalists with a collaborative work in the 2022 Sulman Art Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The Sulman Prize is awarded for the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project by an Australian artist.

Christopher Zanko and Paul Ryan's work is set against the backdrop of Wollongong in NSW. This painting is concerned with the vulnerability of the changing demographics of an area once defined by coal mining, steelmaking and allied industries.

READ MORE HERE

PAUL RYAN + CHRISTOPHER ZANKO
Bulli, Rock Steady 2022
oil and acrylic on wood relief carving
120 x 100 cm

Congratulations to Belem Lett who is a finalist in the 2022 Sulman Art Prize.

The Sulman Prize is awarded for the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project by an Australian artist. Established within the terms of Sir John Sulman’s bequest, the prize was first awarded in 1936. Each year the trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW invite a guest artist to judge this open competition. Finalists are displayed in an exhibition at the Gallery opening on the 14th of May.

READ MORE HERE

Bending Over Backwards 2022
oil, gesso, marble dust on aluminium composite panel
150 x 125 cm

Congratulations to Sally M Nangala Mulda who is a finalist in the 2022 Sulman Art Prize.

The Sulman Prize is awarded for the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project by an Australian artist.

Sally Mulda's painting 'Old Days at Amoonguna' depicts the art centre's toyota picking up all the woman for painting. That kungka Nadine driving. Long time ago I use to get picked up at Little Sisters. Now Abbott’s Camp. Every day. We listen to CAAMA radio. Good ways. Everybody talkin’ talkin’. This one [middle] – three woman, they on the hospital lawn, playing card for money. Pay day. Night time [right panel] four woman by the fire at town camp. They sitting round the fire at night time. Keeping warm, talking story. Maybe they by the fire because no power card? This is town camp life. Every day.

READ MORE HERE

Old Days at Amoonguna 2021
acrylic on linen
66 x 122.5 cm

"Lottie Consalvo and James Drinkwater have created a big-hearted, art-filled home in their terrace house by the sea.

"James’ art practice incorporates painting, sculpture, drawings and wearable textiles. "Since I was a child, making art was the clearest way I could express myself,” he says. His creativity is nourished by “generosity of any kind, whether it be the human spirit or nature itself"."

- Elizabeth Wilson, House & Garden Magazine

Image: James Drinkwater, courtesy Alana Landsberry

READ MORE HERE

‘Expanded Canvas’ is a major exhibition at Town Hall Gallery exploring the dynamic and innovative nature of contemporary painting. The traditional grid and 2D picture plane are replaced by modern surfaces, including drop sheets, sign vinyl, virtual space, and the gallery wall itself.

Bundit’s mural painting will be exhibited in the major exhibition ‘Expanded Canvas’, showing at Hawthorn Arts Centre, Victoria - 23 April to Saturday 2 July 2022.

READ MORE HERE

The disparate textural layers of Aggregates in Construct blend the myriad forms and patterns of nature marked by the boundaries of human action. Ari Athans’ stacked, sculptural arrangements flow between the handmade, organic and industrial, marking the liminal points where the landscape rests upon and collides with the built world.

- Art Almanac, 2022

IMAGE:

Ari Athans

'Ultra Surface' 2022
ceramic, wood, vesicular basalt, acrylic paint
36 x 22 x 20 cm

READ MORE HERE

For more than twenty years ceramic artist Vipoo Srivilasa has created intricate and elaborate artworks that reflect his bicultural experience living between Australia and Thailand. He celebrates the intersections and overlaps between cultural, social, philosophical and environmental contemplations on life in a pandemic. VAULT asked Srivilasa to share some of his most beloved artefacts.

National Film and Sound Archive of Australia first major original exhibition in two decades opened to the public on Friday, bringing with it an insight into Australian films and film talent - both behind and in front of the camera.

"Australians & Hollywood is both a celebration and a provocation to rethink Australian cinema today, at home, in Hollywood and beyond. Visitors will be taken on a journey through the pivotal moments in recent and contemporary Australian cinema, starting from the ‘70s." - Tara Marynowsky

Curator Tara Marynowsky shares how this treasure trove of beloved cinema moments came to life.

READ MORE HERE

The main idea of this show is to speculate if Sydney, Australia, a sprawling conurbation of coastal and landlocked suburbs, has anything artistically in common with the metropolis of Los Angeles. I am also speculating that there is such a thing as Australian cool, which might reflect or correspond with a perception held that LA art is definitely cool. LA’s emergence as an important art city has been an ongoing matter for debate but has recently become cemented by the by appearance in LA of some major new art museums and international galleries.

Artists: Ron Adams, Polly Borland, Chris Dolman, Belem Lett, Adam Norton, Philjames, Genevieve Felix Reynolds

Durden & Ray, Los Angeles
19 March - 9 April 2022

Title: The River, 2022
Medium: oil, gesso, marble dust on aluminium composite panel
Size: 81 x 61 cm

READ MORE HERE

The Blake Prize is one of Australia's longest standing and most prestigious prizes which encourages conversation about religion and spirituality through art and poetry.

Belem Lett has been named as a finalist for the 67^th Blake Prize, 2022.

Title: Electric Dreams, 2021
Medium: oil on aluminium composite panel
Size: 152 x 150 cm

READ MORE HERE

David Roach, co-curator of the Clifton Contemporary Art Fair, talked to one of the high-profile participating artists, Paul Ryan.

Paul Ryan’s striking, often provocative paintings are sort by collectors both in Australia and internationally. Many feature the Northern Illawarra coast and escarpment as seen from the ocean.

READ MORE HERE

Paul Ryan is a finalist in Newcastle Art Gallery's Kilgour Art Prize 2021.

The Kilgour Prize is Newcastle's annual art prize for figurative and portrait painting. It awards $50,000 for the most outstanding work of art and a People’s Choice of $5000 to the painting voted most popular by the general public. Each year the Gallery receives hundreds of applications from across Australia.

'Three Imaginary Boys' 2021
oil on linen
138 x 153 cm

The Grace Cossington Smith Art Prize is inspired by the work of Abbotsleigh Old Girl and artist Grace Cossington Smith who made connections with her changing world through her drawing and painting.

Congratulations to Belem Lett for being finalist in three Grace Cossington Smith Art Prize awards for 2022.

Title: Wave Racer, 2021
Medium: oil on aluminium composite panel
Size: 110 x 80 cm

READ MORE HERE

The Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award is a significant national biennial exhibition that promotes excellence and innovation in the field of art on paper. This year, Hazelhurst received over 700 entries from artists throughout Australia.

Belem Lett has been selected to exhibit for the Art on Paper award 2022.

Title: Sunflower, 2021
Medium: oil, gesso on 12 sheets stonehenge paper
Size: 228 x 228cm

READ MORE HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa’s immersive, participatory installation Shrine of Life/ Benjapakee Shrine 2021, featuring five hand-crafted ceramic deities representing attributes important to the artist: identity, love equality, creativity, security and spirituality. Finished with gold lustre and floral embellishments, the work reflects Srivilasa’s holistic approach to life, and encourages audiences to appreciate the things that unite us.

His artwork for APT10 expands his practice, building on its audience-oriented qualities. The artist has created a reflective, shrine-like space that houses five secular deities representing attributes important to him — love equality, spirituality, security, identity, and creativity — and asks visitors to join him in celebrating them. Through the work, Srivilasa venerates memories of his Thai homeland, acknowledges what his relocation to Australia has meant to him, and encourages viewers to appreciate both our differences and our commonalities.

QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY 'ASIA PACIFIC TRIENNIAL'

4 December 2021 - 25 April 2022

READ MORE HERE

Garland Magazine
WILL MY HEART REMEMBER?
By Aaron Bradbrook

Aaron Bradbrook presents, re/JOY, a project by Vipoo Srivilasa to reincarnate objects relinquished by residents of Warrnambool.

READ MORE HERE

The Art Gallery of Ballarat has acquired two Vipoo Srivilasa works for their permanent collection. The works are 'Aqium' and 'Lori the Healthcare Hero' from the COVID SUPERHERO EXHIBITION 2020.

What does a COVID-19 superhero look like? Ceramicist Vipoo Srivilasa has created a collection of superheroes inspired by the dreams of people in the Ballarat community. Each superhero has a special power to fight off COVID-19.

This project is a collaboration between the Art Gallery of Ballarat and the City of Ballarat’s Creative City team.

READ MORE HERE

NGV is committed to providing creative experiences for young people and their families and sharing new ways to be creative. The gallery invited Bundit Puangthong to conduct a series of online workshops for their NGV Kids programme, during the 2021 Melbourne lockdown.

With a background in puppeteering, Bundit created a range of workshops with an introduction to making paper puppets.

READ MORE HERE

This year Bundit Puangthong was a finalist with his work 'Riding Stars' 2021 in the Sunshine Coast Art Prize - a visual arts award reflecting outstanding contemporary 2D arts practice in Australia. 16 years into this annual award, it has become the pinnacle event for the Sunshine Coast’s Regional Gallery in Caloundra, attracting entries from emerging and established artists across the nation.

READ MORE HERE

Bundit Puangthong is a finalist in the 2021 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, with his work 'The Living Room' 2021. Occurring biennially, the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize attracts Australian artists and awards an acquisitive prize of $50,000. The Prize provides Bendigo Art Gallery with the opportunity to survey contemporary painting by established and emerging artists from across Australia.

READ MORE HERE

SDFSDF

Arts Hub
Exhibition Review: Vipoo Srivilasa: Wellness Deity, Linden New Art by Celina Lei
22 May 2021- 22 August 2021

Wellness Deity
The Wellness Deity Project, which Srivilasa undertook in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This collaborative, community-driven project encouraged people to reflect on their experience of the pandemic. The artist invited people to submit a drawing of their Wellness Deity, a being that has a special empowering or protective power. Srivilasa selected 19 of these drawings to provide inspiration for a series of ceramic sculptures. Each deity has its own unique characteristics based on the personal stories submitted. Each work is also accompanied by a piece of commissioned creative writing.

READ MORE HERE

Flash Forward is a Melbourne based project that aims to reinvigorate some lesser-known laneways with visual and acoustic designs from local creatives. The project has invited more than 80 artists to work on commissions of art installations, albums, and stage gigs across the city.

As part of the project Bundit was commissioned to make a large-scale work in Rose Lane.

READ MORE HERE

The 2021 Geelong contemporary art prize is a signature event that assists with the development of the Geelong Gallery’s collection while fostering Australian artists and contemporary painting practice in general.

Bundit Puangthong’s work ‘Skull splitter’ takes inspiration from a famous Buddhist story where a prince’s ship sinks, and he has to swim all the way back to shore. The story represents the challenges we all face, despite our social status, and the lessons we learn from them. ⁠
⁠
Image: Bundit Puangthong ‘Skull splitter’, 2020, synthetic polymer paint and spray paint.

READ MORE HERE

Spanning over a career of 20 years, Thai-Australian artist Vipoo Srivilasa has harnessed art’s ability to connect creatives, organisations and the broader community.

