2017

31 December

Parramatta Park New Year’s Eve Fireworks

19 December

An afternoon around Sutherland

CAPTAIN COOKS LANDING PLACE  Kurnell area in Kamay Botany Bay National Park

In 1769, King George III commissioned the Endeavour to sail from Portsmouth to the Southern Hemisphere to observe the spectacular sight of Venus passing between the earth and the sun and did a large land mass exist in the southern seas.  On April 29, 1770, after a failed attempt at landing the previous day they found a sheltered bay, Botany Bay. Two boatloads of about 30 men, including Cook, Bans and Tupia whet ashore.  The aborigines of Botany Bay are know as Dharawal people.

There are two headlands which make up Botany Bay National Park, the northern side, La Perouse and the southern side, Kurnell.  Captain Cook’s landing place was set aside as an area of public recreation in 1899.  The park was proclaimed an historic site in 1967 and with Bare Island and La Perouse was included as part of Botany Bay Nation Park in 1988.  Today, the park consists of 436 hectares of coastal cliffs, woodland, beaches and picnic areas.

Kurnell area is at the southern headland of Kamay Botany Bay National Park, near Cronulla. Go whale watching or explore some of NSW’s most significant heritage sites — and see why Kurnell Peninsula headland was included in the National Heritage List in 2004.

Aboriginal sites in the park include rock engravings, burial sites and areas that show evidence of occupational activity, such as axe-grinding grooves on rocks.

• Discovery Visitors’ Centre and Museum
• Two km return  Commemorative track alone the foreshore running past the obelisk making the landing spot
• Burrawang Walk
• Banks-Solander Track through stunning bushland
• Cape Solander cliff line, wide variety of plant species that Banks and Solander documented
• Captain Cook’s Landing Place
• Guru and Yena Tracks

HAZELHURST GALLERY

Art Rules.  My picks were Anthony Pham’s lino prints and Benjamin Clay’s photo media

This year’s Art Rules exhibition presents the talents of 21 young local artists who will showcase their work in this annual exhibition of HSC art, using their work to tackle the contemporary social and political issues of refugees, gender inequality, environmental destruction, religion, extinction, cultural determinism and dyslexia.  Art Rules features works from schools in the Sutherland Shire and St George areas.

Claire Schanzer, from St George Christian School, in her drawing What She Could Be 2017 explores the tension between an imagined and realistic life for Mona, a 5 year old Syrian refugee. With the current political climate, wars continue to leave families homeless and searching for a safe and secure place for refuge. All potential for a hopeful and joyful life is torn down, when their cries for help are ignored by individuals and governments together. The dichotomy between the limitless potential of an Australian born child’s life and the darker reality for a child refugee is symbolised through the contrastingly coloured and monochrome palettes. This work brings to light the largely overlooked and forgotten impact asylum rejection has upon individuals, the refugee’s childhoods and futures of refugee generations to come.

Anthony Pham from Sydney Technical High School also tackles issues of refugees in his work The Journey 2017, which conveys the long, tiring journey of his father from Vietnam to Australia by boat. His personal experiences and emotions are packed into a set of lino prints, each depicting one of many significant events that defined his journey. Anthony had no idea of what his father went through until he simply just asked. Then and there his father recounted everything, from leaving the docks of his hometown Long Xuyên to being rejected by the government from going to France. Anthony has written a sentence on each print briefly describing the event based on his father’s journey. Any refugee or any hard-working person who works tirelessly for a new and better life can relate to these experiences and hardships.

Claudia Taylor from St Patrick’s College Sutherland confronts gender inequality in her work A bit awkward – a glass ceiling 2017. Claudia explores the “glass ceiling effect” that exists within modern society, by drawing various figures who are significant to her, and have been subject to inequality due to gender imbalance. The pressing nature of glass has been used to symbolise a ‘physical barrier’ which restricts women from excelling within the workplace. “A girl’s confidence plummets during puberty”. By drawing the youngest character free from physical restriction, she endeavours to emphasise the power of innocence, removing a sense of insecurity that is present for mature women.

Benjamin Clay fro Kirrawee High School ‘The Decisive Moment’ photo media stood out for me.

“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organisation of forms, which give that event its proper expression.” Henri Cartier-Bresson (Author of ‘The Decisive Moment’)

My practice acts to explore the facets of transitory forms within physical and fractured, occupied and unoccupied space.  Through photography, I am to arrest this ephemerality and present it in my work.  By contrasting the architectural permanence of space with the fleeting femininity exuded in the figure’s expressive potential, both continuity and tension are created within the picture.

PLAY ON:  The Art of Sport.

Fiona McMonagle ‘The Ring’

http://www.sellersartprize.com.au/artists-and-exhibition/2014/shortlisted-artists/fiona-mcmonagle/

One of Australia’s richest and most prestigious art awards, the Basil Sellers Art Prize has inspired innovative and complex explorations of sport from a rollcall of Australia’s most accomplished artists.  The exhibition includes painting, sculpture, video, drawing and mixed-media installation by prominent Australia artists from diverse cultural backgrounds. Individual works in the exhibition engage with gymnastics, running, community sport, ground-keeping, AFL, race relations and the representation of women in sport.
Play On offers a unique opportunity to bring art and sport lovers together, engage with new audiences and present additional public programs with local sports clubs, personalities, athletes and fans.Includes work by Tony Albert, Richard Bell, Lauren Brincat, Jon Campbell, Daniel Crooks, Tarryn Gill & Pilar Mata Dupont, Shaun Gladwell, Josie Kunoth Petyarre and Dinni Kunoth Kemarre, Richard Lewer, Fiona McMonagle, Kerrie Poliness, Khaled Sabsabi, Gabrielle de Vietri, Gerry Wedd.A NETS Victoria and Ian Potter Museum of Art touring exhibition.

Tony Albert ‘Once Upon a Time’

http://tonyalbert.com.au/exhibition-3/

Peace Park and Chuo City Garden – Sutherland

Chuo City Garden was established in 1993 to commemorate the Sister City relationship between Chuo City, Tokyo, Japan and the Shire of Sutherland. Plaques were unveiled in the garden in 2002 and 2006 to commemorate the 10th and 15th anniversaries of the Sister City relationship.

10 December

Save Sydney Park camp tree planting and bar-b-que celebration.

9 December

A beautiful summer evening at Strathfield park for Strathfield Christmas Carols including Strathfield Symphony Orchestra and St Martha’s Primary School String Ensemble and Choir, the snow making machines and balloons creating lots of fun and laughter followed by the screening of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and fireworks to finish the evening.

3 December

City of Sydney, The Lord Mayor’s Christmas Reception

30 November

Industry Night DCE

16 November

Lantern making at Save Sydney Park Camp.

1 November

SYDNEY ACM SIGGRAPH

A Creative Flight plan……and how 99% of the time we’re off course

Speaker: Paul Butterworth, VFx Supervisor – Director

Paul is going to finish up the Sydney ACM SIGGRAPH events for 2017 with a talk about projects, research, and planning. You’re probably very familiar with his work on Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Allegiant, Insurgent, Iron Man Three, Prometheus, and so many others. He’s an engaging and entertaining speaker, you should come listen to him talk and look at his pictures.

Start VR had the 360º and VR display.

Float above the exhibition or view the sculptures from the perspective of a little cat or a massive giant.  Sculpture by the Sea and Start VR have collaborated to create an interactive VR experience that offers Users an entirely new way of seeing the exhibition.  Using 360° videos & photogrammetry this on-site VR experience highlights Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2017

“We are a full service studio who craft stunningly immersive VR content. Our specialised 360º storytellers, technologists, artists and film-makers are at the frontier of user experience.”

28 October

The Strathfield Food and Jazz Festival is on this Saturday! Get your tastebuds at the ready for an overload of delicious food from cultures across the world including Malaysian, Korean, Turkish and more!

–    Live cooking demos by MasterChefs Julie Goodwin and Diana Chan!
–    Kids entertainer Gaston Soufflé
–    Vibrant jazz with Gang of Brothers and Sydney Jazz Collective
–    Kids cooking classes with the Colourful Chef from Foost
–    International food stalls

27 October

BUSHWHACKERS  –  Big Family Bushdance at Addison Road Centre Marrickville.

17 October

OPERATION ART  Newington Armory Wharf and Gallery

Operation Art is the premier state-wide visual arts exhibition for school students from Kindergarten to Year 10.  With almost 800 artworks by students from throughout NSW, this year’s exhibition offers Armory Gallery visitors a great opportunity to celebrate the creative talents of our young people at our unique riverside setting.

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16 October

AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM:  Nature Photographer of the Year

Witness Australasian nature at its most dramatic, graceful and unexpected with this stunning collection of breathtaking photographs that showcase the exceptional talent of our region.  See over 100 images presented in large format, accompanied by information in English and Chinese that unveil spectacular moments in nature.

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All the photography was amazing, some photographers that I particularly enjoyed were Stuart Blackwell, Andrew Peacock, Chris Firth, Georgina Settler, Charles Davis, Julie Fletcher, Karen Willshaw, Justin Gilligan and Robert Irwin.

12 Stunning 2017 Nature Photographer of the Year Finalist Photos.  Every year the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year competition presents incredible perspectives on natural landscapes, animals and our effect upon them. 2017 is no different, with a huge range of fascinating nature photography to take in. Enjoy this selection of 12 finalist photos from the competition, courtesy of the South Australian Museum.

KOREAN CULTURAL CENTRE:  ‘Dissolve, Inspiration by Korea’

Past Exhibitions

The Korean Cultural Centre Australia (KCC) presents a specially-curated exhibition ‘Dissolve, Inspiration by Korea’ featuring five Australian artists who have been inspired by Korean art and culture. This exhibition aims to provide an opportunity to introduce the artists’ artworks which were inspired from their own personal experiences of Korea. It also investigates the multifaceted nature if cultural exchange to reveal the meaning of being Korean through the perspectives of non-Koreans. Hence, through the exhibition, the specific intimate connection that exists between interpretations and crossovers of culture is exposed. Developed by the KCC, ‘Dissolve, Inspiration by Korea’ comprises of about 30 works including painting, fibre, textile and Hanji (Traditional Korean paper) crafts by Yvonne Boag, Jan Coveney, Catherine O’Leary, Marianne Penberthy and Maryanne Wick.

It is impossible to define the culture of a nation into a single word. Particularly, objectively looking into one’s culture to accentuate its appeal is undoubtedly a strenuous task. In a sense, these new form of artworks created by an artist from another culture enables you to understand Korea and Korean culture. Furthermore, it is a rare opportunity to deepen the understanding of another culture.

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Yvonne Boag Scottish-born printmaker, painter and sculptor. In 1977 she graduated from the South Australian School of Art with a Diploma of Fine Art (Printmaking). She has been a resident in print workshops in Scotland and France as well as being Australia’s first artist-in-residence in Korea.

Korean painting freed me from the constraints of my education in the western tradition of Art.  I had lived in Framce for a few years before I first visited South Korea.   My impression of Korea when I arrived from Paris was of colour and energy and a freedom from the awareness of the heavy tradition or weight I carried from my western roots.   I could see an learn with new eyes.

