Cedar Prest: Community Art and Spirituality

For Cedar Prest, stained glass work always begins with a meditation on what she terms the "light atmosphere" of a particular place. This is not simply the physical presence of a source of light and its intensity within a room or particular architectural space, but also the more complex sensual influences that determine the way light enters a particular space through one or more "holes in the wall".

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Grandmother's Mob and the Stories

Julie Dowling interviewed by Lavinia S. Ryan In the past five years, after graduating from Curtin University, Julie Dowling has been painting professionally. Recently Julie took part in the artists' forum, Wijay Na? (which way now) for the Northern Territory Centre for Contemporary Art.

Lavinia S Ryan

Susan Hiller: Being Rational about the Irrational

Visitors to the Adelaide Festival will be able to see From the Freud Museum and Wild Talents. at the Experimental Art Foundation from 26 February recent works by visiting London-based artist Susan Hiller. Cath Kenneally spoke to her in London about her history and her art.

Cath Kenneally

David Jones' sculptures in the landscape - a spirit of place

Spirituality in western art is not necessarily ecclesiastical. There are artists who make work which is imbued with a deep spiritual connection to the land. The works may be temporary, ephemeral installations surviving only in the photographic record or they may be of more permanent substances.

Dorothy Erickson

The Measured Room

Di Barrett, Mark Kimber, Deborah Paauwe, Toby Richardson Contemporary Art Centre of SA 1 October - 2 November 1997

Helen Fuller

Where Eagles Hover

Any discussion of the sacred and spiritual in Australian art must surely defer to the art of Aboriginal people for theirs is the art and culture which speaks most directly and profoundly about the connection of human spirituality to the Australian landscape.

Maurice O'Riordan

Embodiment: Concerning the Ontological in Art

The exhibition The Painters of the Wagilag Sisters 1937-1997 is a historic landmark in the exhibition of Aboriginal art in Australia. A collaboration between three curators, Wally Caruana, Djon Mundine and Nigel Lendon, as well as with the contributing Yolgnu artists, landowners and custodians from Central and Eastern Arnhem Land the exhibition confirms the significant role of the National Gallery of Australia in collecting, presenting and promoting Aboriginal art.

Stephanie Radok

The Spiritual, the Rational and the Material: Spirit and Place Art in Australia 1861 - 1996

Since 1984 there have been five major exhibitions which sought to engage aspects of the spiritual in art and which attracted international comment. Spirit + Place, Art in Australia 1861 - 1996, which opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney on 22nd November 1996 and closed on 5th March 1997, was the most recent of these.

Ross Mellick

Beyond the Bleeding Heart...

Rosemary Crumlin discusses the sacred and the secular in contemporary art, starting with the exhibition she curated at the National Gallery of Victoria

Juliette Peers

Maria Ghost: Rick Martin

Experimental Art Foundation Adelaide SA December - January 1998

Cate Jones

Collaboration by Satellite

Satellite link-ups between continents have upped the telecommunication ante, intensifying the exchange of ideas and impressions by participants. The sense of sight is now added to the teleconferencing capacity for hearing everyone at once, making it easier for participants who have never met to know who is speaking when, and simplifying the task of managing a given session.

Doreen Mellor

Wrestling with Difficult Issues

The Jewish Museum of Australia is almost certainly the only religiously based institution in Australia which provides a contemporary art space. An important role of the Museum is to define an Australian Jewish identity, but in the contemporary space the Museum also helps to shape this identity. As well as celebrating our eternity in our permanent exhibitions, we help to forge our future by having contemporary shows.

Anna Epstein

Migration and Faith: Places of Worship in a Multicultural Community

"The cosmopolitan character of the residents of Australian cities has often been shown and it is in their worship that the various nations represented in our midst receives most definite demonstration. The Greek Orthodox Church has a small but increasing community in Melbourne, numbering about 150 Greeks and 50 Syrians, and it is now decided to build immediately, at a cost of about $3,000 a new Greek Church".

Harriet Edquist

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