Wellness Deity captured this collaborative energy in the light-filled room of Linden’s ground floor gallery. The 19 drawing submissions and accompanying writing surround the walls while Srivilasa’s ceramic iterations sit across two tables at the centre of the space. The hand-selected drawings from a total of 63 submissions from Australia and overseas showcase stories rooted in reflections, experiences, and hopes emerging out of the pandemic. Words Celina Lei

READ MORE HERE

This open competition is judged by the trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW. Finalists are displayed in an exhibition at the Gallery (although in the early years all entrants were hung). Although it is a non-acquisitive prize, several of the entries are now part of the Gallery’s collection.

Born in Titjikala in 1957, Mulda experienced a childhood accident that left her with impaired vision, but surgery has improved her sight. Exhibiting since 2008, she creates bright canvases with distinctive cursive text, depicting scenes of everyday life within Abbott’s Camp and drawing attention to social and political issues with emotional honesty.

In this portrait, the artist is wearing the stripey top and sits with her daughter, Louise Abbott. The other two people cooking roo tails on the fire represent all town camp women. As Mulda puts it: they are ‘maybe me and Louise, maybe any womans. This is town camp life. Every day.’

Mulda is also a finalist in this year’s Sulman Prize.

READ MORE HERE

VIPOO SRIVILASA

Wellness Deity 22 May 2021 > 22 August 2021

This exhibition will present the Wellness Deity Project, which Vipoo Srivilasa undertook in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This collaborative, community-driven project encouraged people to reflect on their experience of the pandemic. The artist invited people to submit a drawing of their Wellness Deity, a being that has a special empowering or protective power. Srivilasa selected 19 of these drawings to provide inspiration for a series of ceramic sculptures. Each deity has its own unique characteristics based on the personal stories submitted. Each work is also accompanied by a piece of commissioned creative writing.

READ MORE HERE

E-CATALOGUE

Established in 2015, the Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize is a celebration of contemporary Australian painting. The finalist exhibition brings together a broad range of artists, both established and lesser known, whose varied approaches to the painted medium conveys the breadth and diversity of painting in Australia today.

The annual prize is an important opportunity for Bayside City Council to add exceptional works of art to its collection and to promote art and artists as a valuable part of the Bayside community.

Sally Mulda's work 'Town Camp Stories' 2020 is a finalist in this year's prize.

READ MORE HERE

Established in 2015, the Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize is a celebration of contemporary Australian painting. The finalist exhibition brings together a broad range of artists, both established and lesser known, whose varied approaches to the painted medium conveys the breadth and diversity of painting in Australia today.

The annual prize is an important opportunity for Bayside City Council to add exceptional works of art to its collection and to promote art and artists as a valuable part of the Bayside community.

Tim McMonagle's work 'Put Upon' 2020 is a finalist in this year's prize.

READ MORE HERE

Established in 2015, the Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize is a celebration of contemporary Australian painting. The finalist exhibition brings together a broad range of artists, both established and lesser known, whose varied approaches to the painted medium conveys the breadth and diversity of painting in Australia today.

The annual prize is an important opportunity for Bayside City Council to add exceptional works of art to its collection and to promote art and artists as a valuable part of the Bayside community.

Belem Lett's work 'Pineapples' 2019 is a finalist in this year's prize.

READ MORE HERE

Written by Louise Martin-Chew

How Vipoo Srivilasa is repairing happiness

STUDIO

19 May 2021

Ceramicist Vipoo Srivilasa has a penchant for intricate and layered decoration that, he explains, is influenced by the ornate Buddhist temples he encountered growing up in Thailand. With an aesthetic he cheerfully describes as “more is more,” Srivilasa’s distinctive work also draws on European historical figurines and “a healthy dose of contemporary culture”. We chatted over cups of sencha tea in Srivilasa’s clean, bright warehouse studio in the suburb of Cheltenham, in Melbourne’s south-east.

Place
I’ve made this space really comfortable because I spend most of my time here, almost seven days a week. I come here about 7:30 in the morning and leave at 3:30 in the afternoon, go home, and do some shopping. Then I work on the computer, like writing or administration, in the evenings. Most of the time I’m just here; I live 10 minutes from here, so it’s really easy. Sometimes I go home for lunch—but I’ve found it kind of distracting, like you go home and it’s hard to come back again. So I bring my own lunch, or I’ll walk around the corner for a Vietnamese lunch.

READ MORE HERE

Dan Kyle's work is part of Wangaratta Art Gallery's exhibition 'Contemporary Landscape Perspectives: A Group Show' from 13 March – 30 May 2021.

This dynamic exhibition of five contemporary landscape Australian painters, Max Berry, Holly Greenwood, Dan Kyle, Bronte Leighton-Dore and Andrew Pye explores individual perspectives of elements of the Australian bush, the terrain, landscape and key symbolism of trees and flora in their immediate environment.

All five artists are emerging as contemporary painters in the Australian art scene. Berry, Greenwood, Kyle and Leighton-Dore are New South Wales based (Sydney and Blue Mountains), the four have partnered with local artist Andy Pye, the group have connections both through friendship but also their oeuvre, their painting practice and style. Each artists surrounding environments are re-interpreted in large scale paintings and works on paper.

This collection of artists and their work presents a diversity of expression and contemporary representation of the Australian Bush.

READ MORE HERE

John Bokor is a finalist in the Dobell Drawing Prize with this work titled Lounge Room in Spring 2020, charcoal, wash and collage, 84 x 100 cm.

The Dobell Drawing Prize is the leading drawing exhibition in Australia and an unparalleled celebration of drawing innovation. Presented in partnership with the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation (SWDAF), the biennial prize explores the enduring importance of drawing within contemporary art practice.

William Dobell’s love of drawing was recognised in 1993 when the Art Gallery of New South Wales established an annual drawing prize in his name, initiated by the trustees of the SWDAF. For twenty years, the annual Dobell Prize for Drawing encouraged excellence in drawing and draughtsmanship among Australian artists.

Lovelock is the presentation of a new suite of paintings by Tim McMonagle that have been directly informed by a new suite of sound works, produced for this project by Paul Knight, who is resident in Berlin.

Transference. The change of elemental states. The search for a place not here nor there.

These were our early concepts for the exhibition. Be careful what you wish for. Despite an unpredictable year in all corners of the globe, the original framework for the project is in place: to commission work from one artist to inform the work of the other. The idea & process is elliptical and is revealed over a period of time in three sections.

The fulcrum is a set of paintings by Tim McMonagle. They will be made using source imagery around the idea of “A Place Between / Not here nor there”. We approached Paul Knight in Berlin to create source images generated by this diaristic photographic practice. Then the pandemic happened, and nothing was the same.

In isolation in Berlin, Paul had immersed himself in his music practice, making soundscapes without traditional song structures, using sources completely derived from synthetic sounds: purely electronic space. The fit with the original concept was perfect. We devised a limit of the 12” LP to set the duration of the material. The square of the LP cover echoes Tim’s exclusive canvas ratio, the square.

The six tracks are to be issued as source material to McMonagle for his body of paintings. Tim has always hankered to work with a non-visual source for a group of paintings & this serendipitous outcome has both artists exhilarated by the possibility of extending their practice.

The final part of this work is the unification of the germinal sound work by Paul Knight,

Tim McMonagle’s paintings, and documentation of the exhibition to be presented at Greenwood Street Project in early 2021 in an LP/catalogue.

https://soundcloud.com/user-470862214/sets/lovelock-1

SHOWCASE

One in three American museums have not re-opened after lockdowns in March. But art continues to be bought, lent, and displayed by private banks. Dieter Buchhart, Art Critic

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N\H artist Paul Ryan is a finalist in Australia's most anticipated art prize, the 2020 Archibald, Wynne and Sulman. The exhibition is on show at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until January 10th 2021.

Paul Ryan's painting "Three Imaginary Boys" is the artist's sixth finalist selection in the Sulman Prize. He is a 13-time Archibald finalist and five-time Wynne Prize finalist. Paul has won the Paddington Art Prize (2007 & 2010), Geelong Contemporary Art Prize (2012) and has been a finalist numerous times in the Mosman Prize, Moran Prize, Fishers Ghost, Kilgour, Tattersals and other major awards.

'Three Imaginary Boys' 2020
oil on linen
138 x 153 cm

Vipoo Srivilasa has been awarded The 2021 Ceramic Artist of the Year by the editorial staff of Ceramics Monthly and Pottery Making Illustrated (USA).

The annual Ceramic Artist of the Year award is presented to an artist whose work reflects current aesthetics and sets an example for ceramic artists by embracing current trends, technology, studio, marketing, and/or community-focused practices.

“Over the course of your career, you’ve been very active with exhibitions, winning numerous awards, public art projects, teaching, mentoring, and community outreach. In addition, you have helped to support and advance the global clay community through innovative social media fundraising campaigns, among other projects.

You have also been very active in engaging with the field of ceramics and expanding creative connections with other creative fields and the wider community.

The fact that you can consistently create work as a self-employed artist in addition to having a busy international workshop, lecture, and exhibition schedule is impressive. In short due to all of your personal creative achievements, as well as your dedication to the field, we feel that you are more than deserving of the Ceramic Artist of the Year award.”

Jessica Knapp

Editor, Ceramics Monthly Magazine, Associate Editor, Pottery Making Illustrated, at The American Ceramic Society

In addition to the monetary award, The Artist of the Year feature will be in the 2021 Ceramic Arts Yearbook.

For the first time in its 22 year history, the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship has been awarded to five artists, one of whom is Dan Kyle.

Congratulations Charlie Ingemar Harding (Victoria), Emily Grace Imeson (NSW), Dan Kyle (NSW), Lily Platts (NSW) and Georgia Spain (Tasmania).

Art Gallery of New South Wales Director, Michael Brand, said that in one of the most challenging years the arts community has ever experienced he’s delighted that the Scholarship could be awarded, albeit in a different format.

‘That the Scholarship this year is shared between five artists instead of a single artist speaks to the moment we’re in, where we all need to work together and find new ways of thinking for the benefit of our community.

‘The Scholarship remains a prestigious, national painting award and I welcome all five recipients to the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship alumni who have, like Brett Whiteley before them, had their worlds open up as a result of being offered this opportunity to spend time creating work in a new location,’ Brand said.

Paul Ryan is a finalist in the Mosman Art Prize.

Established in 1947, the Mosman Art Prize is Australia's oldest and most prestigious local government art award. It was founded by the artist, architect and arts advocate, Alderman Allan Gamble. In it's seventieth year, the Mosman Art Prize has developed in stature to become Australia’s most prestigious municipally funded art prize with a national profile. It regularly attracts over 900 entries annually and currently offers over $60,000 in prizes.

The 2020 Mosman Art Prize was judged by Alexie Glass-Kantor, Executive Director of Artspace, Sydney.

Vipoo Srivilasa’s interactive 'Love Lab' performance offers participants the chance to reflect on the ingredients that make up their love language and in turn, to finally find out how good or bad love tastes.

Love Lab will be performed on the opening night of Objects of Love Exhibition, 12 March - 13 May 2020. The show presents artworks which symbolise and reflect love of all kinds across cultures. Working from different cultural perspectives, the artists each explore themes of contemporary and traditional exchanges of love, connection to loved ones, and the strength and fragility of bonds of love.

