Art Mind Beauty
vol 28 no 2
Art/Mind/Beauty tackles one of the questions exercising the minds of philosophers in the age of neuro-science - how does the mind create notions of beauty and why are some artists and audiences drawn to the fragile, the shimmering, the highly decorative and the nature-inspired? Has contemporary art been diminished by the absence of these visual pleasures? Perhaps beauty and a sense of the ineffable have crept back without our noticing. Could this be related to a fear that time is running out for the natural world? Artists who inspired this issue include Imants Tillers, Jon Cattapan, John Mawurndjul, Doreen Reid Nakamarra, Catherine Woo, Stieg Persson, David Keeling and Philip Wolfhagen (painters); Hossein & Angela Valamanesh, Giles Bettison, Kirsten Coelho, Timothy Horn, Ah Xian, Robyn Stacey, Karl Wiebke, Robin Best and Tina Gonsalves (other media). Editor Margot Osborne.
- Artists and Authors
- Order this issue (from $12 inc. postage)
Subscribe to Artlink - from $52. Subscriptions available for readers anywhere in the world.
Advertisement:
Cobi Cockburn
Karen Finch, profileCobi Cockburn is a glass artist whose work reflects her journey through the world, first in response to the country around Canberra and more recently the Shoalhaven district. It is her personal response to the landscape in which she lives (as opposed to a larger environmental message) which drives her to continue to push herself with a medium not typically used for landscape.
Cockburn's working methods of fusing, slumping, rolling, hot forming and cold working glass demonstrate clear connections from one piece of work to the next. Central to her motivation is the desire to create works of subtlety and grace.
Cockburn's working methods demonstrate clear connections from one piece to the next, yet each piece is a self-contained process in itself. A self-confessed addict of her 'book' (her journal), Cockburn says that when she reviews her collection of journals, she can trace progress and a sense of continuous narrative. But she feels, on the whole, that her work is evolving more as a natural process as she herself develops both as an artist and a person. Each piece has its own essence, or presence, and comes together with others as collections which reflect part of the greater experience. Central to her motivation is the desire to create works of subtlety and grace, pieces that will stand for themselves but not shout at the viewer.
The full text of this article is only available in the printed version of Artlink Magazine.
» Subscribe or order a back issue
Articles in this issue
-
Artrave: Artrave

-
Editorial: Editorial

- Feature: Australian Beauty
- Feature: Gatecrashing the sublime
- Feature: On sunsets
- Feature: Shimmering fields
- Feature: Some digressions on ornament, abstraction and the stowaway
- Feature: The romantic spirit
- Feature: Tina Gonsalves: Unleashing emotion
- Feature: Truth and beauty entangled
-
Gallery: Contemporary beauty

- Interview: Ellen Dissanyake: homo aestheticus
- Polemic: The realities of power
- Profile: Cobi Cockburn
- Profile: Karl Wiebke
- Profile: Robin Best
-
Review: A new global art history: CIHA 2008 (Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art)

-
Review: Annie Hogan: A Survey

-
Review: Chaos and revelry: Neo-Baroque and camp aesthetics

-
Review: Chris Pease

-
Review: Handle me gently: Olga Cironis

-
Review: Handle with care

-
Review: I am a good boy

-
Review: In response to conversations with a therapist as a narrative device: Martin Smith

-
Review: Insights and a conversation

-
Review: Letting Go: Lee Salomone

-
Review: Liminal

-
Review: Now that I am a man I can go to war: Angela Lynkushka

-
Review: One night only project

-
Review: Papunya Painting: out of the desert

-
Review: The 32nd congress of the international committee of the history of art (CIHA)

-
Review: The Ship of fools: recent paintings, Bill Brown

-
Review book: Aesthetics and material beauty: aesthetics naturalized, Jennifer A. McMahon

-
Review book: Blubberland: the dangers of happiness, Elizabeth Farrelly

-
Review book: The Formalesque: a guide to modern art and its history, Bernard Smith

-
Review book: Visual Animals, Edited by Ian North

