Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 66 i Artist Profile

Over coffee and lamingtons (everyday suburban fare appropriate to the source material of much of her work) we discuss, in no particular order, flies, trompe l’œil, housework: “often when I’m painting I’m thinking of cleaning, and when I’m cleaning I’m thinking of painting,” op shop discoveries, dog walking, binging on Netflix, and bi-annual hard rubbish collection. However, our conversation about painting in particular, ranges from the local across oceans and continents. “I’m so excited by all these incredible female painters who have been knocking it for six over the past decade. Jutta Koether in Germany and New York, Charline von Heyl, also New York, and the Norwegian Ida Ekblad.” I remember meeting Koether in Cologne in the 1980s with her friend Diedrich Diederichsen when both worked for Spex magazine and…

Chris Dyson has spent the better part of fifty years producing a prolific body of work, including drawings, paintings, and sculptures. However, there is scant evidence of his legacy on the internet; a rare and refreshing phenomenon in the age of the “career artist,” and emblematic of Dyson’s general renegade spirit and inclination to follow his own path. “When you’re young you’ve got that pressure of having a career, of getting somewhere. That drives you mad. Once you get over that, you’re alright,” he says from his home in Stuart Mill, Victoria. Dyson’s oeuvre is diverse in thematic content, style, and medium. His artmaking is driven by an internal necessity, or urge to explore whatever takes his interest at a particular moment in time. “Artmaking is kind of a place…

The inscription could not have come as a surprise: Parr has long worked with language in a way that is pointed and political. An editioned print from the 1990s, titled Blind Obedience, was made by opening the thesaurus and looking up the word “Synonymous,” which yielded the word “Equivalent,” which in turn yielded the word “Identical,” and then “Alike,” and so on, until at the bottom of the page, he arrived at the word “Dead.” As one word leads to another word, meaning is dragged and transmitted by contact. And what is language if not contact and transmission? This is a kind of contact print that, with each synonym, moves us towards that final word. Blind Obedience foregrounds the way that language drags and charges itself up in contact, starting…

Stephanie Berlangieri (SB): Last year was a significant one for your practice. You were included in the Sharjah, TarraWarra, and The National biennials. You also presented your first mid-career survey, A Curve is a Broken Line, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), and unveiled a new body of work, The Fold, 2023, as part of the NGV Triennial, among other achievements. Hoda Afshar (HA): It’s incredible to have so much interest in what you have to say. I spent so many years trying to build up a platform in this country. As a migrant, you have to prove you’re worthy of being heard. I never thought I’d be able to deliver so many projects in one year at such a grand scale. I’m a big believer that…

The National Gallery of Victoria proclaims its third “blockbuster” Triennial to be a “powerful and moving snapshot of the world today through the work of 120 artists, designers and collectives at the forefront of global contemporary practice” from robotics to tapestry, weather patterns to war, mysticism to megacities, offering its audience a “valuable opportunity to experience new and surprising forms of creative expression”—the now expected museum PR spiel for our existential reflection and something for everyone entertainment. Judging by the success (read audience numbers) of the first two iterations, the 2023 Triennial has all the effects to make this a happy trifecta. When the first iteration of Sydney’s The National: New Australian Art was announced in 2017, I wrote that given the already existing Biennale of Sydney, the Adelaide Biennial…

Fairy Tales, curated by Amanda Slack-Smith at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), is a remarkable exhibition, featuring over a hundred works assembled from genres including film, set design, original costumes, animation, and contemporary art. The exhibition is divided, though the crossovers are fluid, into three themes: “Into the Woods,” which draws mainly upon European classical tales like those from Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm; “Through the Looking Glass,” presenting more recent stories of parallel worlds by Maurice Sendak and L. Frank Baum; and “Ever After,” an exploration of love with its myriad complexities, especially for young women who are dealing with their dreams and desires, their actual worlds, and the expectations of others. As Slack-Smith says in her catalogue essay, “Not everything is playful, not everything is dark ……

Whisson was born in Lilydale, Victoria in 1927 and died in 2022 in Sydney. Finding formal training uninspiring he enrolled in an experimental school at Koornong, Victoria in 1945. He came under the formative influence of the untrained Russian immigrant artist, Danila Vassilieff. Concurrently, Whisson met the older first generation of Melbourne modernists: Albert Tucker and then wife Joy Hester, Sidney Nolan, John Perceval, and Arthur Boyd. Whisson also developed an unwavering interest in politics, literature, and philosophy from this time. The raw immediacy of Vassilieff’s technique and application led to Whisson placing intuition as the primary means of converting the real world to an abstract one through memory. He sustained this methodology throughout his career. This emphasis is the thread that weaves through Whisson’s output and Sprague’s text. The…

History and context are the underlying themes of this thought-provoking issue of Artist Profile. There is an urgency by makers and presenters to provide more nuanced understandings of so many local and global issues. The alternate views offered impress on us the need to appreciate more deeply the contexts that underpin conflicts if we are to achieve a more peaceful future. And in doing so they reveal the relevance of the arts in making sense of a complex world. Some of the articles in this issue cannot overlook what the conflicts in Israel/Palestine and in Ukraine/Russia, have done to reshape art and relationships. Over this southern summer many artists and arts workers have expressed to me their despair for long friendships broken, about feeling torn, and even silenced by the…

