Steve Dow

Writer

Steve Dow is a Melbourne-born, Sydney-based arts writer, whose profiles, essays, previews and reviews range across the visual arts, theatre, film and television for The Saturday Paper, Guardian Australia, The Monthly, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Sunday Life, Limelight and VAULT.

Feature

Spirit in First Nations art, high above the city

Perhaps it’s related to contemporary life, but the spiritual in art feels central at this moment. Now, as part of RISING Festival, the spiritual practices and connections of First Nations artists are taking over a historic Melbourne site.

Feature

Should we dream of electric sheep?

Green energy is not an uncomplicated, naturally ethical idea—as the new exhibition We Are Electric: Extraction, Extinction and Post-Carbon Futures at UQ Art Museum shows, by merging research and art.

Feature

Remembering the life of John Olsen

“He was a poet of the Australian landscape, a storyteller of our country and a lyricist of humanity.” A stalwart of Australian art, the passing of painter John Olsen has seen flowing tributes.

News

Archie Moore is heading to Venice Biennale in 2024

With a 25-year practice confronting colonial histories, First Nations artist Archie Moore will represent Australia in the 60th Venice Biennale, calling on family history—“something I avoided and was wary of going there”—as “one component” of the project. He’s also the second solo Indigenous artist to represent Australia at the global art event.

Feature

Tomás Saraceno’s web of life

From working with spider diviners to creating solarpowered hot air balloons, Tomás Saraceno’s exquisite art shows what we can learn from nature to rethink everything from climate change to wealth inequality.

Feature

Bruno Booth is rethinking access in an ableist world

“People are interested in what I want to say, and how I want to say it,” says Bruno Booth, who makes art that challenges the ableist world—but he’d rather you call him a ‘con artist’ than a contemporary artist. He’s also a current finalist in the 2022 John Stringer Prize at John Curtin Gallery.

News

Sol LeWitt’s musical waves return to Australia alongside First Nations art

When iconic conceptual artist Sol LeWitt visited Australia in 1977 and 1998, he found an affinity with Indigenous art. Now, for the first time in 45 years, LeWitt’s work will return to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, alongside new musical collaborations and First Nations art—all for the next Kaldor Public Art Project.

Feature

The tricks and abstractions of memory and empathy

With her parents migrating to Australia in 1984, Adelaide-born artist Allison Chhorn uses film to explore migration, displacement and intergenerational trauma—all with highly empathic affect, as showing at ACE Open.

Feature

Gene Sherman on collecting art, migrating to Australia and progressive politics

Known as one of Australia’s preeminent art collecting couples, South African emigres Gene and Brian Sherman’s private art collection “bears testament to our life and love as a couple”. Having collected over 900 pieces by artists including Janet Laurence and Ai Weiwei, Gene explains why some of this collection is going to auction—but amidst this is an even bigger conversation on art itself, migration, asylum seekers and posterity.

Feature

The ‘stage art’ of David Noonan is back in Australia

Ballarat-born now London-based artist David Noonan has a major new Australian exhibition Only when it’s cloudless at TarraWarra Museum of Art—and it’s inspired by defining moments of mise-en-scéne.

Feature

Ponch Hawkes on women, ageing and art

Forging a photographic practice throughout the 1970s feminism movement, Ponch Hawkes is now turning to a feminist issue of the moment: the ageing female body. With works currently showing in the National Gallery of Victoria’s QUEER exhibition, Hawkes will soon unveil her solo at Geelong Gallery.

Feature

Grappling with freedom in the 2022 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Free/State

With a lineup of intergenerational artists, the 2022 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Free/State is opening this weekend and is grappling with the state’s colonial origins, alongside questions of freedom and displacement.

Search

Steve Dow

Writer

Steve Dow's Articles

Spirit in First Nations art, high above the city

Should we dream of electric sheep?

Remembering the life of John Olsen

Archie Moore is heading to Venice Biennale in 2024

Tomás Saraceno’s web of life

Bruno Booth is rethinking access in an ableist world

Sol LeWitt’s musical waves return to Australia alongside First Nations art

The tricks and abstractions of memory and empathy

Gene Sherman on collecting art, migrating to Australia and progressive politics

The ‘stage art’ of David Noonan is back in Australia

Ponch Hawkes on women, ageing and art

Grappling with freedom in the 2022 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Free/State

Sign up to our weekly newsletter

Sign up to our weekly newsletter