New Caledonia has become the first Pacific nation to hold a Biennale of Contemporary Visual Art. Lucienne Fontannaz travelled to Noumea to interview artist Rene Boutin and discovered an artist who takes more than the gallery and his studio as his milieu.
Beth Field is a farmer and a photographer in the WA wheatbelt facing a curious loss, one she is happy to accept - the dramatic colours of sunsets reflected in the salt lakes which she used to photograph may soon be hard to find as revegetation reclaims the soil. She recounts the changes she has seen in the last decade.
"As with everything else, the country that I have been talking about is frequently regarded as a commodity, be it in relation to yields of primary produce or to spectacles and hypothetical experiences marketed for tourist consumption. Here's the main thing to understand: this commodification is entirely at odds with the appreciation of landscape that I've been trying to tell you about."
If there is a contemporary issue for landscape artist to engage with, it must be the process of developing a relationship with the landscape, even if it is at the level of s sustain[able] failure, a low level antagonism or an uneasy peace. It is as difficult and as complex as any other issue, and it ultimately speaks of the human condition.
Exhibition review The Games Room
Stuart Elliott at Lawrence Wilson Art Galley
University of Western Australia
21 October - 4 December 1994
Death of a Myth
Michelle H Elliot at Gomboc Galleries and Sculpture Park
6 - 27 November 1994
Agriculture and culture go back a long way. The fact that they actually meet and marry in the word 'cultivation' makes this clear....when it comes to direct experience, city and country are more distinct in Australia than in many countries.
Making taste? Making money? Melbourne historian Juliet Peers scrutinises a group of books and catalogues on corporate art collections to see whether boardroom fancies and their lavish publications reflect a wider role in shaping popular visions of Australian painting.
The daily experience of tending a tract of land in the south-east of South Australia is the raw material of artist–farmer James Darling. The land which comprises Duck Island is watercourse country where sand, water, salt and native vegetation are the elements from which, over decades of passionate attention, he and his partner Lesley Forwood have developed a farm which includes a special salt-tolerant grass for their cattle. His exhibition, Define the Country, at Riddoch Art Gallery in Mount Gambier is a response to this farmed landscape.