Artists include Vipoo Srivilasa, Cyrus Tang, Kate Just, Zaiba Khan and Varuni Kanagasundaram.

https://www.craft.org.au/craft-whats-on-events/lovelabperformance

Image: Love Lab performance 2019

Rhys Lee has been featured in an article by Juxtapoz on his experience as a practicing artist in Australia during the covid pandemic.

"Continuing our mission to check with friends and favorite artists around the globe, we virtually traveled all the way to Victoria, Australia, to check on what's happening with Rhys Lee. Based in a small coastal town located southwest of Melbourne, the artist is a whirl of activity as he intensively works on new paintings."

- Juxtapoz

READ MORE HERE

The Korea-Australia Arts Foundation Prize is run annually in cooperation with the Korean Cultural Centre.

Srivilasa's work 'The Course of True Love' is about the same-sex marriage journey. The series is realised in five bronze vignettes representing moments in world history that have contributed directly or indirectly to the acceptance of same-sex partnerships, and led Australia to pass the same sex marriage law in 2018. The moments including the Stoneware riots, Thailand decriminalising homosexuality, the establishment of Society Five, the first homosexual rights organisation in Melbourne, the Simpsons dedicating an entire episode to the same-sex marriage topic and the Yes campaign.

“I work predominantly with ceramics but for this series I chose to work with bronze. I use bronze, a robust and permanent medium to symbolise the strong concept of marriage and a solid commitment a couple makes to each other. Bronze is also a medium for religion statues. It would represent the sacred concept of marriage in my work.” …Vipoo Srivilasa

The Course of True Love will be part of Objects of Loves exhibition at Craft Victoria, Melbourne. 12 March - 13 May 2020

Image: The Course of True Love 2019

Roopanakar Museum of Fine Arts, Bhopal, India

13 February - 30 March 2020

Inaugurated by the then Prime Minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi on 13th February 1982, Bharat Bhavan is a multi art centre, set up to create an interactive proximity between the verbal, visual and performing arts. Bharat Bhavan provides space for contemporary expression, thought, quest and innovation. Bharat Bhavan seeks to provide a creative and thought provoking milieu to those who wish to contribute something new and meaningful, in contemporary scene in the fine arts, literature, theatre, cinema, dance and music.

Bharat Bhavan International Ceramic Exhibition is a feature part of the 38th anniversary celebrations. It is the first time an international exhibition of ceramic art has been organized in the state. Eminent ceramic artists from India, US, Australia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Ireland, Italy, China and France are attending the exhibition.

Vipoo Srivilasa is representing Australia.

Image: vipoo at the opening

The Glover Prize has announced its 42 finalists for 2020. These finalists represent the Judges’ selection of the best artworks of the Tasmanian landscape, chosen from the entrants coming from every Australian state and territory. These 42 artworks will be on display at the Glover Prize Exhibition at Falls Park Pavilion in Evandale, Tasmania during March this year.

The judges for the Glover Prize 2020 are Queensland Art Gallery | Museum of Modern Art (QAGOMA) director, Chris Saines; Sydney artist, Fiona Lowry; Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) Senior Curator and Dark Mofo Associate Artistic Director, Jarrod Rawlins. The judges next task is to carefully narrow down the 42 finalists to choose the winner of the $50,000 cash prize. After its display at the exhibition, the John Glover Society Inc. will acquire the winning artwork for its collection.

Belem Lett's work Burn Baby Burn 2020 has been selected as one of the finalists. The exhibition commences on 6 March, running from Saturday the 7th of March, 2020 and continuing until the end of the following weekend on Sunday the 15th of March, 2020, at the historic Falls Park Pavilion in Evandale.

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Bridie Gillman has been been selected as one of six finalists in the prestigious Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, administered by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The annual Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship is now in its 21st year and is open to Australian painters aged between 20 and 30 years. It was created from an endowment by Mrs Beryl Whiteley in 1999. The inspiration was the profound effect international travel and study had on her son, the artist Brett Whiteley, as a result of winning the Italian Government Travelling Art Scholarship in 1959 at the age of 20.

Dan Kyle's work 'Caught in a Haze' has been selected as a finalist in the Mosman Art Prize

Established in 1947, the Mosman Art Prize is Australia's oldest and most prestigious local government art award. As an acquisitive art award for painting, the winning artworks collected form a splendid collection of modern and contemporary Australian art, reflecting developments in Australian art practice since 1947. Artists who have won the Mosman Art Prize include Margaret Olley, Guy Warren, Grace Cossington Smith, Weaver Hawkins, Nancy Borlase, Lloyd Rees, Elisabeth Cummings, Adam Cullen, Michael Zavros and Natasha Walsh.

Until 27 October 2019, Mosman Art Gallery

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Since 2001 The Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award has been a significant national biennial exhibition that aims to elevate the status of works on paper while supporting and promoting artists working with this medium.

With prize money totalling $26,000, the Award showcases outstanding art created with, on or about paper. Artists compete for the $15,000 major award; the Young & Early Career Artist and the Friends of Hazelhurst Local Artist Awards ($5,000 each); and the People’s Choice Award ($1,000), plus the Hazelhurst Preparator’s choice Residency Award.

Image below: BELEM LETT 'Mountains of Madness' 2019, mixed media on paper, 148 x 110 cm

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Administered by Bendigo Art Gallery and held every two years, the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize is designed to attract some of Australia’s finest contemporary artists, awarding a generous acquisitive cash prize of $50,000.

Belem Lett is a finalist in the 2019 award.

Image below: BELEM LETT 'Dip Me in the Water' 2019, oil on aluminium composite panel 163 x 122cm

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John Bokor's work 'Spring' has been selected as a finalist in the National Still Life Award at Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery.

Still is a biennial, acquisitive award for artworks in the genre of still life, in all mediums. The award is open to artists at all stages of their careers.

Still: National Still Life Award seeks to highlight the diversity and vitality of still life in Australian contemporary art practice, broadening the interpretation and meaning of this enduring genre.

The Still exhibition opens on Friday 20th September 2019, with the official opening on Saturday 21st September, and runs until Saturday 16th November 2019. The judge is Rebecca Coates, Director of the Shepparton Art Museum.

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Un/Thaid, curated by Vipoo Srivilasa and featuring Bundit Puangthong has been reviewed in the Sydney Morning Herald:

"A new exhibition showcases the work of five Thai-born artists now living and working in Australia, the first of its kind in Melbourne.

Curated by Vipoo Srivilasa, the show was designed to provide a platform, "for [the artists] to have a voice in Australia".

An artist who moved to Australia 22 years ago, Srivilasa says when you emigrate, your cultural identity changes.

"All of them have a very strong sense of Thai culture in their work, yet it’s not traditional. It blends with Australian culture and becomes something new, something exciting.""

- Kerrie O'Brien, Sydney Morning Herald

Un/Thaid runs until July 27 at Grau Projekt.

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UN/THAID Curated by Vipoo Srivilasa

"This exhibition brings together the work of five contemporary artists from Thailand who now live and work in Australia. Arriving in Australia independently of one another across the 1990s and 2000s, these five artists are based in the urban centres of Melbourne and Sydney and have continued their distinct individual practices since arriving in this country. The work on display in this exhibition is a diverse offering, including performance, painting, ceramics, sculpture, video and installation. Articulating multi-dimensional and layered histories, all of these artists are emboldened in their shared cultural experience of growing up in Thailand and then relocating to Australia while continuing to develop and refine their artistic practices. This exhibition features the work of Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Nakarin Aaron Jaikla, Bundit Puangthong, Pimpisa Tinpalit and Somchai Charoen. A Thai born Melbourne based artist, Vipoo Srivilasa has initiated and organised this exhibition because of his desire to provide visibility and voice for Thai Contemporary artists who have been working and living in Australia."

Thu 13th June, 2019 – Sat 27th July, 2019

Grau Projekt, Melbourne

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The Muswellbrook Art Prize began in 1958 as the Festival of the Valley Art Prize with the winning painting Death of Voss by Tom Gleghorn becoming the inaugural work in what has grown to become an excellent collection of modern and contemporary Australian painting, works on paper and ceramics from the Post War period of the 20th Century and now the first two decades of the 21st Century. The Muswellbrook Shire Art Collection was created as a direct result of this ongoing acquisitive art competition.

John Bokor is a finalist in the 2019 prize.

Image: The Red Velvet Lounge 2018 oil on linen 68 x 91cm

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Brisbane Art Design festival is a 17-day festival of exhibitions, performances, talks, art tours, workshops and open studios of artists and designers in Brisbane. BAD showcases more than 150 Brisbane artists across all career stages.

Bridie Gillman collaborated with Brisbane designer Alexander Loterztain to make the work Breath as part of the festival held at Museum of Brisbane.

Image: Jono Searle courtesy Museum of Brisbane.

Tim McMonagle

By Ellinor Pelz

Tim McMonagle intimately confronts both the fragile and robust nature of life. With an obsession for mark-making and the act of painting, he depicts humanised landscapes with whimsical contradictions of impasto and swathing washes. His paintings require a closer inspection, as dangling branches and wailing trees act like entwined torsos to question humanity’s relationship to the environment. Artist Profile spoke to McMonagle in his Melbourne studio for Issue 46.

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The Moreton Bay Regional Art Award is an annual acquisitive exhibition proudly sponsored by the Moreton Bay Council. This year the Art Award offered an acquisitive prize of $8000, four category prizes of $2000 each, and two supplementary $1000 prizes for a Local Artist and a People's Choice Award.

Judged by Megan Williams, Manager of the University of the Sunshine Coast Art Gallery, Bridie Gillman was awarded the overall winner with her work 'Some sort of growth' 2018.

Megan Williams commented: 'The artist's sense of the materiality of paint, the play of colour, darkness and light make it a very strong and visually arresting painting. The colours reference the natural environment and you get a sense of the artists awe and love of nature, however, its abstract quality resists clear and direct communication. It is a work to become immersed in, to sit with, and to contemplate.'

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Sally Nangala Mulda has been selected as a finalist in the 2019 Sulman Prize, administered by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The Sulman Prize is awarded for the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project by an Australian artist.

Sally says of her working this years prize:

This is me outside my home at Abbott’s Town Camp in Alice Springs feeding my cats. Little cat, mother cat. One woman, my family, playing cards. Nobody bothering anybody. No papa bothering the cats! We are just sitting quietly. I like quiet. Nobody talking.

Sally M Nagala Mulda, 2019

Image: Sally feeding little cat, mother cat, acrylic on linen, 76 x 92 cm

John Bokor is a finalist in the 2019 Sulman Prize, administered by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The Sulman Prize is awarded in the terms of the gift of the family of the late Sir John Sulman, to the best genre painting and/or mural project done by an artist resident in Australia during the five years preceding the date fixed by the Trustees for sending in entries.

