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.
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.
More than 90 Australian and international galleries are taking part in Sydney Contemporary 2019. The competition for attention can be likened to an arena of visual titans, with galleries prominently displaying their biggest and most bankable artists.
Looking at the way sound and music can influence art making and storytelling, Lucreccia Quintanilla highlights the sounds of nature within the urban environment of Melbourne.
Far from being a clunky display of papier-mâché heads and oil paintings of flowers, the contemporary Year 12 art exhibition incorporates multiple artforms produced with impressive technical skill.
JamFactory curator Caitlin Eyre explores the Barossa region’s long-standing connection to Germany in Kinder, Küche, Kirche: Revisiting the Traditions of Barossan Women’s Folk Crafts.
