John Barbour (1954-2011), a complex, intelligent and much loved South Australian artist and academic, was in the prime of his life and at the height of his career when he died on Sunday 17 April 2011.
Fiona Foley's recent public work has gone from strength to strength most recently at Mackay where her six large new works form a trail commemorating the Pacific and black history of the region.
Laura Fisher worked for three years on indigenous artists' biographies for the DAAO (Dictionary of Australian Artists Online) and is now completing a doctoral thesis on the indigenous art market at the University of NSW. Here she brings her wide knowledge to bear on representational and romantic landcape paintings by indigenous artists.
Lecturer in the Australian Indigenous Studies program at the University of Melbourne, Odette Kelada describes her visit to the National Gallery of Australia's new Indigenous galleries and the National Portrait Gallery that is just next door and views them as sites of contemporary Frontier warfare.
Sarah Scott reviews and questions Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route exhibition at the National Musuem of Australa. She asks: "Why don’t the NMA’s collections of Indigenous material culture feature more strongly in their exhibition program? Why are both the NMA and the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) collecting the highly sought after and expensive works produced by major Papunya artists? If the commissioning of art and associated documentary material is a priority for the NMA what other Indigenous material culture may they be neglecting?"
Canopy Artspace first opened for the 2009 Cairns Art Fair. It houses the Australian Art Print Network, New Flames Foundation and Editions Tremblay NFP (no Fixed Press). Paloma Ramos who works at Editions Tremblay vividly decribes the intense and fertile work in printmaking and sculpture that happens at Canopy.
Ulli Beier (1922-2011) I remember a Yoruba saying that Ulli often quoted: “If an old man dies, you shall not weep but congratulate his family for that his life has come full circle.”
Tracey Moffatt: Narratives Curators: Stephen Zagala, Maria Zagala Art Gallery of South Australia 26 February - 20 March 2011 Stop (the) Gap: International Indigenous art in motion Curator: Brenda Croft Samstag Museum of Art 24 February - 21 April 2011 Vernon Ah Kee: tall man Australian Experimental Art Foundation 23 February - 26 March 2011