'Four thirty pm is from a group of works I started making in 2017 depicting interior spaces. They are hybrid paintings of real and imagined scenes made using an airbrush and traditional painting tools. This painting took a very long time to resolve. I thought at one point in 2018 that it was finished and had it framed, only to realise early this year that it needed more work. I treated it as badly as it had me and sanded the surface down and reworked the whole painting, destroying most of what was underneath. When it was finally finished the light in the studio resembled the light in the painting. I checked my clock and it was 4.30pm' John Bokor, 2019

Image: JOHN BOKOR ' Four thirty pm' oil on board 125 x 147 cm

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RocoColonial

4 May 2019 - 30 Jun 2019

RocoColonial is a major artist-initiated project by Gary Carsley and presented by Hazelhurst Arts Centre in partnership with Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.

ARTISTS: Brook Andrew | Tony Clark | Peter Cooley | Deborah Kelly | Belem Lett | Jennifer Leahy | Danie Mellor | Marc Newson | Técha Noble & Romance Was Born | Joan Ross | Justin Shoulder | Esme Timbery | Jenny Watson | Louise Zhang

CARTOUCHES: Renjie Teoh

Rococo and Colonial are often considered to be disparate, undisputable categories that neatly divide periods of time. This separation offers little opportunity to consider parallel histories - how similar or different things might be happening elsewhere or at the same time. RocoColonial is an exhibition that examines the overlap between Rococo and Colonial and begins by acknowledging that both can be intrinsically related and link Australia to a wider, speculative world of multiple, concurrent histories.

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Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award 2019

When: 29 May–12 July 2019
Tuesday to Friday 10am–4pm, Open only during exhibitions
Where: Deakin University Art Gallery, Melbourne Burwood Campus
Building FA, 221 Burwood Hwy, Burwood, VIC 3125

In its tenth anniversary year this annual acquisitive award and exhibition is organised by the Art Collection and Galleries Unit displaying the work of the 2019 finalists.

Image: VIPOO SRIVILASA Protection 2018, 66
 x 37
 x 23 cm, ceramic, acrylic paint, glaze ceramic flowers and mix media.

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The Kedumba Drawing Collection was started in 1990 and embodies and reflects all the elements of outstanding drawing created in Australia over more than 50 years and has acquired almost two hundred drawings.

Peta Minnici subject of her work depicts Minnici almost as a voyeur peering from outside through glass windows of Bundanon Homestead during my recent residency.
Capturing both inside and surrounding landscape in one frame, as a play on reflections, allows the internal foyer and staircase to fuse seamlessly with the mountains and trees.

Minnici has been selected to have her artwork 'Looking In, Seeing Out - Bundanon' acquired for this collection.

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Looking in, Seeing out – Bundanon 2018
ink

In 2015 Owen Craven wrote about Dan Kyle, his studio and life in the bush near the Blue Mountains —

Soon after graduating from the National Art School, Dan Kyle set up home deep within the Australian bush at the foot of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. His paintings are translations of what he sees – the beauty, the unique forms, the colours – but also his way of reducing the density of the bush to a more approachable landscape for him to keep exploring. Back in Issue 32, 2015, Artist Profile chatted to Dan about the formal and conceptual nuances of his landscapes.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Louise Martin-Chew writes about Sally Nangala Mulda's life and painting for Art/Edit magazine. She says:

'WHAT IS MOST DISTINCTIVE about the paintings of Sally M. Nangala Mulda is that they tell us just how it is to live in Abbott’s Town Camp, not far from the mostly dry Todd River bed in Alice Springs (Mparntwe). Many of the paintings produced by Indigenous artists working out of the region use colour and pattern to evoke the romance of their connections to Country. However, Sally’s approach delivers the gritty reality of the place in which she lives, the interactions between police and Aboriginal people, the supermarket as the source of “a feed”, the tension around alcohol consumption and people sleeping rough, all set amongst saltbush, waterholes, homes and shops.'

READ MORE HERE

On Sally Nangala Mulda's work for 'The National' at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Snack Syndicate for Running Dog writes:

'Sally Mulda’s narrative style mimics the pedantic, forensic language of the state while at the same time showing that such language tends to obfuscate its subjects—people who live and die. Mulda’s frank descriptions of the Town Camp index the countless different ways that black life is both constrained by, and always in excess of, white law.

Together, the paintings in the exhibition are quietly unsettling, staging a series of encounters that produce both minor affects (annoyance, confusion, amusement, affection) and their major implications. Engaging with the paintings, we feel the enormity of living under occupation, as well as the conviction that such enormity can never be total.'

READ MORE HERE

https://www.the-national.com.a...

Curator Isobel Parker Philip talks about Sally Mulda's work for 'The National' at the Art Gallery of New South Wales:

'Sally Nangala Mulda is an artist who lives in Abbott's Town Camp in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

She paints scenes from her daily life. She paints people having breakfast. She paints going to the football. She paints people going to sleep. She also paints the routine and intrusive presence of the police amongst the indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.

All of these scenes are painted with the same frank and stark honesty. There is a normalisation of the police presence amongst the Indigenous community that is shocking to see at first and is amplified by the regularity with which Sally paints it and that we see it again and again across the installation.

This reminds us about what life looks like for a huge portion of our Indigenous people. In this work we see the lived effects of the 2007 Northern Territory intervention. It's a brutal reminder about what reality can really look like.

Sally paints her figurative scenes and then applies text on top of them to tether each work to a particular time and place. These are diaristic documents. They're paintings that do the job of photographs or snapshots. There's a kind of direct relationship between these scenes and the real world. We read them as snapshots. We read them as kind of episodes from life as it is lived.'

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Congratulations to Peta Minnici who is a finalist for the 2019 Dobell Drawing Award for her work 'Dusk Hill End'.

The Dobell Drawing Prize was originally held annually at the Art Gallery of NSW, initiated by the Gallery and the Trustees of the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation. The Prize aims to encourage excellence in drawing and draughtsmanship among Australian Artists.

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'The subject depicted in my work illustrate an internal
thought process that is based on personal memory and focuses on an implied journey through time, i.e. Drawing at Hill End in the late afternoon . Although the drawing is based on a photograph, my aim was to deconstruct the representation portrayed, into vertical lines of tone, turning the photographic image into a series of atmospheric sensations which are reminiscent of a memory. I transcribe the image onto paper with a graphite pencil, enlarging the scale of the image then apply the tonal variations through a hatching technique of small vertical lines with black pen. My technique creates a blurring of focus and emphasises the tonal structure of each image through the loss of edges. In this work the drawn mark evokes the fragility of remembering, as the mark making creates a movement causing it to move from a past to a present. The drawn line also relates to the concept of memory consisting of a mass of marks that are designated into what we have seen, heard and felt.'

- Peta Minnici, 2019

IMAGE

'Dusk Hill End' 2017

pen on paper

107 x 78 cm

In 2017, three of Sydney’s major galleries – Carriageworks, Art Gallery of NSW and the Museum of Contemporary Art – presented the first instalment of the The National, an ambitious look at contemporary art in Australia.

Far from a quick snapshot of the art world, The National is a six-year project encompassing three shows at three galleries every two years. It features more than 100 emerging, mid-career and established artists. Each iteration speaks to the present, charting a brief arc in the story of Australian contemporary art.

Daniel Mudie-Cunningham, senior curator at Carriageworks, has worked on his section of the show for two years. He travelled around the country to meet artists and find new voices to add to a list of already-established names.

“There are connections between what we’re doing,” Mudie-Cunningham says of the three galleries and their curators. “Often there’s a particular zeitgeist, or political themes that recur.”

There are 65 artists involved in The National 2019. Tara Marynowsky is one to seek out:

Tara Marynowsky: the interventionist

'At a glance: A Sydney-based artist who doesn’t start with a blank canvas but builds on existing images, interacting with and subverting the past. She has appeared in exhibitions here and overseas.

What she’s known for: Her watercolour and gouache “interventions” on vintage postcards, which merge colour and surrealism with sepia-tinted images of young women. Her 2018 exhibition at Brisbane’s Edwina Corlette Gallery, Balancing Actress, featured vintage images of nude dancing “girls” with their faces obscured, bathed in pastel textures.

For The National: Her work starts with a more recent jumping-off point, and an angrier, more overtly political tone. For her piece, Coming Attractions, Marynowsky found 35-millimetre reels of ’90s Hollywood film trailers, including Pretty Woman, Shakespeare in Love, Species and Indecent Proposal, and took to the negatives with a knife, scratching each frame. It’s a labour-intensive and imprecise process. When the film is scanned and played back the result is a series of frenzied animations. Julia Roberts’s face is removed, making her almost monstrous. Gwyneth Paltrow is given a Medusa-like head of snakes. The dodgy gender politics of each film is subverted by force.' BROADSHEET March 2019

READ MORE HERE

Anna Dunnill reviews Tara Marynowsky's work in The National for Art Guide. She writes:

'Artist Tara Marynowsky has long been fascinated with the monstrous feminine – the twin forms of female beauty and ugliness. She collects old photographic portraits from the first half of the 20th century, often sent as postcards, and applies delicate layers of watercolour and gouache – giving the women bulging brains, greenish skin and purple rouge; eyes blank or goggling.

In addition to her well-known drawing practice, Marynowsky has long worked with film and video; in fact, video came first, having majored in time-based art at Sydney’s College of Fine Arts (now University of New South Wales, Art & Design). However, after focusing on video for some time, her drawing practice came out of a yearning for the tactile: “I just really wanted to get back to using my hands,” she says.

In her forthcoming installation for The National, she has managed to do both. To be exhibited at Carriageworks, Marynowsky’s work Coming Attractions consists of four videos, each taking as its raw material a film trailer from the 1990s: Pretty Woman (1990), Indecent Proposal (1993), Species (1995), and Shakespeare in Love (1998). While at one level these films may spark nostalgia, in each of them the female character is an object of men’s pursuit and desire: variously bought, sold, rescued, hunted and bargained over. Their release dates mark out Marynowsky’s adolescence and highlight some of the female role models available for mass consumption at that time.'

READ MORE HERE

We are delighted to see works by Sally Anderson, Belem Lett, Lucy O'Doherty, and Amber Wallis in the new exhibition 'The Whiteley at 20: Twenty Years of the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship', as previous finalists of the award.

Established by Ms Beryl Whiteley in 1999 in memory of her son, the 'Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship' provides young painters with the opportunity to travel through Europe to develop their artistic practice. Since its inception, 20 young painters have followed in the titular artist's footsteps.

The exhibition features works by Sally Anderson, Alice Byrne, Mitch Cairns, James Drinkwater, Petrea Fellow, Becky Gibson, Nathan Hawkes, Alan Jones, Nicole Kelly, Belem Lett, Lucy O’Doherty, Wayde Owen, Timothy Phillips, Tom Polo, Ben Quilty, Karlee Rawkins, Samuel Wade, Amber Wallis, Natasha Walsh, and Marcus Wills, alongside the four paintings that won Brett Whiteley the Italian Government Travelling Scholarship.

The exhibition presents not only the works that won the scholarship, but features works from each artist's residency at the Cite Internationale des Art, Paris and recent work.

The exhibition is open from 22 March - 5 May 2019 at the S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney.

