Mia Boe's Guwinganj' opens at Hervey Bay Regional Gallery
Mia Boe's first solo institutional exhibition 'Guwinganj' opens at Hervey Bay Regional Gallery. The exhibition comprises of paintings from Boe's recent exhibition with Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 'The Aboriginal Robot', along with new works inspired by a recently-completed residency Boe undertook on Butchulla Country.
Opening reception: Friday, 6 December from 5:30–7:30pm
Exhibition dates: 30 November 2024 - 16 February 2025
Isaac Julien 'Once Again…(Statues Never Die)' Reviewed in Art Guide Australia
Like his 1989 breakout 'Looking for Langston', a revisionist elegy to poet Langston Hughes, or his 2019 work 'Lessons of the Hour', an elliptical portrait of abolitionist and freed slave Frederick Douglass, 'Once Again…' sublimates its polemics beneath something more ornate and impressionistic,” writes critic Michael Sun for Art Guide Australia in response to Isaac Julien’s major exhibition 'Once Again…(Statues Never Die)', currently on display at the MCA Australia
Daniel Boyd wins Best Cover Art at the 2024 ARIA Awards
Huge congratulations to Daniel Boyd and Nomad Create for winning Best Cover Art at the 2024 ARIA Awards with 'Kill The Dead', the debut album of 3%.
Depicting one of the most memorable images in Australian sporting history, the album art recreates legendary First Nations AFL player Nicky Winmar’s iconic act of strength, Blak pride, and resistance. This powerful anti-racist symbol continues to resonate as a celebration of First Nations excellence and resilience.
An incredible collaboration—well deserved!
ART FAIR: Paris Photo 2024
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to showcase the spectacular talent of several major internationally acclaimed artists at Paris Photo 2024, featuring works by Bill Henson, Isaac Julien and Tracey Moffatt, on view now at the Grand Palais, Paris.
Visit Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery at Booth A54 in the Grand Palais from Thursday, 7 November to Sunday, 10 November 2024.
Email [email protected] to request a catalogue.
Image: Installation view, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Booth A54, Paris Photo 2024, Grand Palais, Paris (7–10 November 2024). Photography: Mikhail Mishin.
EXHIBITION OPENINGS: Mikala Dwyer and Marley Dawson
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to present two new exhibitions by Mikala Dwyer and Marley Dawson.
Skyring by Mikala Dwyer and loose ends by Marley Dawson will open from 6-8pm Thursday 31 October 2024.
Email [email protected] to request a catalogue.
Image left: Mikala Dwyer, Untitled, 2024, acrylic on linen, 183 x 183 cm.
Image right: Marley Dawson, ‘1006 portal’, 2024, 1006 aluminium chairs, mild steel base, 275 x 275 x 40 cm.
PERFORMANCE: Mikala Dwyer
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to present ‘Skyring’, an exhibition by Mikala Dwyer.
Opening reception: Thursday, 31 October 2024 from 6–8pm
Exhibition dates: 31 October – 29 November 2024
Please join us at 6:30pm on the opening night for a short performance featuring Olive Corben Dwyer, David Corben, Mikala Dwyer and Ebbe, with music by James Hayes.
The performance, ‘Trollkjerring’, is a celebration of all things amateur, ancestral, earthly and Halloween. It is loosely based on a scene from Henrik Ibsen’s play ‘Peer Gynt’ (1876)
Email [email protected] to request a catalogue.
Image: Mikala Dwyer, Untitled, 2024, acrylic on linen, 183 x 183 cm.
Isaac Julien: 'Once Again...(Statues Never Die)' Opens at the MCA
Isaac Julien: 'Once Again... (Statues Never Die)' is on display in the Macgregor Gallery at the MCA Australia from 27 September 2024 to 16 February 2025
Images: Installation view, Isaac Julien, ‘Once Again... (Statues Never Die)’.
KATHY TEMIN: Melbourne Sculpture Biennale: ‘The Burden of Objects’
The first edition of the Melbourne Sculpture Biennale: ‘The Burden of Objects’, featuring works by Kathy Temin, continues at the Villa Alba Museum in Kew until this Sunday, 13 October.
The Burden of Objects’ is the first edition of the Melbourne Sculpture Biennale, held at the Villa Alba Museum, a heritage mansion and gardens in Naarm/Melbourne.
The exhibition features 19 artists based in greater Naarm/Melbourne, whose practices involve making objects at scale or in costly or labour-intensive materials.
Photography by Sebastian Kainey
MIA BOE: Representation Announcement
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is thrilled to announce our representation of Mia Boe.
Boe’s paintings are characterised by long-limbed figures set within richly coloured, stylised landscapes—haunting, enigmatic, and unmistakably powerful. Originally from Brisbane and now based in Melbourne, Boe began painting in 2020
and, in a remarkably short span of time, has established the formal
characteristics that make her work so distinct and recognisable.
We are delighted to welcome Mia Boe to the gallery’s program and look forward to presenting her continued evolution as a innovative and compelling voice in contemporary painting.
Image: Mia Boe in her studio. Photography: Phoebe Kelly.
ARTIST TALK: Sir Isaac Julien
On Saturday, 28 September, it was our great pleasure to host Sir Isaac Julien at the gallery to discuss ‘Once Again... (Statues Never Die)’, an exhibition of new photographic works, which is on display at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery until 26 October 2024. u2060
In this suite of mesmerising new images, Isaac Julien expands upon aspects of his recently released film ‘Once Again... (Statues Never Die)’ which is on display in the Macgregor Gallery at the MCA Australia from 27 September 2024 to 16 February 2025.u2060
Click the link above to watch the full artist artist talk with Isaac Julien
Image: Installation view, Isaac Julien, 'Once Again... (Statues Never Die)' at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
EXHIBITION OPENING: Isaac Julien
UPCOMING: Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is thrilled to announce ‘Once Again... (Statues Never Die)’, an exhibition of new photographic works by Isaac Julien.
Opening reception: Thursday, 19 September 2024 from 6-8pm
Exhibition dates: 20 September – 26 October 2024
In this suite of mesmerising new images, Isaac Julien expands upon aspects of his recently released film by the same name, drawing further inspiration from his extensive research into the work and critical writing of Alain Locke (1885–1954), leader of the Harlem Renaissance, and his relationship to Albert C. Barnes, the philanthropist, pioneering art collector and founder of the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.
To coincide with this exhibition of photographic works at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia will present an immersive five-screen installation of the film ‘Once Again... (Statues Never Die)’ in the Macgregor Gallery from 27 September 2024 to 16 February 2025.
This major presentation of ‘Once Again... (Statues Never Die)’ in Sydney builds on its prominent inclusion in Julien’s major survey exhibition, ‘Isaac Julien: What Freedom Is To Me’, at the Tate Britain, London in 2023. The work also travelled to K21 in Düsseldorf and was featured at both the Sharjah Biennial in 2023 and the Whitney Biennial in New York in 2024.
Email [email protected] to request a catalogue.
Image: Isaac Julien, ‘Black Apollo (Once Again... Statues Never Die)’, 2022, Inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Ultrasmooth, 50 x 75 cm. Edition of 6 + 2 AP.
ART FAIR: Sydney Contemporary 2024
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to showcase the spectacular talent of several major Australian and internationally acclaimed artists in Booth G03 at Sydney Contemporary 2024, featuring works by Daniel Boyd, Dale Frank, Louise Hearman, Bill Henson, Isaac Julien, Linda Marrinon, Imants Tillers and Ms. N. Yunupiu014bu.
Booth G03
Carriageworks, Sydney
5–8 September 2024
Image: Installation view, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Booth G03 at Sydney Contemporary, Carriageworks (5-8 September 2024). Photos: David Suyasa
EXHIBITION OPENING: Mia Boe and Julie Rrap
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is pleased to present two new solo exhibitions by artists Mia Boe and Julie Rrap.
Opening reception: Friday, 16 August from 6–8pm
Exhibition dates: 16 August – 14 September 2024
Mia Boe is a painter from Brisbane with Butchulla and Burmese ancestry. The inheritance and disinheritance of both cultures is the focus of her practice. Mia’s strikingly recognisable paintings are incredibly intriguing, populated with long-limbed figures, eerily present in flat, richly coloured landscapes: distended black bodies with elongated legs reside within vibrant stylised worlds. Personal narratives are embedded deeply within the brushstrokes, drawing on a hybrid of histories and an amalgamation of heritage in an alluring and timeless aesthetic that is difficult to define.
The Aboriginal Robot is Mia Boe’s first exhibition with Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
The work of Julie Rrap is considered to have contributed to the foundations of contemporary feminist art in Australia. Working for over four decades with a range of different mediums Rrap challenges, subverts and reinterprets the definition of women and their image in surprising ways, often using her own nude body to do so. She is one of the most recognised female artists working in Australia today.
Julie Rrap has been exhibiting with Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery since 1982.
Email [email protected] to request a catalogue.
EVENT: Artist Talk with Tracey Moffatt
To mark the occasion of her latest body of work ‘The Burning’, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to invite you to an artist talk at the gallery with Tracey Moffatt.
Saturday, 27 July at 2pm
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Across a gothic dreamscape, the images of ‘The Burning’, have no sharp focus - bordering on the intangible, they change like moving sand when viewed from different angles and in different light. With other-worldly hues, and a film of dirt, a mist stirs in the burning landscape. Images struggle to stay together - they fall apart on the edge of evaporation.
It is a Wild West, a frontier. A woman in a Victorian era black dress is out for revenge. A shirtless youth grins in the shadows. With a simmering intensity, the story reveals itself in the dark.
Image: Portrait of Tracey Moffatt. Photography: Jon Setter.
EXHIBITION OPENING: Tracey Moffatt 'The Burning'
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is thrilled to present ‘The Burning’, an exhibition of new works by Tracey Moffatt.
Opening reception: Friday, 12 July from 6–8pm
Exhibition dates: 12 July – 10 August 2024
“In the fictional photographic narrative, ‘The Burning’, we are in the Wild West somewhere. The mood is tense, dark and Gothic in feel. A woman wears a black late Victorian era dress. A shirtless youth flits about in shadow. There is a cat and mouse revenge scenario unfolding. The environment overwhelms and swirls with energy and coloured dust. It might choke them both.”
– Tracey Moffatt, 2024
Email [email protected] to request a catalogue.
Image: Tracey Moffatt, ‘Ritual’, 2024, (detail) from ‘The Burning’ series, digital colour print, 125 x 187.28 cm. Edition of 6 + 2 AP.
Dale Frank Botanical Gardens Open Day 2024
We are thrilled to share details of the much anticipated 2024 Open Day for the incredible Dale Frank Botanical Gardens.
Sunday, 30 June 2024
10am - 3pm
535 Hambledon Hill Road
Singleton NSW
Karen Pakula for the Sydney Morning Herald 2022 –
"Over the past decade, when Dale Frank is not painting in his studio, he has painstakingly created a botanical garden over 50 acres of his Hunter Valley property, Hambledon Hill, a sweeping oasis dotted with gentle hills and a duck-inhabited lake. The dry-climate sanctuary is brimful with rare specimens. There are groves of grass trees and multi-branching yuccas and carpets of succulents with leaves like “a thousand tiny razors”.
“I want people to meander – it’s about discovering new things,” says the garden’s creator, artist Dale Frank. “The last thing I want is jasmine and rose beds.”
EXHIBITION OPENING: Dale Frank 'Alicia’s thirteen puppies in an old Adidas bag'
UPCOMING: Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is pleased to present ‘Alicia’s thirteen puppies in an old Adidas bag’, an exhibition of new paintings by Dale Frank.
Opening reception: Thursday, 13 June from 6–8pm
Exhibition dates: 13 June – 6 July 2014
Dale Frank is one of Australia’s foremost contemporary artists. Since the 1970s, Frank has enjoyed a successful international career as a conceptual artist. Best known for his vivacious abstract paintings, his multidisciplinary practice spans sculpture, drawing, performance, film, and installation, all of which adhere closely to his experimental approach to new materialities. For decades Frank’s practice has been motivated by his ongoing empirical investigations into the potentiality of painting, finding new abilities and power in painting as integral and crucial to understanding art today.
Email [email protected] to request a catalogue.