Colour was celebration of beauty, colour had meaning and direction.   Colour was not used just as a way of depicting a real scene, it was an expression of time, place or direction, symbolic in it’s use in Shamanist traditions and in the traditional clothing worn by the people.

Korea also related me from the overwhelming predominance of thick oil paint used by most artists in Australia, a feeling that any painting of value must be thick and expressionistic.  The use of Korean water paint and ink proved to me the power of simplicity and less.

Jan Coveney She lives in Adelaide, South Australia and has studied the crat under several different Hanji artists in Korea and she has taught Hanji for the last 10 years. As very little is known about this craft outside of Korea, she’s currently writing a book on it in English.

Everyone in life needs a passion and my passion is Hanji.  There’s something about the paper being so tactile and foldable that is alluring and being able to make beautifully practical, everyday objects is extremely satisfying in this, everything looks the same, throwaway world.

Hang is the Korean word for paper and is also the word used to describe the craft of making objects out of cardboard and covering them with the paper.   There are two and three-dimensional forms of Hanji but I work mainly in the three dimensional field.  ‘Han’ refers to the Korean people and ‘ji’ means paper.  It’s a paper made from the bark of the mulberry trees ‘dar’ and has been made as far back as the Three Kingdoms period around 130AD.

My inspirations come from various forms of Korean history, from my time spent in Korea an the sights and experiences I had there as well as symbolisms so close to the Korean culture.  In the last few years I’ve been branching out and incorporating some of my photography into my pieces as well as using Hanji techniques to create more modern designs that appeal to the western world.

Each piece I make is very time consuming but it represents a part of my Hanji journey.  My extensive travelling over the last 15 years has influenced that journey and I’m learning something new everyday, the more I do the more I get out of it.

Because little is known about this craft outside of Korea and even less is written about it in English, I’ve had to make many adjustments to allow me to continue doing Hanji.  Not everything I’ve needed has been available in the countries I’ve called home but with a lot of determination I’ve been able to source most of the products either locally or online which has allowed me to continue my craft.

Creating a teaching Hanji means everything to me.  I’ve had a longtime passion and determination to do what I love best, no matter what the obstacles that have arisen, and there have been many.   My ongoing goals are firstly, to support other English speakers who have learnt this craft and who would like to continue doing it outside of Korea an secondly to spread the word about the beauty of Hanji in the English speaking world.

Catherine O’Leary  She lives in Melbourne who works primarily in the Textile Arts. With a formal training in Fine Arts, her portfolio spans thirty years. She is inspired by the simple, clean lines of the Korean aesthetic.

My first contact with Korea came when I was invited to have an exhibition of her felt artwork in 2008.  I returned the next year with a follow up exhibition at Gana Gallery and also held a workshop in Seoul.  Other exhibitions in South Korea included; 5 Australian Artists exhibition in Heyri Artists Village and being included in two Bojagi Biennale touring exhibitions

I was introduced to the tradition of Bojagi by the artist and curator Chunghie Lee.  Bojagi is a traditional folk art which originated from the need for fabric to store or to wrap things.  It embodies craftsmanship with historic traditions.  There is a potential for Bojagi to be developed into a fine art form.

The techniques of piecing fabric together and making a feature of the exposed seams identifies the unique structure of Bojagi. In my work, this structure allows light to filter through and the functions between the seams create their own patterns.  I am inspired by the simple, clean lines of the Korean aesthetic.

Art is a powerful way to connect people regardless of age or nationality.  We are coming together as a unique community showcasing the ties between our countries.

Marianne Penberthy  She is an established West Australian fibre and textile artist based in Geraldton, Western Australia. She studied Art and Design at Durack College Geraldton and Edith Cowan University in Perth where she obtained a BA (Visual Arts) in 1995. In 2014, at the invitation of the Korean Bojagi Forum, she showed new works in a solo exhibition on Jeju Island South Korea, a project funded by the WA Department of Culture & Arts and the City of Greater Geraldton.

My introduction to Korean Bojagi came in 2002 when I visited a travelling Bojagi and Beyond exhibition at the Geraldton regional Art Gallery in Western Australia.   This exhibition was the result of one of the first workshops in Australia about Korean Bojagi conducted by textile artist and educator Professor Chunghie Lee.  These textiles works in this exhibition had a lasting and haunting influence on my art practice.

What inspires me about Bojagi is the transforming use of the remnant and the value placed on scraps of cloth by the Korean makers of Bojagi.  The strength of the joint seams grids, the abstract quality of the patchwork cloth and the concept of wrapping something precious in a carefully constructed cloth all resonated with me.   Thoughts about wrapping a memory, a place of something precious in cloth or paper filtered down into my work.

The referencing of women’s work through textile construction carried this inspiration.  In 2013 I received a grant from the Western Australian Department of Culture & Arts.   This grant application was directed towards the development of new work influenced by Asian textile traditions including Korean Bojagi and shibori.  With the assistance of this grant I was able to change the traditional approach that had been driving my work with cloth.  I chose to create new works outside these traditions and more in alignment with my West Australian art practice.   I chose to do this in isolated bushy locations where I spend long periods of time in winter.   The work evolved as an implied memory of cloth, rather than actual cloth.  I sifted baking flour directly over lace remnants onto the red dirt, removing the cloth to reveal the cloths’s mark or memory.  The act of sifting flour over lace onto the ground surface referenced wormed’w work.   Historically wheat and flour is associated with the colonisation and early development of Australia.  This is important to me.  Working in isolated bush locations helps me to connect with place, history and the land on which I work.

In 2014 and 2016 Professor Chunghie Lee invited me to present my work at The Korean Bojagi Forums in Jeju Island and Seoul respectively.  These Forums supported contemporary interpretations of Korean Bojagi.  It is apparent that inspiration has been drawn from Korean Bojagi traditions by textile artists from around the world.

The cultural exchange through textiles and the Korean Bojagi Forums offered me an opportunity to experience the diversity of another country its culture and to develop new friendships.  The Forums gave voice to new ideas, concepts, skills, and approaches to art making and importantly the opportunity to be part of an ever expanding international contemporary fibre arts ………………Australia and beyond.

Maryanne Wick  She is a lecturer in painting and drawing at the National Art School in Sydney, from where she graduated in 2001 with a BFA (in Painting). The five years spent living and working in North Asia, primarily in South Korea and China, was invaluable to her development as an artist.

‘My still life paintings about Korea are conceptual.  They depict hand-made ceramic pottery and local objects in a fragile estate of being.  Rather than focus entirely on the composition and the objects themselves, I look toward the environment, my surrounds and the society in which I live to create my paintings’. (Maryanne Wick, Seoul, 2003).

I started travelling to Korea in 1999.  At that time, a friend and colleague invited me to the home of Korean ceramicist and potter Jong-neung Lee, known by this artist name Jisan.  Jason collected pure water from the stream next to his house and made us lunch from his garden.  We ate and drank from his exquisite hand-made bowls and talked about Korea, its art and tradition.  This meeting was significant to my painting still life compositions about Korea.

After graduating from the National Art School in 2001, I went back to Korea to begin my practice as a full-time artist.   The tree small paintings ‘Tilt (Soju Cups)’ (2002) ‘Equilibrium’ (220) and ‘Kumgangsan’ (2203) were painted in Seoul.  They formed part of a large series of still life works exhibited in Seoul and Sydney.

Returning to Australia in 2006, I continued painting still life composition based on a ‘sense of place’.  The three compositions ‘Still Life in Celadon I’ (2010), ‘Still Life in Celadon II’ (2010) and ‘Still Life in Celadon (Memories of Invading)’ (2010) again depict hand-made ceramics from Korea.  Focusing on the environment, local colour and light (which is quite different to the northern hemisphere) each painting aims to reflect my natural surroundings an memories of Korea.

‘Still Life Undisturbed’ (2015) and ‘Still Life After “The Owl and the Pussycat”‘ (2016) depict my collection of Korean and Australian ceramics, various objects and ‘gifts’ from nature.  In more recent years, lizards and birds have found their way into my paintings.   Nature is a strong influence on my still life painting, together with the use of symbolism, shadow-play and narrative derived from traditional Asian art and, specifically, traditional Korean art.

On reflection, the title of this exhibition ‘Dissolve, Inspiration by Korea’ accurately reflects my Australian heritage and acquired Korean sensibilities.  It captures the merging of two unique countries, cultures and art that have impacted, quite significantly, my life and art.

11 October  

In The Works is a new film screening event at Event Cinemas George Street where WIFT members can preview their work-in-progress films on a cinema screen and in front of a live audience.

The aim of the night is for the filmmaker/member to gain insightful audience feedback to assist in the project’s next edit.

Our debut feature preview is The 33rd Wedding directed by Jed Malone.

8 October

WHITE RABBIT GALLERY Ritual Spirit

http://theupsider.com.au/first-look-ritual-spirit-opens-white-rabbit-gallery/2396

Chinese art was once regarded as a gift from the gods. Artists were conduits between earth and heaven; their aim was not just to capture the beauty of nature but to convey its vital “breath”. Many were recluses or monks, for whom painting and calligraphy were spiritual exercises. But that was long ago, in a China where the “three teachings” of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism suffused every aspect of life.

China today is a different country, where the official “religion” is atheism and most people are too busy making a living to spare much thought for their soul. But interest in spirituality is growing, as is the freedom to pursue it. For some contemporary artists, faith fills a personal need. “I grew up without religion,” says Tianzhuo Chen, a Buddhist. “I think that is one of the reasons I have this longing to believe.” Even for atheists or sceptics, the symbols of religion tap into deep wells of cultural memory and human meaning.

“Art is not like science,” says Gade. “It is concerned with the soul, the spiritual world.” Ni Youyu is not religious, but he thinks “a good artwork should have a sense of the divine”; otherwise, “it is just a pile of paint”. Zheng Guogu believes ideas and imagery from Tibetan Buddhism give “a new dimension” to his work. Other artists put religious symbols in outrageously secular contexts to mock the modern gods of money, power and pleasure.

The artists in Ritual Spirit do not seek to raise man into heaven. But all are trying, in one sense or another, to bring the gods down to earth.

Among the highlights:

• Ishvara, Tianzhuo Chen’s over-the-top operatic rave inspired by the Bhagavad Gita
• Mr Sea, by Geng Xue (pictured), in which exquisite porcelain figures act out a classic tale of the supernatural
• God Comes Down to Earth, Chen Yu-Lin’s dramatic images of religious festivals in Taiwan
• Scripting, a high-tech ode to hidden harmonies by Luxury Logico
• Joss, a firecracker of a video on material and spiritual values in the consumer age by Cheng Ran and Item Idem
• Ni Youyu’s Dust(Thomas Ruff: 16h 30m/ -50°), a “photograph” of interstellar space made with chalk on a blackboard.

4 October

SYDNEY ACM SIGGRAPH  #MEETMIKE

 Speaker: Mike Seymour, fxGuide.  Come and see Mike Seymour talk about the presentation he gave @ SIGGRAPH 2017 in Los Angeles earlier this year.

