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

Congratulations to Judith Sinnamon who is not only a finalist in the Brisbane Portrait Prize for 2024 but has also been selected for the partnered Salon de Refuses for her portrait of Spencer, the protector of Wallum.

From the age of 6 Spencer Hitchen, now 13, has worked tirelessly to try to save the fragile coastal Wallum woodlands and heathlands of the Noosa Shire, that are so important for the survival of the black glossy cockatoo, from clearing and development.

The Salon des Refusés will be held at the Royal Queensland Art Society, Petrie Terrace running in parallel to the Brisbane Portrait Prize, 3 August – 10 November.

IMAGE

'Spencer - Child Protector of Wallum' 2024

oil on linen

80 x 80 cm

Congratulations to Judith Sinnamon who is a 2024 finalist in the Brisbane Portrait Prize for her portrait of Hannah Moloney from South of Timtumili Minanya, Tasmania.

Judith Sinnamon chose to paint Hannah because she helps people do something practical and hopeful regardless of what happens in the world. “The small act of hope by planting a seed and tending to it can be transformative in creating connection with nature, with each other and with the possibilities of a sustainable future.”

The finalists of the Brisbane Portrait Prize will be showcased at the State Library of Queensland from 3 August – 10 November.

IMAGE:

‘Little Big Acts of Hope’ 2024

Oil on linen

103 x 200 cm

READ MORE HERE

We are delighted to announce that JUDITH SINNAMON is a finalist in the 2023 Brisbane Portrait Prize for her portrait of Nathan Appo.

Judith sought to capture Nathan's incredible warmth and generosity and a wisdom that comes from 65,000 years of continuous sustainable culture and land management with a deep love for country and humanity at its core.

The Brisbane Portrait Prize is all about celebrating Brisbane portrait artists and their sitters, while encouraging public engagement with the arts.

Judith is having a solo exhibition with us October 25.

Image:

'Nathan Appo' 2023
Oil on linen
134 x 104 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

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

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

Judith Sinnamon is a finalist in the 2023 Archibald Prize.

Watching the ABC’s political program Insiders, Queensland artist Judith Sinnamon was struck by Katharine Murphy’s ‘paintability’.

‘Katharine often appears on the Insiders panel, where she brings a refreshing, cut-through perspective to the fug of Australian politics,’ says Sinnamon. ‘I feel tremendous gratitude towards Katharine and all journalists of strong conviction and integrity, who speak truth to power at a time of rampant misinformation and media mogul influence.’

Murphy has worked in the parliamentary press gallery in Kamberri/Canberra since 1996. She is currently political editor of Guardian Australia and the host of a weekly podcast, Australian politics. She is the author of On disruption, an analysis of the impact of the internet on journalism.

Sinnamon captures the award-winning journalist, with her colourful clothing and animated face, listening to the podcast Pod save America in her light-filled home.

‘During our sitting, I drew loose charcoal sketches and took numerous photos,’ says Sinnamon. ‘I then returned to my [Sunshine Coast] Hinterland studio and began the month-long process of rendering Katharine’s portrait – my first in the Archibald Prize.’

Read more here.

Artwork:

Judith Sinnamon

'Katharine Murphy'

oil on linen

104.2 x 134 cm

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

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

Art, Activism And The Archibald

CREATIVE PEOPLE

Art has always been a vehicle for social dialogue, and a window into current political issues. When Sydney artist Julian Meagher met former professional soccer player, commentator and human rights advocate Craig ‘Fozzy’ Foster AM, he was inspired.

READ MORE ON THE DESIGN FILES 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

WORDS EMMA-KATE WILSON

A few years ago, Sydney-based artist Julian Meagher welcomed the birth of his son and found himself working more instinctively. ‘I think I’m making better works because I am taking a lot more risks, I make so many more bad paintings that end up in the bin now than I used to,’ he comments.

When his daughter was born eight months ago, he went through a whole new level of sleep deprivation and heartbreak, with their little girl suffering reflux for six months. ‘Sleepwalking’ channels this energy, exploring the space between altered states, the subconscious and dreaming.

Alongside ultra-romantic pink and blue landscapes, complete with rainbows, built through active painting, raw brushstrokes and delicate fades, Meagher presents his sleeping family. The small and intimate portraits connect with the large glitchy, idyllic landscapes. ‘I’m trying to make sense of the complex human existence through the power and beauty of nature,’ he adds, ‘I feel like a rainbow next to a little sleeping baby is what we need right now … A hope that things will get better on both a personal and collective level.’

Meagher’s palette is deliberately muted, soft, subtle. He says, ‘I think painting is only good if you’re true to yourself. Painting is a kind of meditation for me in a way; I want the end result to slow down my breath rate.’