Image: Dale Frank, ‘Emma loved the thought of just for once being herself, it was a boarding pass she had long thought about, but then her inflated ego drowning in her own beauty would spew out copious objections’, 2024, Translucent dye, colour powder pigment, epoxyglass on perspex, 200 x 180 cm.
Kirtika Kain: 'Tar' at The Cube, Mosman Art Gallery
Congratulations to Kirtika Kain whose latest exhibition 'Tar' was unveiled in the experimental space, The Cube, at Mosman Art Gallery earlier this month.
'Tar' features a suite of new experimental works that have been created from transferring and “peeling” the surface of paintings onto hessian with tar, in a process similar to the “strappo” method of preserving frescoes.
"Materials contain entire worlds, they hold stories, they have lineages. When we observe them, we witness their history. This show reflects on material memory. In the attempt to speak of my own caste history, I see myself returning to materials, as only they can express the enormity and scale of time. Tar is one such ancient material. It has been used in punishment, medicine, ceremony and masonry; tar roads a symbol of wealth and privilege, tar is a material of labour and the division of castes." – Kirtika Kain, 2024
Join Kirtika Kain and curator Kelly McDonald in conversation on Wednesday 19 June at Mosman Art Gallery. Please book online to attend.
'Tar' is on view at Mosman Art Gallery until 18 August 2024.
Portrait image: Cassandra Hannagan
Julie Rrap Featured in Artist Profile Issue 67
"Julie Rrap moves across media in her exploration of the body and performativity. From her seminal 'Disclosures: A Photographic Construct' of 1982 which contested the photographic gaze to newly produced video work and monumental bronze sculpture. Rrap re-asserts the woman's body into art and history across a lifetime, exploring the limits and potentiality of each medium in doing so."
For Issue 67 of Artist Profile, writer Lilian Cameron’s cover story, accompanied by Anna Kuu010dera’s exclusive portraits, recognises the achievements of Julie Rrap. For more than forty years Julie has subverted the male gaze by asserting her life and body into art and history.
Julie will present a suite of historic and new works at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in a forthcoming solo exhibition entitled ‘Past Continuous’ which opens in June. She will also present a new body of work at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in August.
Subscribe to Artist Profile to order your copy or find a list of stockists on the Artist Profile website.
Callum Morton City of Sydney Commission 'In Through the Out Door' Unveiled
Congratulations to Callum Morton whose public art project ‘In Through the Out Door’ was unveiled last night in Sydney.
Commissioned by the City of Sydney, produced by Monash Art Projects and fabricated by Gorilla Constructions, ‘In Through the Out Door’ reimagines three rear doorways in city laneways on Market Row and Mullins Street, between Clarence and York streets.
Each tiled and painted doorway references particular patterns, colours and forms found across the city and reconfigures them in a new way. In these doorways, you can see the Old English tiles on the floor of the Queen Victoria Building flipped onto a wall as a type of carpet, the tile pattern of the Opera House merged with Sol Le Witt’s mural in the foyer of Australia Square, and the entrance of Luna Park merged with the radiating patterns on the floor of the State Theatre and Harry Seidler’s floor design at Australia Square.
“They are placed in laneways that are back of house, hidden corners of the city that are mostly spaces for smoking, drug taking and deliveries, for secret trysts and homelessness. I like to think that these reimagined fire exits are grand entrances dedicated to all this activity, to stuff we don’t want people to see, stuff that’s stored out the back - hence the title (with thanks to Led Zeppelin).” – Callum Morton, 2024
EXHIBITION OPENING: Gareth Sansom
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is pleased to present 'Juxtapositions', an exhibition of new paintings by Gareth Sansom.
Opening reception: Friday, 17 May from 6–8pm
Exhibition dates: 17 May – 8 June 2024
Gareth Sansom’s artistic career spans over 60 years and he is widely acknowledged as one of the most original and exciting Australian painters of his generation. Eschewing his traditional love of montage, the artist relies on eccentric mark-making and belligerent colouration. Sansom’s luridly coloured and densely layered paintings explore physical, psychological and material transformation; they begin as one thing but swiftly morph into another. In his practice Sansom rallies against his own control and consciousness in his work – he aspires to constantly surprise and challenge himself as an artist. Sansom’s psychological landscapes explore themes including popular culture, cinema and sex.
Gareth Sansom has been represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery since 1982.
Email [email protected] to request a catalogue.
Image: Gareth Sansom, 'Play me the Monolith Blues', 2024, oil and enamel on linen, 183 x 244 cm.
EVENT: Artist Talk and Book Signing with Bill Henson
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is pleased to invite you to an artist talk and book signing with Bill Henson. His monograph, 'The Liquid Night', was first launched at Paris Photo in 2023 and has sold out. Remaining copies are available through Roslyn Oxley Gallery on Saturday, 4 May 2024.
Saturday, 4 May 2024
2–3pm: Artist Talk
3–4pm: Book Signing
The images in Bill Henson’s new book derive from work the highly acclaimed artist shot on 35mm colour negative film in New York City in 1989. This historically important series, currently on display at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, chronicles what once was the cultural capital of the West – a New York City that no longer exists.
"They were shot as formal 35mm frames and served as images in quest of an artistic resolution which Bill Henson became besotted with and which he has now resolved in digital terms creating a compendium of new art which is a recapitulation of a world that has vanished like an all but forgotten dream that tugs at the mind as a set of animated emblems that no longer exist in contemporary reality.
They revisit in the artist’s memory –– and as strange images in the spectator’s –– a world that is the instantiation of time lost and only to be recaptured by the restored function of memory." – Peter Craven
EXHIBITION OPENINGS: Bill Henson and Linda Marrinon
UPCOMING: Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is pleased to present two new exhibitions by artists Bill Henson and Linda Marrinon.
Opening reception: Friday, 12 April 2024 from 6–8pm
Exhibition dates: 12 April – 11 May 2024
'The Liquid Night', an exhibition of new images by Bill Henson, shot in New York City in 1989 on 35mm colour negative film.
Bill Henson AO is one of Australia's most distinguished artists. His darkly enigmatic photographs have been exhibited extensively both in Australia and around the world over a period of five decades. His sublime imagery captures fleeting sensations through shadow, the distant glow of nature and the transition between the known and unknown world. These intense and intimate images suggest a space between the real and the mystical. Bill Henson has been represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery since 1990.
'All hail Tony Duquette!', an exhibition of new terracotta statuettes and tableaux by seminal Australian artist Linda Marrinon.
Linda Marrinon is celebrated for her plaster and terracotta figures which employ a playful wit, feminist theory and a critical appraisal of modern figurative sculpture. Rising to prominence in the 1980s with drawings and paintings, Marrinon continues to playfully parody and pastiche the traditional canon of Western art history. Linda Marrinon has been represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery since 1983.
Dale Frank: Growers and Showers opens at National Art School
'Growers and Showers', a significant survey exhibition featuring over 40 large-scale artworks made over the last decade by Dale Frank, opens at the National Art School tomorrow, 11 April 2024 from 6–10pm.
Dale Frank is renowned for his vibrant, glossy, abstract paintings, and his bold experimentation with materials. Presented over two floors of the NAS Gallery, the works in this major exhibition will showcase a multitude of mediums and unexpected surfaces, from poured epoxy-glass on metallic Perspex, to CDs, human hair wigs, shattered glass and air vent ducts. A true maximalist, the gallery environment will also include sculpture, sound and performance to create an immersive viewer experience that tests the boundaries of abstraction and explores the potentiality of painting.
To RSVP to the opening celebrations, click the link in our bio.
Artwork details: Dale Frank, 'Eric' (detail), 2016, painted silicone masks and Epoxyglass on Perspex, 200 x 200 cm.
Guggenheim Museum Acquisition: Daniel Boyd
Congratulations to Daniel Boyd whose work has recently been acquired by the prestigious Guggenheim Museum.
Originally showcased at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery as part of Boyd's 2022 solo exhibition, 'Untitled (RMUFWM)' and 'Untitled (ASUTIBABTF)' will join a distinguished collection of over 8000 artworks renowned for featuring some of the 20th and 21st centuries most recognisable artworks and distinguished artists.
Daniel Boyd has been represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery since 2009.
Image: Daniel Boyd, 'Untitled (RMUFWM)', 2022, oil, acrylic, charcoal, pastel and archival glue on linen, 236 x 146 cm.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Kirtika Kain Commission at the Museum of Contemporary Art
Congratulations to Kirtika Kain whose incredible large-scale material painting, ‘The illusion of your history’, was unveiled last week at the MCA Australia.
Delhi-born, Sydney-based artist, Kirtika Kain examines how oppressive social hierarchies and power structures have been enforced upon and embodied by generations before her from the perspective of an outsider.
Commission by the Biennale of Sydney, this ambitious ten-metre-long layered canvas is Kain’s largest work to date, incorporating almost 30 individual materials including cow dung, gold leaf and wax.
Artwork details: Kirtika Kain, ‘The illusion of your history’, 2023, gold, gold leaf, wax, cotton wicks, human hair, wire, plastic, cow dung, chunni fabric, cotton, Rangoli pigment, Holi pigment, plasticine, coconut broom grass, acrylic paint, grains, copper leaf, coir rope, leather, wire, card- board, plaster, impasto, black lotus seeds, sindoor, turmeric, tar, 300 x 1000 cm.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Kaylene Whiskey Commission at White Bay Power Station
Congratulations to Kaylene Whiskey who was commissioned by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain and the Biennale of Sydney to create this incredible large-scale work, ‘Kaylene TV’, which is now on display at White Bay Power Station.
Whiskey saturates her dazzling artworks with strong and resilient heroines such as Dolly Parton, Cat Woman, Wonder Woman, Tina Turner and even nuns and the biblical Mary. These fiercely feminine figures are an ode to self-determination and empowerment. Transposed to Indulkana, a remote Aboriginal led community in South Australia near the tri-state border, Whiskey’s strident femmes tell stories from the head and heart seamlessly melding traditional motifs with popular culture.
Artwork details: Kaylene Whiskey, ‘Kaylene TV’, 2024, mixed media, dimensions variable. Photography: David Suyasa.
EXHIBITION OPENINGS – Destiny Deacon and Fiona Hall
UPCOMING: Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is pleased to present two exhibitions of new work by Destiny Deacon and Fiona Hall.
Opening reception: Saturday, 9 March 2024 from 4-6pm
Exhibition dates: 9 March – 6 April 2024u2060
u2060Destiny Deacon is a descendant of the KuKu (Far North Queensland) and Erub/Mer (Torres Strait) people. Since the 1990s Deacon’s work has been primarily involved with performative photography, exploring Indigenous identity with often provocative and humorous imagery that mocks and satirises clichéd and racist stereotypes. Partly autobiographical and partly fictitious, Deacon’s work is an insightful comedy that is effective in establishing a discourse about political, Indigenous and feminist concerns.u2060
Zero or Nothing, is a major mixed-media exhibition of new works by Fiona Hall.u2060
Fiona Hall is best known for extraordinary works that transform quotidian materials into vital organic forms with both historical and contemporary resonances. Hall works across a broad range of mediums including photography, painting, sculpture, moving image and installation, often employing forms of museological display. Hall’s sculptures are characterized by their intricate construction and thematic resonance with issues of environmentalism, globalization, war and conflict.
EVENT: 'Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery: The First 40 Years' Book Launch and Opening Reception
We are immensely proud to announce the official launch of 'Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery: The First 40 Years', a comprehensive overview of four decades of Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery's history and its role in fostering the careers of many of the most influential Australian and international artists of our time.
In line with the release of the book, we look forward to presenting a major group exhibition at the gallery featuring artworks by each of our represented artists. The exhibition will be curated by Felicity Fenner, writer and editor of the publication.
Book Launch & Opening Reception: Wednesday, 14 February 2024 from 6:30–8:00pm*
Exhibition Dates: 10 February – 2 March 2024
Pre-orders are now available to purchase through our online store which you can access via the link in our bio. To secure your copy at the exclusive pre-order price of AU$ 100 (+ delivery), please be sure to process your payment before 14 February 2024. If you require international delivery, please contact the gallery for a quote.
Pre-orders will be dispatched for delivery and ready for collection from the gallery from Wednesday, 14 February 2024.