Producing a digital human in CG has been the ‘Manhattan’ project of computer graphics, it is both extremely difficult and has wide ranging implications both commercially and ethically. Digital Actors, Agents and Avatars are all very hot topics, but what few in the industry anticipated is how rapidly this would move from the issue of rendering a high quality human, to being able to do so in real time. Come and see MEETMIKE at ACM Siggraph ANZgraph were Mike Seymour will explain the project first shown that SIGGRAPH 2017 in LA that aimed to not only produce a realistic human but to do so at 90 frames a second in stereo in VR. Beyond realtime at even 30 fps (30 milliseconds), this International team has to render each frame in just 9 Miliseconds. To produce such fast results, the team deployed Deep Learning AI for a markerless facial tracker and solver, and used a custom build of Epic Games UE4. 

In this worldwide first, each day of the SIGGRAPH show digital Mike met digital versions of industry legends and leading researchers from around the world. People such as Dr Paul Debevec, Tim Sweeney, Oscar Winners Ben Grossman (Magnopus) and Wayne Stables (Weta) and leading researchers from places such as PIXAR’s Christophe Hery, Glenn Derry (Fox).
Together they met and conducted interviews in “Sydney” via virtual reality which was watched either in VR or on a giant screen. 

This project is a key part of a new research project into virtual humans as Actors, Agents and Avatars. The ANZGraph session will provide valuable data and insights for taking digital humans research to the next level, and share lessons learnt from the collaboration of R&D teams from around the world. MEET MIKE researchers span four continents, three universities and six companies including Epic Games, 3Lateral, Cubic Motion, Loom.ai and the Wikihuman global research project. The project aimed to explore best of class scanning, rigging and real-time rendering. Please note that this project aims to give away nearly all the data for non-commercial use and is a non-profit research effort.
(As featured on ABC TV’s Catalyst program).

Behind the scenes of #MeetMike  fxphd

25 September

ACMI

Code Breakers:  WOMEN in GAMES Did you know that almost 50% of gamers are women? Maybe, but how much do you know about the integral role that women have played shaping gaming? Though they still comprise less than 10% of the industry, the contribution of women is enormous.

Screen Worlds:  Bringing together rare footage, fascinating objects and interactive displays, Screen Worlds takes you through a journey that examines the past, present and future of screen mediums and digital culture.

NATIONAL GALLERY VICTORIA   HOKUSAI Exhibition

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/JP1847/

Katsushika Hokusai is regarded as one of the most influential and creative minds in the history of Japanese art. His unique social observations, innovative approach to design and mastery of the brush made him famous in Edo-period Japan and globally recognised within a decade of his death.

The self-described ‘Old man mad about drawing’ was known by at least thirty names during his lifetime and was renowned for his unconventional behaviour. Despite his fame, Hokusai never attained financial success and his years of greatest artistic production were spent in poverty. He travelled and moved his resting place and studio regularly, finding inspiration for his unique style through close observations of nature and interactions with ordinary people.

In 1909 the NGV purchased five works from Hokusai’s iconic Thirty-six Views of Mt Fuji series, including his most celebrated image The great wave off Kanagawa (The great wave), 1830–34; two works from his A Tour to the Waterfalls in Various Provinces series; and four other major works. These astute acquisitions established a legacy of Japanese art in Australia that has now extended for more than one hundred years.

http://www.japaneseprints-london.com/7441/katsushika-hokusai-1760-1849-landscapes-313/

Hokusai features 176 works from the Japan Ukiyo-e Museum, Matsumoto, and the NGV Collection that encompass the artist’s remarkable seventy-year career. For the first time in Australia, seven of Hokusai’s major series, including Thirty-six Views of Mt Fuji, 1830–34; A Tour to the Waterfalls in Various Provinces, c. 1832; Remarkable Views of Bridges in Various Provinces, c. 1834; Eight Views of the Ryūkyū Islands; and One Hundred Ghost Stories, c. 1831, are on display, as well as selected works representing his great passion for the classical subjects of birds and flowers and historical poetry. A selection of rare prints and paintings that show the stylistic and thematic changes of Hokusai’s formative years, as well as three sets of illustrated books that highlight the artist’s masterful and compositionally innovative book illustrations, including the complete set of fifteen volumes of Hokusai Manga, complete this comprehensive insight into the life and times of this major figure.

EARLY to  MATURE 1782-1831

HOKUSAI MANGA 1814-78

THIRTY-SIX VIEWS of MT FUJI 1830-34

ONE HUNDRED GHOST STORIES 1831

A TOUR TO THE WATERFALLS in VARIOUS PROVINCES 1832

EIGHT VIEWS of the RYŪKYŪ ISLANDS 1832

SNOW, MOON and FLOWERS 1833

A TRUE MIRROR of CHINESE and JAPANESE POETRY 1833-34

BIRDS and FLOWERS 1833-34

REMARKABLE VIEWS of BRIDGES 1834

ONE HUNDRED POEMS EXPLAINED by the NURSE 1835-36

ONE HUNDRED VIEWS of MT FUJI 1834, 1835, 1839

The LIFE of SHAKYAMUNI 1845

21 September

MCCLELLAND SCULPTURE PARK & GALLERY McClelland has a long tradition of innovation and success. Its entrepreneurial spirit in the last decade has doubled the size of the Sculpture Park to 16 hectares, more than trebled the attendance to over 130,000 visitors annually, acquired significant works and forged public/private partnerships to consolidate its role as an artistic hub and the focus for cultural tourism in the Frankston & Mornington Peninsula regions.

STEPHEN HALEY:  Out of Place

Working in painting and digital media, Stephen Haley uses 3D modelling software to explore the virtual and actual environments of contemporary experience. Where once we inhabited particular and unique places, these are increasingly replaced by generic constructed space. Haley transforms seemingly unremarkable urban surroundings into complex spatial and visual phenomena, to highlight the current conditions of rapid urbanisation, digital evolution and environmental degradation. This exhibition features a selection of Haley’s recent constructed photographs and video work, including vast aerial vistas of metropolitan spaces and driving simulations.

https://www.visitfrankston.com/whats-on/event/745663-tina-wentcher-sculptor-mcclelland-gallery

TINA HAIM- WENTSCHER Sculptor 1887-1974

This exhibition celebrates the life and art of Tina Wentcher, a somewhat overlooked figure in Australian sculpture whose works elegantly unite Eastern and Western aesthetic influences. The artist was born in 1887 in Constantinople and established herself as a significant sculptor in Berlin, before travelling extensively with her husband Julius throughout South East Asia. Here they produced numerous sculptures and paintings, including portraits of the local people and landscapes. After fleeing conflicts in Europe and Asia, the Wentchers arrived in Australia in 1940 and continued to produce work that brought together varied cultural and aesthetic influences. After several years of research, renowned curator Ken Scarlett OAM has traced Wentcher’s sculptures in Germany, Greece, China, Singapore, North America and Australia, with this reseacrh and key loans to be presented with McClelland’s representative collection of works by the artist.

19 September 

Arthurs Seat Mornington Peninsula, Gondola and lunch at Arthurs Hotel 

17 September

Port Phillip Estate Winery and Accommodation, Mornington Peninsula with a carpark full of McLaren cars.

5 September

DAVID JONES SPRING FLOWER SHOW

The annual David Jones Flower Show at the Elizabeth Street Store in Sydney is in its 32nd year. 30 specialist florists have spent over 10,000 hours and used 150,000 fresh flowers to design this year’s show. It is the largest public event for David Jones and runs daily from 31^st August 2017 to 10^th September 2017.

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ART GALLERY of NEW SOUTH WALES

ARCHIBALD, WYNNE and SULMAN PRIZES 2017

The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes is an annual exhibition eagerly anticipated by artists and audiences alike, first awarded in 1921, is Australia’s favourite art award, and one of its most prestigious. Awarded to the best portrait painting, it’s a who’s who of Australian culture – from politicians to celebrities, sporting heroes to artists.  The Wynne Prize is awarded to the best landscape painting of Australian scenery, or figure sculpture, while the Sulman Prize is given to the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project in oil, acrylic, watercolour or mixed media.  Each year, the trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW judge the Archibald and Wynne, and invite an artist to judge the Sulman. The 2017 judge is Tony Albert. Visit the exhibition to vote for your favourite portrait in the ANZ People’s Choice award before voting closes (2 October) and see the work of budding artists aged 5-18 on display in the Young Archies.

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Congratulations to painter, comedian and author Anh Do who has won the 2017 ANZ People’s Choice award with his portrait of Indigenous actor Jack Charles.

‘Jack’s face is full of character,’ says Do. ‘I wanted the painting to capture his gravitas but also the loneliness that has been his constant companion. I mixed wet and semi-dried paint to create a texture that would evoke mountains and waterfalls, tree bark, fallen leaves, clouds and rain to encapsulate the beauty of the Australian landscape inside this beautiful man’s face.

VICTORIAN WATERCOLOURS

Over 80 magnificent but seldom-seen watercolours made between the 1830s and 1900 from the gallery’s collection are presented in a Victorian-style displayed in the Grand Courts.

Victorian watercolours were among the very first works of art acquired by the Art Gallery of NSW. Painted in an elaborate, highly finished style that claimed consideration on equal terms with oil painting, they were highly prized in the 19th century. Watercolour painters embraced new and ambitious subjects and usually displayed their pictures in ornate gold frames to set off their jewel-like colours.

OUT OF THE ORDINARY

Works by Australian and New Zealand contemporary artists who engage with everyday materials and imagery in surprising and transformative ways. In Out of the ordinary, paper price tags burst into a radiant mandala, a printer performs a colourful abstraction, a huge tarpaulin becomes an unexpected canvas and everyday fluorescent lights convert into brilliant ‘blue poles’.

The artists include Rebecca Baumann, Kushana Bush, Sara Hughes, Helen Johnson, Jonathan Jones, Nicholas Mangan, Laith McGregor, Grant Stevens and Michelle Ussher.

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MIKALA DWYER

Mikala Dwyer creates objects and installations that are both playful and provocative, re-imagining familiar materials and what they say to us about the world in which we live.  Her highly engaging sculptures explore ideas about shelter, childhood play, modernist design and the relationship between people and objects.  Often beguiling in their colour and profusion, her works incorporate raw materials and found objects in inventive and unexpected ways that transform their architectural settings.

For A shape of thought Dwyer co-opts both the everyday and the fabulous to transform four of our contemporary galleries – floating 150 silver balloons high above the gallery floor, installing an elaborate suspension of fabric shapes held aloft by stockings, and building a large circular sculptural gathering that includes crystal-like Perspex structures.

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PASSION and PROCESSION art of the Philippines

Passion and procession brings together painting, sculpture, video and installation works from ten contemporary Filipino artists, revealing their very personal responses to faith, history, politics and life in the Philippines.

The works draw on folk mythology, family archives, nature and religious ceremony to reconsider established narratives of history and nation. The artists have used found as well as ritual objects, plant specimens and symbols of precolonial histories to address the ambiguities of faith and science, social inequality and relationship to place. In doing so, they demonstrate a belief in the potential of art to inspire, heal and effect social change.

The artists include Santiago Bose, Marina Cruz, Alfredo Esquillo Jr, Nona Garcia, Renato Habulan, Geraldine Javier, Mark Justiniani, Alwin Reamillo, Norberto Roldan and Rodel Tapaya.