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Founded by Doug & Greta Moran and family in 1988, the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize is an annual Australian portrait prize supporting Australian artists. The prize has encouraged both excellence and creativity in contemporary Australian portraiture by asking artists to interpret the look and personality of a chosen sitter, either unknown or well known. With a first prize of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($150,000) it is Australia’s richest art prize.

Andrew Frost writes:

Key works at Carriageworks include Sean Rafferty’s Cartonography (FNQ), a wall of cardboard fruit boxes, everyday objects given a monumental treatment that highlights the surreal oddity of their design, and in Coming Attractions (2017-19) there’s another use of found objects. Tara Marynowsky takes 35mm feature film trailers sourced from eBay and scratches out key figures from the image, such as Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman. The result is amusing but pointed – the pretty woman is erased.

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After receiving a record-breaking 482 entries this year and careful deliberation from the judges, the Glover Prize has announced its 42 finalists for 2019. These finalists represent the Judges’ selection of the best artworks of the Tasmanian landscape, chosen from the 482 entrants coming from every Australian state and territory, as well as a number of submissions from New Zealand, Italy, and the United Kingdom. These 42 artworks will be on display at the Glover Prize Exhibition at Falls Park Pavilion in Evandale, Tasmania during March this year.

The judges for the Glover Prize 2019 are Art Fairs Australia CEO and director, Barry Keldoulis; Sydney artist Joan Ross; and Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) director, Janet Carding. The judges next task is to carefully narrow down the 42 finalists to choose the winner of the $50,000 cash prize. After its display at the exhibition, the John Glover Society Inc. will acquire the winning artwork for its collection.

Belem Lett's work The River Runs/The People Come has been selected as one of the finalists. The exhibition commences on the March long-weekend, running from Saturday the 9th of March, 2019 and continuing until the end of the following weekend on Sunday the 17th of March, 2019, at the historic Falls Park Pavilion in Evandale.

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Ari Athans is interviewed in the latest issue of Vault Magazine about the breadth of her creative practice - between sculpture, painting, and jewellery.

READ MORE HERE & PDF

Bridie Gillman's work as featured in Woven Kolektif's looking here, looking north exhibition at Casula Powerhouse has been reviewed in Art Asia Pacific Magazine.

"At the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in Sydney, a video portrays the interior of a restaurant, its walls decorated with Australian-flag bunting, and kitsch Australiana tea towels and posters, positioning us inside an ostensibly Australian establishment. It is revealed in subsequent shots of the staff, clientele, and the beach outside, however, that this is in fact a tourist spot in Bali. Bridie Gillman’s video work Bali State of Mind (2017–18) ruminates on the unequal power dynamic between Australia and Indonesia, the latter being economically reliant on tourism and subject to the objectifying tourist gaze that comes with over one million Australians visiting annually.

"Gillman is one of seven artists included in the exhibition 'looking here looking north' by members of Woven, a collective with “continuing personal connections to Indonesia.” While Gillman’s work is subtly political, the exhibition holistically was striking in its ability to reach beyond essentialist identity politics, reconfiguring what it means to be part of the Indonesian diaspora by speaking to universal themes of memory, place and belonging."

- Soo-Min Shim, Art Asia Pacific Magazine

looking here looking north is on view at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney, 12 January - March 17, 2019

Image: Bridie Gillman, Bali state of mind (still), 2017–18, two-channel video installation: 17 min 40 sec.

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looking here looking north is an exhibition by Woven, a collective of artists who each have continuing personal connections to Indonesia. Themes of identity, memory and cross-cultural experience are explored through performance, painting, installation, photography, video and sculpture.

Featuring work by: Kartika Suharto-Martin, Ida Lawrence, Mashara Wachjudy, Bridie Gillman, Sofiyah Ruqayah, Alfira O’Sullivan and Leyla Stevens.

looking here looking north is presented alongside an exhibition by artist Frances Larder and an exhibition of video works by Jumaadi as part of a suite of exhibitions showcasing perspectives on Indonesia.

The exhibition is on view at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney, 12 January - March 17, 2019

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Obsession: Devil in the detail examines our fascination with the meticulous and micro, the real and the hyperreal and brings together a range of historical and contemporary works under three broad themes of still life, portraiture and landscape. Featuring artworks that seduce us with the power of their realism and intricate detail, the devil in the detail becomes the ideas and concepts that exist beneath the surface.

Featuring work by local and international artists including Natasha Bieniek, Chris Bond, Erin Coates, Audrey Flack, Juan Ford, James Gleeson, Sam Jinks, Jess Johnson, Anna Kristensen, eX de Medici, Tully Moore, Callum Morton, Jan Nelson, Sandra Selig, Vipoo Srivilasa, Ricky Swallow, teamLab, Eugene von Guerard and more.

30 November 2018 - 17 February 2019

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Vipoo Srivilasa has been commissioned to design seven large sculptures for ICONSIAM, a mixed-use development on the banks of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok Thailand, opening on 9 November 2018.

ICONSIAM is the ultimate shopping destination. The all-in-one complex, located on 750,000 square metres of the land on the banks of Chao Phraya River is a wonder to behold for those passionate about retail and development. It is divided into three main sections: the main ICONSIAM, the glamorous riverside ICONLUXE, and street facing side Siam Takashimaya.

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John Bokor has been awarded a highly commended in the 2018 EMSLA prize.

Now in its twelfth year, the Eutick Memorial Still Life Award comes to Wollongong to coincide with the city’s signature festival, Viva La Gong. Judged annually by critic and art historian John McDonald, the EMSLA has added prestige to the festival and increased still life’s importance as a genre in art.

9 November - 1 December 2018

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Paul Ryan is a finalist in this year's Mosman Art Prize with her work 'Yeah The Boys' 2018.

Established in 1947, the Mosman Art Prize is Australia's oldest and most prestigious local government art award. It was founded by the artist, architect and arts advocate, Alderman Allan Gamble, at a time when only a small handful of art prizes were in existence in Australia and the community had very little support and few opportunities to exhibit their work.

As an acquisitive art award for painting, the winning artworks collected since 1947 form a splendid collection of modern and contemporary Australian art, reflecting all the developments in Australian art practice since 1947.

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John Bokor is a finalist in the Kedumba Drawing Award at Orange Regional Gallery. Now in its 29th year, the Award plays a vital role in fostering the production and appreciation of drawing in Australia. Initiated by Jeffrey and Marlene Plummer in 1989, the Kedumba Drawing Award has grown steadily. Each year, the Judge is an established artist whose only guideline is “to enrich and enhance the Collection”

The Kedumba Collection of Australian Drawings, with over 230 works, is currently on long term loan to Orange Regional Gallery. It is an Orange Regional Gallery and Kedumba Trust partnership exhibition.

20 October to 2 December 2018.

John Bokor's artwork, 'Collection Day' 2011 is now on permanent display at the State Library of New South Wales’ new galleries. The new space opens 6th October 2018.

'Collection Day' shows Organs Road, Bulli, looking east, the morning after garbage collection day. The bins, with lids flung open, capture the everyday aspect of suburban recycling practice. This loose and lively suburban street scene celebrates the commonplace.

'Collection Day', 2011, oil on board, 90 x 120cm

John Aslanidis, Belem Lett and Bridie Gillman are finalists in the 2018 Fisher's Ghost Award through Campbelltown Arts Centre.

The Fisher’s Ghost Art Award is part of Campbelltown’s annual Festival of Fisher’s Ghost. Held over 10 days, the Festival dates back to 1956 and celebrates Australia’s most famous ghost – Frederick Fisher.

The Open section of the Art Award is acquisitive to the Campbelltown Art Centre permanent collection and the artist is awarded prize-money of $20,000. Over the years, the prize has been won by some of Australia's most well respected contemporary artists.

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John Bokor is a finalist in the 2018 Tattersall's Art Prize with his work A Walk in the Park 2018, oil on canvas, 108x122cm.

A total of 93 artists across Australia accepted the invitation to articipate in the 2018 Tattersall's Club and Mercedes-Benz Toowong Landscape Art Prize Award. The prize is acquistive and the winning painting is added to the Club's art collection. The judging panel for 2018 includes Dr David Middlebrook, former Tattersall's Art Prize winner and senior painting lecturer, Mrs Bettina MacAuley, Gallery and Museum Consultant Antiques and Fine Art Valuer , Ms Angela Goddard, Director of Griffith University Art Gallery and Mr Stuart Waddington, Committee Member of Tattersall's Club.

Belem Lett has won the UNSW Print Prize as part of the 2018 Paddington Art Prize with his work River Reflection (After Boyd) (pictured).

The Paddington Art Prize is a $30,000 national acquisitive prize for a painting inspired by the Australian landscape, now in it’s 15th year. In addition, UNSW Art & Design offers a selected artist the opportunity to create a limited edition print and a $3,000 prize.

The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Carriageworks and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) today announced that The National 2019: New Australian Art will present the work of 65 emerging, mid-career and established Australian contemporary artists living across the country and abroad.

A major collaborative venture, The National 2019 is the second edition of a six-year initiative presented in 2017, 2019 and 2021, exploring the latest ideas and forms in contemporary Australian art.

Connecting three of Sydney’s key cultural precincts – The Domain, Redfern and Circular Quay – The National 2019 follows a successful first edition of the exhibition held in autumn of 2017 that attracted 286,631 visitors.

Tara Marynowsky will present new work for the National 2019 at Carriageworks.

Exhibition Dates

Art Gallery of New South Wales: 29 March – 21 July 2019

Carriageworks: 29 March – 23 June 2019

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia: 29 March – 23 June 2019

Read more HERE.

The Paddington Art Prize is a $30,000 National acquisitive prize, awarded annually. The prize is specific to paintings inspired by the Australian landscape, as the imagery is integral to the tradition of Australia painting and is an enduring motif within contemporary art, shaping national identity.

Bundit Puangthong is a 2018 Finalist with his painting 'Green Fields'.

Image: Bundit Puangthong Green Fields 2018, 150 x 135cm, acrylic & pastel on paper

READ MORE HERE

Designed as an invitational award, The Gold Award aims to acquire contemporary Australian painting to Rockhampton Art Gallery’s collection by means of the most outstanding work or works by an artist awarded a cash prize of $50,000 and acquired by Rockhampton Art Gallery. The Award was conceived in 2010 when the then Rockhampton Art Gallery Trust received a substantial bequest from the Estate of Moya Gold for the acquisition of Australian paintings. With industry review and guidance, the Trustees advised to expend the interest accumulated by the Gold Trust to fund a new painting award. Now in its fourth iteration The Gold Award has become a premier biennial event of national significance. Presented by Rockhampton Art Gallery, The Gold Award is a joint initiative of Rockhampton Art Gallery Philanthropy Board and Rockhampton Regional Council.

The Gold Award 2018 has been judged by Simon Elliott, Deputy Director, Collection and Exhibitions, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art.

Bundit Puangthong was selected for the Gold Award in 2018.

READ MORE HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa's work forms part of a touring exhibition through the Australian Design Centre titled 'Obsessed: Compelled to Make' which is on now at Cairns Regional Gallery.

