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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.

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

Established in 1987 The Churchie National Emerging Art Prize is a highly regarded emerging art prize dedicated to innovation and excellence across contemporary, traditional and new media genres. The annual non-acquisitive prize is an initiative of Anglican Church Grammar School (Churchie), in partnership with Griffith University Art Gallery since 2010. The overall winner is awarded a $15,000 prize sponsored by Brand+Slater Architects and two highly commended works are awarded $1,000 each. Hundreds of entries are attracted from all over Australia with a select few being chosen to exhibit at Griffith University Art Gallery, South Bank. The exhibition offers an inspiring glimpse into the future of Australian contemporary art.

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Artwork details:
Ocean 2014
oil on canvas
50 x 66 cm

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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