30 August

DESIGN VISUALISATION FOR EVENTS AND LIVE ENTERTAINMENT  An exploration of Autodesk’s 3ds Max in design visualisation

Will provides a unique opportunity for you to get a hands-on look at how 3ds Max sits comfortably within the traditional design process to provide for the reduced time frames and the geographically dispersed teams which typify today’s live entertainment industry.

We will take you on a high-speed walk through the building and rendering of a 3D model of a live event in 3ds Max, adding realistic lighting and atmosphere whilst ensuring that everything is modelled to a real world scale ensuring the same models can be used by the workshops to produce the real thing.

Get valuable insights and plus live demonstrations including:

• an understanding the role that models have always played in the design process
• an appreciation how the technology must be an enabler and not a barrier
• experiencing how 3ds Max can be used as a rapid visualisation tool including VR
• an understanding of how real-time rendering assists rapid development
• an understanding of how Yeo Creative Solutions use 3ds Max as the backbone of their design and visualisation service
• see how Chaos Group V-Ray provides fast, flexible and realistic rendering

Jonathan Yeoman   Managing Director,  Yeo Creative Solutions

Jonathan Yeoman is an experienced 3D visualiser and live entertainment production manager. Jonathan runs Yeo Creative Solutions who support all stages of the creative process including high-quality 3D visualisations, fly throughs, interactive 360-degree panoramas, set designs, construction drawings and the supply of specialist scenic flooring, fabrics and scenic products. He has a background in theatre production and applies the knowledge of construction and lighting techniques that he gained through this experience to add detail and realism to the models his company produces.

Yeo Creative Solutions combines new technology and experience to create better results for event planners and designers with 3D visualisation, drafting and set design that gets everything right before the event takes place.

David Zwierzchaczewski   Animation Specialist, Autodesk

David Zwierzchaczewski is the animation specialist for media and entertainment at Autodesk. He has spent the past 20 years working in the Film, TV, and Games industries and the last 5 years at Autodesk where he has been at the forefront of software development and implementation in the industry.

23 August

Jaunt One Demo Sydney by Staples VR

LINK to more information under Business post

16 August

EPIC Lecture: Live-drawing with Code. Immersive Virtual Measurement & Analytics

Featuring creative live-drawing using coding (presented by Tomasz Bednarz of Data61 and UNSW Art & Design) and invited lecture by Wes Griffin from NIST, USA 🙂 After talks, we all will move to Expended Perception and Interaction Centre (EPICentre), for small nibbles and one or two HPC Visualisation demos.

Abstract: Everything starts with a pixel. Once you know how to display a dot, you can draw almost everything without any limitations. Things became simpler – you don’t need to know operation on bits to draw a ghost or a flower, or remember hexadecimal numbers to animate shapes. However, you still need to know a bit about hardware, its limitations to produce efficient code and creative real-time visuals. Ninjas can achieve almost impossible, even control Big Data of 64kb. Ninja Hack Art is alive in connecting dots of art and science, making new engineering designs. This talk will focus on live-drawing with code.

Bio:  Tomasz Bednarz

Title: Application Creation for an Immersive Virtual Measurement and Analysis Laboratory

Abstract: Content creation for realtime interactive systems is a difficult problem. In game development, content creation pipelines are a major portion of the code base and content creation is a major portion of the budget. In research environments, the choice of rendering and simulation systems is frequently driven by the need for easy to use content authoring tools. In visualization, this problem is compounded by the widely varying types of data that users desire to visualize. We present a content creation framework incorporated into our visualization system that enables measurement and quantitative analysis tasks in both desktop and immersive environments on diverse input data sets.

Bio: Wesley Griffin is a Computer Scientist in the High Performance Computing and Visualization Group of the Applied and Computational Mathematics Division of the Information Technology Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). He currently works on realtime interactive systems both at the infrastructure level and at visualization creation of scientific data produced at NIST. He earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2016.

KHRONOS  is royalty-free, open standards for 3D graphics, Virtual and Augmented Reality, Parallel Computing, Neural Networks, and Vision Processing.

Walter Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research

Link to more information as part of my Programming Post.

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14 August

Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway

29 July

Sydney Olympic Park Armory Gallery – Mining Pyrite

Mining Pyrite offers a comparison between the failure and success of Olympic Park through the work of artists for whom work and experimentation are synonymous. The constant testing and exploration of the boundaries of what does and doesn’t work is the stock and trade of creativity. Over the past 12 years Sydney Olympic Park Authority has acknowledged and supported this endeavour through its Artists at the Armory program. Mining Pyrite is an exhibition that sheds light on the activities of the studios, as well as celebrating a history of the success of the residency and proving the point that if a studio exists for emerging artists, success may prevail over failure.

Curators Cassandra Hard-Lawrie and Nick Vickershave selected 20 artists who have occupied the studios and whose works exemplify a journey of exploration, a journey that demonstrates that creativity is not easy, a journey that traces the journey within the journey from failure to success.

Mining Pyrite features the artworks of: Wade Marynowsky, Mark Booth, Chris Bowman, Mark Brown, Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, Louisa Dawson, Gary Deirmendjian, Judith Duquemin, Allan Giddy, John Gillies, Locust Jones, Akira Kamada, Michael Keighery, Daniel Mudie Cunningham, Meredith Peach, Jane Theau, Rachel Walls, Ken and Julia Yonetani.

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21 July 

SMPTE17 Conference – Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers   ‘Embracing Connective Media’

The region’s premier forum for the exploration of Broadcast, Media and Entertainment technology, SMPTE17 includes three days of compelling technical conference sessions, offering attendees unparalleled opportunities for professional development, relationship building, and “mind sharing.” Presenters and panelists will include a wide range of international and local technology thought-leaders.

The Australia Section of the SMPTE was founded in 1971. Today, it is part of the SMPTE Asia Pacific Region that includes more than 750 members. SMPTE in Australia has been a leader in building ties between like-minded and guild organisations serving the media and content industry. Further information about SMPTE Australia is available at smpte.org.au.

The Oscar® and Emmy® Award-winning Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers® (SMPTE®), a professional membership association, is one of the leaders in the advancement of the art, science, and craft of the image, sound, and metadata ecosystem, worldwide. An internationally recognized and accredited organization, SMPTE advances moving-imagery education and engineering across the communications, technology, media, and entertainment industries. Since its founding in 1916, SMPTE has published the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal and developed more than 800 standards, recommended practices, and engineering guidelines.

More than 6,000 members — motion-imaging executives, engineers, creative and technology professionals, researchers, scientists, educators, and students — who meet in Sections throughout the world sustain the Society. Through the Society’s partnership with the Hollywood Professional Alliance® (HPA®), this membership is complemented by the professional community of businesses and individuals who provide the expertise, support, tools, and infrastructure for the creation and finishing of motion pictures, television programs, commercials, digital media, and other dynamic media content.

20 July

WALKLEY  MEDIA  TALKS in association with the State Library of NSW:  Interactive Storytelling:  New Ways of Engaging Audiences.

In the digital age newsrooms are experimenting to capture readers’ attention. Some approach the challenge in a tech-driven way, with chatbots, interactive games, quizzes and complex multimedia stories that let readers choose their own adventure. For others it’s about involving the audience from the earliest stages of story selection through to crowdsourced content. The rise of news bots and Snapchat glasses raise questions about user experiences and concerns about information curation. So what’s next in storytelling, and how are different organisations faring with the growth of interactive content?

KOREAN CULTURAL OFFICE  Passage to Pusan: The Journey Bridging the Friendship between Two Families

To commemorate the anniversary of the Korean War, representing the book of the same name by Australian journalist Louise Evans.  The exhibition details the 15,000km journey of Australian Mother, Thelma Healy to spiritually reunite with her son Vincent after his death during the Korean War.  The journey bridging the friendship between two families, transferring Thelma’s travel diary, family photographs and intimate letters onto six installations, revealing Thelma’s pilgrimage and an enduring friendship forged by mutual loss, grief and gratitude with Korean war widow Kim Chang Keun and her family.  340 Australian soldiers died fighting for the democracy in Korean during the Korean War.

White Rabbit Gallery:  The lights go out on THE DARK MATTERS

The ancient Chinese got their ink from smoky oil lamps, brushing away deposited soot and missing it into a paste that hardened into “stones”.

7 & 8 July

Lantern Making Workshops

28 June

DisConnex:  Reframing Resistance.  Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Camperdown NSW, Australia

A group exhibition showcasing re-used salvaged heritage items from homes destroyed by WestCONnex; in tandem with films, photographs, placards, works of art, protest actions and costumes that creatively challenge the displacement caused to communities across Sydney by the spreading network of tollways.

Paintings for sale via silent auction at the opening on June 28 by Janet Kossy

“Women Against Westconnex” acrylic and collage on canvas 41x 51cm 2016 All proceeds of the sale of this painting will be donated to Save Ashfield Park. Reserve price: 400.00

“Transported” acrylic and paperbark collage on canvas 61 x 76cm 2017 All proceeds of the sale of this painting will be divided between Save Newtown, Save Sydney Park and No WestConnex – Public Transport. Reserve price: 600.00

“Our Home” acrylic and collage on canvas 46 x 61cm 2016 All proceeds of the sale of this painting will be donated to the WestCONnex Action Group. Reserve price: 350.00

1, 9, 12, 14 June

VIVID

The idea is to turn the Opera House into a sculpture of creatures.

14 June

STATE  LIBRARY of  NSW

BEAUTY in DIFFERENCE:  The STREET PHOTOGRAPHY of JON LEWIS

‘I work to find the beauty in difference, and when placed together, show a new beauty in togetherness.’

2 June

POWER HOUSE MUSEUM  Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences

LOVE IS…..AUSTRALIAN WEDDING FASHION

From the simple to the stunning, Love is: Australian Wedding Fashion features more than 50 wedding outfits plus accessories covering nearly 200 years of Australian weddings. The exhibition includes Australia’s first surviving wedding dress from 1822, gold rush fashions, elegant 1920s gowns, unconventional sixties styles and spectacular contemporary designer fashion, as well as garments reflecting Australia’s culturally diverse communities. Memorabilia, photographs and letters reveal the stories and traditions behind the outfits within the context of the social, economic and political changes in Australian society. The exhibition will showcase examples of exquisite contemporary gowns from well-known Australians at the vanguard of international wedding fashion.

THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION of SHERLOCK HOLMES

Elementary? Maybe for Sherlock Holmes, but how will you fare when you try to solve a captivating, original mystery in the tradition of the master detective? Find out for yourself in The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes at the Powerhouse Museum.

For the first time in Australia, be transported back to Sherlock Holmes’ Victorian London and crack the case by conducting your own experiments in this interactive exhibition that is perfect for the whole family.

Before taking on the challenge, enter Sherlock’s world and explore the study of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, doctor-turned-author and the man behind the legend. See original manuscripts and first editions, visit one of the world’s most accurate recreations of 221B Baker Street, the home of Sherlock Holmes and his trusty sidekick Watson.

Plus immerse yourself in the most comprehensive display of Sherlock pop culture items since his creation 127 years ago, including costumes, props and behind the scenes equipment from the hit CBS television show Elementary and the BBC’s Sherlock, as well as Warner Bros.’ recent Sherlock Holmes movies.