Writer and Editor – Felicity Fenner
Publisher – Mark Gowing / Formist Editions
Congratulations to Bill Henson OAM
Congratulations to Bill Henson who was appointed an officer of the Order of Australia for his ‘distinguished service to the visual arts as a photographer, and to the promotion of Australian culture’.
Bill Henson is one of Australia’s most well-known, long established and critically acclaimed artists and his dark, enigmatic images have been exhibited extensively both locally and internationally over an incredible 45-year career. His sublime imagery proposes open-ended narratives that capture a fleeting sensation that occurs between childhood and adulthood, light and dark, the urban and suburban.
Henson represented Australia at the 46th Venice Biennale in 1995. He had his first solo exhibition, at the age of 19, at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1975. The NGV has now acquired over 100 Henson works, the most significant of any public institution. His work is held in every major public collection in Australia and many overseas collections including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and Tate, London.
Sir Isaac Julien Named one of Artsy's Ten Most Influential Artists of 2023
Congratulations to Isaac Julien who has been named by Artsy as one of the ten Most Influential Artists of 2023.
Artsy's top ten are all artists who’ve sparked important conversations, amplified voices in their communities, and drawn attention to the causes they care about this year, from early-career artists gathering momentum to award-winners and trailblazers.
"With 'What Freedom Is To Me,' Tate Britain gave Isaac Julien his long-overdue flowers, as the artist’s first ever U.K. survey. In showcasing four and a half hours’ worth of the artist’s work, which spans film, multiscreen installation, dance, music, and sculpture, the institution centered narratives of racism, queerness, sexuality, colonialism, and migration—themes that are now hotly discussed, and that Julien has been exploring for decades.
"While the Tate show thrust him most directly into the spotlight, it’s not his only accolade of the year. There was his gallery show at Victoria Miro, which ran concurrently with the Tate exhibition; 'Lessons of the Hour '(2019), Julien’s portrait of Frederick Douglass, which was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum; and 'Lina Bo Bardi – A Marvelous Entanglement' (2019), his immersive film installation about the Italian Brazilian modernist architect, which just closed at the Yale Center for British Art. Plus, he landed at number five on ArtReview’s Power 100 list."
Holiday Hours
Season’s Greetings from all of us at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery!
We will be closed for our summer break from 17 December 2023 and will reopen our doors on Tuesday, 16 January 2024.
We look forward to sharing an exciting program with you in the new year and to continuing our current exhibitions by Kirtika Kain and Patricia Piccinini until 25 January.
We wish you a safe and restful festive season.
John Wolseley: The Quiet Conservationist opens at Gippsland Art Gallery
A solo exhibition of works by John Wolseley opens at Gippsland Art Gallery in regional Victoria.
Exhibition dates: 02 December 2023 — 18 February 2024
'John Wolseley: The Quiet Conservationist' centres around works the artist created while living and working in the region (1976–1979) following his emigration to Australia in 1976 to join the teaching staff of the Gippsland Institute of Advanced Education (GIAE) in Churchill.
"The exhibition presents an affectionate and intimate portrait of a special period in the story of the region’s art, and places works created by Wolseley during his Gippsland period within the greater context of his environmental conservationism."
EXHIBITION OPENINGS – Kirtika Kain and Patricia Piccinini
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is pleased to announce upcoming exhibitions of new work by artists Kirtika Kain and Patricia Piccinini.
Opening reception: Saturday, 2 December from 4-6pm*
Exhibition dates: 2 December 2023 – January 2024
*Please register your attendance to the opening reception via the link in our bio.
Kirtika Kain: Blue Bloods
Blue Bloods is a constellation of new material paintings that reflect on the unseen colour and vibrancy of Dalit history. Paying tribute to the colour of Dalit resistance,
Blue Bloods is an imagining of the grandeur of an ancient history that has not been valued or archived, but has been absorbed and witnessed by the body, the earth and the cosmos. Each canvas is created by laying raw materials associated with religious festivals and prayer, including cotton wicks, pigments and powders, golds, glass, grains, oils and waxes. The surfaces are compressed, erased, built upon and let to dry layer by layer, an intuitive and unpredictable process unique to each work in the series.
Patricia Piccinini:The way they connect without seeing
In this captivating new body of work, Piccinini presents an exhibition that transcends mediums and seamlessly explores the delicate beauty of hand-blown glass alongside the figurative sculptures rendered in silicone and hair for which she is well-known.
Image (Left): Kirtika Kain, 'Blue Bloods VIII', 2023, cotton wicks, rangoli pigment, gold leaf, tar, artist pigment, acrylic paint, 120 x 120 cm.
Image (Right): Patricia Piccinini, 'Cerulean Consciousness', 2023, hand blown glass, 21 x 29.5 x 29 cm.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery: The First 40 Years
We are immensely proud to announce the forthcoming release of 'Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery: The First 40 Years,' a comprehensive overview of four decades of Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery's history and its role in fostering the careers of many of the most influential Australian and international artists of our time.
Since its establishment in 1982, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery has showcased the works of more than 350 artists, with a focus on fostering creativity, experimentation, and uncensored ideas. Four decades on, the Gallery continues with this enduring vision and commitment of support.
Published by Formist Editions and with a foreword by Anna Waldmann, former Director of Visual Arts for the Australian Council for the Arts, this major publication features and includes contributions from over 50 prominent artists, curators and philanthropists whose stories are seamlessly woven together by the central essay written by esteemed academic and curator, Felicity Fenner.
This publication offers an invaluable educational resource, presenting extensive installation imagery in chronological order from 1982 to the present day. This is interspersed with a wealth of social photographs capturing the effervescence of exhibition openings and events over the years.
'Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery: The First 40 Years' will be launched on the evening of Valentine's Day, 14 February 2024, with a celebration at the Gallery. Copies are available for pre-order through to 14 February 2023 at an exclusive price of AU$ 100. Following this, they will be available for purchase for AU$ 110 from the Gallery and through reputable bookstores nationwide.
Join us in celebrating this major milestone and be sure to acquire a small piece of contemporary art history on Valentine's Day next year.
To pre-order a copy, email [email protected].
EXHIBITION OPENING: Imants Tillers 'Remembering the unknown'
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to present 'Remembering the unknown', an exhibition of new works by Imants Tillers.
Opening reception: Friday, 27 October from 6–8pm*
Exhibition dates: 27 October – 25 November 2023
*Please register your attendance to the opening reception.
Imants Tillers is one of Australia’s foremost contemporary artists whose practice spans five decades. Since 1981 Tillers has used his signature canvas boards to explore themes relevant to contemporary culture, from the centre/periphery debates of the 1980s to the effects of migration, displacement and diaspora. Since moving to Cooma in 1996, his paintings have been concerned with place, locality and evocations of landscape. Tillers juxtaposes layers of imagery and text drawn from a great many sources of influence and inspiration. The result is a convergence of ideas and a multiplicity of references that cite art – predominantly other artists’ work – history, literature, philosophy, poetry and the artist’s personal history.
Imants Tillers has been represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery since 1990.
Image: Imants Tillers, ‘Critical Forest 5’, 2023, synthetic polymer paint, gouache on 32 canvasboards, 204 x 143 cm.
EXHIBITION OPENING: The Winter Bride
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to present an exhibition of important historical works from the oeuvres of seven prominent contemporary artists: Destiny Deacon, Fiona Hall, Bill Henson, Isaac Julien, Linda Marrinon, Tracey Moffatt and Jenny Watson.
Exhibition dates: 06–21 October 2023
Opening reception: Tomorrow Friday 7th October from 3–5pm
Illustrating key moments in time from the archives of seven luminaries, ‘The Winter Bride’ represents an opportunity to revisit artworks that have left an indelible mark on the contemporary Australian art landscape. Highlights include Destiny Deacon’s tragicomic photographic odyssey Waiting for Goddess; photographic work from the 1970s by prominent Australian artist Fiona Hall; work from from Bill Henson’s enigmatic 1987/88 photographic series capturing the neon-lit nightscapes of New York City in the late 1980s; a collection of sumptuous silver gelatin photographic works by Isaac Julien from his series Looking for Langston, a lyrical exploration of the private world of the artists and writers who formed the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s; selected works from Tracey Moffatt’s renowned series Laudanum, a hallucinatory tale of sexual violence taking place in a colonial mansion filtered through what appears to be a drug-fuelled haze; a series of small etchings from 2003 by Linda Marrinon; and selected works by Jenny Watson from her presentation at the Venice Biennale in 1993.
EVENT: Artist Talk Tom Polo in Conversation with Jenny Brockie
To mark the occasion of his latest solo exhibition 'somewhere on the edge of you', we are delighted to host Tom Polo in conversation with acclaimed journalist Jenny Brockie at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery on Saturday, 23 September at 11:30am.
Tom Polo uses painting and painted environments to explore how conversation, doubt and gesture are embodied acts of portraiture. Frequently incorporating text and figurative elements, his works draw upon acute observations, absurdist encounters, personal histories and imagined personas. An ongoing interest across his practice is the emotional and performative relationships between people within social, theatrical and psychological space.
Jenny Brockie is one of Australia’s most respected and experienced journalists, broadcasters and facilitators, reporting in Australia and abroad for current affairs programs including Four Corners, Insight and Nationwide. She has received various awards for her work including the Gold Walkley, two AFI Awards, a Logie, and a Human Rights Award. Jenny has also won eight United Nations Association Media Peace Awards for her work on Insight.
As numbers are limited, please register your attendance.
EXHIBITION OPENINGS – Tom Polo and Sarah Contos
Exhibition Dates: 25 August – 23 September 2023
*Please register your attendance to the opening reception
Sarah Contos: BODYDOUBLE 24 X A SECOND
Sarah Contos’ practice revolves around themes of femininity, sexuality and materiality, offering unrestrained, personal and emotional dialogue. Theatrical narrative and drama define her assemblages. Contos is fascinated by the relationships between objects and one’s autonomous associations with them. Exploring the dual nature of “things”, her tantalising installations play on the friction that exists between seduction and repulsion. Sarah Contos has been represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery since 2015.
Image right: Sarah Contos, Body Double #4 (Odette), 2023, oil on canvas, 172 cm x 157.5 (framed). Photo: David Suyasa
EVENT: Exhibition Tour — Renee So and Charlotte Day at UNSW Galleries
Join Renee So and exhibition curator Charlotte Day for an intimate walkthrough of ‘Provenance’ Saturday 19 August 2023 from 3–4pm at UNSW Galleries.
Together Renee and Charlotte will discuss key developments within So’s practice from early motifs of bearded men and masculine archetypes to more recent representations of feminine forms and observations of elginism.
Exhibition dates: 17 August – 19 November 2023
Exhibition tour: 3-4pm Saturday 19 August 2023
First shown earlier this year at Monash University Art Museum in Melbourne, 'Renee So: Provenance,' brings together more than a decade of art-making alongside new work, surfacing narratives within So's evolving practice.
"I want my works to look timeless and placeless, to create something that looks like it may have already existed, but so that you can't really place where that might be... it looks slightly familiar and reminds you of other things." – Renee So in conversation with Charlotte Day, 2023
Image: Portrait of Renee So, courtesy of UNSW Galleries, Sydney
EVENT: Artist Talk – David Noonan and Shaun Gladwell in conversation
On the occasion of his solo exhibition 'MASKEN', we are delighted to host David Noonan in conversation with artist Shaun Gladwell at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery on the final day of the exhibition.
Saturday, 19 August at 11am
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
As numbers are limited, please register your attendance
David Noonan’s collage works, films, paintings, sculptural objects, tapestries and installations are characterised by a complex layering of found historical and contemporary images. In his work, he is interested in the liminal and temporal; in the dialogue between figuration and abstraction and a de-linear sense of time; in ambiguities, contradictions and in-between spaces. Noonan lives and works in London.
Shaun Gladwell uses disciplines of human movement to investigate function and meaning within urban, natural, and extended reality environments. His oeuvre is considered an important contribution to the cataloguing and celebration of movement based sub-cultures that have emerged within his generation. The artist has also been recognized for pioneering work with immersive, extended reality technologies. Gladwell lives and works in Sydney.
