News

The third instalment in a series of survey exhibitions presented by the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, CACSA Contemporary 2015 features work by represented artists Paul Sloan and James Dodd, whose Pigment High is open at Hugo Michell Gallery until 22 August 2015.

You can see Dodd’s Painting Machine in operation at Light Square Gallery alongside the work of Zoe Kirkwood, who exhibited at Hugo Michell Gallery in 2014, and who will be part of our 2016 exhibition program. Sloan’s paintings are exhibiting at Light Square Gallery at 172 Morphett Street, alongside artist Ray Harris, whose work exhibited at Hugo Michell Gallery most recently in the 2015 Young Collectors exhibition.

We’d like to congratulate all the artists on the high calibre of work. CACSA Contemporary 2015 is across multiple venues in and around the Adelaide CBD. Visit the website for more details www.casca.org.

Image: Courtesy James Dodd

Congratulations to Justine Varga, who has been announced as a finalist in the 2015 Bowness Photography Prize! Now in its 10th year, the non-acquisitive prize was established to promote excellence in Australian Contemporary photography. The finalists will be exhibited at the Monash Gallery of Art, open from 25 September with an official launch on 1 October, when the winner will be announced.

For more details, visit www.mga.org.

Image: Justine Varga, Enter, 2015, from Accumulate, type C hand print, 123.5 x 98.5 cm, ed. of 5.

Image: Nadine Christensen, Untitled (Interior), 2014, acrylic on board, 120 x 150 cm.

Congratulations to William Mckinnon and Nadine Christensen, who have been selected as finalists in the 2015 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize! The exhibition is on at Bendigo Art Gallery from August 29 – November 1 2015. An acquisitive cash prize of $50,000 will be awarded to the artist by a section panel of independent judges.

For more information visit www.bendigoartgallery.com.

Image: William McKinnon, The great indoors, 2015, oil and automotive enamel on synthetic linen, 190 x 240 cm.

Congratulations to Ildiko Kovacs, finalist in the 2015 Wynne Art Prize! The Wynne Prize is an annual award for the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours, or for the best example of figure sculpture by Australian artists. Finalists are displayed in an exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from 18 July – 27 September 2015.

Image: Ildiko Kovacs, Sunlit, 2015, oil on plywood, 180 x 245 cm.

"I just think [art and sport are] so intertwined and close, and I always have. When I was at art school, I was a bit embarrassed by the idea that I had my tennis racquet underneath the table, but the connection for me has always been so strong. When I started boxing, I was training at five in the morning and five at night alongside professional boxers, and that’s when I saw that what they were doing in terms of skill and training was exactly what I’d be doing in the studio. And that’s where that connection became really clear to me."

An extract from Richard Lewer: You Wouldn't Make This Stuff Up an interview with Richard Lewer by Rebecca Gallo in VAULT Magazine

"William Mackinnon’’s landscape paintings portray the Australian terrain and the road laid upon it with ebullience, wonder, whispers——and even terror. The artist makes paintings you can almost inhabit. His visions of the rural parcels around Melbourne capture the vastness of his domain in manners both terrestrial and emotional. But movement and displacement abound in his pictures too, conveying temporal urgency with stunning effect.

In day-lit, long-range views of wooded cliffs along the sea, and racy snapshots from nocturnal car rides wrought with dazzling, painterly invention and compositional risk, Mackinnon suggests the notion that the extraordinary abounds in the mundane and that the search for a perfect wave is not unlike the struggle to make a perfect work of art."

An extract hot off the press from The Speed of Light and Dark: The paintings of William Mackinnon 
by Alex Weinstein in The Surfer's Journal

Trent Parke's The Black Roseis reaching its final days on show at The Art Gallery of South Australia. The media coverage is pumping!

Here's part 2 for all you Trent Parke junkies:

Review: photographer Trent Parke's double shot of darkness
by John McDonald in The Sydney Morning Herald

Trent Parke's The Black Rose
by Gretchen Shirm in The Saturday Paper

The Black Rose: Trent Parke
by Richard Butler on Visual Arts Hub

In Search of Lost Past in Trent Parke's The Black Rose (paywall)
by Christopher Allen in The Australian

Trent Parke - The Black Rose
in In Daily

Congratulations to Ildiko Kovacs on winning the 2015 Bulgari Art Award!

Ildiko is the fourth winner of the Bulgari Art Award, one of the most prestigious art awards in Australia.

The $80,000 award includes the acquisition of one of Ildiko's works by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and a $30,000 residency in Italy.

The acquired work, Onda, is also the first acquisition of Ildiko's work by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

"Onda" is the Italian word for "wave"; Ildiko said of the work: "For me it’s a really important part of being at Bundeena, I love the ocean...The ocean has always been my lifeline...a lot of my work I guess is the rhythm of the wave, it’s my response to nature."

The Art Gallery of New South Wales' Head Curator Wayne Tunnicliffe said: "I have long admired the gestural brilliance [of Ildiko's work]..."Onda...exemplifies the artist's innate understanding of colour and line."

Onda is currently on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Head on over to our Facebook to check out photos from the award Gala!

Image: Ildiko Kovacs, Onda, 2015, oil on plywood, 180 x 365 cm, collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.