Briony Downes is an arts writer based in Hobart. She has worked in the arts industry for over 20 years as a writer, actor, gallery assistant, art theory tutor and fine art framer. Most recently, she spent time studying Art History through Oxford University.
Seeking out inhospitable environments, Eloise Kirk is drawn to the unpredictable.
A Country Practice was a much beloved television series from the eighties, filmed in and around the Hawkesbury region. Hawkesbury Regional Gallery curators Rebecca Turnbull and Diana Robson have brought together a selection of archived film, scrapbooks, costume props, vintage knitting patterns and original sketches for the exhibition The Wonders of Wandin Valley.
Grayson Perry takes to the stage in a one-person show, Them & Us, covering everything from politics and fashion to art and childhood toys. Briony Downes spoke to Perry ahead of his upcoming appearances in Sydney and Melbourne.
Urs Fischer’s four-metre red wax sculpture, Francesco, 2017, is designed to be lit and slowly melted like a candle. Recently acquired by the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), the sculpture’s decomposition is being documented on social media—and attracting lively discussion.
In paintings like Our Rocky Shore, 2019, Neil Haddon blends the soft textures of clouds with contrasting colours, creating a surface crackling with orange hues and the veined branches of trees.
Spearheaded in 2017 by Tasmanian ARI (artist run initiative) Constance, Hobiennale is a week-long arts festival uniting ARIs from across Australia and New Zealand via free exhibitions, projects and artists’ talks.
Once popular, then shunned in favour of sobering modernity, yokai – the catchall term for Japan’s ghosts, demons and mythical creatures – are back.
For In Cahoots: Artists collaborate across Country six art centres each invited a contemporary artist to visit and collaborate with the Aboriginal artists of their area: Neil Aldum, Curtis Taylor, Trent Jansen, Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, Louise Haselton, and Tony Albert.
In the exhibitions Barkindji Blue Sky and Unvanished, Melbourne based Barkindji man Kent Morris uses digital photography to illustrate how Indigenous culture adapts to change.
The photographic works of Polixeni Papapetrou and Petrina Hicks traverse themes of womanhood, childhood and mortality.
John Scurry’s small paintings are formless and atmospheric, evoking only a suggestion of landscape or the misty hues of dawn.
Embracing the current push led by museums, galleries and public collections to highlight the work of women artists, Lisa Fehily has opened Finkelstein Gallery, an all-female commercial art space in Melbourne.
