The Bentinck Painters: Stories to Tell

The Aged Persons' Hostel on Mornington Island is home to 1000 residents. Amongst them are three women from nearby Bentinck Island whose culture is a very separate one to that of Mornington and whose experience of exile sets them quite apart. This article looks at the creative practice of Bentinck elder Sally Gabori, her first solo show and the success of the Woolloongabba Art Gallerys Bentinck Project. According to Robert Mercer, one of the co-directors of the WAG: "&the energy of the Bentinck painters comes from an impulse to tell stories about a life lived. To relate people and places and dreams and hopes in ways that make sense of the passage of time".

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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

Richard Larter: The Seasons of Art

For Richard Larter the material act of making paintings is an essential part of his daily life. He has written that my first mature paintings were pointillist abstracts done in house paints and enamels on lilac coloured masonite (Larter, 1998). Larter is an artist well aware of the visceral qualities of paint. Larters syringe paintings, made by forcing paint in raised lines onto hardboard, became the signature works for his initial Australian success. His role as assistant to the ceramicist Zora Merabek who was restoring the Marabout Tombs in Algiers led to a continuing interest in the visual forms of Islamic culture and a love of strong pure light. This article follows Larters prominent career and a lifetime of travel throughout Australia, New Zealand and abroad.

Joanna Mendelssohn

Eleanor Avery: Boomtown

Boomtown Eleanor Avery Blacklab, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane 26 August - 13 September 2006

Susan Ostling

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

Eldertorial

Dr Pat Hoffie worked with Stephanie Britton to realise this themed issue. They networked across the nation to collect together a set of fascinating interviews and tributes to a dynamic and charismatic group of elders who helped create the identity of Australian art today. They wish to thank all the talented and dedicated interviewers some of whom travelled great distances to do face to face interviews with artists, curators and gallerists.

Stephanie Britton

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

Donald Brook: Secret Agent

Ian North

Artrave

Artlink

A Man's World

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Tim Walsh

Ernest Orel: Master of the Press

The relationship of the artworld with the world of mass production printing has always been a very important one. Graphic designers and their clients have been blessed in Adelaide by the presence here of Ernest Orel whose commitment to quality, attention to detail and willingness to experiment has helped and inspired many people and set a very high benchmark for the whole of Australia. Here Irene Previn looks at the prominent career of Ernest Orel now aged 74 and the outstanding achievements of his printing company Finsbury in the production of environmentally friendly products and processes.

Irene Previn

Butcher Cherel Janangoo: Imanara

Butcher Cherel Janangoos birth took place around eighty-five years ago. His mother was a Gooniyandi and Kija woman and he cites this as his heritage. He is first and foremost a markmaker. The lexicon of dots, dashes, strokes, washes, lines and imprints of brush, carving tool and sponge that Butcher employs are played out on canvas and paper as well as on etching and lithography plates and lino blocks. He is happy to work in any of these media yet regardless of the form or content of Butchers works, the subjects are all spectres of the same country, his riwi or home country that he calls Imanara.

Karen Dayman

Roger Ballen

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

Tracey Clement

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