So whether you’re a Sherlockian fanatic, a mini sleuth, have a keen interest in science and history or just a fan of pop culture, an ear to the ground and an eye for observation are elementary in The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes.

OUT of HAND:  MATERIALISING the DIGITAL

Out of Hand: Materialising the Digital explores the increasingly important role of digital manufacture in contemporary art, science, fashion, design and architecture.

Recognising that many techniques have emerged from past ideas and are now defining new possibilities, understandings and expectations.  3D printing in its various forms, CNC machining, laser cutting and digital knitting and weaving.

These technologies suggest a new future that promises innovation in design, new industries and business models and a renewed local manufacturing base.  They also indicate a breakdown of the way we understand the boundary between the digital and material worlds, marking a significant cultural shift.

The exhibition features works by more than 60 artists, designers and architects from around the world including Barry X Ball, Zaha Hadid, Iris van Herpen and Ron Arad, as well as works from Australia and the Asia-Pacific, and objects from the MAAS collection.

ICONS:  from the MASS COLLECTION

This exhibition, featuring a selection of over 70 celebrated and rarely-displayed objects from the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences’ vast and diverse collection, explores what makes a museum object an icon in the 21st century.

From a grand concert piano to a humble elephant statue that survived the great Garden Palace fire of 1882; from Sir Howard Florey’s penicillin samples to a cochlear implant; from an ancient Greek drinking cup to the Apple 1 computer; many of the objects are leading examples of human creativity and ingenuity, and have played a significant role in shaping society and creating a better world.

This diverse array of objects are explored through themes including luxury, celebrity, status, spirituality, value and genius. You are invited to consider and question what makes something iconic.

STUDENT  FASHION  2017

Student Fashion is an annual display that provides a glimpse of the exciting potential of the next generation of Australian fashion designers. The exhibition showcases outfits from the final-year ranges of top students from four Sydney-based fashion design schools. With inspiration as varied as the rural landscape around Orange and Chinese calligraphy, and fabrications ranging from hand-woven to 3D printed garments, each student presents two signature garments alongside fascinating documentation of their creative process.

1 June

SYDNEY  FISH  MARKETS

22 May

NIMBIN,  New South Wales.  My first visit to the village of Nimbin, is notable for the prominence of its environmental initiatives such as permaculture, sustainability and self-sufficiency as well as the cannabiscounterculture. Writer Austin Pick described his initial impressions of the village this way: “It is as if a smoky avenue of Amsterdam has been placed in the middle of the mountains behind frontier-style building facades. … Nimbin is a strange place indeed.”

Nimbin has been described in literature and mainstream media as ‘the drug capital of Australia’, ‘a social experiment’ and ‘an escapist sub-culture’. Nimbin has become an icon in Australian cultural history with many of the values first introduced there by the counterculture becoming part of modern Australian culture.

NIMBIN  ARTISTS  GALLERY 

Nimbin is a vibrant and unique community nestled in scenic north east New South Wales.
Nimbin Artists Gallery was established on the 7th of November 1997 to showcase the creative and innovative styles of the regions artists.  The gallery exhibits a huge range of works from over 100 artists living in and around Nimbin.

On display is a large variety of art including sculpture, glass, jewelry, ceramics, clothing, baskets – too much to mention. The gallery is open daily (7 days) 10am – 5pm and is run by a small team of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers.

The gallery hosts the annual Nimbin Autumn Arts Extravaganza. This major exhibition joins the gallery to the adjacent hall, stage and back stage areas. It includes daily recitals and performance art.It occurs around Easter for three and a half weeks.

21 May

TWEED  REGIONAL  GALLERY is surrounded by beautiful gardens and lawns and offering panoramic views of the Tweed River, the Tweed Regional Gallery is the perfect place to visit to view first-rate exhibitions.  Past Exhibitions.

Margaret Olley Art Centre  

MOAC combines exhibitions of paintings and objects, an interactive multi-media drawing activity, research library and education workshop, and is complemented by the Nancy Fairfax Artist in Residence Studio. Central to the MOAC is the recreation of areas of Olley’s famous home studio, principally the Hat Factory and the Yellow Room.  The recreation features original architectural elements such as windows and doors, relocated from Olley’s home studio at 48 Duxford Street, Paddington, Sydney. The interiors are filled with over 20,000 items Olley collected over many years as subject matter for her paintings.  These combined elements offer a rich and dynamic context for Olley’s extensive artistic career.

Portraits: Margaret Olley, The Margaret Olley Art Centre

“Because I have a face like a pudding and it’s easy to draw.”

This was Margaret Olley’s humorous response, when asked by friend and biographer Christine France, why, in her opinion, she was such a popular portrait subject for fellow artists.

Margaret Olley remains the most painted face in Australian art history. As a fledgling artist at the age of 25, Olley sat for friend and fellow artist William Dobell. His portrait Margaret Olley 1948 won the Archibald Prize, hurtling a shy Olley into a media frenzy. More than six decades later, Olley was again the subject of an Archibald Prize winning portrait by Ben Quilty, Margaret Olley 2011.

This outstanding exhibition of portraits of Olley by her artist friends, and self-portraits, is an exploration of Olley’s extraordinary life, spirited character and her enduring friendships with some of the most significant figures in Australian art. Portraits: Margaret Olley includes work by Margaret Olley, William Dobell, Russell Drysdale, Ian Fairweather, Judy Cassab, Jeffrey Smart, Ben Quilty, Nicholas Harding and more.

A – Z: the alphabet in art – Works from the collection,  The Withey Family Gallery

Drawn from our collection, this playful exhibition brings together a curious combination of works inspired by the alphabet.  Selecting pieces for this exhibition presented me with the opportunity to create fun and unusual combinations of artworks from the collection for our visitors.  Play a classic game of ‘I Spy’, or create your own game using the artworks as a visual language. I invite you to interact with some wonderful pieces in what I hope is an engaging, family-orientated and entertaining exhibition.  After viewing this playful glimpse into the Gallery’s collection, you’ll really know your ABCs!

Slipstitch, The Boyd Gallery

An Ararat Regional Art Gallery and NETS Victoria touring exhibition, curated by Dr Belinda von Mergensen  Slipstitch presents an Australian perspective on the contemporary uptake of embroidery by a new generation of artists.

In recent years contemporary artists in Australia have embraced embroidery for its capacity for poignant and reflective narrative. The re-emergence of embroidery is part of a broader questioning of the hierarchy of materials that has gained momentum since the 1990s. Embroidered objects have often been read literally and relegated within a domestic framework. These new contemporary works break down preconceptions by exploring what embroidery can become once it transcends the regularity of pattern and decoration. Historically, embroidery like the Bayeux Tapestry, was used as a tool for personal or political narratives. Slipstitch aims to introduce a contemporary audience to the capacity of embroidery for drawing and communication in this mode.

The exhibition features recent work from Mae Finlayson, David Green, Lucas Grogan, Alice Kettle, Tim Moore, Silke Raetze, Demelza Sherwood, Matt Siwerski, Jane Theau, Sera Waters, Elyse Watkins and Ilka White.

Concrete 2, The Peter and Judy Budd Foyer

Throughout the history of art photography, the concrete form has been used to symbolise pervasive and dominant social forces. Concrete through photography has become a symbol of Modernist design, the metropolis, urban growth, industrialisation and of the designed utopia.

Damien O’Mara seeks to re-present the concrete form in a way that challenges the established symbolism. Rather than a clean and inert concrete structure, Concrete 2 depicts a concrete bridge that is marked and stained by time and place. The beam structure is overcome by marine growth and algae. The circular pillar reflects the greens and purples of the surrounding vegetation. The concrete form is depicted as immersed in and effected by its environment. While the clean concrete form suggests the dominance of the designed over the natural, the stained and marked concrete form suggests an inevitable intertwining of the intended and the experienced. The works reflect a gradual shift away from the regimentation of Modern societies and towards a less homogenised and more interactive contemporary awareness.

Guy Maestri, The Friends Gallery

During 2016 Sydney-based artist Guy Maestri spent time in the Gallery’s Nancy Fairfax Artist in Residency Studio. The aim of the residency was to commence the development of a body of work for a solo exhibition in the Friends Gallery in March 2017.

The artist said, “I originally intended to observe and respond to the local landscape and fauna as the focus of my residency at the Gallery. However, as I settled into the studio and absorbed myself into the residency, I realised what a privilege it was to have such intimate access to Margaret Olley’s world via the exhibition of Olley’s work and the re-creation of her Duxford Street home studio.  Studying Margaret’s paintings, reading her thoughts about art and life and having access to the actual objects that she painted from (her own things) made me realise what a masterful painter she was. It made me fall in love with painting again, for the pure joy of it. To spend time looking at, and painting from life, the objects I know so well from Margaret’s paintings, and to know that Margaret herself had spent time quietly rendering those same objects was again, a privilege. It unexpectedly redirected my focus for my residency, to something more intimate and more about personal objects, and of course, about the love of painting.”

Drawn to Print: David Fairborn, The Temporary Exhibitions Gallery

Renowned portraitist David Fairbairn is well known for his large mixed media drawings. Although this aspect of his practice continues, in recent years he has worked almost exclusively on large scale etchings.  

David Fairbairn said, “It is important to me that my etchings compliment and extend my previous explorations in drawing. With these new prints, drawing directly from the sitter onto the copper etching plate is an important aspect of my process. The length of time spent with a person and the stopping and starting of a work as a series develops, are factors that contribute to the final outcome. I am interested in the unexpected transformative qualities of the line that is etched by immersion in ferric chloride. The quality of the corrosive line is different to a drawn line on paper using charcoal or pastel. Now working predominantly in black and white, I am able to reinforce the underlying formal and abstract structures in the depiction of the sitter, whilst still emphasising the emotional and psychological content of the work.”  

Drawn to Print: David Fairbairn showcases drawings produced from 2010–2016, and etchings of the same sitters created during the period 2015–2017.  David Fairbairn is represented by Stella Downer Fine Art, Sydney and Port Jackson Press Print Gallery, Melbourne.

Slow light… Celestial, The Macnaughton Focus Gallery

The Slow Light… Celestial series was inspired by Colleen DaRosa’s road trip in April this year starting in the Red Centre, Uluru on 2 April 2016. The previous day, artist Bruce Munro had finalised the installation of his epic work Field of Light (2016) using 50,000 solar-powered LED lights. He had been enchanted a decade ago by the fields of wild flowers he’d seen at Uluru and was motivated to recreate a vision in light. Under the night sky, one experienced the glowing majesty of a celestial floral tribute to the Milky Way, mirrored in a colourful cosmos. The enormity of the work and the power of light as a poetic device was compelling.  The motifs for the Slow Light… Celestial series are traces from that experience and my own imaginings of celestial light and cosmic forms. I employ techniques in which reflection and refraction of light create a glow of colour. As one’s view point changes, light becomes a more palpable force.

Tumbulgum and the Countdown to Midnight at the First Supper Between Now and Forever, The Anthony Gallery

MURWILLUMBAH  “place of many possums”

Surrounded, as it is, by the rim of the world’s largest extinct shield volcano and bordering the Tweed River, almost every street has magnificent mountain, river and valley views.  As well as being the gateway to five of Australia’s World Heritage listed National Parks, Murwillumbah is home to the World Heritage Rainforest Centre – a visitor information centre which also houses a National Parks and Wildlife Service office. The magnificent Mt Warning is the core of the ancient Caldera and it towers over the township of Murwillumbah like a prehistoric guardian.

