News

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

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We are thrilled to share that Christopher Zanko is a finalist in the 2024 Fisher’s Ghost Art Award with his work ‘The Laundry’.

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.

The finalists exhibition will be held at the Campbelltown Arts Centre from Saturday 26 October – Friday 6 December, 2024

IMAGE

‘The Laundry’ 2023
acrylic on wood relief carving
59 x 54 cm

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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

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.

READ THE INTERVIEW HERE

Interviewed by Emma Pegrum
Images courtesy Nic Gossage