EXHIBITION OPENING: 'Renee So: Provenance' at UNSW Galleries
First shown at Monash University Art Museum (MUMA), Melbourne, from 27 April – 8 July 2023, Provenance, a major survey exhibition of works by Renee So, will open next Thursday 17 August at UNSW Galleries, Sydney.
Guest curated by Charlotte Day, the exhibition is co-presented with MUMA and brings together more than a decade of art-making alongside new work, surfacing narratives within So's evolving practice.
"I want my works to look timeless and placeless, to create something that looks like it may have already existed, but so that you can't really place where that might be... it looks slightly familiar and reminds you of other things." – Renee So in conversation with Charlotte Day, 2023
Opening Event: Thursday 17 August, 6–8pm
Exhibition Dates: 17 August – 19 November 2023
Image: Renee So, Drunken Bellarmine II, 2023, knitted acrylic yarn, 150 x 110 x 4 cm
24th Biennale of Sydney artists announced
We are thrilled to announce the participation of Kirtika Kain, Tracey Moffatt and Kaylene Whiskey in the 24th Biennale of Sydney: Ten Thousand Suns (9 March – 10 June 2024).
Curated by Artistic Directors Cosmin Costinau and Inti Guerrero, the 24th Biennale of Sydney works across time periods, beyond the borders separating cultural practices rooted in different genealogies, and from all continents. The edition owes a profound debt to the rich heritage of what is known today as Australia, especially to the struggles and practices in which First Nations communities and migrants have played key roles.
The selected artists’ practices are firmly rooted in diverse communities and artistic vocabularies, inviting audiences to bear witness to multiple histories. The exhibition carries hope to resist the mainstream mindsets of perpetual crisis that often leads to inaction
Newell Harry: 'Esperanto' at MAMA
We are thrilled to share news of Newell Harry's forthcoming solo exhibition at Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA), the artist's largest solo project to date and the first time MAMA has presented a major solo exhibition of works by a contemporary Australian artist.
Exhibition dates: 28 July - 26 November 2023
Esperanto presents the breadth of Newell Harry’s practice, woven together in a complex network of ideas and narratives. The exhibition recognises pivotal moments in Australian, South African and Indo-Pacific histories of the 60s and 70s, such as the end of the White Australia Policy, the 1967 referendum, anti-apartheid rugby protests, environmental and anti-nuclear testing movements, as well as themes of South African pop culture, ideas of trade, gift giving, family stories of migration and care, and an open engagement with notions of museological display and value.
Newell Harry is an Australian born artist of South African and Mauritian descent who draws from an intimate web of connections across Oceania and the wider Indo-Pacific, to South Africa’s Western Cape Province where his extended family continue to reside.
EXHIBITION OPENING: David Noonan 'MASKEN'
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to present 'MASKEN', an exhibition of new works by David Noonan.
Opening reception: Friday, 21 July from 6-8pm
Exhibition dates: 21 July – 19 August 2023
David Noonan’s collage works, films, paintings, sculptural objects, tapestries and installations are characterised by a complex layering of found historical and contemporary images. In his work, he is interested in the liminal and temporal; in the dialogue between figuration and abstraction and a de-linear sense of time; in ambiguities, contradictions and in-between spaces.
David Noonan has been represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery since 1999.
Image: David Noonan, 'Issie', 2023, liquid pigment on hand-dyed fabric, aluminium frame, 57.5 x 42 x 4 cm.
Isaac Julien Releases Limited Edition Series of Prints, 'Looking for Langston – What Freedom Is To Me'
Isaac Julien has released an edition of 100 prints to accompany his major solo exhibition at the Tate Britain What Freedom is to Me.
This ambitious exhibition highlights Julien's critical thinking and the way his work breaks down barriers between different artistic disciplines. Julien draws from film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting and sculpture by utilising the themes of desire, history and culture.
Alongside this series of 100 prints, entitled Looking for Langston – What Freedom Is To Me, Julien has generously donated 10 signed Artist Proofs to support the Art Monthly Subscription Donation Fund.
Destiny Deacon recipient of the Musee du quai Branly 2023 Photographic Prize
Congratulations to Destiny Deacon who is one of three laureates of the Musee du quai Branly’s 2023 Photographic Prize for her project 'Outside Looking In'
Since its launch in 2008, the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac Residency program has supported contemporary photographic artists to create an original body of work.
Made especially for the prize, 'Outside Looking In' will mark Deacon's return to her early usage of Polaroid and digital prints as she deploys her renowned ‘blak’ humour within taut compositions of dolls, family and friends. Her work confronts colonialism, sovereignty and racism with an assortment of Koorie kitsch and a cast of rescued dolls: “I feel sorry for those little dolls lying in trash and treasure markets…looking all forlorn and stuff. I just seem to rescue them.”
Image: Destiny Deacon at the Sharjah Biennial, 2023.
'Nightshifts' — group show featuring Mikala Dwyer, Tracey Moffatt, Callum Morton and David Noonan at Buxton Contemporary
Works by Mikala Dwyer, Tracey Moffatt, Callum Morton and David Noonan are currently on display at Buxton Contemporary as part of nightshifts, a group exhibition curated by Hannah Presley and Annika Aitken.
Exhibition dates: 26 May – 29 October 2023
nightshifts considers the importance of solitude through contemporary arts practice. Shifting in and out of focus like a dreamscape, the exhibition looks to the shadows and after hours as metaphors for the work and thinking that happens beneath the surface, away from the public gaze: time alone in the studio, during the quiet of the night and while asleep.
These artists demonstrate the natural cycles and shifting conditions of working alone, from rumination to meditative, flow-like states and the periods of quiet and rest that necessarily follow. Solo human journeys and cosmic trajectories diverge and connect, and perspectives on Deep Listening demonstrate the power of singular focus to sharpen attention and reveal things unseen.
Image: Featuring Lisa Sammut, 'How the earth will approach you' 2023, David Noonan, 'Owl' 2006, Tracey Moffatt, 'Invocations # 5' 2000.
Fiona Hall: 'Hunger for Power / Power of Hunger' at the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery in Hobart
Fiona Hall's incredible mixed media installation 'Hunger for Power / Power of Hunger', 2023 is currently on display at the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery in Hobart as part of 'Twist', a group exhibition bringing together artworks by exceptional Australian and Irish artists to engage with themes explored by author Charles Dickens (1812-1870).
In his novels, Dickens addressed issues such as crime and punishment, the dire impact of poverty on women and children and the grim conditions in public institutions such as orphanages, prisons and workhouses. He was as fascinated by the people and social interactions in the far-flung colonies as he was in those of the dirty streets of London. Many of his characters were transported or immigrated to Australia.
Artwork details: Fiona Hall, 'Hunger for Power / Power of Hunger', 2023, mixed media, dimensions variable.
Brook Andrew, 'NGAAY’ (2023) for the Liverpool Biennial 2023
For the Liverpool Biennial 2023, Brook Andrew was commissioned to create a large-scale neon work which is now installed at Stanley Dock. Entitled ‘NGAAY’ (2023), a Wiradjuri word meaning ‘to see’, Brook's newly created commission combines languages including Irish, Scottish Gaelic, isiXhosa, Wiradjuri, Urdu, Mandarin and Welsh, symbolising the cultural and historical linguistic diversity of Merseyside.
It is at once a celebration and a critical examination of this diversity, highlighting its origins in the city’s history of trade in goods and enslaved peoples. The river Mersey acts as a witness to these histories of violence and extraction which remain mapped across the world today: Sydney, Australia is home to a place called Birkenhead Point and a suburb named Liverpool. These duplicate monikers serve as reminders of the British colonial exploits that spanned the globe. Through centring indigenous language and perspectives, Andrew’s work questions the limitations imposed by colonial power structures, historical amnesia, and stereotyping. Drawing on his Wiradjuri heritage (Indigenous Australian), Andrew disrupts Western conventions of space and time, to present alternative histories and ways of being.
The 12th edition of Liverpool Biennial, curated by Khanyisile Mbongwa, uMoya: The sacred Return of Lost Things addresses the history and temperament of the city of Liverpool and is a call for ancestral and indigenous forms of knowledge, wisdom and healing. In the isiZulu language, uMoya means spirit, breath, air, climate and wind.
Exhibition dates: 10 June – 17 September 2023
Brook Andrew: Commissioned Public Artwork 'Warrang' at the MCA
This public artwork, Warrang (2012) by Brook Andrew, was commissioned as a contemporary interpretation of the heritage significance of the colonial naval docks located under the new wing of the MCA. In an alcove just to the side of the museum’s entrance, a sculptural LED arrow, measuring over 2 metres in length, pulsates with a dynamic pattern of radiating rectangular shapes.
The arrow directs our gaze to seven lines of poetry written by Andrew and engraved into the concrete forecourt. As the artist says, readers following the text will walk along ‘a dock’s edge, water edge, imaginary edge of the archaeology and sandstone under the earth. Visitors will not only be physically drawn to the arrow from far across Circular Quay, especially during evening times, but will congregate to contemplate the text which specifically speaks to the site as Sydney Cove. This arrow and text mark the present site as a historical and colonial ship-building port, docks and architecture’.
Jenny Watson: HOTA Painting Masterclass
Jenny Watson at HOTA: Pop Power Painting Masterclass — Saturday, 27 May 2023
Jenny Watson’s conceptually oriented work explores experimental use of mediums such as acrylic, oil, Japanese pigments, ink staining, often with ribbons, diamantes, dress and furnishing fabrics. Images are drawn from content that is highly personal; self-portraits, friends, horses, cats, houses and flowers, also with the use of text. Femininity and feminism are often part of the equation.
In this Pop Power Masterclass participants are asked to bring photographs and other images that hold some personal meaning to them as the basis for exploration over the course of the day. The masterclass includes all materials, but participants are also welcome to bring their own materials.
Patricia Piccinini 'Hope' at Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong
atricia Piccinini's immersive exhibition HOPE, currently on display at Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong, is her most ambitious exhibition ever in Asia. Covering 20 years of Piccinini's practice through sculpture, drawing, video and installation, HOPE taps into our hopes and fears about the impact of science on humanity.
Her hyperrealistic and surreal works, often rooted in art historical forms, explore various “unexpected consequences”, whether negative or positive. HOPE raises important questions about the nature of history, progress, and technology, and ponders our collective ability to create warm and caring relationships and to live lovingly with each other.
Exhibition dates: 24 May – 3 September 2023
Del Kathryn Barton: receives 2023 Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting
Congratulations to Del Kathryn Barton and Huna Amweero who were the recipients of the 2023 Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards last night for their script Blaze, produced in 2022 by Causeway Films.
Blaze had its World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival (2022) and its Australian Premiere at the Sydney Film Festival (2022) to rapturous acclaim, and follows a young girl who, after witnessing a violent sexual assault, retreats into her imagination where a shimmering magic dragon who has been her childhood companion, allows her to express her rage and ultimately find renewal.
The judges said: "This is a stunning script, vivid in its visual language and inexorable in its conclusion. Character and theme are universal, yet placed in a contemporary world and plotted with social issues that reverberate with today’s audience. It provides us with such an interesting and evocative take on a crime that has resonated down through centuries. Puppetry and animation give the work a thematic and stylistic twist, and the mid-story turning point is sharply spun."
Newell Harry in 'Remedios' at C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía in Córdoba, Spain
An installation of works by Newell Harry are currently on display in the group exhibition Remedios, curated by Daniela Zyman, at C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía in Córdoba, Spain.
Exhibition dates: 14 April 2023 - March 2024
In Untitled (Anagrams and Objects for R.U. & R.U. (Part I) and (Part II), 2015, Harry employs a familiar methodology of tracing and inventing material and linguistic relations through the inclusion of Kula Ring, a traditional system of exchanging ceremonial gifts, and through a series of anagrammatic Tapa cloth (Tongan Ngatu) banners.
Image (1): Newell Harry, Untitled (Anagrams and Objects for R.U. & R.U. (Part I), 2015, seven unique ink screen prints on hand-beaten Tongan Ngatu, overall dimensions: 310 x 850 cm.
Linda Marrinon: Sense and Sensibility – Art Collector Feature
For four decades, Linda Marrinon has practiced with distinguished earnestness and humility. Ahead of her solo exhibition Pierre Fresnay and other sculptures at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Marrinon spoke with Jacqueline Millner for Issue 104 of Art Collector.
