Ray Crooke: The Stillness and the Colour

Though born and educated in Melbourne, Ray Crooke spent most of his career in the tropics away from the metropolis, risking anonymity, at a time when equity funding and regional issues were unheard of. Despite these odds he is recognised as one of Australias visionary artists, his tropical and outback paintings suffused with a contemplative stillness. What are some of the pivotal points that shaped his independent career? What is he involved in at present? These were some of the questions put to him in Cairns where he and his wife June, now in their early eighties, live. Some of Crooke's artistic influences and contemporaries here discussed are Arthur Boyd, Charles Blackman, Russell Drysdale and Sidney Nolan.

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Art and literature: A chapter in the autobiography of Donald Brook

Growing up in a diffe,ent wo,ld: this chapte, in octogenarian art theorist and philosopher, Donald Brook's autobiographical writings sheds light on the early adulthood of this super-gifted individual. It follows an earlier chapter on his childhood and adolescence. Depravity in Wharfedale published in Artlinlc Vol 25#3 (2005).

Donald Brook

Pioneering Gallerists: Kym Bonython

While Kym Bonython AC, DFC, AFC is not in the league of the iconic art dealers Joseph Duveen or Ambroise Vollard, he was as important to the Australian art scene in the 60s as Leo Castelli was to New York. Born in Adelaide in 1920, he chronicled his unusual life in autobiography Ladies Legs and Lemonade in 1979 which describes his various careers to that point. When Paul Greenaway talked to him for Artlink recently he began by asking him about his collecting activities in the early days, who he bought art from and whether he followed their lead.

Paul Greenaway

Roger Ballen

Shadow Chamber Roger Ballen Stills Gallery, Sydney 16 August - 16 September 2006

Tracey Clement

Daphne Williams: The Solid Core

Richard (Dick) Kimber

Gwen Leitch Harris 1931 - 2006

Gwen Leitch Harris, born 1931 in Burnie, Tasmania, was raised in a matriarchal household where her artistic gift was sensitively realised. She studied painting at Hobart Technical College under Jack Carrington Smith who recognised her talent. Gwen described herself being like Adelaide& a well-kept secret and in her gentle unassuming manner, revealed aspects of her remarkable life. Hellen Fuller here pays homage to the life and career of a remarkable woman and artist.

Helen Fuller

City of Perth PhotoMedia Award

City of Perth PhotoMedia Award Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) 5 October - 5 November 2006

Thelma John

A Man's World

A Man's World John Beard, Gordon Bennett, Jon Campbell, Adam Cullen, Andrew Curtis, Dani Marti, Noel McKenna, Euan McLeod, James Mellon, Glenn Morgan, Ben Morieson, Charles Robb, Gareth Sansom, David Wadelton Curated by Frank McBride Museum of Brisbane 18 July - 19 November 2006

Tim Walsh

Bernard Smith: Reluctant Icon

Generations of art students have been encouraged to read his books on the history of Australian art. He has been revered, rejected, loved and loathed by young and old. Julie Copeland of ABC Radio Nationals Sunday Morning Exhibit A has interviewed Bernard Smith many times over the years, about his books, his art criticism, his autobiography. In the lead up to his new books publication The Formalesque, and on the occasion of his 90th birthday in October 2006 she asked him to recap for Artlink readers, how the varied influences of his early life came together to produce Place, Taste and Tradition in 1945 when he was 29 years old.

Julie Copeland

Carol Rudyard: Storyboards and Solitude

English-born Carol Rudyard arrived in Perth, Western Australia, in 1950. Her initial studies at the Western Australian Institute of Technology focused on textile design and colour field and op art inspired paintings. In 1977 she began a progressive shift into slide-based installation then installation with video. Recently she has shown digital prints. Carol's reputation derives from early engagement with audiovisual technologies and her social analysis of the complicity of consumerism and the gaze at the time when theorywas often held responsible for a dissipation of critique. This article includes an edited transcript of a conversation held between Carol Rudyard and Jasmin Stephens in August 2006.

Jasmin Stephens

Joan Kerr: Unfinished Business

Art historian critic, essayist, heritage consultant, the late Joan Kerr was writing of the Irish-Australian women who passed though the Hyde Park Barracks wondering whether their presence was effectively mediated into the Irish Famine sculpture. Furthermore she added we dont want to remember them solely in piety as what has melted away in dismemberment and loss. Ironically Joan could be prophetically setting out the appropriate moodscape for her own memorialising. In the words of her husband who has compiled a partisan and intimate memoir of this distinguished artworld figure, Joan had a natural capacity to prick pretension and kick against the pricks of perceived injustice

Juliette Peers

Artrave

Artlink

video/performance nights at Downtown

Local Video & Performance Nights McKay/Siebert & Viv Miller; Shimmeeshok; Emma Northey & Stephen Roedel 6, 20, 27 September 2006 Downtown Artspace, Adelaide

Bridget Currie

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