Head On Photo Awards 2017 – Landscape Prize – George Byrne: Mount Warning is depicted in a local mural near Murwillumbah.

The Treasures of the Tweed mural is a beautiful show of the creativity in Murwillumbah.  The mural is located along the concrete flood mitigation wall on the western side of the Tweed River bank on Commercial Road, Murwillumbah.

20 May 

MURWILLUMBAH – The Blue Frog Patisserie and Café, La Grenouille Bleu.  The french owner, Andre’s goodies include authentic french pastries, quiches and baguettes made at the cafe not to mention the great coffee. 4 Wharf St, Murwillumbah, New South Wales. +61 2 6672 7474

Concrete flood protection wall mural

18 May

SEA WORLD

Polar Bear Shores where you can observe the bear’s graceful underwater swimming and playful behaviours through large underwater viewing windows and learn about these massive marine mammals through detailed information boards and fascinating interpretive information.

Creatures of the Deep, shows a journey to the depths of the ocean and discover a world of mysterious creatures in Sea World’s.  This brand new world-first attraction showcases an array of marine life, from the legendary Kraken to the giant Blue Whale, the fierce Megladon and the luminous creatures from the deepest & darkest parts of the ocean. You will be able to go on an educational, interactive and exciting expedition through the prehistoric, present and mythical worlds, discovering the shadowy realms of the deep sea below.

Penguin Feeding is home to the smallest penguins in the world, this specially designed exhibit offers our cute little Fairy Penguins their very own slice of paradise. You can observe them diving, swimming and burrowing as they playfully interact with each other while getting a rare and educational insight into the nature of these amazing flightless birds.

Penguin Encounter where you get lost in your very own slice of Antarctica in this beautiful frozen exhibit, home to the second largest species of Penguin in the world, the King Penguin as well as the lively Gentoo penguins. Encounter these incredible birds up close in their icy wonderland as they dive in and out of the crystal clear water. You’ll see their playful nature on the snow through the topside viewing area, and their elegant underwater flight through the stunning underwater viewing window.

Shark Bay, explore life beneath the ocean’s surface in the world’s largest man-made lagoon system for sharks. You’ll be amazed by the magical display of tropical fish, sting rays and other bottom-dwellers in the stunning Tropical reef Lagoon – it’s like a piece of the Great Barrier reef on the Gold Coast.

Ray Reef Feeding where you can get up close and personal in this interactive exhibit with one of the ocean’s most misunderstood inhabitants, the majestic Stingray. Discover the true nature of these beautiful creatures in their colourful Sea World home as they fly and glide under the water, coming close enough to let you touch, feed and observe them. You’ll even learn all about the Ray’s place in the ocean’s eco system during one of the many live educational presentations.

Affinity Dolphin Presentation at Dolphin Beach is a large natural sandy bottom lagoon system for dolphins and features the stunning show pool, as well as two other large lagoons. This wonderful area is home to our delightful Offshore Bottlenose Dolphins, and often houses baby dolphins in the nursery area. The 8m deep presentation pool is where the amazing ‘Affinity’ dolphin presentation takes place daily.

Jet Stunt Extreme takes your next visit to Sea World to the extreme as you watch some of the world’s best freestyle Jet Skiers bring the Sea World lake to life twice daily.  Group precision rides sequences and head to head competition are just part of the fun. Don’t miss the thrilling ariel stunts and fast action on purpose designed Jet Skis made for speed.  You’ll be on the edge of your seat the entire time as you watch the team perform amazing aerial flips and gravity defying stunts.

Seal Harbour where you can get up close and personal to Sea World’s playful seals in the Seal Harbour exhibit.  Stroll along the specially designed boardwalks and watch the seals splash, play and sun themselves in their home. Featuring glass partitions and boardwalks just above the water’s surface, it’s the perfect place to unwind and see the seals at play. Learn about the Long Nosed Fur Seals, Sub Antarctic Fur Seals and Californian Sea Lions.  With expansive sandy bottomed lagoons, naturalistic play areas and crystal clear waters, you will delight at this amazing paradise for seals.

Seabird Rehab were you can come and meet our very own resident Pelicans in the Seabird Rehabilitation Aviary. This amazing area is designed to house sea birds under care and rehabilitation. The birds in this area have been nursed back to health by our experienced staff, and many will never return to the wild due to disabilities caused mainly by carelessness with fishing hooks and lines. This area is also famous for its very successful breeding program, which is made all the more special by the fact that it is very unusual to see Pelicans breed on the eastern coastline of Australia!

13 May

MUSEUM  OF  SYDNEY  on this site, in 1988 on the ancient land of the Gadigal people, Governor Arthur Phillip built Australia’s first Government House.  The house was the home, office and seat of authority for the first nine governors of New South Wales and the centre of the social and political life of the colony.

Cesar Dezfuli’s image of 16-year-old Amadou Sumaila, who was on board a crowded rubber boat drifting off the coast of Libya, was one of 118 refugees he photographed within minutes of their rescue.

“Their faces, their looks, the marks on their body, their clothes or the absence of it … reflects the mood and physical state … in a moment that has already marked their lives forever,” Dezfuli wrote on his website.

“Documenting it can serve to bring this migration reality closer to those who only observe it from a distance.”

The winner in the festival’s mobile division also had a refugee theme, with Demetris Koilalous’ The Tempest capturing the sea passage between Greece and Turkey which is often referred to by migrants as the “death passage”.

Also SAND IN THE CITY, CALLING ALL BEACHCOMBERS …

Celebrating Sydney’s beautiful beaches, this fully interactive exhibition features dazzling models of our northern and southern seashores along with a pair of giant digital sandboxes with ‘projected’ scenery changing as your busy hands shift and sculpt a playful sandy landscape.

When you’ve had your fill of shaping sandcastles, mermaids and sea monsters, try building a LEGO beach shack or any other funky creature that springs to mind, with moats overflowing with loose bricks and minifigs surrounding a giant LEGO coastline crafted by the ‘Brickman’ himself, Ryan McNaught.

As you work, watch our special documentary film featuring a sandy line-up of salty-haired Sydneysiders, reflecting on beach life and the many ways we enjoy and experience our city’s watery edge.

Living with an ocean at our doorstep, we use the beach in many different ways. From playing, strolling and jogging along it, to tanning, cuddling or snoozing on it. From drawing, dreaming and writing about it, to revegetating and removing plastic from it. We surf, swim, sail and snorkel alongside it, and sometimes we’re simply moved by the mystery and magic of it.

Inspired by the popularity of our recent interactive LEGO exhibitions, Sand in the City combines all the fun and possibilities of scooping, sculpting and shaping sand with Sydney’s insatiable love of the seaside.

10 May

NSW Award George Byrne Murwillumbah. Mount Warning is depicted in a local mural near Murwillumbah.

HEAD ON LANDSCAPE/TRAVEL prize and NSW Parliament Landscape Photography Prize to encourage a new perspective of an old genre to push creative boundaries and promote work that is informed, but not limited, by traditional practices.  Head On has a broad approach to ‘Landscape’ which encompasses ‘large vista’ images of the natural environment (land or sea), urban or industrial settings.  It may include people but are ‘incidental’ rather than the main subject matter.

Head On Photo Festival  Full festival program at: https://www.headon.com.au/

Launch and Announcement of Winners 2017

Exhibitions by Maggie Steber, US artist and John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow Maggie Steber’s new exhibition titled Secret Garden of Lily LaPalma will be presented in UNSW Art & Design’s ADspace.

Maggie Steber is a photographer who has worked in more than 60 nations champions humanistic values and ideas. She received numerous grants and awards in support of her practice over 30 years including work covering disasters in Haiti. Aperture published a monograph on her work Dancing on Fire in 1991. She has been a photo editor, director of photography, curator and photographer. She teaches workshops around the world including Master Classes for World Press Photo. Steber has served as judge for many grants and photographic competitions. Her work has been exhibited extensively in the US and around the world and is included in the US Library of Congress and the Richter Library at University of Miami.  Her honors include Leica Medal of Excellence, World Press and Pictures of the Year first prizes, Overseas Press Club awards and Medal for Distinguished Service to Journalism.

TWO FOLLOWING EXHIBITIONS on at  ACTORS  CENTRE  AUSTRALIA

THE ONE PROJECT Group of exhibiting photographers

The One Project curated by portrait photographer Hilary Wardhaugh, showcasing 29 works by 28 photographers.

NOWESTCONNEX PROJECT   Luca Altamore 

Major pubic discontent has resulted, with major demonstrations and protests across Sydney showing the out-pour of anger, sadness and grief that has come as a cost of the project.  Luca followed this demonstration to capture the raw emotion and swell of people that were against the WestConnex project and families and communities being disrupted.

WestConnex is the largest transport project in Australia, linking Sydney’s west and south-west with the CBD, Sydney Airport and Port Botany.   The construction of major roads is gutting neighbourhoods and parks, and decimating communities the have been established over time.  These photos are a part of my photojournalism project at the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney.

LEICHHARDT  LIBRARY  Exhibition SHARK BAY by Remy Gerega

“Shark Bay”, Remy’s latest series showcases the stunningly beautiful kaleidoscope of colour and diversity of the Western Australian coastline.  The aerial perspective of UNESCO World Heritage listed Shark Bay is captured from a Cessna 182 with the doors taken off allowing Remy to lean out of the plane and photograph a true birds eye view of Australia’s most western point spanning over 5.4 million acres.   The landscape of Shark Bay is all the more striking when seen from the air, especially when flying at 5000 feet.   From the pristine expanses of coastline, to the groups of tranquil turquoise lagoons contrasted with the deep red sands we are reminded of how breathtaking the landscape of Western Australia really is.

2 May 

Hans Zimmer REVEALED and his band, Sydney Concert.  The concert will be in two parts: the first being some of Zimmer’s classic movie scores including GLADIATOR, THE LION KING and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, and the second featuring re-imagined versions of some classic scores such as THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY and INCEPTION with special guests from the rock and pop world.

“Performing a concert series like this is something that I have always wanted to do, and I am thrilled to visit Australia and New Zealand and return to Europe where we had so much fun playing in the summer.” said Zimmer. “I am very excited to get some of my very talented friends together and give our audiences an experience unlike any concert they have ever been to before.”

