Sydney Morning Herald Column
Five Artists, Seven days
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021 Sydney Morning Herald Column,It seems like an age ago but in September 2019 I travelled with five artists and a film crew to Mount Zero Taravale in far north Queensland, a property owned by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC). We spent a week in the bush preparing for an exhibition that has just opened at Defiance Gallery, Mary […]
Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, Michael Bell, Solomon Kammer
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2021 Sydney Morning Herald Column,It’s rare to step into an exhibition and feel bowled over, but this was the case with Nyapanyapa Yunupingu’s exhibition, The Little Things, at Roslyn Oxley9. Over the past decade Nyapanyapa has been a shooting star in the indigenous art firmament but with this body of work she has moved onto another plane. It’s tempting […]
Thresholds
Friday, February 19th, 2021 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Thresholds is the very model of an underground art exhibition. Between 2016-19 Julia Davis and Lisa Jones explored the subterranean spaces near St. James Station, taking photographs, shooting video and making unconventional large-scale drawings. The results of their investigations are displayed at the Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney University. There’s an intrinsic fascination in such a […]
NGV Triennial 2020
Tuesday, February 16th, 2021 Sydney Morning Herald Column,It’s an old adage that success breeds success but it’s just as true that success breeds complaints. In recent years no Australian art institution has come within coo-ee of the National Gallery of Victoria when it comes to organising spectacular, ambitious exhibitions. These shows have been intended to draw the biggest possible audiences and in […]
Wendy Sharpe: Ghosts
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2021 Sydney Morning Herald Column,When a gallery offers virtually its entire exhibition space for an artist to do whatever she likes it’s both tempting and intimidating. Nothing, however, is too much for Wendy Sharpe. Ever since she took on the challenge of creating eight mural-sized works for the Cook & Philip Park Acquatic Centre in 1997, Sharpe has never […]
Pat Larter
Tuesday, January 26th, 2021 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Encountering Pat Larter for the first time, people often said: “I’m sure I’ve met you before somewhere.” Most probably it was in one of the many versions of Pat painted by her husband, Richard Larter. Once seen these pictures were hard to forget. It’s not unusual for an artist to take his wife as muse […]
Andrew Sullivan
Tuesday, January 12th, 2021 Sydney Morning Herald Column,All children seem to be mad about dinosaurs, many of us never outgrowing that fascination. Dinosaur exhibitions are among the best attended events at international museums, while there have been five films in the Jurassic Park franchise since 1990, with another in the pipeline. Anyone requiring a dinosaur hit over the holidays might consider a trip […]
Paradise on Earth
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2020 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Marion Mahony Griffin has long stood in the shadow of her husband, Walter Burley Griffin, but nowadays the couple are viewed as a partnership, rather like Christo and Jeanne-Claude. In Paradise on Earth, the Museum of Sydney celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of a formidably talented woman. It’s ironic that the MoS has […]
Peter Kingston: First Light
Tuesday, December 15th, 2020 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Before seeing Peter Kingston: First Light at the S.H.Ervin Gallery, I was reminded that the late Giles Auty once compared ‘Kingo’ to Raoul Dufy (1877-1953). Although I would hesitate to endorse most of Giles’s observations about art and life, he may have been onto something. Although the Frenchman commands a place in the pantheon of […]
Just Not Australian
Tuesday, December 8th, 2020 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Just Not Australian made its debut at Artspace early last year but will be touring ten regional galleries in New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia until October, 2022. I caught the show at the Wollongong Art Gallery where it may be seen over the holiday period. The longevity of the tour suggests this is […]