Obsessed: Compelled to make presents the work of 14 artists from across Australia, delving beyond the finished object, beyond the personality of the maker, into the fundamental conceptual framework of their creations. We look at the complexities of their materials and processes, the realities of their day-to-day studio routine and unravel what compels each maker to create over the course of their personal career – Why this technique or material? Why that concept? How does the mind of a maker work?

This exhibition explores the act of making through the framework of obsession – how it consumes us, carrying
 us along in its wake, colouring every aspect of our lives.
 With these professional artists, it is their obsessions, and all the associated angst, failures, breakthroughs and milestones, that feeds their productivity and to deliver exceptional outcomes. 

Artists: Gabriella Bisetto | Lorraine Connelly-Northey |  Honor Freeman, | Jon Goulder | 
Kath Inglis |
 Laura McCusker |
 Elliat Rich and James B Young (Elbowrkshp) | 
Kate Rohde |
 Oliver Smith | Vipoo Srivilasa | Tjunkaya Tapaya | Louise Weaver | Liz Williamson. 

Obsessed: Compelled to makeis an Australian Design Centre of ADC on Tour exhibition touring to 12 venues across Australia, accompanied by a series of films and a full-length catalogue.

READ MORE HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa's work #happy_together VI 2017, acquired by Wollongong Art Gallery, is currently being exhibited in 'East Meets West' until 11 November 2018.

The Mann-Tatlow collection of Asian Art, gifted in 2003 and the Nancye Dryden Collection of South East Asian Textiles bequeathed to the Gallery in 2012, have formed the Gallery’s newest collecting area. This exhibition relates collection works by contemporary Asian artists and Australian artists who have responded to Asian culture within their practice and to the Mann-Tatlow Collection of Asian Art including works by Julie Bartholomew, Lionel Bawden, Kirsten Coelho, Tom Dion, Dongwang Fan, Sarah Goffman, Tie Hua Huang, Shotei Ibata, Lindy Lee, Joanne Saad, Shigeo Shiga, Vipoo Srivilasa, Laurens Tan, Andy Warhol and Gerry Wedd.

READ MORE HERE

Paul Ryan was awarded Highly Commended in the Winner Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with his work 'Kembla, Mount Kembla".  Ryan says:

In 1922, DH Lawrence and his wife Frieda came to Thirroul, about an hour south of Sydney, by train. It was here that he wrote the novel Kangaroo, in which he described ‘the town that slid down at the bush-covered foot of the dark tor’. I have lived beneath this dark tor for most of my life. It is omnipresent, it shields us and acts as a gilded cage. In summer, spring and early morning, it captures the sun and glows. But in winter, it stands against the western sky as a dark fortress, blocking our escape and most of the afternoon sun. This a painting of a deep love of place. Paul Ryan, 2018

READ MORE HERE

Tim McMonagle is a finalist in the 2018 Wynne Prize for landscape painting at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He says:

'In my painting Shadow captain I was interested in capturing an imagined anthropomorphic nature. In the changing low light of dawn or dusk the large eucalyptus seems to twist and contort, fastened to the ground where it is anchored.' Tim McMonagle, 2018

READ MORE HERE

This is us, this is the way it is – that’s what Sally Mulda’s paintings of life seem to say.  Paddy wagons in the river, policemen pouring out grog, an assortment of bottles and cans lying on the ground; four disconsolate people, probably men, walking away.  Dogs, children sleeping and everything in between that makes up life in the Alice Springs Town Camps, are depicted in her paintings, raw and free.

Barnaby Smith has reviewed Vipoo Srivilasa's exhibition Everyday Shrines at Gippsland Art Gallery:

'The experience of belonging to two or more countries is an increasingly universal one, especially for Australians. An affiliation with multiple cultures and an identity formed by multiple traditions is, after all, the migrant experience. It is a theme that has been widely explored across the arts spectrum, yet rarely with as much playfulness as in the work of Thai-Australian ceramicist Vipoo Srivilasa. His new exhibition Everyday Shrines, shown at Gippsland Art Gallery as part of Craft Victoria’s Craft Forward series, takes an impish yet thoughtful approach to fusing the imagery and iconography of Australian and Thai societies.'

The exhibition is current until 17 June 2018 at Gippsland Art Gallery.

Read full article HERE

Jo Hoban from the Design Files recently caught up with Bridie Gillman in her Brisbane studio:

"Brisbane-based artist Bridie Gillman is inspired by cross-cultural experiences – from a childhood growing up in Indonesia, to residencies abroad and trips across Australia. Her bold, striking compositions convey moody landscapes, exploring both emotional and physical terrain."

READ MORE HERE

Dan Kyle has been featured on the Planthunter, who visited Dan at his spectacular home and studio in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.

The Planthunter is an online magazine devoted to celebrating plants and the varied ways humans interact with them. Plants have been inspiring, feeding, sustaining and soothing humans for aeons. The Planthunter documents and celebrates these connections. 

'The rusted metal entrance gate rolls open revealing a four-meter-tall man with a gas mask staring at us from amongst the trees. A collection of huge sculptures lay scattered around him – the scene creates quite an entry statement, heightening my curiosity about the man we’ve headed up to the mountains to meet, artist Dan Kyle.'

READ THE ARTICLE HERE

Chris Bond, Ricky Emmerton, Tara Marynowsky, Daniel Mudie Cunningham, Nicola Smith

Sauced Material brings together a group of artists who extend the narrative or form of existing media. Their works have been shaped, moulded and crafted from film, music, personal histories and literature but with flavour anew and enhanced. This adaptive approach orients audiences to and from a new point of orbit in reference to the work. Memory is at play - but so is the politics of origin and ownership.

Within the breadth of time that has passed between the first and the now, a clear history has been created. These artists reveal that distance in their own remaking. Their approaches differ but the commentaries and techniques are crystallised and ready for service.

From 2 March - 14 April 2018

READ MORE HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa's solo exhibition 'Everyday Shrines' will open at the newly refurbished Gippsland Art Gallery on 31 March 2018 and run until 17 June.  The exhibition which has been developed jointly with Craft Victoria, looks at similarities between Srivilasa's Thai heritage and his adopted home in Australia.

READ MORE HERE

The Gallery is delighted to now represent Dan Kyle.  

Owen Craven profiled Dan and his practice in a recent online article for Artist Profile magazine.

'Soon after graduating from the National Art School, Dan Kyle set up home deep in the Australian bush at the foot of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.  His paintings are translations of what he sees - the beauty, the unique forms, the colours - but also his way of reducing the density of the bush to a more approachable landscape for him to keep exploring.'

READ THE ARTICLE HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa's work 'Deity of Immortal' has been selected as a finalist in the Tom Bass Prize for Figurative Sculpture Exhibition at Juniper hall in Sydney from 2 - 25 March.

READ MORE HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa's work 'Sang Thong' has been acquired by the Whitehorse City Council in Victoria.  

The City of Whitehorse is located just 15 kilometres east of Melbourne and covers an area of 64 square kilometres.

Srivilasa's work 'Sang Thong' is based on a well-known Thai folk tale, centred on a marriage between a man and a woman of different social status.

READ MORE HERE

Paul Ryan features in an ABC podcast on Books and Arts. 

In her introduction Sarah Kanowski says:

'Paul Ryan lives and surfs on the south coast of New South Wales, and the beautiful landscape of the Illawarra features in many of his paintings.

He's also an accomplished portraitist (and many time Archibald Prize finalist) and has an abiding interest in depicting figures from colonial Australia.

Paul Ryan listens to music while he paints and has collaborated with American musician Bill Callahan.'

Paul discusses the methodologies of his practice and the prominent themes in his work surrounding colonial Australia. 

Download and listen to the full podcast here.

Belem Lett has been selected as one of five finalists in the Glenfiddich Artists in Residence Prize for 2017.

The Glenfiddich Artist in Residence Prize is now celebrating its fifteenth year. This program invites Australian artists to work and live for three months at the Glenfiddich Distillery in Dufftown, Scotland. The program offers the artist a residency prize valued at $21,000 as well as the opportunity to collaborate with other international artists in the historic and scenic Scottish highlands. 

The finalists exhibition was held at the Sydney Contemporary Art Fair 2017.

Image: 'Jenny I'll Meet You At The Grocery Store'  2017, oil on aluminium composite panel, 165 x 244 cm

Read more here

Congratulations to Belem Lett who has been names as a finalist in the Salon des Refusés 2017.

The Salon des Refusés was initiated by the S.H.Ervin Gallery in 1992 in response to the large number of works entered into the Archibald Prize which were not selected for the final exhibition.   

The 2017 selection panel comprised James Dorahy art advisor, Michael Reid Galleries; Elisabeth Hastings curator & author, ‘Kevin Connor’ monograph; and Jane Watters, Director, S.H. Ervin Gallery.

The exhibition is at the S.H. Ervin Gallery, housed in the historic National Trust Centre on Observatory Hill, The Rocks in Sydney.

Read more here

Congratulations to Julian Meagher and Vipoo Srivilasa for being finalists of the 2017 National Still Life Award at Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery.

The acquisitive Award offers a major award of $20,000 as well as a People’s Choice Award of $5,000. This years' judge is Lisa Slade, Assistant Director of Artistic Programs at Art Gallery of South Australia. 

Finalist works exhibited Friday 24th November 2017 to Saturday 20th of January 2018 at Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery.

In conjunction with National Clay Week, Artaxis presents 12 hours of live-streaming conversations with 24 Artaxis members from 16 countries.

Vipoo Srivilasa is scheduled to talk between 12:00pm - 1:00pm, 11 October 2017. Questions may be submitted here. 

Vipoo’s work explores similarities between the cultures of his native home, Thailand and his adoptive home, Australia. His work is a playful blend of historical, figurative and decorative art practices whilst engaging with contemporary culture.

Using blue and white colour, he creates complex narratives through highly decorated images on ceramic forms. His work requires an intimacy in which the key elements of the drama are often found in unusual places within the forms themselves.

Collaboration has been an important part of Vipoo's creative practice. He has been using clay to engage communities into his creating process in the past 10 years. In addition to exhibiting his work, Vipoo actively initiates and organises cultural exchange projects between national and internationally artists.

Get your questions ready and join Vipoo and others for a Q&A. To watch click here.

Vipoo Srivilasa is the recipient of the general skills and arts development grant from the Australian Council for the Arts to work with Sakarin Krue-On, a multi-disciplinary Thai artist, and Marije Vogelzang, the world's first eating designer from the Netherland, in order to develop and create new interactive ceramic work for an exhibition at Edwina Corlette Gallery in 2019 and the S.A.C. Subhashok The Arts Centre in Bangkok. 

Keep up to date here.

Paul Ryan is a finalist in this years Mosman Art Prize.

Established in 1947, the Mosman Art Prize is Australia's oldest and most prestigious local government art award.  It was founded by the artist, architect and arts advocate, Alderman Allan Gamble. In it's seventieth year, the Mosman Art Prize has developed in stature to become Australia’s most prestigious municipally funded art prize with a national profile. It regularly attracts over 900 entries annually and currently offers over $60,000 in prizes.

The prize will be judged by Kristen Paisley, Deputy Director of the National Gallery of Australia.

The Mosman Art Prize exhibition will be open to the public for viewing from Saturday 23 September until Sunday 29 October 2017. Details here.