Hans Zimmer Setlistat Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney, Australia

Setlist

1. Driving Miss Daisy / Sherlock Holmes / Madagascar
2. Crimson Tide
   (with speech about Tony Scott and the film)
3. Gladiator
4. The Lion King
5. The Da Vinci Code
6. Pirates of the Caribbean Theme
   (Klaus Badelt cover) (with “Drink Up Me Hearties Yo… more )
7. Intermission
8. True Romance
9. Man of Steel
10. Is She with You?
    (Wonder Woman Theme)
11. The Thin Red Line
12. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
13. The Dark Knight
14. Aurora
    (with speech about Heath… more )
15. Interstellar
16. Encore:
17. Inception

ABOUT HANS ZIMMER

Hans Zimmer has scored more than 120 films, which have, combined, grossed over 24 billion dollars at the worldwide box office. His upcoming film projects include Sean Penn’s The Last Face and 20^th Century Fox’s Hidden Figures, with Pharrell Williams and Ben Wallfisch out January 2017. Zimmer has been honored with an Academy Award®, two Golden Globes®, three Grammys®, an American Music Award, and a Tony® Award. His most recent Academy Award-nomination for Interstellar marks his 10th career Oscar nomination with the Academy. In 2003, ASCAP presented him with the prestigious Henry Mancini award for Lifetime Achievement for his impressive and influential body of work. He also received his Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010, and in 2014 was honored with the Zurich Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. Zimmer recently completed his first concerts in the UK, “Hans Zimmer Revealed,” at the Eventim Hammersmith Apollo, and concluded his first ever European tour, “Hans Zimmer Live,” on June 5, 2016.

Other recent releases include: Zack Snyder’s Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Mark Osborne’s The Little Prince, Peter Sollet’s Freeheld, Simon Curtis’ Women in Gold, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, Ron Howard’s Rush, Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, History Channel’s miniseries The Bible, the Christopher Nolan-directed films Inception, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises; and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Some of Zimmer’s most notable works include his scores for Rain Main, Driving Miss Daisy, Thelma & Louise, Crimson Tide, The Thin Red Line, Gladiator, Mission: Impossible II, Hannibal, Pearl Harbor, Tears of the Sun, Spanglish, The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, the Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar films, The Da Vinci Code, Frost/Nixon, and The Lion King, for which he won the Academy Award.

A taste of some of his compositions.

29 April

Annandale Heritage Festival

A Short Virtual Walk  –  In the footsteps of WS Jevons

In the 1850s, a new Train line passed through the Annandale Estate and William Stanley Jevons came to live at Annangrove Cottage on the Parramatta Road. Jevons left us descriptions of Annangrove Cottage and his journeys and rambles from here.

Marghanita da Cruz retraced Jevons footsteps in a virtual tour of 1850s Annandale including the first subdivisions. The walk will then jump a 100 years to the 1950s when three tramlines passed through Annandale.

The talk will form the basis of Marghanita’s seventh book in a series which presents Annandale’s History as Short Walks.  The afternoon will include an opportunity to explore historic Annangrove cottage and nearby sites.

Annandale Gates

The gates originally stood just off Parramatta Road, on the crest of the hill, on the south side, where the Globe Cinema now stands. (Since publication, the cinema has been demolished and the Globe Apartment complex built.) At the centre of each gate hung a cast iron shield featuring the Johnston crest, the flying spur. From the gates an avenue of Norfolk Island pines led south to the house.

Dating the gates is not easy in the absence of documentary evidence, but the impression stylistically that they date from about 1875-1880 is consistent with the changing situation of the Johnston family at that time.

The gates had been removed and re-erected at Liverpool showground and subsequently dismantled again.
In 1972, they were located by the Annandale Association in storage at Liverpool Council’s depot. Liverpool Council presented the gates to Leichhardt Council
in 1972, to commemorate Leichhardt’s municipal centenary.

In 1976 it was agreed that they should be included in the landscaping by the Department of Education of the area, now part of the school grounds, where the house “Greyholme” had stood. The Education Department, the school’s headmaster Mr P. Bracks, Leichhardt Council and the Annandale Association agreed to this proposal.

(Taken from “Our History” Annandale Public School 1886-1986)

25 April

SPIRIT OF ANZAC  Centenary Experience

My Visit:  Tagged Exhibits

• Aboriginal service during the First World War  Aboriginal Australians had few rights in society. Most were ineligible to vote and none were counted in the census. When war broke out, some saw it as a chance to prove themselves the equal of Europeans and tried to enlist. For many, the motivation was no different from any other Australian: that the offer of six shillings a day for a trip overseas was simply too good to miss.
• Captain Albert Jacka  AIF’s First VC of the War, Lance Corporal Albert Jacka landed on Gallipoli on 26 April 1915. Just over three weeks later, the Turks launched large-scale assaults and captured a small section of trench at Courtney’s Post. Jacka, taking advantage of a diversion created by bomb-throwers, leapt in, killing most of the occupants. For this he was awarded Australia’s first Victoria Cross of the First World War.
• Graham Butler  Medical officer Captain Graham “Gertie” Butler landed on Gallipoli early on the first day. He quickly set up an aid post in the hills behind the front line and started treating casualties using the small number of instruments contained in this wallet.
• Kerosene Tin Grave Cross Private C G H Hampson, 23 Battalion AIF.  For three years, this fragile cross marked the gravesite of Victorian Private Charles Hampson, 23rd Battalion, who died at Lone Pine. It was replaced when Hampson’s body was re-interred at Lone Pine Cemetery.
• Landing Boats Lifeboats from the Devanha, which had been requisitioned from the P&O line as a troopship, transported men of the 12th Battalion, the 3rd Field Ambulance and the 3rd Infantry Brigade Headquarters ashore on the day of the Gallipoli landings.
• Major King’s Whistle This whistle was blown three times by Dennis King, brigade major of the 1st Brigade, to sound the start of the Australian attack on Turkish positions at Lone Pine.
• Private William Goudemey’s Distinguished Conduct Medal  During a Turkish counter-attack on the Australian positions at Lone Pine, Goudemey was one of four men who climbed out of the trenches to bring a Vickers machine-gun into action. He was killed at Pozières a year later.
• Remains of Turkish Grenades  Known as “cricket ball” bombs, these weapons had a 10-second fuse; if thrown too early, they might be caught and thrown back.
• Sir William Birdwood  When the First World War began, Britain’s Minister for War, Lord Kitchener, placed Birdwood in command of the Australian and New Zealand forces. Birdwood impressed the men by regularly visiting the front lines. His bravery earned him the enduring respect of the AIF, and he was appointed its commander, following the death of Major General William Bridges.
• Admiral Sir George Patey  Patey was appointed the first commander of newly formed Australian Fleet in 1913. He led Australian operations against German Samoa and German New Guinea in 1914.
• HMAS Melbourne  Melbourne kept guard at the rear of the convoy carrying the first contingent of Australian and New Zealand troops. There were three other escort ships, including the other Australian warship, HMAS Sydney.
• HMAS  Sydney  1:175 scale model of HMAS Sydney.
• HMAS Sydney Destroys SMS Emden  On 9 November 1914, while escorting the first Australian and New Zealand troop convoy, the light cruiser HMAS Sydney received an SOS from a communications station in the Cocos Islands. The ship leading the convoy, HMAS Melbourne, ordered Sydney to investigate. At first, Sydney was hit by 15 shells fired by the Emden (although 10 failed to explode). Four sailors were killed. The faster, more powerful Sydney returned fire, causing so much damage that Emden’s captain ran his ship aground on North Keeling Island. In all, 134 of Emden’s officers and men were killed, and the rest of the crew were captured, ¬except for a small landing party that eventually made its way to Constantinople after an epic journey.
• The AE1 Submarine  The AE1 was one of two similar British-built submarines operated by the Royal Australian Navy in the first two years of the war. It apparently sank off German New Britain on 14 September 1914; no trace of it or the crew has ever been found.
• The AE2 Submarine  The RAN’s second submarine earned brief celebrity in April 1915 when it penetrated the elaborate defences of the Dardanelles, eluding Turkish searches and attacking a number of ships. It still lies at the bottom of the Sea of Marmara.
• The ANZACS Make Their Final Push  After months of fighting, death and disease, there seemed no end to the stalemate. A fresh offensive was launched in August to break the deadlock, but despite determined fighting few gains were made. During the August offensive, battles noted for sacrifice and bravery were fought – Lone Pine, The Nek, Chunuk Bair – but soon the fight slipped back to a stalemate.
• 170 – Millimetre Minenwerfer  The German version of a trench mortar, the Minenwerfer was able to lob large shells almost vertically onto enemy trenches. Men were likely to be killed by the shock wave alone.

• Gas-Proof Pigeon Carrier Box  Pigeons proved unusually reliable in delivering messages at the front, and much effort was expended in training and protecting them. A whiff of gas would kill a pigeon, hence the effort made to produce gas-proof boxes for them.
• Otto Dix, Sturmtruppe Geht Unter Gas Vor (Storm Troopers Advancing Undehttps://www.awm.gov.au/images/collection/items/ACCNUM_SCREEN/RELAWM04399.001.JPGr a Gas Attack)  Dix wrote: “The war was a horrible thing, but there was something tremendous about it, too. I didn’t want to miss it at any price. You have to see human beings in this unleashed state to know what human nature is.”
• Sergeant David Emmett Coyne  While testing some grenades on the night of 15 May 1918, Coyne mis-threw one which rolled back into the trench. Shouting a warning to his mates, he threw himself on it. “I thought you didn’t have time to get out,” he explained as he lay dying.
• Trip-Wire Gun  Originally designed in the 1880s as an anti-poaching device and activated by a length of trip wire, these simple guns usually fired a 12-gauge pin-fire shotgun cartridge to alert defenders to an impending intrusion.
• Cheops Photo Interactive Experience  Disclaimer: The Australian War Memorial is not responsible for the information contained on these screens. All information has been compiled by the WAGS 11Bn Project. To visit their website after the experience, please tap your audio device here.
• Recording History – Charles Bean  Charles Bean was the AIF’s official war correspondent. Later in the war he established the Australian War Records Section, responsible for the assembly of records, the administration of war photographers and artists, and the collection of artefacts. Bean eventually published a 12-volume history of the Australians’ efforts in the war and became founder of the Australian War Memorial, which opened in Canberra in 1941.
• Bullecourt  The 4th Australian Division was ordered to attack the Hindenburg Line alongside Bullecourt in 1917 despite a shortage of artillery support. Advancing across snow-dusted fields, the Australians met a hail of fire that tore through them. The 4th Brigade lost 2,339 men out of 3,000. The 12th lost 950 from less than 2,000. On May 3, they tried again and, after two weeks of fighting and a further 7,000 casualties, this portion of the Hindenburg Line was held, but for little real gain.
• Pozieres – Australian Significant Losses and Casualties Within five days of the 1st Division going into the battle on 23 July 1916, the division lost 5,000 men. It was replaced by the 2nd Division, which had an even worse time of it – almost 7,000 casualties in 12 days. The 4th Division then went in, pressing its attacks towards the adjoining Mouquet Farm. Over 42 days, the Australians made 19 attacks: the final casualties came to the appalling total of 23,000 men.
• Spanner from an Enormous War Trophy  A huge German 28-centimetre calibre railway gun captured at Harbonnières on 8 August 1918 was eventually shipped back to Australia, where it was placed on display at Sydney’s Central Railway Station, and later at Canberra Railway Station.
• Glass Beadwork Snake  Craft work, such as this snake and purse fashioned by Turkish soldiers in a British prisoner-of-war camp in 1917–18, was a time-honoured means of occupying one’s time that also allowed prisoners to earn some money.