“Rising to prominence in the early 1980s very soon after graduating from painting at the Victorian College of the Arts, Marrinon was picked for the cover of the arch postmodern art magazine, 'Art and Text', with ‘I sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew’, 1982 a piece that mixed her love of pop cultural forms, playful anti-heroic mark-making and feminist knowingness.
But unlike much art from this high-water mark of postmodernism, Marrinon’s always retained elements of genuine emotion: pleasure in the making process, warmth towards her sources of inspiration including art history, and empathy for her often vulnerable and hapless subjects (including herself). And it is this distinguishing earnestness and humility that drove the artist’s continuing experimentation with styles and media. For, after her early success with “bad painting”, Marrinon radically changed tack to embark on a quest to be good at sculpture, and 19th century sculpture no less." –Jacqueline Millner, 2023
Kaylene Whiskey – 2023 Archibald and Sir John Sulman Prize Finalist
Congratulations to Kaylene Whiskey whose paintings 'Cooking my famous Indulkana soup' and 'Come see Kaylene' are finalists in the Art Gallery of NSW's 2023 Archibald and Sir John Sulman Prizes, respectively.
"Just like my hero Dolly Parton, I work “9 to 5” from Monday to Friday, painting at Iwantja Arts, and so on the weekends I like to relax. I put on my favourite music or movies, and I cook soup. I’m famous in my home community of Indulkana for making a delicious soup!’ says Kaylene Whiskey, who lives in Indulkana on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, South Australia."– Kaylene Whiskey, 2023 in reference to her painting 'Cooking my famous Indulkana soup' which is a finalist in the 2023 Archibald Prize.
Image: Kaylene Whiskey, 'Cooking my famous Indulkana soup', 2023, acrylic on linen, 152.2 x 168 cm.
Dhambit Mununggurr - 2023 Wynne Prize Finalist
Congratulations to Dhambit Mununggurr whose bark painting 'Yolngu voice' is a finalist in the Art Gallery of NSW's 2023 Wynne Prize.
This work shows Gunyungarra/Ski Beach, the home of Dhambit Mununggurr, in Melville Bay, North-east Arnhem Land. The community is part of the Gumatj homelands and was established by Mununggurr’s maternal grandfather, Munggurrawuy Yunupingu, when he led a return to Country in the 1970s, away from missionary influence and control. Gunyungarra has a rich history of political action; the community was run by land rights campaigner G Yunupingu, the artist’s uncle, until his recent death.
The Wynne Prize is awarded annually for 'the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours or for the best example of figure sculpture by Australian artists’.
Image: Dhambit Mununggurr, 'Yolngu voice', 2023, acrylic on bark, 223.5 x 108.5 cm.
'Renee So: Provenance' at MUMA
Renee So's incredible survey exhibition, Provenance, curated by Charlotte Day, is on view now at Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) in Melbourne.
Exhibition dates: 27 April – 8 July 2023.
Renee So’s practice is distinguished by its embrace of traditional crafts, cross-cultural thinking, underlying sense of the comedic and persistent feminist worldview. Her idiosyncratic ceramic and textile works are inspired by art history, museum collections and popular forms of gendered symbolism.
Renee So: Provenance is the first major exhibition of the London-based artist’s work in Australia, where she grew up after migrating with her family from Hong Kong at a young age. The exhibition brings together more than a decade of art-making alongside new work, surfacing narratives within her evolving practice.
Save the date for the closing event at MUMA on Saturday, 8 July from 3–5pm.
The exhibition will be presented at UNSW Galleries, Sydney from 18 August – 19 November 2023.
Image: Installation view, Renee So, Provenance, Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), Melbourne (27 April – 8 July 2023). Photo: Andrew Curtis.
Daniel Boyd in 'The National 4: Australian Art Now'
New works by Daniel Boyd are included in 'The National 4: Australian Art Now' at the MCA, curated by Senior Curator, Jane Devery.
In the context of the ongoing Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, and in 2023, a year when Australians will vote at a referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament for constitutional change to enable greater representation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the amplification of marginalised voices is a concern that resonates with particular urgency.
In 'The National' at the MCA, it finds expression in diverse ways and across diverse media, through projects ranging from Daniel Boyd’s critical reframing of Eurocentric historical narratives that addresses the consequences of colonisation for First Nations peoples; to Nicholas Smith’s gentle assertion of a queer aesthetic in his investigation of masculinity and personal identity; to Isabelle Sully’s sound installation which addresses the under-acknowledged role of women in the history of Australian broadcast media; and in Leuli Eshraghi’s recentring of the global Indigenous diaspora and fa‘afafine-fa‘atane, mahu, queer, trans, and non-binary peoples throughout the Great Ocean.
Image: Installation view, 'The National 4: Australian Art Now' at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia. Photo © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Jenni Carter.
'Isaac Julien: What Freedom Is To Me' at Tate Britain
The UK’s first ever survey exhibition celebrating the influential work of British artist and filmmaker Sir Isaac Julien opens at the Tate Britain next Wednesday, 26 April!
'Isaac Julien: What Freedom Is To Me' presents a selection of key works from Julien’s pioneering early films and immersive three-screen videos designed to be experienced in a gallery setting, to the kaleidoscopic, sculptural ten-screen installations for which he is renowned today. Together, they explore how Julien breaks down barriers between different artistic disciplines by drawing from film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting, and sculpture – this exhibition will be one to remember.
'Isaac Julien: What Freedom Is To Me' is on view at Tate Britain from 26 April – 20 August 2023.
EVENT: Tom Polo in conversation with Emilia Terracciano
Join Stolon Press for a conversation on the afterlife of gardens, with Tom Polo and Emilia Terracciano, at St Peters Town Hall tonight from 6-8pm, and a drink after at the General Gordon Hotel opposite Sydenham Station.
Thursday 30th March, 6-8pm
St Peters Town Hall
39 Unwins Bridge Rd, Sydenham NSW 2044
General Gordon Hotel
20 Swain St, Sydenham NSW 2044
Tom Polo will show phone and family album photos taken in his parent's backyard—a productive and decorative garden in Fairfield—to think aloud about what draws his eye to form and colour, before thoughts or decisions emerge. Polo uses painting and installation to explore how conversation, gesture and emotional exchange can be transformed into recordings of social interaction and the self. His practice is characterised by a distinctive style of abstracted figuration, rendered in bold, expansive fields of colour.
Photo: Tom Polo
Forthcoming from Stolon Press: Il Giardino di Olindo (Olindo’s Garden)
Tom Melick, Anna Polo, Olindo Polo, Tom Polou
Daniel Boyd - George Street Plaza & Community Building
Sydney's George Street Plaza & Community Building, designed by Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye in collaboration with Daniel Boyd is now completed.u2060
u2060The George Street Plaza sits in between cultures. It also sits between moments in time, marking a distinct philosophical shift, especially in Australia, from a period that celebrated the “hero” architect, building, view, to one that seeks to decentralize the architect and their architecture. This new perspective envisages architecture as an opportunity to support shifting and evolving modes of use and experiences, and as just one part of a bigger and ever-changing network. u2060
u2060To connect this profound center with the site’s heritage and origins, Adjaye Associates collaborated with Daniel Boyd on the project’s key feature—a 27x34m perforated canopy that shelters and unites the community building and the plaza under a poetic layer of light and dark, solid, and void.
Daniel Boyd 'RAINBOW SERPENT (VERSION)' at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin
Huge congratulations to Daniel Boyd whose solo exhibition 'RAINBOW SERPENT (VERSION)' opened in Berlin at the prestigious exhibition space the Martin-Gropius-Bau overnight.
Exhibition dates: 24 March – 9 July 2023
'RAINBOW SERPENT (VERSION)' is the most comprehensive exhibition of Daniel Boyd’s artistic practice in Europe to date. It provides an overview of Boyd’s image-making that counters the colonial narrative of Australia’s history, engages transnational networks of resistance, Indigenous knowledge production and personal family histories, which he reflects in relation to the context and architecture of the Gropius Bau.
As part of the exhibition's public programs, this Saturday 25 March, Daniel Boyd will be in conversation with architect and scholar Michael Mossman, moderated by Stephanie Rosenthal. On Saturday 29 April, Boyd will be joined by artist and curator Asad Raza for Mangrove Sunset, a six-hour dramaturgy of sound, speech and changing light inspired by the poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant in the exhibition's atrium.
Julie Rrap in the March issue of Harpers Bazaar Australia
For the March issue of Harpers Bazaar Australia, Julie Rrap spoke with Grace O'Neill about her remarkable four-decade career. Making particular reference to her recent exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Julie discusses the reasoning behind the use of her own body in her practice as well as the ongoing relevance of her feminist-inspired work today.
Mikala Dwyer 'Penelope and the Seahorse' at Chau Chak Wing Museum
Mikala Dwyer’s new aquatic-themed installation, 'Penelope and the Seahorse', is now open at Sydney University's Chau Chak Wing Museum.
'Penelope and the Seahorse' alludes to the hippocampus and its multiple meanings: the genus name for the fragile and now endangered sea-horse; the equine fish in Greek mythology who drew Poseidon’s water chariot; and the structure within the brain often associated with memory and spatial navigation.
Caroline Rothwell in Artist Profile Issue 62
"Born in Yorkshire to an industrial chemist and a 'street botanist', Caroline Rothwell treats artmaking as a playful form of research into the natural world, and our human histories of encounter with it."
For the latest issue of Artist Profile, Caroline Rothwell spoke with Andy Butler ahead of her solo exhibition 'What if we could remember the future' which is on view now at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery through 1 April.
'Isaac Julien: PLAYTIME' at The PalaisPopulaire, Berlin
'Isaac Julien: PLAYTIME' is currently on display at the PalaisPopulaire in Berlin.
On view in Germany for the first time, 'PLAYTIME' is more topical than ever. It is about networking, interconnectedness, and the influence that capital, which eludes any explicit possibility of representation, has on all political, social and societal spheres and thus on the lives of almost everyone on the planet.
In 2013, five years after the world has been convulsed by a global banking and financial crisis, Isaac Julien premiered his film 'PLAYTIME' to address an important question: can capital be rendered visible?
In the current day, the PalaisPopulaire and the Wemhöner Collection have joined forces to shed new light on 'PLAYTIME' from today’s perspective and to testify to the work’s topicality, as capital as a medium plays into almost all political, social and societal issues and influences the lives of nearly every human being on this planet.
Exhibition dates: 8 March – 10 July 2023
Patricia Piccinini: 'Metamorphosis' at Kunsthal in Rotterdam
Patricia Piccinini's incredible solo show Metamorphosis is entering its final week on view at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam. Metamorphosis is Piccinini's first solo exhibition in the Netherlands.
Exhibition dates: 25 February – 4 June 2023
With her almost lifelike, alienating sculptures, Piccinini investigates whether it is possible to allow people, nature and technology to exist in harmony. Her fairytale creatures move and evoke empathy for 'the other'. Piccinini uses her art to imagine a possible shared future and asks questions such as: what does it mean to be human? She blurs – with her cyborgs, among other things – the boundary between organic and technological bodies.
Photography: Fred Ernst
Artist Talk: John Wolseley in conversation with Charles Massy
To mark the occasion of his latest solo exhibition 'Regenesis - Slow Water - Deep Earth', Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to host John Wolseley in conversation with farmer, agricultural scientist and author Charles Massy.
Saturday, 11 February 2023
11:30 - 1:00pm
As numbers are limited, please register your attendance.
Brook Andrew: 'burbangbuwanha winha-nga-nha (Returned Ceremony of Memory)', at Sharjah Biennial 15
Working in collaboration with cultural practitioners, performers and creative professionals from First Nations Australia, Sharjah and Berlin, Brook Andrew transformed the courtyard of Bait Hassan Abdulla into a ceremonial ground for the Sharjah Biennial 15. Arraying it with colourful ceramic objects in the shape of vessels, furnaces and incense holders, Brook created a space for a performance led by the character MEMORY from his play GABAN. GABAN is a story of the removal and eventual restitution of cultural objects to their Indigenous homelands through poetry and song. The work continues to serve as a space for gathering after the performance. u2060
Exhibition dates: Exhibition: 7 February - 11 June 2023u2060
u2060
Artwork details: Brook Andrew, burbangbuwanha winha-nga-nha (Returned Ceremony of Memory), 2023, performance, ceramics and installation.u2060
Performers: Performers: Aaron Reeder, Sahar Mohdali, Malavika Suresh and Ashraf Awad and the Ayala Ensemble.u2060
Exhibition Openings: John Wolseley and Kaylene Whiskey
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to present two new exhibitions from John Wolseley and Kaylene Whiskey.