IMAGE: Cook and Hounds, 2017, oil on canvas

Ari Athans' work has been selected for Redcliffe Gallery's 15 Artists Exhibition 2017.

This annual award plays a pivotal role in the growth of the Moreton Bay Regional Council Art Collection. The $8000 acquisitive prize exhibits 15 Artists that reflect the collection’s focus of culture, identity, spirit and sense of place.

Artists selected for 2017 are Ari Athans, Glenn Barkley, Sue Beyer, Megan Cope, Hannah Cutts, Jeremy Eden, Martin Edge, Ian Friend, Stephen Hart, Barbara Heath, Abbey McCulloch, Kate McKay, Stephen Nothling, Graeme Peebles and Nan Dingle.

The exhibition runs from 1 September - 28 October 2017.

READ MORE HERE

Paul Ryan is a finalist in Newcastle Art Gallery's Kilgour Art Prize 2017. 

The Kilgour Prize is Newcastle's annual art prize for figurative and portrait painting. It awards $50,000 for the most outstanding work of art and a People’s Choice of $5000 to the painting voted most popular by the general public. Each year the Gallery receives hundreds of applications from across Australia.

The Kilgour Prize will be on display 5 August - 15 October 2017. For further information, please click here.

The Drawing Wall is an ongoing series of site-specific, commissioned, temporary wall-based drawings or installations enlivening the foyer-space of the Eastbank Centre, directly outside Shepparton Art Museum. This year Bundit Puangthong has been commissioned to complete a drawing across the 4 x 12 metre space as well as conducting a stencil workshop in July.

More details here.

Designed to attract some of Australia’s finest contemporary artists, the inaugural Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize and exhibition was first held in 2003 at Bendigo Art Gallery. Every two years the Gallery invites artists to submit entries for the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize. The most outstanding work as judged by the selection panel is awarded an acquisitive cash prize of $50,000. 

Works from the shortlisted artists will be on display at Bendigo Art Gallery in the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize exhibition from 17 June – 20 August 2017.  The 2017 winner will be announced at the exhibition’s opening on Friday 16 June 2017.

This prize provides Bendigo Art Gallery with the opportunity to survey contemporary painting by attracting many high calibre and emerging artists from around Australia. 

Ari Athans work 'Felsic Plume' has been selected as a finalist in the 2017 Moreton Bay Art Award. This annual acquisitive award exhibition is supported by the Moreton Bay Regional Council. The Art Award offers two acquisitive prizes of $7,500 and two supplementary $1,000 prizes for a Local Artists and a People’s Choice Award.

The Moreton Bay Region Art Award has featured prominent and emerging artists for the last 24 years, and is now an important feature in the cultural landscape of the region.

Dr Campbell Gray, Director of the University of Queensland Art Museum is the 2017 judge.

IMAGE:

'Felsic Plume' 2016
enamel on mild steel
30 x 70 x 5 cm
$1,800

The Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award has shortlisted Vipoo Srivilasa's work, amongst others for its annual prize.

"This is the ninth year of the award and we were pleased to receive 232 entries, from which 40 finalists were selected.   

The external judges are Mr Ewen Coates (Sculptor) and Associate Professor Ken Wach, Former Principal Research Fellow and Head of the School of Creative Arts, The University of Melbourne.
 
The Small Sculpture exhibition launch is on Tuesday 6 June, 2017. 

The Sunshine Coast Art Prize is a national contemporary acquisitive award presented by Sunshine Coast Council. The Award is open to any artist who is an Australian resident, working in a 2D medium.

Forty finalists have been selected for an exhibition at the Caloundra Regional Gallery and the winning work will be added to the Sunshine Coast Art Collection.

Angela Goddard is the judge for the Sunshine Coast Prize 2017. Angela is the Director of Griffith Artworks, responsible for the Griffith University Art Collection and the Griffith University Art Gallery, Brisbane. Angela was previously the Curator of Australian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA). Winners announced 31 August.

Image: Tim McMonagle | In The Middle | 2016 | oil on linen | 122 x 122 cm

Read more Here.

The Sunshine Coast Art Prize is a national contemporary acquisitive award presented by Sunshine Coast Council. The Award is open to any artist who is an Australian resident, working in a 2D medium.

Forty finalists have been selected for an exhibition at the Caloundra Regional Gallery and the winning work will be added to the Sunshine Coast Art Collection.

Angela Goddard is the judge for the Sunshine Coast Prize 2017. Angela is the Director of Griffith Artworks, responsible for the Griffith University Art Collection and the Griffith University Art Gallery, Brisbane. Angela was previously the Curator of Australian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA). Winners announced 31 August.

Image: Bundit Puangthong Where Is the Buddha? 2017 acrylic on linen 122 x 122 cm

READ MORE HERE

The Sunshine Coast Art Prize is a national contemporary acquisitive award presented by Sunshine Coast Council. The Award is open to any artist who is an Australian resident, working in a 2D medium.

Forty finalists have been selected for an exhibition at the Caloundra Regional Gallery and the winning work will be added to the Sunshine Coast Art Collection.

Angela Goddard is the judge for the Sunshine Coast Prize 2017. Angela is the Director of Griffith Artworks, responsible for the Griffith University Art Collection and the Griffith University Art Gallery, Brisbane. Angela was previously the Curator of Australian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA). Winners announced 31 August.

Image: Paul Ryan The Sea Was Angry That Day My Fiends 2017 oil on linen 123 x 123cm

Read more Here.

Arts writer Phil Brown reviews Paul Ryan's exhibition 'Happy Days in the Colony' in the current issue of Brisbane News.  Read the review HERE

Vipoo Srivilasa has won the 44th Muswellbrook Art Prize in the Ceramics section.  The $10,000 acquisitive prize was awarded to Vipoo's porcelain work 'The Good, The Bad and the Cuddly (self portrait)'.

The biennial Muswellbrook Art Prize began in 1958 and has helped form a significant collection of modern and contemporary Australian painting, works on paper and ceramics for the Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre.

The exhibition is current until 7 May 2017.

Muswellbrook Art Prize

Carrie McCarthy has written a thoughtful piece about Tim McMonagle's recent exhibition at Edwina Corlette Gallery for her brilliant blog Cultural Flanerie. The article coincided with Tim's first exhibition at the Gallery which continued his exploration of our majestic native gum trees.

Read the full article here.

Headlining the celebrations for Queensland's Gallery of Modern Art is 'SUGAR SPIN — YOU ME ART AND EVERYHTING' featuring over 250 contemporary artworks exploring light, space, architecture and the senses. From brand-new immersive works to large-scale visitor favourites, the exhibition reflects our complex connections to the natural world with an explosion of colour, sensation and spinning delights.

Major new artworks include Nervescape, a multi-coloured landscape of synthetic hair by Icelandic-born artist Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir a.k.a. Shoplifter, and the electrifying Heard by American sculptor and performance artist Nick Cave, a group of vibrant sculptural horses brought to life by dancers.

Vipoo Srivilasa's work 'BLEACH IV' is part of the exhibition which runs until 17 April 2017. Read more here.

Established in 2001, the Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale in Korea is one of the largest ceramic events in the world, representing contemporary artists from over 70 countries. 

Artists are invited to take part in the competition which calls for works that mirror modern trends and point to the future of contemporary ceramics and redefine its essence by exploring spirit, values, forms and technique. 

The winner will receive a cash prize of KRW 50,000,000 (approx $43,000 US) and will be invited to have a solo exhibition during the 2019 Biennale. 

In 2017 Vipoo Srivilasa will be representing Australia. READ MORE HERE.

Influential French blog site La Blogotheque recently featured a profile on Paul Ryan in his Thiroull studio. Paul has been painting American musician Bill Callahan’s album covers for the last five years. He talks about the role music plays in his art in the second episode of the blog's interview series “Music is my radar”:

Read and watch here.

Paul Ryan was recently interviewed by Steve Lopes for Artist Profile magazine:

'Paul Ryan’s gutsy paintings pack a punch that has won him many fans over the years. Ryan is not afraid to experiment with subject matter. A 13-time Archibald finalist, he regularly collaborates with other artists and also musicians, and often chooses to deal with confronting topics. He is happy with the choices he has made in his art career, and the apparent ease of life in his comfortable seaside studio belies the “collateral damage” that painting can bring to a life devoted to art.'

Read the full article HERE.

Edwina Corlette Gallery is delighted to announce the representation of Paul Ryan.

Born in Auckland in 1964, Paul Ryan has had regular solo exhibitions since 1988. Based in Thirroul on the New South Wales coast, Ryan's work looks at the Australian landscape and history, in particular as it relates to the area near where he lives.  

A finalist in the Archibald Prize 13 times, he has also been a finalist in the Wynne Prize three times and the Sulman Prize four times. He won the 2010 Paddington Art Prize for landscape painting and the Geelong Contemporary Art Prize in 2012. 

Paul Ryan's first exhibition at Edwina Corlette Gallery will be in 2017.

Belem Lett is a finalist in the inaugural Birmingham Prize. The overall winner will receive a $20,000 cash prize generously donated by Elaine Bermingham. 

The Elaine Bermingham National Watercolour Prize in Landscape Painting is a unique triennial art prize which aims to celebrate excellence and innovation in the watercolour medium. This non-acquisitive prize is open to all Australian artists and selected finalists will be exhibited in the Webb Gallery, located within Griffith University’s Queensland College of Art at South Bank, Brisbane. All finalist artworks will be available for sale to the public.

The first Central China International Ceramics Biennale will be held at the Henan Museum. Curated by art historian Wendy Gers the biennale will exhibit work by 50 Chinese and international artists.

Vipoo Srivilasa is one of six artists to be commissioned to create a site-specific work for the Biennale. In November he will take a residency at the Ceramic Art Institute of Henan University to create six large figurines for the exhibition.

One of the biggest celebrations of cultural diversity in New South Wales, Parramasala will be held from 10-12 March 2017, thanks to a multi-year funding arrangement between the State Government and City of Parramatta Council. 

Parramasala’s new mascot, an illuminated six metre tall inflatable creature will be revealed prior to the festival. Created by Vipoo Srivilasa, the mascot represents the coming together of many cultures in a harmonious and friendly way. Vipoo incorporated the V symbol denoting peace to reflect the multicultural event.

“It was an amazing experience as I’d never seen my work this size before,” the Thai-born artist said.

Vipoo Srivilasa's work has been curated into Gippsland Art Gallery's 'Weird Ceramic' exhibition.

Weird Ceramic is a survey of the strange and peculiar in contemporary Australian ceramics featuring twenty-seven works by eleven artists: Glenn Barkley, Stephen Bird, Chris Dolman, Lynda Draper, Donna Green, Emily Hunt, Philjames, Jenny Orchard, Stephen Ralph, Sarah Smuts-Kennedy, and Vipoo Srivilasa.

With its basis in the 1970s arts/craft movement, contemporary ceramics has one eye on the past while looking forward to new forms, techniques and processes.

Saturday 26 November 2016 to Sunday 12 February 2017, open during Gallery hours.  Read more here.