To construct his portraits and colour fields – which can be read as landscapes, abstracted, or the sky out of his studio window – Meagher applies thin layers and begins to remove the colour as it starts to dry. Working against the drying time of the paint stops the artist from ‘overcooking’ them. By revealing the linen below, the canvases hold luminosity, adding a watercolour effect evocative of the ocean-inspired landscapes. ‘We’ve all seen those storms out to sea; it’s in our collective consciousness,’ he explains, ‘most can associate strong memories and rites of passage with these coastline images.’

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

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

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

Emmanuel College within the University of Queensland commissioned a portrait of immediate past principal Dr Jane Thomson by artist Judith Sinnamon.

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.

The Museum of Brisbane has acquired Judith Sinnamon's portrait of Pamela Easton, one half of renowned fashion label duo Easton Pearson. The Museum's Easton Pearson Archive is the largest textile collection from a single Australian fashion house held by a museum.

The Archive features the complete collection of internationally acclaimed fashion house Easton Pearson and comprises more than 3,300 signature garments, as well as accessories, original sketches, look books, ephemera and runway footage.

Easton Pearson, created by Pamela Easton and Lydia Pearson, was one of Australia’s most successful fashion houses. From the launch of the label in 1998 to its close in 2016, Easton Pearson’s eclectic, boldly patterned and embellished fashions graced catwalks and showrooms across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, America and Australia.

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.

READ MORE HERE

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.

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.

Julian Meagher's work Democratic Mountain 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.

READ MORE HERE

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.

READ MORE HERE

Miranda Skoczek, Julian Meagher and John Aslanidis are finalists in The Kings School Art Prize 2018.

The King’s Art Prize is a $20,000 acquisitive award presented to the best contemporary artwork created by an artist resident in Australia and represented by a commercial gallery, supporting both the artists and the fine arts industry. Entry is by invitation only and the finalists are selected by an appointed Art Prize panel.

READ MORE HERE

Congratulations to Julian Meagher who is a finalist in the Paddington Art Prize 2018.

The Paddington Art Prize is a $30,000 National acquisitive prize, awarded annually for a painting inspired by the Australian landscape. The prize encourages the interpretation of the landscape as a significant contemporary genre, its long tradition in Australian painting as a key contributor to our national ethos, and is a positive initiative in private patronage of the arts in Australia.

Of his entry 'Wapengo Lake Tideline', Julian says

I wanted this work to chase the spontaneity and freedom of a watercolour. It was painted at a time of great change just before my son was born. A time of giving in to forces far greater than me, of tides, cycles and connection to country.

READ MORE HERE

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 display in the official exhibition. The Archibald Prize is one of Australia’s most high profile and respected awards which attracts hundreds of entries each year and the S.H. Ervin Gallery’s ‘alternative’ selection has become a much anticipated feature of the Sydney art scene.

Julian Meagher's work 'Wapengo #1' was selected in 2018.  Wapengo #1 is from a series painted after a recent residency on the Sapphire Coast where Meagher spent a month with his pregnant wife Beejal in Mimosa Rocks National Park. He says:

‘I wanted these oil paintings to chase the spontaneity and freedom of a watercolour. They are unashamedly romantic, painted at a time of great change just before my son was born. A time of giving in to forces far greater than me, of tides, cycles and connection to country.’

READ MORE HERE

Julian Meagher is a finalist in the Art Gallery of New South Wales' Archibald prize, the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. His work is of Man Booker prize recipient Richard Flanagan.  Meagher says:

'Richard Flanagan’s novels are published in 42 countries and have received numerous honours and awards, including the 2002 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the 2014 Man Booker Prize and the 2016 Athens Prize for Literature.

‘He is one of my favourite novelists but it is his writing and interviews on literature, the environment, art and politics that particularly make him one of Australia’s most important voices,’ says Julian Meagher. ‘Herb, Richard’s writing partner, was pretty insistent that he be included in the painting.’

Born in 1978 in Sydney, Meagher still lives and works there. This is his third time in the Archibald Prize. He has also been a Wynne finalist.

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

Julian Meagher is featured in the May/June edition of Vogue Living magazine.

5 x 5 – the Artist and the Patron

24 March 2018 – 20 May 2018

The artist-collector relationship has existed for millennia, manifesting in multiple forms with varying outcomes. During the Renaissance, the patronage of the Medici family enabled Raphael and Leonardo DaVinci to focus solely on art. Just outside Melbourne, during the mid twentieth century, at their home Heidi, John and Sunday Reed invited a young Sidney Nolan inside their world, creating a consummate creative union. In Sydney, Judith Nielsen has helped usher contemporary Chinese artists from emerging to legendary status. Each partnership has yielded significant outputs reverberating throughout different cultures.