Opening reception: Friday, 27 January from 6-8pm
Exhibition dates: 27 January – 25 February 20223
Patricia Piccinini in Ocula Art
In this video interview by @ocula.art, Patricia Piccinini discusses her strategy of winning us over with category-defying creatures that valorise care.
Known for hyper-realistic silicone sculptures of hyper-imaginative creatures, Piccinini is among Australia's greatest living artists. She represented the country at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, and frequently exhibits at institutions around the globe.
Among her most spectacular undertakings is the creation of hot air balloons called 'Skywhales'—giant imaginary beasts who evolved to live in the atmosphere—and the exhibition 'A Miracle Constantly Repeating', which took place in the long-abandoned ballroom of Melbourne's Flinders Street Station in 2021.
Piccinini invited Ocula Magazine's Sam Gaskin to visit her studio in November 2022, when she was preparing to share new works at Singapore Art Week alongside her exhibition 'We Are Connected' at the city's ArtScience Museum. 'We are Connected' is on view now until 29 January 2023.
Video excerpt filmed and edited by Tov Belling, Pea Shooters Films. Conceived and produced by Sam Gaskin.
Video excerpt courtesy of Ocula @ocula.art
Dale Frank Botanical Gardens Open Day
We are thrilled to share details of the highly anticipated 2023 Dale Frank Botanical Gardens Open Day.
Sunday, 26 March 2023
10am - 3pm
535 Hambledon Hill Road
Singleton NSW
Dale and his team have been working tirelessly for months to relocate entire gardens to ensure their survival after eight years of drought followed multiple flooding events over the last two years. Despite these set back, they have managed to save many beautiful plants and also introduce much more to Dale’s incredible space.
Sir Isaac Julien's Exhibition 'Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass' at Virgina Museum of Fine Arts
Sir Isaac Julien's incredible 10-screen film installation 'Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass' is currently on view at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Exhibition dates: 10 December 2022 – 9 July 2023
The poignant 10-screen meditation on the great 19th-century abolitionist collapses time and space to bridge persistent historical and contemporary challenges of the day. In this profoundly resonating art experience of arresting visuals and sound, internationally renowned London-born artist and filmmaker Sir Isaac Julien brings the historical figure to clear focus for the next generation.
Image: Installation view, Isaac Julien, 'Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass', Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond (10 December 2022 – 9 July 2023).
Rosalie Gascoigne Top 10 Sales at Auction in 2022
Rosalie Gascoigne is best known for her distinctive and poetic assemblages of mostly found materials: wood, iron, wire, feathers, and yellow and orange retro-reflective road signs. Gascoigne brought these items from everyday life into new frames of reference, often finding beauty in overlooked things that had been discarded and left to weather.
This incredible assemblage, 'Beaten Track', was created from sawn pieces of wooden Schwepps soft drink crates. Initially shown at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in 1992, this work has gone on to be one of the top 10 sales results at auction in 2022, selling yesterday for $1.04 million (including buyer's fees).
Callum Morton Appointed New Chair of Gertrude
Congratulations to Callum Morton who has been appointed as the new chair of Gertrude.
The Board of Gertrude is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Callum Morton as its new Chair. Morton is Professor of Fine Art at Monash Art Design and Architecture (MADA) Melbourne and Director of Monash Art Projects. A highly respected and recognised artist, Morton brings to the organisation a rich knowledge of contemporary art and its broader role within Australian culture.
ArtReview's Power 100 list: Brook Andrew and Isaac Julien
Congratulations to Brook Andrew and Isaac Julien who have been named in ArtReview's Power 100 list of the most influential people in 2022 in the contemporary art world.
This is Brook Andrew's fourth consecutive year on the Power 100 list. Brook has been named in 2022 for challenging dominant narratives with Indigenous knowledge systems. Sir Isaac Julien is included for his ambitious film-installations offering constellation-like portraits of historic Black figures.
Bill Henson 'PARIS OPERA' Publication
In 1990 Bill Henson was commissioned by the Paris Opera House to produce a series of photographs inspired by either the music or environment of the opera. In this celebrated series, Henson juxtaposes portraits of the audience with images of brooding landscapes.
Over the course of a year, Henson traveled to the three great opera houses of Paris. On returning to his Melbourne studio, he recreated moments of beauty and tenderness witnessed during performances.
For the first time, all 50 images from this series are brought together as a delicately printed hard back monograph.
Preorder a copy of 'PARIS OPERA' today via Stanley Barker Books.
Del Kathryn Barton and Daniel Boyd in the Good Weekend
52 News Makers of 2022: Good Weekend’s annual list of the Australians making us sit up and take notice this year names both Del Kathryn Barton and Daniel Boyd.
After her hugely successful exhibition at Roslyn Oxley Gallery in May, Del Kathryn Barton made her feature-length directorial debut in the coming-of-age film, 'Blaze', which she also co-wrote. 'Blaze' was selected for international competition in the Tribeca Film Festival and the prestigious Camerimage International Film Festival. With another script in development, Barton recently opened a solo show in Los Angeles and is working on a commissioned portrait of Maggie Beer for the National Portrait Gallery.
It’s been a seminal year for Daniel Boyd. His first major solo exhibition by an Australian public institution opened at the Art Gallery of NSW in June and earlier this month his hugely successful solo show 'Tacit Testudo' opened at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery. Boyd's works are also on view in Japan at the Okayama Art Summit. Early next year, Boyd’s new public artwork, made from perforated steel, will be suspended 20 metres above the ground at Circular Quay and following this he will present his first comprehensive solo exhibition in Europe at the prestigious Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin.
Brook Andrew's 'Hope and Peace' series on display at Penrith Regional Gallery
An incredible exhibition of works by Brook Andrew from his 'Hope and Peace' series are on display at Penrith Regional Gallery until this Sunday, 27 November.
This exhibition considers the role of the artist as both the creator and donor of an artwork to a public collection. Brook Andrew has a longstanding connection to Penrith, having lived in nearby Blackett and attended Cambridge High School. In 1991 Andrew enrolled in Interior Design at the University of Technology Sydney, but after a month transferred to Visual Arts at the University of Western Sydney (now WSU), Nepean Campus. In Their graduating year, 1993, his wall-based text piece piece 'Naraga Yarmble Bungalgaragara' (1993) was awarded the Mary Alice Evatt Prize at Artspace for the best final year artwork in the annual Bachelor of Visual Arts students’ exhibition.
Patricia Piccinini and Brook Andrew at Penrith Regional Gallery
Works by Patricia Piccinini and Brook Andrew are included in '52 ACTIONS' at Penrith Regional Gallery, featuring works from 52 Australian artists and collectives across generations, geographies and cultural backgrounds. Working in a wide variety of mediums, together they highlight the diversity, complexity and dynamism of contemporary Australian art.
Exhibition dates: 27 August - 20 November 2022
'52 ACTIONS' is grounded in art as action. The artists explore and reflect on what art is, what it can do within the gallery and far beyond: art as a political motivator, a cultural transmitter, a means for understanding, a tool for shifting perspectives, holding memory, bridging divides and inciting change. These ideas are intimately connected with the role of the artist, from facilitator to provocateur, creator to witness.
Newell Harry at the 17th Istanbul Biennial
We are delighted to share images of Newell Harry's presentation 'Sul Mare', 2022 at the 17th Istanbul Biennial.
Newell Harry’s artistic practice is rooted in a prodigious kind of foraging for stories, documents, images of things, during his extensive travels and in various activities and collections,
both public and personal. Reflecting on his own diasporic family history, and journeys in the geography increasingly known as the ‘Indo-Pacific’, Harry’s work explores the cultural friction
brought about by migration and the associated complexities of identity, dislocation and myth.
Exhibition dates: 17 September–20 November 2022
EXHIBITION OPENING: Daniel Boyd 'Tacit Testudo'
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to present Tacit Testudo, an exhibition of new paintings by Daniel Boyd. In this incredible body of new work, acclaimed contemporary artist Daniel Boyd invites us into a space of prismatic reflection where intricately entwined stories of Enlightenment conquests and colonial escapades are brought to life by dappled light and softly obscured images. This soft focus generates windows through which we view the violent impact of the colonial legacy and the ongoing impact of the 18th and 19th century voyages of discovery.
Opening reception: Friday, 18 November from 6-8pm
Exhibition dates: 18 November – 17 December 2022
Del Kathryn Barton Nominated for Best Direction at 2022 Australian Directors Guild
Huge congratulations to Del Kathryn Barton who has been nominated for Best Direction in a Debut Feature Film at the 2022 Australian Directors Guild for her incredible feature film 'Blaze'.
Starring Simon Baker, Yael Stone, Josh Lawson and introducing Julia Savage as Blaze, the film tells the story of a young teenager who witnesses a violent crime and, struggling to make sense of what she saw, retreats to imaginary worlds to activate her own rage and ultimately find renewal. 'Blaze' is an ode to female courage and a celebration of the power of the imagination.
The 2022 ADG Awards will take place on Thursday, 8 December.
Kirtika Kain at Oyoun Cultural Centre
Works by Kirtika Kain are currently on view at Oyoun Cultural Centre, Berlin as part of the group show ‘Wake Up Calls for my Ancestors’.
Colonial archives in various museums and institutions across Europe generate diverse discourses related to history, memory, archiving, art and the authenticity of the colonized nations. ‘Wake Up Calls for my Ancestors’ is a long-term, critical artistic-archival project that gives an active voice to the silent voices of Dalit and other archived subaltern subjects, appropriated, exhibited, made accessible, edited, and disseminated as mere photographs.
Exhibition dates: 28 October – 15 November 2022.
Kaylene Whiskey at Ngununggula Southern Highlands Regional Gallery
Kaylene Whiskey's fantastic 'Seven Sistas Sign', 2021 is currently on view at Ngununggula Southern Highlands Regional Gallery as part of the touring exhibition 'Kungka Kunpu'.
Exhibition dates: 22 October – 11 December 2022
Drawn from Art Gallery of South Australia's collection, 'Kungka Kunpu' (Strong Women) showcases major contemporary works by celebrated women artists from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands – cultural custodians of an oral tradition that epitomises the art of storytelling.
John Wolseley in Artist Profile Magazine
“There is something decidedly circulatory about his work – respiratory, even – with each ventifact breathed in and out by the land, riding the ripples of its heartbeat.”– Elli Walsh for Artist Profile
For Issue 61 of Artist Profile, Principal Writer Elli Walsh spoke with the inimitable John Wolseley ahead of his solo exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery opening in late-January 2023. In her essay, Walsh delves into Wolseley’s collaborations – both with other artists, including Mulkun Wirrpanda, and with nature itself – his childhood and flight from England in 1976, and his extensive library of scientific, philosophical, and poetic texts.
Brook Andrew theatre performance 'GABAN' at Art Gallery of NSW
We are thrilled to share news that Brook Andrew's theatre performance 'GABAN' will be included in nine days of art, music, performances, talks and workshops in December to celebrate the opening of the Art Gallery of NSW's new building 'Sydney Modern'.
PERFORMANCE: 'GABAN'
Saturday, 3rd December at 6:00pm
Sunday, 4th December at 6:00pm
A three-channel video installation of 'GABAN' was shown earlier this year at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin in the group exhibition 'YOYI! Care, Repair, Heal'. An incredible exhibition of images derived from the video stills were shown at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in September this year as part of Brook Andrew's solo exhibition 'GABAN: House of Strange'.
Tracey Moffatt's Site-Specific Installation 'A Haunting'
“‘A Haunting’ is a house with a rhythmic heartbeat and it burns red. It sits campfire-like and honours First Nations peoples on whose land it sits.”– Tracey Moffatt, 2021
Tracey Moffatt’s eerie site-specific installation ‘A Haunting’, situated just outside Armatree in rural New South Wales, has now been burning for 12 months.