Tim McMonagle's work 'Ken Pearler' recently featured in the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art's exhibition 'Painting. More Painting'.  

Presented in two chapters across ACCA’s four exhibition galleries, Painting. More Painting was a big-picture focus on contemporary Australian painting, featuring the work of over 70 living Australian artists.

Conceived by ACCA Curator Annika Kristensen and Associate Curator Hannah Mathews, and developed in collaboration with ACCA’s new Artistic Director/CEO Max Delany, Painting. More Painting brought together a range of painting practices that reflected the medium’s enduring importance and its recent return to the centre of much public debate.

Read more here.

Melissa Pesa thoughtfully writes about Bundit Puangthong's latest exhibition in the current edition of Art Almanac:

"Puangthong’s paintings explore, in depth, the cultural differences experienced since his arrival in Australia in 2000. Utilising a range of techniques from stencils to detailed, academic brushwork and an evocative colour palette, Puangthong creates texturally layered paintings that highlight his interest in American pop and Australian street art. Captivated by Melbourne’s creative ambience, its feast of colour, ideas and energy generated from public spaces, cross-cultural similarities became apparent. Puangthong reminisces, “When I came to Melbourne and saw all the street art everywhere it reminded me of the stencil work in the temples in Thailand.” Incorporating this approach with a modern medium, Puangthong brings a fresh art style onto the canvas."

- Melissa Pesa, Art Almanac

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Vipoo Srivilasa who is a finalist in the 2016 Basil Sellers Art Prize.  

The prize defines sport in the broadest possible sense. An acquisitive prize of $100,000 will be awarded to a single, outstanding artwork, displayed in an exhibition of shortlisted finalists at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne in July 2016.

This prize is supported by Basil Sellers in order to encourage contemporary artists to develop their practice, to engage with the many themes within sport past and present, and to contribute to critical reflection on all forms of sport and sporting culture in Australia.

View available works by Vipoo Srivilasa HERE.

Belem Lett has been selected as a finalist in two awards – the Sunshine Coast Art Prize, which offers a major acquisitive prize of $25,000, plus an artist studio residency, and the Chippendale New World Art Prize, where the winner will receive a $10,000 residency grant at the Arte Studio Ginestrelle Retreat at Mount Subasio, Italy. The Chippendale New World Art Prize winner will be announced 2 June, and the Sunshine Coast Art Prize winner will be announced 1 September, 2016.

Vipoo Srivilasa’s solo exhibition ‘Red-Eared Slider’ is currently underway at the Subhashok The Art Centre in Bangkok, Thailand.

The ‘Red-Eared Slider’ is a turtle native to the United State and feral across the globe. Originally introduced by a Japanese trader in Thailand, these red-eared turtles disrupt the natural ecology of Thai waters, threatening the native freshwater turtles. For Vipoo, who divides his time between Bangkok and Melbourne, the red-eared turtle represents the disregard humans have for their environment.

The exhibition is current to 30 April, 2016.

Click here for more information.

Deianira Tolema explores the concepts behind Vipoo’s practice in ‘Vipoo Srivilasa’s Playful Kingdom of Ceramic Figurines’ for Hi Fructose: The New Contemporary Magazine. She writes,

"Srivilasa’s work also explores the commonalities between Thai and Australian culture and Eastern and Western culture, where he uses blue and white as a reference to the export of blue and white porcelain from China to Europe. While being fully aware of his heritage, Srivilasa has been mixing up echoes from the past with traces of the present in a carefully arranged juxtaposition of old and new ways of thinking.”

Read the full article here.

Vipoo Srivilasa’s  has been chosen by Rebecca Hill, Exhibitions and Collections Co-ordinator at Gallery Oldham, as her favourite piece in the Crafts Council Collection, London.

"I really love the fact that this piece is technically excellent, yet doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously.” Rebecca Hill, January 2016.

Read the full article here.

Vipoo Srivilasa's sculpture 'Collective Reef' has been shortlisted for the $65,000 Fleurieu Art Prize for Landscape, hosted at the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art in Adelaide. The Fleurieu Art Prize focuses on landscape as a means of expressing the power of connection to place. This years judging panel includes Nigel Hurst, Director of Saatchi Gallery London; Suhanya Raffel, Deputy Director and Director of Collections AGNSW; and Erica Green, Director of Samstag Museum of Art. 

The winner is announced at opening night, Thursday 3 June 5 - 7pm at the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art in Adelaide, University of South Australia, 55 North Terrace, Adelaide. The Exhibition is current 3 June - 29 July, 2016.

Vipoo will present a new body of work at Edwina Corlette Gallery 16 November - 3 December, 2016. To view Vipoo's available works, click here.

This March at the Festival of Live Art in Melbourne, Bundit Puangthong will take part in Asian Artists in Conversation. Participating artists will provide a critical overview of the Asian art landscape, and discuss the shifting boundaries and concepts of contemporary Asian art.

When: Sunday 6 March, 1pm – 5pm

Venue: FCAC Roslyn Smorgon Gallery

Cost: Free, bookings required

The Festival of Live Art is hosted by Arts House, Theatre Works and Footscray Community Arts Centre, and is current 1 – 13 March 2016. For more information, click here.

Bundit's forthcoming exhibition is from 4 - 22 October 2016.

Vipoo Srivilasa has collaborated with local indigenous artists for Collisions: Cross-Cultural Collaborations, a community cultural development partnership between Shepparton Art Museum and Gallery Kaiela. The project involves local Indigenous artists partnering with established Melbourne-based contemporary artists.

Through the sharing of ideas, narratives and techniques, the artists have engaged in an exploration of cultural difference and similarity, conflict and connection, forging relationships in a dialogic exchange that departs from the art-making process.

Collisions: Cross-Cultural Collaborations is on show at SAM and runs current to 14 February 2016.

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Watch Bundit in the Studio Here

Vipoo Srivilasa exhibited in 'More Love Hours' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne. 'More Love Hours' brought together the works of contemporary Australian artists who use traditional techniques and processes in their practice. The works demonstrated the use of 'traditional' forms of creativity as a means to express contemporary values and complex ideologies.

'More Love Hours' installation at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, photographed by Viki Petherbridge

Carol Shwarzman writes, "at first glance, their balanced poise beckons for our approval, to satisfy desire for perfection, decoration, or to escape into the soft murmurs of collectible comfort and status quo. Inevitably, closer inspection reveals Srivilasa's take on cross-cultural social tensions, the commodification of artistic integrity, the role of the self within popular culture, and the history of ceramics worldwide."

To see more of Vipoo's work, click here.

Belem Lett is a finalist in the Fisher's Ghost Art Award this year with his work 'Monster.' The Fisher's Ghost Award was established in 1956 and runs as part of the Fisher's Ghost Festival at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, New South Wales.  The opening ceremony is the evening of Friday, 6th of November, and the exhibition runs from 31st of October to 12th of December.

To see more of Belem's work, click here.

Congratulations to Vipoo whose work New Family I (2014) was recently acquired by the Parliament House Collection, Canberra.

Congratulations to Vipoo whose work Soup Bowl With Turtle (2012) was recently acquired by the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital, Brisbane.

Congratulations Vipoo Srivilasa who recently visited the U.S. to be a part of the Roundtable Discussion for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) on March 26, 2015.

‘”Pass the Peas: Food, Objects and the Making of Community”, will expand on themes explored in our 2015 keynote lecture. Namita Gupta Wiggers will moderate this lively discussion with Aruna D’Souza, Julia Galloway, Frederick Opie and Vipoo Srivilasa. As writers, artists, curators and historians these individuals all deal with the complex ways that we understand place and memory through objects, food and community engagement.’

Belem Lett joins Genevieve Felix Reynolds for an exhibition titled “Bang Bang” at Chasm Gallery in New York: a boutique gallery in Brooklyn NY, focusing on Australian fine art. The show runs from 10 – 20 April, 2015.

Image: Belem Lett, Bang (2015) oil on aluminum composite panel, pigment, resin 62 x 45 x 6 cm.

Congratulations Tara Marynowsky for receiving a Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship worth $20,000. The scholarship is paid over a two year period to support the scholars in furthering their artistic careers.

Tara Marynowsky will travel widely with her scholarship funds, including to New York, where she will engage with contemporary art practices, and the UK, where she will collect Edwardian and Victorian documents and artefacts. These experiences will inform her new work, which she will commence during a four month residency at La Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris). Her overarching aim is to investigate symbolism in art and cultural belonging through African American art, French symbolism and English culture.

Congratulations Tara Marynowsky for featuring in the latest issue of Art Collector magazine. Tara was listed as one of Art Collector’s ’50 Things Collectors Need to Know About’ and is considered to be one of the artists who will be shaping the Australian and New Zealand art worlds in 2015.

Congratulations to Vipoo Srivilasa whose work Bleach IV (2012) was acquired by the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art.

Image: Bleach IV (2012), pocelain and cobalt pigment

Tara Marynowsky features in Artbank’s exhibition ‘Sealed Section’ curated by Miriam Kelly, showing from 28 November, 2014 until 7 February, 2015.

“Tearing open the ‘perforated pages’ of the Artbank collection, Sealed Section reveals works that canvas the topics of impolite dinner conversation: sex, politics and religion. Underpinning these often controversial topics is a consideration of the complexities of human relations and the human condition. As a result, Sealed Sectionincludes a rich and diverse group of works that highlight the strength and pertinence of contemporary art as a response to the key issues of our time.”

Congratulations to Vipoo Srivilasa who was announced the winner of the 2014 Gold Coast International Ceramics Award.  Vipoo’s thoughtful porcelain work Battle of Old and New Power was selected from 48 entries from several countries including Japan, Argentina and Isreal.  Judge Dr Patsy Hely from the Australian National University School of Art described Vipoo’s work as having ‘resonance not just with one country’s internal battles but with the pulls and pushes of global relations and power struggles more broadly. In this way, it is a work in which the contemporary world is writ large.’ Srivilasa’s work was described as ‘at once beautiful and unsettling’ and reflects the contemporary world by ‘speak[ing] loudly of this moment in time.’

Image: Battle of New and Old Power (2012), porcelain

Dr Ashley Crawford - a freelance cultural critic based in Melbourne - has written a glowing essay on the progression of Rhys Lee's art practice.

"Lee’s passport is stamped with a variety of exotic locales; he has been to Anger, he has stopped over in Love, he has traversed the landscape of Fear and, jet-lagged, he has experienced the Delirium of insomnia.

"Like all adventurous travellers, Lee is a voyeur of the unknown. As this book opens we see him astride in alien locales, sheltering in a snow-capped tent in Scandinavia, peering over a swimming pool in a sweltering Havana. And there, early in his travels, are the first tentative sketches, faces – whether faces in the street or self-portraits is nary an issue; in many ways all of Lee’s work are self-portrayal. In 1999, the eyes stare out, Klimt-like, a mixture of defiance and trepidation. That same year, Lee discovers his trademark harshly-cropped skull in Haircut (1999). By 2000 the die is cast in a more assured self-portrait complete with sketchbook, a portrait of the artist as a young man."

Image courtesy NBB Gallery, Berlin

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