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

Vale Ray Hughes 1946–2017

Ray Hughes was a legend of the Sydney art world with his loud ties, an assortment of hats, and a penchant for corduroy, as well as the services of a Beijing suit tailor of dubious taste.

Feature

Yayoi Kusama

Complex and committed, international art star Yayoi Kusama lights up Queensland’s Gallery of Modern Art with Life is the Heart of a Rainbow.

Feature

Jenny Watson: The Fabric of Fantasy

Spanning a 40 year career, Jenny Watson’s self-reflective blend of rebellion, nostalgia and symbolism comes to Heide Museum of Modern Art.

Interview

Justin Shoulder discusses his new performance for Liveworks 2017

Embodying a performance art born in Sydney’s queer club scene, Justin Shoulder’s latest solo show, Carrion, stakes out post-human, apocalyptic terrain, drawing our attention to the present age of excess and environmental misuse.

News

Julian Day and Sasha Grbich awarded 2018 Samstag scholarships

Sound, public spaces, collaboration and inclusivity are common hallmarks of the separate artworks created by Julian Day and Sasha Grbich, the two recipients of the 2018 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship from the University of South Australia.

Feature

Is Sydney a Great Art City?

Do light shows, fireworks and large-scale sporting events represent Sydney’s cultural offerings, or does the city punch above its weight and offer a unique Antipodean art experience? Steve Dow went looking for some answers.

Feature

Modest Master

Robert Klippel mixed with the greats and is regarded as one of their number. Here we see the humble face of the sculptor.

Preview

Ballarat International Foto Biennale

For the 12th Ballarat International Foto Biennale artistic director Fiona Sweet has brought almost 90 of David LaChapelle’s works to Australia as the centrepiece of the 2017 program.

Preview

Angelica Mesiti communicates via multiple senses in Relay League

For Mesiti, blending performance, dance and music is a way of exploring non-verbal communication, which can reinforce community and cultural traditions.

News

NGV petitioned over contract with Wilson Security

Next week a group of artists will present a petition to the National Gallery of Victoria demanding that the gallery sever its ties with Wilson Security, a firm it accuses of “violently enforcing” the incarceration of refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru.

Preview

Blood on Silk turns the spotlight on dying

For her solo show Blood on Silk: Last Seen Davies has used 800 square metres of handmade silk paper to kit-out the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre turbine hall, transforming the space into five makeshift hospital rooms.

Feature

Tjungunutja celebrates the history of Papunya

This year NAIDOC week starts with Tjungunutja: from having come together at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.

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Steve Dow

Writer

Steve Dow's Articles

Vale Ray Hughes 1946–2017

Yayoi Kusama

Jenny Watson: The Fabric of Fantasy

Justin Shoulder discusses his new performance for Liveworks 2017

Julian Day and Sasha Grbich awarded 2018 Samstag scholarships

Is Sydney a Great Art City?

Modest Master

Ballarat International Foto Biennale

Angelica Mesiti communicates via multiple senses in Relay League

NGV petitioned over contract with Wilson Security

Blood on Silk turns the spotlight on dying

Tjungunutja celebrates the history of Papunya

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