OSLO DAVIS: In mid-2020, when I was faced with the prospect of little or no paid work coming in, I had to do something. My Postcard Project, a mercifully Covid-free, direct-mail, original art project, in many ways saved me. I drew more than 300 postcards—some pretty, some wacky— and sent them out to friends and strangers who ordered them online, potluck style: you got what you were given. It helped pay the rent and kept my hands moving. But more than that, it activated my funny brain muscle.
Absurdity and nonsense both have that unique power to disarm and tickle a viewer, if only for a microsecond. During recent dour times this tickle became a panacea—well, it was for me at least, but also hopefully for all the good folk who took a punt not knowing what the hell they would get in their letterbox. Here’s a few of them.
65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art is an extraordinary account of the unique art of this continent, published alongside a landmark exhibition at the Potter Museum of Art. Necessary and urgent, it tells the story of Indigenous Australian art; a new art history unlike anything we’ve seen. For Jane O’Sullivan, it’s a remarkable and must-read book.
In a new series of illustrated postcards available as a free gift with purchase only at the Art Guide Bookstore, Oslo Davis takes on classic and contemporary art terms and genres and reimagines what they could be referring to.
With so much to choose from, we’ve rounded up the major summer exhibitions in each capital city, open all summer long. Spanning Yayoi Kusama, Magritte, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, and many more.
Josina Pumani’s electric ceramic work Maralinga—recently recognised at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards— deftly excavates a long-hidden past.
About Face is a smart piece of marketing. The new book on portrait painting from Australia and New Zealand has a mission to change buyers’ minds about the field. But as Jane O’Sullivan discovers, any sales pitch wears thin if it’s repeated often enough, and the close attention to how portrait painting is received by the market means that other important conversations fade to the background.
Developed in 2022 by Artback NT as part of Apmere Mparntwe—the Australian Ceramics Triennale— touring exhibition Clay on Country, showing now at New England Regional Art Museum, showcases the diversity of ceramics in the Central Desert.
