Helen Johnson, Barron Field, 2016, installation view. Courtesy the artist and Mary Mary, Glasgow.
Abdul Abdullah, Self Portrait as Ophelia, 2015, oil and resin on board, 180 x 110 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Fehily Contemporary.
Teresa Baker, Minyma Malilunya, 2015, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 200 x 120 cm.
For the first major survey of contemporary Australian painting in a decade, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art took an unexpected curatorial cue. While discussing the two-part exhibition, titled Painting. More Painting, ACCA curator Annika Kristensen mentions the phone book.
For the show, more than 60 Australian painters will have their works hung on a 90-metre-long wall mural by Sam Songailo in ACCA’s main gallery, with surnames starting with A to L arrayed in alphabetical order in the first chapter (29 July to 28 August), and M to Z in the second (1 to 25 September).
“We’re not really sure what kind of relationships will emerge until those paintings are hung next to one another,” says Kristensen, who developed the show with artistic director Max Delany and associate curator Hannah Mathews.
After all, there’s a lot of catching up to do. The last 10 years have seen a renewed interest in painting, a development Kristensen attributes in part to a backlash against the overwhelming immediacy of images offered by social media.
That said, Kristensen is quick to emphasise that the exhibition, unlike an encyclopedia, is not meant as an authoritative way to wrap up and close the book on the topic.
“It’s a starting point of a conversation, a leading point,” she says, “and we hope there’s much more discussion to be had both in and around the show and extending from the show as well.”
Painting. More Painting
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
29 July – 25 September
Sophie Penkethman-Young dives into the cursed, chaotic and charming depths of the online world to create inquisitive artworks exploring technology, the internet and capitalism with humour.
Step inside Monica Rani Rudhar’s space at Parramatta Artists Studios, where she works across ceramics, sculpture, video, performance, and latterly, public art. Rudhar is working towards her solo exhibition at Martin Browne Contemporary, while reflecting on the value of play, how imitation leads to authenticity, and why she’d be lost without her sketchbook.
Steffie Yee spent many years gathering stories and images of her family’s history in the town of Branxton, NSW where her parents successfully ran a Chinese restaurant. Yee’s solo exhibition Chinese Restaurant Playground, which celebrates playfulness and joy, recently opened at the Maitland Regional Art Gallery.
Phuong Ngo’s first major solo exhibition Inheritance, now showing at West Space, spans generations and continents, incorporates objects bought and sold across family lines, and draws on both spiritual and everyday rituals.
Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890–1940, co-curated by the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, celebrates 50 Australian women artists who travelled to Europe during the early 20th century.
Step inside Remy Faint’s inner-city Sydney garage, where he meticulously constructs every element of his artworks—from wooden frames and sculpted fabric to striking, multilayered paintings in silk. Faint is now showing at the Rockhampton Museum of Art.