Sauerbier House is a c.1897 villa carefully renovated into a contemporary exhibition, studio, and residency space. It is situated in Port Noarlunga, on the banks of Onkaparinga River/Ngangkiparinga, 40 km south of Adelaide. A significant Kaurna cultural site, the river is an important woman’s place as it slowly meanders from nearby hills, through sand dunes and out to sea. The beach at Port Noarlunga is also a well known surf spot and has been home to surfing communities for many years. Before visiting Henry Jock Walker’s 2018 residency at Sauerbier House, it was impossible to miss his brightly painted HiAce van parked outside the gallery. A kind of welcoming beacon and statement that the artist was on site; the van is Walker’s means of transport, mobile canvas, and performance space.…

For as long as she can remember Leah Fraser has been fascinated by mythology, folklore, and legends from cultures around the world and the unexplained connections between them—a self-proclaimed “history nerd.” Drawing inspiration from characters of ancient civilisations—such as the Celts, Aztecs, Greeks, Babylonians, and Samarians—Fraser creates her own versions of these figures. Her narratives unfold organically, guided by gut feeling, they evolve and take on their own personas. “The stories behind them are a very ephemeral thing. I think it could be a different story for everyone that looks at it.” The characters exist purely within the painting, nothing more and nothing less, and in a time that has no beginning or end. Her practice is ritualistic, having two young children forces Fraser to stick to a strict schedule,…

Judith Blackall (JB): Mike, 2023 has been a great year for you, with two large-scale exhibition projects curated by Eugenio Viola focusing on more than fifty years of your performance work. How did this come about? Mike Parr (MP): I met Eugenio Viola for the first time in the company of Giuseppe Morra following Hermann Nitsch’s edition of Das Orgien Mysterien Theater for Dark Mofo in 2017. I’d also been invited to perform at the festival and in the aftermath of Nitsch’s performance I received an invitation to the dinner hosted in his honour. I had first met Nitsch in 1978 when we were both performing at a festival in Vienna and in the years following that first meeting we met again on various occasions. So Nitsch was responsible in…

In a new show of large atmospheric paintings, Euan Macleod attempts to capture the experience of climbing high up on New Zealand’s Haupapa/Tasman Glacier–Aoraki/Mt Cook. Not content to remain in the comfort of his Sydney studio, Macleod has always challenged his processes, and having the opportunity to paint large works for Orange Regional Gallery’s new contemporary spaces, he chose a project close to his heart. Accompanied by artist and Orange’s director Brad Hammond, and photographer Craig Potton, he helicoptered onto the mountain ranges. It was his second trip with Potton and a guide, where they spent days documenting and climbing in the area. Growing up in New Zealand, Macleod was attracted to the adrenaline rush of climbing from the age of fifteen. These new works reflect the inner adventurous spirit…

Hovering, nine metres above me on wiry legs of steely elegance Maman, 1999, Louise Bourgeois’ celebrated spider sculpture, a metaphor for her mother, greets me as I arrive at the AGNSW forecourt. Momentarily, Maman pulls me into a play of scale, a frequent tactic in Bourgeois’ work. I become aware of my size in comparison to the sculpture, a reversal of the usual size difference. Today though, I am also aware of reviewing the work of an artist of the calibre and renown of Bourgeois. She is a towering figure of twentieth-century art, and one whose work has already been considered critically from psychoanalytic, feminist, and surrealist positions. The exhibition’s title Has the Day Invaded the Night or Has the Night Invaded the Day? appears in several of Bourgeois’ artworks,…

First opening its doors as an arts centre in the mid 1990s, the former electricity production plant that is now known as Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, is a hub for artistic gatherings, performances, and exhibitions in the Liverpool region of Greater Sydney. This season Casula Powerhouse brings together three powerful solo exhibitions in a complementary suite that together sing strong. The evocative world building of artists Leanne Tobin, Katy B Plummer, and Eddie Abd become portals toward decolonial and feminist discourses, enveloping the audience in aesthetically strong shows which challenge archetypes and observe the richly multifaceted nature of women’s lived experiences in art and life. Viewed together, Plummer, Tobin, and Abd create a powerful chorus for the strength and depth of practice in contemporary art made here, right now. These…

On first impression, the ARNDT Collection is a Lewis Carroll mischmasch of international twentieth century big name European trophy artists sprinkled with known Australian artists. There are some edgy stunners presented and challenging gambles on yet unheralded (to me) African and Asian artists. There’s a fantastic sculpture by the Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn, Nail-Antigone, 2013 and another by Polish artist Alicja Kwade, Be-Hide-else, 2017, a Zen like questioning of reality, in the era of post-truth and AI. Rachael Vance, director and curator of programming of the ARNDT Collection, in consultation with SAM curators had the luxury of selecting works from this seriously impressive collection and in particular I adored the odd-man-out inclusion of a modest fifteenth century Gothic tempera on panel painting Christ Appearing to his Mother, c.1427, by Lippo…