5X5 recognizes the cultural significance of these types of pairings by exploring the trajectories of five artists and their parallel collector relationships:

• Amanda Love / Tracey Emin
• Dr. Dick Quan / Uji ‘Hahan’ Handoko Eko Saputro
• Lisa Paulsen / Patrick Hartigan
• James Emmett / Julian Meagher
• The Private Collector / Nigel Milsom

Marking a twenty-five-year relationship, artist Julian Meagher and collector James Emmett have the longest standing association of all the collector-artist pairings showcased in 5X5. Their journey begins when they went to high school together. The pair would become closer friends when Emmett’s partner, Peter Wilson commissioned Meagher to paint Emmett’s portrait during their university years (included in this exhibition).

The works included in this exhibition span the entire period of the Emmett and Meagher’s art collecting/ art making histories. Interestingly, Meagher admits that some of these earlier works are no longer representative of his current practice, revealing the temporal nature of collecting. Often new acquisitions redefine the collection or an artist’s output as a whole by casting new light on past works or acquisitions and suggesting possible directions for the future. Nevertheless, this relationship timestamps their shared experiences as they developed into their adult selves.

Click here to view the Catalogue

Tides and cycles

By Christopher Barker, Tuesday February 13, 2018

For Sydney artist Julian Meagher, 'Inlet/Outlet' is a new type of beast.

Not so much in its challenge to Australia’s contemporary cultural identity (something he is largely known and regarded for), but for translating those ideals to landscape works inspired by the far South Coast of New South Wales Australia. The result, a 21-piece exhibition at the Bega Valley Regional Gallery, chases freedom, the tide and slow looking. The effect on him, profound as it may be, is outlined in our interview below. 

READ THE ARTICLE HERE

Julian Meagher's three week residency at the Myer House at Blithry Inlet on the south coast of New South Wales and the resultant solo exhibition at Bega Regional Gallery is profiled on the Artist Profile blog.

'Sydney artist Julian Meagher's latest exhibition 'Inlet Outlet' is the fruit of a 2017 residency with Bega Valley Regional Gallery (BVRG). A pilot project for a long-term partnership between the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and BVRG, the inaugural residency signals 'another key step in the development of the arts in the region and provides the opportunity for visual artists to draw from the unique natural environment of the local region, connect with regional communities and expand their practice outside of metropolitan studios', says BVRG Director Iain Dawson.'

VIEW THE ARTICLE HERE

In April 2017 Bega Valley Regional Gallery welcomed prominent Sydney artist Julian Meagher as inaugural artist in residence. A pilot project for a long term partnership between the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the BVRG, the residency offered the opportunity for visual artists to draw from the unique natural environment of the local region, whilst connecting with regional communities and expanding their practice outside of metropolitan studios.

Meagher spent time at the beautiful Sir Roy Grounds-designed Myer House set on Bithry Inlet in the pristine Mimosa Rocks National Park and Inlet Outlet showcases the artistic fruits of that stay.

Exhibition on until 10 march 2018

READ MORE HERE

Byron Bay's Byron at Byron Hotel recently completed a renovation which included a suite of works by Julian Meagher.

Designed by well known interior designer Luchetti Krelle, art takes pride of place within the newly renovated walls, with finalist of the 2015 Archibald Prize, Julian Meagher commissioned to paint a series of still life paintings featuring Australian natives for the hotel. 

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.

Work from Judith Sinnamon's Coastal Banksia series has been recently featured in a Frank Vedelago designed Queensland renovation in Paddington.

VIEW IMAGES 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.

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

Hosted by the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) in Sydney on 18 August, you now have the chance to learn life drawing from some of the best in the business, with a one-off class led by Archibald Prize finalists. 

Supporting NAVA, the 15-person only event will see past Archibald finalists Jasper Knight, Julian Meagher, Dean Brown and Oliver Watts give out tips via way of a life drawing class, discuss their work and also tour their Darlinghurst studio. 

“One of the things I like most about life drawing is the communal nature of it. Oliver, Jasper and I spent many of our teenage years together at life drawing classes. I'm looking forward to getting the band back together! Art can be a lonely pursuit so it is magical when you can bounce ideas and create work alongside your peers. NAVA plays a key role in our community and I think it is fitting to be able to support it in this way,” says Julian Meagher, who was selected as a 2015 Archibald finalist for his Daniel Johns portrait. 

Visit NAVA to book. 

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 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: Julian Meagher | The Ashes Fall - The Wine Spills | 2016 | oil on linen | 152 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

To coincide with Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art's exhibition O’KEEFFE, PRESTON, COSSINGTON SMITH 'Making Modernism', Judith Sinnamon has been invited to conduct a series of still-life workshops throughout May and June 2017.

O'Keeffe, Preston and Cossington Smith were renowned for their modern adaptation of traditional approaches to still life. In this special hands-on workshop working with oil paints, participants will be invited to join Judith Sinnamon for an exploration of the still life genre and experiment with light, colour and form to depict Australian native flora.

