Art Guide Australia

Art Guide Australia is a print and online magazine exploring contemporary Australian art. Our editors and our team of writers and contributors know the local art scene and keep you informed through engaging and thoughtful articles. We speak with artists, curators and gallerists to learn more about their ideas and share them with an audience who want to know more about Australian art and what to see. We’re here to support a vibrant and diverse arts community and our aim is to provide independent, considered editorial coverage alongside a comprehensive picture of what’s happening in the visual arts across Australia.

Art Guide Australia

Issue 143 Contributors

A Note From the Editor

Previews

Brisbane

Melbourne

Hobart

Sydney

Perth

Cairns

Port Pirie and Naracoorte

Sydney

Adelaide

The Sound of Dance • Before Philippa Cullen’s untimely death, the artist, who was prominent in the early 1970s, envisioned “a new medium in which dance is inseparable with technology, music and lighting”. 50 years later, her work is still innovative—as a new retrospective illustrates.

Being Human • Since the 1990s, American photographer Catherine Opie has been internationally renowned for capturing friends and family, queer domestic life, and defining political moments. Entwining identity and sexuality, kinship and community, Opie’s first Australian survey is now showing in Melbourne.

Interview Jonathan Jones

Meaning / Painting • Although Mia Boe only began painting full-time three years ago, her startling scenes of elongated figures in landscapes, politically motivated for speaking to colonial histories, are now exhibiting across the National Portrait Gallery to the National Gallery of Victoria.

Studio James Lemon • James Lemon’s ceramic work contains multitudes. Across urns and irreverent annotated plates, to bricks and vases, the Aotearoa-born artist weaves in references to topics as diverse as insects and religion. From his stunning studio in Northcote, Melbourne, Lemon talks about faith and humour, creating an imaginary inside of a beehive for Melbourne Now at the National Gallery of Victoria, and what he’s making for his solo show at Sullivan+Strumpf.

20 Questions with Kate Just • “Anonymous was a woman” was once stitched by Kate Just into 140 knitted works in bold colours. While her queer, feminist and social justice practice has spanned large-scale knitted sculptural and pictorial works, as well as collage and digital prints, in recent years she has been knitting protest signs and homages to her favourite feminist artists. For her latest Self Care Action Series, Just has knitted texts revealing her own self-care tools like “get therapy”, “make art” and “learn something new”. We asked Just 20 questions about these works and her wider practice.

In Their Own Words • Four Sydney venues are currently exhibiting some of the most poignant, compelling and boundary-pushing works being made in Australia today. The National 4: Australian Art Now is showing at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Museum of Contemporary Art, Campbelltown Arts Centre and Carriageworks. Featuring scores of works across a multitude of forms, we asked five of the exhibiting artists—Amanda Williams, Diena Georgetti, Elizabeth Day, Heather B. Swann and Lynda Draper—to each tell us about the work they’re showing.

Making Memory • Interviews with artists offer invaluable insights—but exhibiting these is another story. Curator Julie Ewington talks through creating a show centred on recorded dialogues with artists from Anne Wallace to Vernon Ah Kee to Fiona Foley.

I Am Not A Camera • For almost two decades Melbourne artist Alan Constable has created ceramic cameras, defined by their tactility. With both his artwork and portrait currently...