What does it mean to be in isolation, but in isolation together? In this first edition of our new podcast series Faraway, so close, we take a personal look at solitude, creativity and the arts under COVID-19.
Even Agatha Gothe-Snape struggles to define her art.
“In some ways I don’t think of my life and art as separate things, I think it’s one in the same thing,” says artist Louise Weaver when speaking of her creative pursuits.
When Caitlin Franzmann discusses the larger ideals behind her art practice, she mentions the ambition of “invoking what is bigger than ourselves.” In our podcast conversation Franzmann talks about this approach while also touching upon her latest installation and sound work showing at Maitland Regional Gallery.
For David Hurlston curating is both a conceptual and physical process: he’s concerned with how viewers move through gallery spaces and how they read artworks. “It’s just about making a really tangible and interesting and educative experience, and I think that happens in the real world, in the real space,” he says.
Along with being an independent curator, Butler is a Filipino-Australian writer and artist who continuously looks at the dynamics of power, systemic racism and racial hierarchies within a contemporary art context.
“Each curator is unique like every artist is unique, I believe,” says Nici Cumpston, a leader in the Australian arts who holds the dual positions of Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia and Artistic Director of the annual TARNANTHI festival.
“I am most interested in working collaboratively and closely with artists to develop their ideas and to give them a platform to experiment and create new works or new experiences through their work.” – Museum of Contemporary Art Australia Curator Anna Davis.
Colour is simultaneously the most apparent and most complex part of Gemma Smith’s practice. The artist, who has a penchant for abstraction, creates paintings that capture dialogues and interactions between colours.
Working across video, animation, sculpture, installation and drawing, Mountford’s practice is permeated by pop culture allusions and art history references from modernism onwards, underpinned by ironic and slapstick humour.
Fiona Abicare works at the junction between contemporary art and interiors, always creating directly in relation to a certain site or context.
Since embarking on a creative path only a mere 15 years ago, Yolŋu artist Gunybi Ganambarr has been continuously praised for his weaving of Indigenous forms and traditional stories with a contemporary sensibility.