For many organisations in changing and uncertain times, 2023 was a mixed bag. But spare a thought for the Griffith University Art Museum (GUAM), a well-established, high-profile, award-winning gallery at South Bank in Brisbane. The director, Angela Goddard, is the current Chair of University Art Museums of Australia (UAMA). In 2023 GUAM’s work was featured at a global meeting of university museums held in Sydney on “truth-telling through university museums and collections.” The museum’s programs featuring in presentations were applauded by international colleagues as representing some of the best academically based gallery practice. But GUAM’s 2023 low point was the lowest possible; the threat of extinction delivered not by external existential forces but rather by their own university leadership. Just before Christmas, a proposal emerged from Griffith University, to close…

Danae Stratou was born in Athens in 1964. In the 1980s she studied sculpture at Central St. Martins College of Aand Design, London Institute. In 1997, Stratou, as part of the collaborative three woman group D.A.ST. Arteam, including industrial designer Alexandra Stratou and architect, Stella Konstantinidis, created a land art project, Desert Breath in the eastern Sahara Desert in El Gouna, Egypt. This work of vast magnitude, approximately 100,000 square metres, developed over three years. Desert Breath emanates out and around a circular water-filled woman-made lake, thirty meters in diameter. Stratou created two interlocking spirals, one by excavating approximately seventy conical holes and utilising the sand removed from these holes to make conical mounds that form the mirror image of the holes in a second spiral, rotating in the same…

A Summer Project: A Star is Born Early 1989, CAAMA (Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association) Shop, Alice Springs. The redbacks had been evicted and Rodney Gooch, the manager, had the first paintings by the Utopia Women lining the walls. A Summer Project was an experiment we conceived to give every woman the chance to try painting, and it worked. Every artist had shifted seamlessly from batik to paint and there simply wasn’t a bad one, but one painting stood apart from the rest and drew everyone’s attention. With the shackles of the rigid batik process removed, Emily Kame Kngwarreye had embraced the directness and flexibility of paint and brush, and would never look back. In 1988, Indigenous art was a highly contested zone. Some thought contemporary Indigenous art was ethnographic…

“If fate grants me sufficient time, I shall discover a new international language that will be eternal, and will develop infinitely … It is called painting.”Vasily Kandinsky So reads a wall text at the entrance to the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ Kan dinsky, serving as a reminder that the artist’s aspiration towards the spiritual in painting was not solely a matter of self-realisation, but reflected a monumental ambition to shape the future of art. Eighty years after Kandinsky’s death, the world abounds with abstract painters who owe much to the ideas that he and others like Piet Mondrian articulated in the first half of the twentieth century. But if the visual dynamics of Mondrian’s paintings seem only an arm’s length away from the art of the twenty-first century,…

Jónsi’s Hrafntinna (Obsidian) and Jean-Luc Moulène and Teams are two of Mona’s three showcase temporary exhibitions. While Jónsi’s installation arouses an emotional and even transcendental response in his evocation of Iceland’s natural environment, Jean-Luc Moulène’s exhibition is more subtle, with the French artist employing three-dimensional modelling and local technicians to shape elemental materials like wood, sandstone, wax, and zinc. A recent Mona acquisition, Jónsi’s installation is inspired by the 2021 eruption of the volcano Fagradalsfjall in the artist’s native Iceland. At the time, Jónsi was stranded in America and missing home. Hrafntinna (Obsidian) draws on Jónsi’s musical talents to produce an experience that is deeply moving, evoking the melancholy and beauty of the Icelandic landscape—a landscape that has striking similarities to some of Tasmania’s bleak alpine plateaus. The looped soundscape…

When I was researching the film, Rabbit-Proof Fence, 2002, which tells the story of three “halfcaste” girls taken from Jigalong in Western Australia in 1931, a friend of mine, an anthropologist, said to me, “Things are worse now.” I’m afraid he may well be right. Juvenile incarceration, more babies and children being “removed” etc., etc. This was how I thought I would start this essay on Ivan Sen. I wanted to go on and talk about Aboriginal filmmakers today, how they are what? The rising stars of the Australian film industry, the new wave? I wanted to quote Ivan saying, “There is always hope” in relation to Limbo, 2023. The characters “find hope in each other.” I wanted to tell of my experience, driving in the back of a ute,…

Spencer Calveley lives and works in the central west of New South Wales. Working across painting and drawing he creates otherworldly scenes from his reflections on life. Deeply intuitive and expressive, his work is entwined with the natural world around him. Daily observations of nature’s patterns play out in his surreal compositions. Filled with figures, objects, and birds, his drawings and paintings appear as dream worlds that blend memory and experience. Observed daily in the urban and natural environment, the movement and characteristics of the magpie and its eccentricity play out across Calveley’s paintings and drawings. Swooping, soaring, and strutting, there is a humanness and stridency to its movements, and the black and white markings distinguish it from the blur of the bush. In observing nature there is a call…