Judith Sinnamon is an artist based in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. Judith studied painting at the Queensland College of Art in the early 1980's. The surrounding coastal flora informs Judith's art practice in both her still life and landscape works. She exhibits regularly with the Edwina Corlette Gallery.

VIEW MORE DETAILS HERE

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.

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.

Museums & Galleries of New South Wales is delighted to announce five residencies have been awarded through the Artist or Curator Residency Program for 2017. Generously supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund, each residency of $11,250 will provide artists and curators the space and time to immerse themselves in a unique place, community or collection within a regional gallery, boosting their creative process.

Bega Valley Regional Gallery, New South Wales

In partnership with the National Parks and Wildlife Services, Bega Valley Regional Gallery will host contemporary painter Julian Meagher on a month long residency within the south east NSW region. Over the month long residency Julian will deliver three workshops and one masterclass.

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.

Julian Meagher has been selected as a finalist for the Shirley Hannan Bega Portrait Prize at the Bega Valley Regional Gallery. The prize is a $50,000 non-acquisitive award for realistic portraiture. The winner will be announced by the judge Dr. Christopher Chapman, Senior Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, Friday 17 June.

View Julian’s available works here.

Congratulations to Julian Meagher who has been selected as a finalist in the 2016 Gold Award at Rockhampton Art Gallery. The Gold Award is a national invitation painting award with an acquisitive cash prize of $50,000 made possible through a generous bequest from the Estate of Moya Gold. The winning artist will be announced by Chris Saines, Director Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. 

The exhibition is current from 23 July – 4 September 2016.

Thank you Margie Fraser for featuring Judith Sinnamon's recent exhibition 'Downtown Yangon' on her More Margie blog.

Judith's paintings reflect her experience living in Myanmar. Margie writes about Judith's journey painting in a foreign place, far from the familiar Queensland coastal landscape.

“Yangon is an extreme environment, intense. The sounds and smells are so full on. People, people, people. Going from trees to people was probably a most logical thing for me. One of the first things that struck me were the melodic calls of the women hawking in the streets, sounds floating up to us on the 7th floor of our new home on 37th Street.”

Read Margie's article here.

Julian Meagher's portrait of superstar National Rugby League player Johnathan Thurston is on the cover of the October issue for Rugby League Player Magazine.  Meagher was a finalist in the 2015 Archibald Prize with his portrait of Daniel Johns. The Thurston portrait is part of a suite of works from the 'Code' series which shines a light on the vulnerability of some of Australia's biggest football heroes, dramatising the precarious fragility in each man’s isolated facial expression.

Julian Meagher's solo exhibition 'Alone in the Sun' is on from 3 - 27 November 2015.

We are pleased to announce that Julian is a semi-finalist with his portrait Paul Ryan for the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize. Julian was also a finalist with his work Floating In A Darkened Sky for the Eutick Memorial Still Life Award (EMSLA) at Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery.

Julian will be exhibiting new works for Alone in the Sun at Edwina Corlette Gallery, November 3 - 21, 2015. This series of new work further investigates how our past inhabits our present. 'As I have grown older I have become interested in the concept of both collective and personal notions of inherited history,' he says.

Originally posted on CULTURAL FLANERIE:

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Julian Meagher has been commissioned by Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney to bring the Company’s actors to life with a suite of drawings for their 2015 catalogue. Belvoir’s position as one of Australia’s most innovative and acclaimed theatre companies has been determined by such landmark productions as The Wild Duck, The Diary of a Madman, The Blind Giant is Dancing, The Book of Everything, Cloudstreet, Measure for Measure, Keating!, Parramatta Girls, Exit the King, The Alchemist, Hamlet, Waiting for Godot, The Sapphires, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Stuff Happens and Medea.

When Julian Meagher first met John Waters ‘He was rehearsing Looking Through A Glass Onion with Stewart, my girlfriend’s father, in his lounge room. They were making a lot of noise, laughing and playing Norwegian Wood. It was great to meet the man I had watched on Play School, now far removed from Big Ted’.

John Waters is an English film, theatre and television actor best known in Australia, which he’s called home since 1968.  Meagher says ‘I wanted to paint John in a puffy shirt, both as a nod to his theatrical profession and to re-imagine him as a kind of colonial character. ‘He has such a strong face, which really suited my painting style. It was my hope to capture a complex expression. Rather than looking back at the viewer, he is engaged with something outside our understanding’.

Born in Sydney in 1978, Meagher left work as a medical doctor nine years ago to paint full time and has exhibited regularly since then both locally and internationally. He studied the Atelier method in Florence, Italy. He has been a finalist five times in the Salon Des Refuses. He was a finalist in the Doug Moran Portrait Prize in 2009 and 2012, as well as in the Metro Art Prize and Blake Prize for Religious Art.