‘A Haunting’ takes its form as an abandoned farm house that pulses an ominous red light. Situated on the Castlereagh Highway within Wailwan country, this rundown 1920s house invokes issues around settlement, domesticity, landscape and the worldwide pandemic and is described by Moffatt as a “lighted vigil”. Moffatt has also said that ‘A Haunting’ can be “read like a crime scene”.
Moffatt developed this artwork prior to Sydney’s lockdown when only travel to regional areas was possible. The artist sought to create a work that encouraged people to travel inland rather than to the edges or beyond. Working with the local community to realise the work, the artist’s commitment to its placement within the region will see it displayed for a duration two years. It was produced in collaboration with Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo.
Daniel Boyd included in Phaidon's 'PRIME: ART'S NEXT GENERATION'
Looking at a picture by Daniel Boyd is akin to observing a painted mirror whose contours reflect, refract, and rescind a multitude of histories at different wavelengths. Blotches of colour coalesce into portraits of invented heroes, reanimated scenes of conquest, and intimate depictions of the dispossessed." –Omar Kholeif
Daniel Boyd is included in Phaidon's 'PRIME: ART'S NEXT GENERATION', a stunningly illustrated survey bringing together more than 100 of the most innovative and interesting contemporary artists working across all media and spanning the globe. "These are tomorrow’s art superstars as chosen by the future leaders of the art world: the curators, writers, and academics with their fingers on the pulse of contemporary art and culture."
Brook Andrew at 'uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things' the 2023 Liverpool Biennial
We are thrilled to share news that Brook Andrew will be one of 30 artists and collectives to respond to the theme 'uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things' at the 2023 Liverpool Biennial from 10 June to 17 September next year.
'uMoya' means spirit, breath, air, climate and wind in isiZulu, the language of the Zulu people, who mostly inhabit South Africa. Curator Khanyisile Mbongwa observed that while 'wind often represents the fleeting and transient, the elusive and intangible', it has an enduring legacy in the historic port city.
"The geographical breadth of artists will provide new perspectives on our city that acknowledge its past and continued effects on the world and suggests new modes of repair, freedom and joy," said the Biennial's Director, Sam Lackey.
Bill Henson featured in Issue 1 of 'RUSSH Home'
"When the master of darkness, enigmatic Australian photographer Bill Henson, meets with his tailor, Tom Riley, the cloth they discover is a stimulant for conversation around the physical things in the world – especially how one's imagination navigates just those things. From his home in the inner Melbourne suburb of Northcote, Henson recognises the spirit of place, his deep connect with his garden and the impossibility of Opera."
Issue 01 of 'RUSSH Home' includes an incredible feature on Bill Henson. For the inaugural publication's first issue, Bill spoke with his tailor, Tom Riley, to discuss his abundant garden, his library and his favourite examples of film, cinema and art.
Caroline Rothwell at the Museum of Contemporary Art
Caroline Rothwell is currently installing her fantastic site-specific wall drawing Tessellated (2006) on Level 2 of the MCA Australia.
Tessellated is made from signwriter’s vinyl, an industrial material generally used for promotional signage and displays. Hand-cutting sheets of this vinyl with scalpel, Caroline adheres them to walls in designs such as this, alluding to the intersections of science and nature.
Caroline once worked in the studio of American conceptual artist Sol LeWitt, whose hand-drawn wall drawings of arcs, circles, grids and diagonals work on a similarly large scale. LeWitt’s systematic analysis of line as the basic element of drawing resulted in works that were resolutely abstract and non-representational.
Caroline includes elements of this ancestry in Tessellated through the two grid motifs that structure the work’s composition. Overlaid on them is the third, and dominating, element of the work: a depiction of a native Australian plant – the tessellated spider orchid. Like much of Australia’s native flora, this plant depends on a delicately balanced ecosystem and a habitat of complex interrelationships. Once widespread along Australia’s eastern seaboard, the plant is now a rare species – threatened by urban and suburban development.
Destiny Deacon Awarded the 2022 Royal Photographic Society Centenary Medal
Huge congratulations to Destiny Deacon who is the recipient of the 2022 Royal Photographic Society Centenary Medal for her sustained and significant contribution to photography.
Destiny is an Indigenous Australian photographer and media artist who works across photography, video, sculpture, and installation to explore and satirise cliched and racist stereotypes.
The Royal Photographic Society Awards are the world’s longest running and most prestigious photography accolades. Now in its 144th year, the awards recognise individuals working across both still and moving image.
Caroline Rothwell at the Museum of Contemporary Art
Caroline Rothwell's incredible hanging sculpture 'Bird World' is currently on view on Level 2 of the MCA Australia.
Caroline's research-based practice investigates how ideologies and beliefs have shaped contemporary society. In 'Bird World', Rothwell creates an environment at odds with itself, a site in which the natural becomes unnatural. In this world, birds swoop around the suggestion of a tree that hangs suspended from the ceiling rather than rooted in the ground. Instead of the expected elemental substances of feather, wood and leaf, each bird and branch is finished in shimmering silver nickel.
Image: Caroline Rothwell, 'Bird World' (installation view), 2007, Museum of Contemporary Art, donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program by the Ferrier Hodgson, 2022. Photograph: Oliver Quirk
Daniel Boyd Featured in Issue 01 of 'RUSSH Home'
Issue 01 of 'RUSSH Home' features Daniel Boyd's incredible painting 'Untitled (GB)', 2015 on the cover.
RUSSH Home is a glimpse inside the spaces and internal worlds of creative minds within our global community who are uninterested in aesthetic conventions. This issue includes a conversation between Daniel Boyd and artist Tony Albert as well as a feature on Bill Henson and his incredible garden.
'Untitled (GB)', 2015 is currently on view at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in his solo exhibition 'Daniel Boyd: Treasure Island'.
Image: Daniel Boyd, 'Untitled' (GB), 2015, oil, charcoal and archival glue on polyester, 183 x 137.5 cm. Private collection, Sydney. Photography: Ivan Buljan.
Artist Talk: Julie Rrap in conversation with Catharine Lumby
To mark the occasion of her latest solo exhibition The Dust of History, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to host seminal artist Julie Rrap in conversation with academic, author and journalist Catharine Lumby.
Saturday, 29 October
2:00 - 3:00pm
As numbers are limited, please register your attendance via the link.
Artist Talk: James Angus in conversation with Barbara Flynn
To mark the occasion of his latest solo exhibition New Sculpture, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to host James Angus in conversation with curator Barbara Flynn.
Saturday, 22 October
12:00 -1:00pm
As numbers are limited, please register your attendance via the link.
Dale Frank in the Summer Issue of the Australian Financial Review
"Dale Frank’s house is a challenging mix of the old-fashioned and the avant-garde, with the odd stuffed polar bear thrown in."
Take a look inside the incredible homestead of Dale Frank in the summer issue of the AFR's Fin Review.
Located in Hambledon Hill, a farm and former racehorse stud about 20 minutes out of Singleton in the NSW Hunter Valley, the 1860s estate has been transformed by Dale into an otherworldly and unexpectedly regal house attached to a studio and budding botanic garden.
Isaac Julien wins the 2022 Goslarer Kaiserring Award
Huge congratulations to Isaac Julien who was awarded the prestigious Goslarer Kaiserring award for 2022. Julien is honoured for his sensual and poetic visual narratives that break down barriers between different artistic disciplines.
In their justification, the Kaiserring jury wrote about Isaac Julien: “He breaks down barriers between different artistic disciplines by drawing from film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting and sculpture and uniting them in a highly sensual visual narrative. Julien’s work deals with important social and human issues of our time – racism, migration, diversity, queerness, homophobia and chauvinism – and encourages us to rethink and explore social responsibility.” Isaac Julien combines pointed political expressiveness with an aesthetic of visual seduction.
The city of Goslar has been awarding the Kaiserring every year since 1975. It consists of an aquamarine set in gold and engraved with the seal of Emperor Henry IV. Former award winners include Joseph Beuys and Christo.
Brook Andrew in Art Collector Magazine
"Brook Andrew seems to thrive with complex, ambitious and challenging creative projects, and over the last few years his interdisciplinary practice has increasingly found meaningful convergence abroad. Today he is an artist of the world...", says Judith Blackall for Issue 102 of Art Collector
In line with his current solo exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Brook Andrew spoke with curator Judith Blackall about 'GABAN: House of Strange' as well as the inspiration behind this show– his three-channel screen-based artwork 'GABAN' which is currently showing at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin in the group exhibition 'YOYI! Care, Repair, Heal'.
Fiona Hall 'Exodust—Crying Country' at MONA
"At first, even the air may feel charred. Giant trees cut down, uprooted and burned. Tasmanian manferns (called lakri in palawa language), survivors from before the age of dinosaurs, lie dead in a dried-out forest gully. And yet, as you slowly take a winding path between heaps of black debris, you will hear signs of life still there within the ashy soil. As you look and listen, drawn gradually towards the light to discover artworks within the artwork, there is, perhaps, a chance for renewal and redemption." —Jane Clark, senior research curator at Mona
'Exodust—Crying Country', an exhibition from Fiona Hall and AJ King, is currently on view at Mona until 17 October 2022.
Imants Tillers at Schaeffer Fine Arts Library
An exhibition of works by Imants Tillers and emerging artist Jennifer van Ratingen is now open at Schaeffer Fine Arts Library, located at the University of Sydney’s Camperdown campus.
The exhibition features a new painting by Tillers, alongside a selection of works from his rarely seen “Daily Research” series, working drawings and texts produced over several years. Paired with Tillers work is a new piece by Jennifer van Ratingen.
The Schaeffer Fine Arts Library Residency is a new initiative, funded by a generous gift to the Power Institute. It offers a graduate or final-year undergraduate student from the Sydney College of the Arts the opportunity to be mentored by and exhibit with a practicing contemporary artist, and engage with the rich collections and ethos of the Schaeffer Library.
Exhibition dates: 5 October – 16 November 2022
Art Basel Stories: In the studio with Daniel Boyd, the artist recalibrating Australia’s history
Step inside the creative practice of Daniel Boyd as writer Erin Vink visits his Marrickville studio situated in Gadigal and Wangal Country, amidst the labyrinthine corridors of the former General Motors plant.
Installation view of Daniel Boyd’s exhibition ‘Treasure Island’ at Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2022. Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Jenni Carter for the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Linda Marrinon's Sculpture 'Woman in Jumpsuit' Installed in NGA Sculpture Garden
Linda Marrinon’s incredible larger-than-life sculpture 'Woman in jumpsuit' is now installed in the NGA's Sculpture Garden as the first commission in the UAP Art Makers x National Gallery commission series.
This sculpture was made possible by Linda Marrinon in collaboration with Urban Art Projects Art Makers, the National Gallery of Australia and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
Image: Linda Marrinon, Woman in jumpsuit, 2022, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, Commissioned with the generous support of Art Makers. Image courtesy of Linda Marrinon and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
Daniel Boyd Named AFR Magazine's Cultural Power List for 2022
Huge congratulations to Daniel Boyd who has been named in the AFR Magazine's Cultural Power List for 2022.
The AFR Magazine defines cultural power as the ability to shape Australia’s view of itself, crystallise an overarching issue in any given year, or reflect us back to ourselves.
Daniel Boyd is one of ten named in the Cultural Power List for 2022. Boyd is included alongside the likes of the Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney MP; music sensation The Kid Laroi and emerging rapper Baker Boy; recently retired tennis stars Ash Barty and Dylan Alcott; TV entertainer Hamish Blake; and filmmakers Sally Riley and Baz Luhrmann.
Daniel Boyd Exhibition at Okayama Art Summit
'DO WE DREAM UNDER THE SAME SKY?'
This year's iteration of the Okayama Art Summit includes an incredible collection of works by Daniel Boyd. Held in Okayama City once every three years, the Okayama Art Summit is an international exhibition of contemporary art. With Rirkrit Tiravanija taking the reins as artistic director, the Okayama Art Summit 2022 brings the artistic touch to various historical and cultural sites near Okayama Castle and Okayama Korakuen Garden for two months from September 30 to November 27, 2022.
