Briony Downes

Writer

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.

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Nuha Saad’s structures of colour

Nuha Saad’s kaleidoscopically colourful art is a tandem exploration of the ornamental and decorative, while also delicately drawing upon her Lebanese and Australian heritage. Her latest exhibition at James Makin Gallery draws upon a visual military operation known as Razzle Dazzle, which yielded fleets of vessels that looked like floating Cubist paintings.

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When her home and studio were lost in bushfires, Gay Hawkes began rebuilding

In 2013, Tasmanian furniture maker and artist Gay Hawkes lost her home and art studio in the Dunalley bushfires. For the past nine years, Hawkes has slowly been rebuilding new pieces for her future home, captured in The House of Longing at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

Interview

Helen Fuller on how her new exhibition feels like being under a vast night sky

Since the 70s, Helen Fuller has worked across painting, installation and sculpture. Her latest show at Samstag Museum of Art explores her hand-built forms, and she speaks about this exhibition as well as childhood exploring, archaeological digs and the diverse textures found in nature.

Interview

Frances Barrett on connecting through art and her new show Meatus

After being postponed for almost two years, Frances Barrett’s Meatus is now opening at ACCA. Our 2020 interview is essential reading ahead of the exhibition and performances.

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Portraiture in Canberra captures Shakespeare to Winehouse

“It starts with Elizabethan and Tudor period portraits and goes right through to contemporary times.” The National Portrait Gallery in London has loaned 80 works to our National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, capturing portraiture through the ages.

Interview

Julie Rrap on women’s liberation, performance and being a trickster

A political protestor and art photographer in the 1970s, Julie Rrap talks about being a woman today and tells us about her new work rethinking historical and feminist representations of the female body, showing at ARC ONE Gallery.

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Generations of female sculptors come together in Melbourne

Renowned sculptor Inge King AM once described her artform as “drawing from a thousand different angles.” Using this idea, McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery is bringing together the work of 13 female-identifying artists to explore the impact of modernism on contemporary sculpture.

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Artists explore how the earth shapes creativity

From climate change to geography to cattle farming, Gathering Geographies at Sydney’s Darren Knight Gallery speculates on how the earth, via weather, time and resources, shapes human movement and creativity.

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Painter Jahnne Pasco-White is in a tangle of materials

Creating layers of artificial and natural dyes, Jahnne Pasco-White’s quietly mesmerising canvases speak to an entwined relationship between painting, bodies, materials and the world, with work currently showing at Town Hall Gallery and Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery.

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Gabrielle Chanel comes to Melbourne

Trained as a milliner, Chanel rebelliously shunned the restrictive corsets and frills of the Belle Époque and Edwardian fashion in favour of garments focused on comfort, function and style. Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto at the National Gallery of Victoria marks the first time a major retrospective of the designer’s work has been seen in Australia.

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Hannah Gartside’s fabric of time

With textiles as her medium, Hannah Gartside engages with the histories and textures of material—and is creating new work for MCA’s Primavera, centred on five powerful women.

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Great Wings Beating in Heather B. Swann

Compelled by Greek mythology, Heather B. Swann is reinterpreting the story of Leda and the Swan—and the story’s violence—through female strength, power and mystery. Obsessed with myths, museums and haberdashery, Swann is entwining these for a new show at TarraWarra Museum of Art.

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Briony Downes

Writer

Briony Downes's Articles

Nuha Saad’s structures of colour

When her home and studio were lost in bushfires, Gay Hawkes began rebuilding

Helen Fuller on how her new exhibition feels like being under a vast night sky

Frances Barrett on connecting through art and her new show Meatus

Portraiture in Canberra captures Shakespeare to Winehouse

Julie Rrap on women’s liberation, performance and being a trickster

Generations of female sculptors come together in Melbourne

Artists explore how the earth shapes creativity

Painter Jahnne Pasco-White is in a tangle of materials

Gabrielle Chanel comes to Melbourne

Hannah Gartside’s fabric of time

Great Wings Beating in Heather B. Swann

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