James Angus in the latest issue of Artist Profile
“The pleasure of experiencing urban sculpture is not simply the forms themselves, but also the way in which they emerge and recede from all the noise of everyday life: public transport, traffic, strangers, graffiti, weather. So, I’m hopeful that the stakes have been raised, even if the audience may be dwindling, for now. Sculpture helps us rejoin the world.”
In the latest issue of Artist Profile, Inga Walton writes on James Angus’s sculptural practice, exploring the place of sculpture in public space and life, the modernist vernaculars that Angus appraises in small and large-scale works, and his preparation for a solo exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, opening next month. The essay is accompanied by portraits of Angus working at home, taken by the photographer Liz Linden – who is also his wife.
Mikala Dwyer installation 'Chromkinda' at Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA)
Mikala Dwyer's dazzling new immersive installation, 'Chromkinda', opened at Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA) over the weekend.
Dwyer is the first artist to to exhibit in MAMA's brand new gallery space designed specifically for children and their families. The space is ergonomically designed with modular tables and chairs at different heights for children of various ages.
Inspired by early 20th Century Bauhaus theatre, 'Chromkinda' is a space where children can learn through play and performance. Costumes, moveable sets, curtains and wall paintings will provide a lively space where young people can present their own stories and create plays that enrich their imaginations.
'Chromakinda' will be on display at MAMA until March 2023.
Exhibition Openings: Brook Andrew and Robert Campbell Jnr
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is delighted to present 'GABAN: House of Strange', an exhibition of new works by Brook Andrew and an exhibition of historic works by the late Robert Campbell Jnr, in the artist's second posthumous exhibition with the gallery.
Opening reception: Friday, 23 September from 6-8pm
Exhibition dates: 23 September – 15 October 2022
Destiny Deacon and Daniel Boyd in Art Guide
A few weeks ago, the local Melbourne council that looks after suburbs from Brunswick to Coburg renamed itself as Merri-bek City Council. The significant decision challenges how slavery was rooted in the previous title Moreland, named after a Jamaican slave estate. It’s also fortuitously heightened by the exhibition Sydney Road Blaks at Counihan Gallery in Brunswick—where Aboriginal, South Sea and Pacific Islander artists make the suburb’s history known.
Curators Kim Kruger, Savanna Kruger and Lisa Hilli reveal the area’s connection to slavery, showing how settler amnesia and denial erases Australia’s role in this. Sydney Road Blaks tells the story of 10 enslaved South Sea Islander men who in 1847 were seen walking down Sydney Road; part of up to 200 other men who were ‘imported’ by Benjamin Boyd, a Scottish entrepreneur and slaver.
Image: Destiny Deacon, Dolly Eyes, 2020. Digital print.
Isaac Julien in The Art Newspaper: An overdue ode to the influence of Black cinema opens in Los Angeles
The numerous Black filmmakers, actors and other professionals who silently shaped the early decades of Hollywood are honoured in the overdue exhibition Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971 at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. The exhibition’s scope is as broad as its timeframe, featuring clips, archival footage, film equipment, posters, costumes and props across the Renzo Piano-designed museum’s fourth floor.
Bookending the checklist with 1898 and 1971 offers a crucial window to the emergence and rise of American cinema but also points to a critical moment in Black representation, when Blaxploitation films emerged in the mainstream, according to the exhibition curators Doris Berger and Rhea Combs.
“We realised 1971 was a watershed moment before Hollywood took over and started creating these low budget films for Black audiences,” Combs tells The Art Newspaper. The next year saw the release of two important films of this genre: Melvin Van Peebles’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and Shaft by Gordon Parks. Given the indelible legacy of his photojournalism, Parks is less well-known as a director, but the late icon is not the only familiar name for art audiences in the exhibition.
James Angus in VAULT Magazine
"The new sculptures I've been making are all appropriated from a particular branch of geometry that academics would describe as 'triply periodic minimal surfaces'. They are forms that could be conjoined infinitely without any obvious seams. I've selected chunks of these forms and cast them in steel, and they look as if they were severed from a larger structure with an oxy-acetylene torch." –James Angus in Issue 60 of Artist Profile ('James Angus: Re-joining the World' by Inga Walton)
The latest issue of Artist Profile includes a fantastic feature on James Angus ahead of his solo exhibition opening at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in October this year.
Daniel Boyd in Art Guide
For Daniel Boyd, the past isn’t a single story. It’s a source material that changes depending on who’s looking at it, a set of fictions that can be cracked open and remade. The renowned artist, a Kudjala, Ghungalu, Wangerriburra, Wakka Wakka, Gubbi Gubbi, Kuku Yalanji, Yuggera and Bundjalung man with ni-Vanuatu heritage, is best known for shimmering paintings comprising tiny ‘lenses’. This metaphor for how we see, what’s hidden and exposed when we look at an image, also extends to the sculptures and spatial interventions that are increasingly guiding his work.
Boyd works out of a sprawling Marrickville warehouse that hints at the poetics of his practice. Every element speaks to a careful geometry— from the paintings that command each wall, their proportions playing off each other, to the art books carefully displayed in a wooden case. Here Boyd, who’s preparing for his solo Treasure Island at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, speaks about wrestling with the language of representation and challenging his viewers’ perception of the world.
Isaac Julien in The New Yorker: A Black British Artist Asks, "What Was Africa to the Harlem Renaissance?"
Isaac Julien in The New Yorker: 'A Black British Artist Asks, "What Was Africa to the Harlem Renaissance?"
The video artist Isaac Julien and the cultural theorist Kobena Mercer explore “primitive” sculpture and the queering of the New Negro.'
Alain Locke is remembered as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance largely for assembling “The New Negro,” a 1925 anthology that immortalized a small group of young writers—Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Jessie Fauset, and others—as America’s first Black literary movement. But, if things had gone differently, he might have left an even deeper mark in the visual arts. Among his greatest unrealized ambitions was to establish a Harlem Museum of African Art, where the next generation of sculptors, painters, photographers, and printmakers could draw inspiration from the continent as they enacted their own transformation of Black American identity. “We must believe that there still slumbers in the blood something which once stirred will react with peculiar emotional intensity toward it,” he wrote in a special issue of Opportunity devoted to African sculpture. “Nothing is more galvanizing than the sense of a cultural past.” –Julian Lucas for The New Yorker, 2022
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'Isaac Julien: Once Again . . . (Statues Never Die)' is on at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia through September 4.
Images: Installation view of Isaac Julien, 'Once Again . . . (Statues Never Die)', Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, 2022. Photography: Henrik Kam
Tracey Moffatt 'First Jobs' Series Displayed at Queensland College of Arts
Works from Tracey Moffatt's acclaimed 'First Jobs' series are currently on display at Queensland College of Art as part of
'Persona: 50 Years of Photography at QCA', curated by Henri van Noordenburg, is an exploration of half a century of photographic teaching and learning at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University.
This exhibition features the work of over twenty-five QCA alumni, including Tracey Moffatt, and will feature a wide range of media. Focusing on works that have a strong personal or autobiographical element, the exhibition serves as a salutation to the past fifty years of Photography at the Queensland College of Art, and a celebration of what’s to come.
Exhibition dates: 1 August – 13 August 2022
Artwork (left): Tracey Moffatt, 'First Jobs, Parking Cars 1981', 2008, archival pigments on rice paper with gel medium, 73.5 x 94.5 cm.
Artwork (right): Tracey Moffatt, 'First Jobs, Canteen 1984',
2008, archival pigments on rice paper with gel medium, 73.5 x 94.5 cm.
Dhambit Munungurr Finalist in the Bark Painting Award at NATSIAA Awards 2022
Congratulations to Yolnu artist Dhambit Munungurr who was a finalist in the Bark Painting Award at the 2022 NATSIA Awards at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin.
'My Father Painting Balana' (2021) is a portrait of the artist's father, Mutitjpuy Munungurr (1932–1993). It captures him painting a very sacred and sensitive area known as Balana. Although the Djapu trace their origin to the Dian'kawu sisters, they rarely paint this topic or place. The first time it was revealed in public was when Mutitjpuy Munungurr entered this bark into the National Aboriginal Art Award (now NATSIAA) in 1990. It won First Prize. This artwork captures him creating it.
Dhambit Munungurr's second solo exhibition with Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 'Healing / Dilthan Yolnunha', opens this Friday, 12 August from 6-8pm.
Artwork: Dhambit Munungurr, 'My Father Painting Balana', 2021, synthetic polymer paint on stringybark, 249 x 116 cm.
Kaylene Whiskey in OCULA Magazine
New York gallery Fort Gansevoort has brought the artist alongside Kaylene Whiskey and Tiger Yaltangki—fellow members of the art collective, Iwantja Arts—to the U.S. art scene this summer with a well-received group exhibition.
Namatjira spoke with Ocula Magazine about his powerful portraits that seek to balance humour with the complexities of colonial history.u2060u2060 'There's definitely humour in my work, but there's also a serious side to my paintings—I want to shed light on some untold or overlooked Indigenous stories. Humour helps grab people's attention, but I hope they look a little deeper.'
Image: Kaylene Whiskey, Dolly and Catgirl (2021). Acrylic on linen. 100.965 x 111.76 cm. Exhibition view: Vincent Namatjira, Kaylene Whiskey, and Tiger Yaltangki, Iwantja Rock n Roll, Fort Gansevoort, New York (7 July 2022–20 August 2022). Courtesy Fort Gansevoort.
Kaylene Whiskey at the 2022 Aichi Triennale
We are thrilled to share a first look at Kaylene Whiskey's incredible video work installation at the 2022 Aichi Triennale in Japan.
For this iteration, Aichi Triennale artistic director Mami Kataoka, director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, has titled the exhibition “STILL ALIVE.” While nodding to the ongoing pandemic, the show’s title takes its name from a series by the late Aichi-born artist On Kawara, whose work is also included in the Triennale.
The Aichi Triennale is on view through October 10.
Images and video courtesy of Teruyo Horie.
Dhambit Munungurr in The Monthly
The idiosyncratic work of Yolngu artist Dhambit Mununggurr.
The Yolnu artist Dhambit Munungurr, perched in her wheelchair alongside one of the largest bark paintings I’ve ever seen – a work in steady progress – looks at me with eyes flashing mercurially. Or she would be looking at me if I were there. Instead she’s looking at my digital version, playing out on a phone screen in the northern heat, as I try to ask questions of her from afar. I fear I’ve already put my foot in it. Influence, at least in a Western sense, can be a sensitive subject among tradition-minded Aboriginal artists, and I’ve just suggested that Munungurr, who has only relatively recently begun painting at the local art centre (like most local artists, she previously worked at home), may have received support and guidance from the small group of older women, among them her aunt Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, who were already there. My mistake. Munungurr clutches a cigarette in her right hand, left near-useless by the vehicle accident that almost took her life in 2007, and inhales deeply. “I do whatever I want,” she says emphatically, before pausing to let smoke billow from her nostrils.
Image: Dhambit Mununggurr, Bees at Gangan, 2019, synthetic polymer paint on stringybark, 183 cm x 117 cm
Julie Rrap in VAULT Magazine
For VAULT Magazine's 10th birthday issue, Julie Rrap sat down with Louise Martin-Chew to distill some of her experiences and hopes for the future on the back of her inclusion in the NGA's 'Know My Name' exhibition.
"Julie Rrap's oeuvre, spanning photography, film, performance and installation, is broad; its unifying thread circles around and implicates her body. Its concepts draw from the dynamic political juggernaughts of her era – feminism, activism, politics – but its power is propelled by humour and a potency of ideas." – Louise Martin-Chew
Isaac Julien in Vogue: "At the Barnes Foundation, Isaac Julien Stages a Soaring Ode to Black Creativity"
"Entering Isaac Julien’s newest installation, 'Once Again … (Statues Never Die)', is like entering into a series of questions, each composed in sumptuous, film-like black-and-white video, each projected on five wall-sized screens. The visitor to the exhibition ... stands in the half-circle of views, a panorama of five characters, each moving through museums and art studios, through mansions and nightclubs and landscapes of time. Altogether, it’s a dream that makes a point to not make a point at all, but instead foreground old (but still charged) debates about art and objects, about how people see things or don’t, about the resonances of violence and the power of questions to reposition us. It’s a summer must-see." – Robert Sullivan, Vogue, 29 July 2022
'Isaac Julien: Once Again . . . (Statues Never Die)' is on at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia through September 4.