• Australian Nurses at the Front  Australian nurses played a vital role in handling the war’s innumerable casualties. About 500 nurses were regularly employed on the Western Front at any time, and those in casualty clearing stations were sometimes exposed to enemy bombing. Many were decorated, with eight nurses receiving the Military Medal for bravhttps://www.awm.gov.au/images/collection/items/ACCNUM_SCREEN/C02305.JPGery during the First World War.
• Battle of Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres)  On 12 October 1917 Australian, New Zealand and British troops made an unsuccessful attempt to capture the Passchendaele Ridge from the Germans. The allies struggled through thick mud and shelling, and faced vicious fighting and slaughter on a large scale. Ground was taken but could not be held. In wretched conditions, with casualties mounting at an appalling rate, the Australians fell back, exhausted.
• Canon De 75 MM, MOdele 1897  The French “75” light field gun was the first mass-produced weapon to combine an effective axial recoil, a quick-acting breech and a splinter-proof shield, and to use fixed ammunition.
• Nurse’s Medals  Sister Nellie Leake served with the Australian Army Nursing Service from April 1915 until the end of the war. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross (Second Class) for her “valuable services in the field” in Egypt; she also served in France.
• The Tragedy at Fromelles  Just after arriving in France from Egypt, the newest and least prepared Australian division, the 5th, became the first to go into a major battle at Fromelles, commencing on 19 July. It was meant to be a diversion to draw enemy attention away from the allies’ Somme offensive, but over little more than 24 hours the Australians suffered 5,500 casualties. One German soldier who survived Fromelles, and who was later awarded the Iron Cross for bravery, was the young Adolf Hitler.
• American Water Bottle Carrier  This water bottle carrier was worn by one of men of the US 132nd Regiment attached to the 13th Battalion during the battle of Hamel on 4 July 1918. It was noted that the Americans “fought well, but with a dash that needs to be tempered by experience”.
• Cigarette Case  During the assault on the Hindenburg Line on 29 September 1918, Lieutenant Marcus Griffin, 30th Battalion, was wounded by a piece of shrapnel. His cigarette case deflected the fragment away from his lungs, but it cut through three of his ribs.
• German’s Red Baron  Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, aka the Red Baron, was a highly skilled German fighter pilot. When the war began, he was a cavalry reconnaissance officer, but soon transferred to the Imperial German Army Air Service and took command of fighter squadron Jasta II. By the time he was shot down in April 1918, the Red Baron had 80 confirmed victories.
• The Charge at Beersheba  The charge at Beersheba, near the vital strongpoint of Gaza, on 31 October 1917, is the most famous of all Australian light horse actions. Beersheba was the key to Gaza and was captured in an audacious old-style cavalry charge. About 500 Australian light horsemen in three lines broke into a gallop and became an unstoppable force that smashed the Turkish defences. It was all over in an hour.
• Mont St Quentin and Peronne  On 31 August 1918, two undermanned Australian battalions charged up Mont St Quentin, ordered by Monash to “scream like bushrangers”. The Germans quickly surrendered. The Australians were unable to hold their ground, and German reserves regained the crest. But the Australians regrouped just below the summit and the next day recaptured it. A German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line ensued.
• Sir John Monash and His Victories  In 1916, Monash and his command were transferred to the Western Front. He was promoted to major general and placed in command of the Australian 3rd Division, fighting in actions such as Messines, Broodseinde, and the first battle of Passchendaele. Impressed by his abilities and enthusiasm, the British High Command promoted Monash to lieutenant general in 1918 and made him commander of the Australian Corps – at the time the largest individual corps on the Western Front. A brilliant tactician and a meticulous planner, Monash led many victorious attacks during the final stages of the war. Considered one of the war’s outstanding commanders, Monash was knighted for his services in 1918 and received numerous foreign honours.
• Tanks Come of Age  After the tanks’ poor performance at Bullecourt in 1917, the Australians had little affection for them. This changed in 1918 with the introduction of the 27-tonne British Mark V tank. Technically superior to earlier models, the Mark V was more reliable and manoeuvrable. The Germans, slow to adopt the idea, made only 20 of the A7V, a poor design.
• Living Conditions in the Middle East  There was water in the desert, often obtained from bores, but it was mostly poor in quality. Turkish troops adapted to the conditions but the British relied on water pumped through pipes newly laid from the Nile. The Australians introduced the “spearpoint” pump – a tube driven through old well floors – as an effective way to provide water for horses.
• Richthofen’s only Australian Victim Second Lieutenant Jack Hay was flying an outdated FE8 pusher biplane when he encountered Richthofen’s squadron on 23 January 1917. In an unequal fight, Hay’s plane burst into flames; rather than burn, Hay jumped to his death.

• Slouch Hat  These standard-issue items were worn by South Australian Private George Kenihan, who served with the 4th Light Horse Field Ambulance. He helped treat the wounded after the famous charge at Beersheba on 31 October 1917.
• The Australian Flying Corps  The first roles assigned to No. 1 Squadron, AFC, were reconnaissance, photography and bombing operations against the enemy in the Sinai. The first of its 29 confirmed aerial victories occurred on 3 January 1918 against an Albatross D.III scout. By the end of the war, five of the squadron’s personnel had been knighted and 15 of its pilots had become aces.
• The Camel Corps  The Imperial Camel Corps (ICC) was formed in January 1916 in order to deal with the revolt of pro-Turkish Senussi tribesmen in Egypt’s Western Desert. The 1st and 3rd Battalions were entirely Australian, the 2nd was British, and the 4th was a mix of Australians and New Zealanders. In late 1916 the ICC was transferred to the Sinai desert to take part in operations against the Turkish army, fighting alongside Australian Light Horse units at Romani, Magdhaba and Rafa. They remained an integral part of the British and dominion force that advanced north through Palestine.
• Turkish Officer’s Binoculars  At Ziza on 29 September 1918 Colonel Ali Bey Wahaby of the 11th Turkish Corps handed over these binoculars when he surrendered to Major General Sir Edward Chaytor, Commander, Anzac Mounted Division.
• An Enduring Memory  Fifteen-year-old Nellie Blain was knitting socks for her 23-year-old brother, Trooper Arthur Blain, when she received news of his death from head wounds on Gallipoli. She kept the unfinished sock in memory of him until her own death at the age of 98.
• Private C H Stevens’ Wheelchair  In June 1918 four German “daisy-cutter” shells had landed near ambulance driver and stretcher-bearer Charlie Stevens, shattering his legs, both of which had to be amputated above the knee. After the war, he used this crutch every day of his life.
• Ray Pflaum’s British War Medal  British War Medal 1914-20 issued to the family of 161 Private Raymond ‘Ray’ Holstein Pflaum. The son of Theodore and Mary Pflaum, he was working as a shop assistant in his home town of Blumberg, South Australia when he enlisted in the AIF on 21 July 1915 at the age of 18.
• Sounding the End of the War  In November 1918 Darwin postal worker Joseph Johnson received a telegram in code from the Navy Office Melbourne stating, “Armistice signed. Please advise Darwin populace.” He and his wife spent the night around the town spreading the news and ringing the buffalo bell.

• The Treaty of Versailles  The victors showed little mercy towards Germany in 1919 and left a legacy of hatred in their wake. Germany was forced to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions, and pay reparations of 132 billion German marks (roughly equivalent to US $442 billion in 2015). But the victors had competing goals, and ultimately the treaty left none of them completely satisfied. Worse still, Germany was neither pacified nor permanently weakened.

The exhibition starts with a brief journey back in time to what life was like in Australia before the outbreak of the First World War. In 1904 a telephone link was established between Sydney and Melbourne.  The world’s first full-length feature film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, was made in Australia in 1906.

The outbreak of war in Europe leads enthusiastic Australians into the unknown – a war many thought would be over swiftly. The Royal Australian Navy’s initial involvement, the sinking of Emden and the loss of HMAS AE1. Troops training in the desert of Egypt as the Australian.

Around 4am on 25 April 1915 the Anzacs rowed from ships towards shore under the cover of darkness. Step onto the shores of Gallipoli with the Anzacs.  Soldiers lived and died in the fields of Belgium and France: the constant shelling caused some to suffer ‘shell-shock’, the destruction, gas attacks, night raids and the weather to name but a few.

The key battles that Australian troops were involved in, along with the variety of weapons that were being used. The brave nurses who put their own lives on the line to treat the wounded coming from the frontline and a glimpse at Australia’s home front addresses the national conscription debate.

General Sir John Monash takes command of the Australian men, the first tank versus tank battle outside Veillers-Bretonneux and the story of the Australian Flying Corps on the frontline.  Often-overlooked Australian battles of Sinai and Palestine in 1916, 1917 and 1918. The important role the Australian Flying Corps, the Camel Corps and The Light Horse played on this very different battleground.

The end of the war was sudden and with it came a sense of shock and disbelief for troops at the frontline and people back home in Australia. Aftermath touches on the huge task of an orderly repatriation of Australian forces along with the challenges faced by returning soldiers. The massive contributions of organisations such as Legacy, the RSL and Red Cross along with the work of Charles Bean and his personal legacy to the nation.

For more than 100 years, Australia’s armed forces have been involved in conflict, peacekeeping, peacemaking, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief around the world. The bravery, commitment and sacrifice of ordinary Australian men and women placed in extraordinary circumstances around the globe.

Brass 18 pounder field gun shell case, hand inscribed as follows: ‘THE LAST SHOT FIRED FROM ANZAC AT 5.5 P.M. ON THE 19/12/15 AT THE OLIVE GROVE FROM NO. 4 GUN 8TH BATTERY A.F.A. DETACHMENT NO:1778 SGT. S.G. BREARLEY NO:2097 CORPL J.E.H BUTLER. NO:4291 GNR R.F. CUNNINGHAM. BATTERY COMMANDER CAPT. W.C.N. WAITE’. The base of the shell has had two brass screws inserted, with holes drilled in them. A bent ring remains in one hole. The screws were added to enable the shell case to be suspended from a stand for use as a gong.

This 18-pounder field gun shell case fired the last shot towards the Olive Grove, on Gallipoli, before the final evacuation of Australian troops in December 1915. It was later inscribed with the details of the gun and battery from which it was fired, together with the names of the men in the detachment who had fired the shell and the name of their battery commander, Captain William Waite.

“Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives … 

You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side in this country of ours. 

You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears. 

Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 1934 moving tribute to the Anzacs killed at Gallipoli

Kemal Atatürk Memorial, Anzac Parade, Canberra.

God of our fathers, known of old,

   Lord of our far-flung battle-line,

Beneath whose awful Hand we hold

   Dominion over palm and pine—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;

   The Captains and the Kings depart:

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

   An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;

   On dune and headland sinks the fire:

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

   Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

   Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,

Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

   Or lesser breeds without the Law—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust

   In reeking tube and iron shard,

All valiant dust that builds on dust,

   And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,

For frantic boast and foolish word—

Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

REGARDING SYDNE PARK New Paintings by Janet Kossy  The Corner Gallery, Stanmore 

The Gallery does not charge a commission basis for works sold and instead operates on a fixed rental basis.

Expressive works using mixed media and collage to evoke layers of change.  In creating them over the past few months I have chosen the freedom of an abstract and expressive approach, while observing, enjoying and learning about Sydney Park.

Over the last few years especially, Sydney Park has been richly developed with a sustainable wetland environment and increasing amenities, art works and plantings. Although it is immensely popular with locals, many outside the area have never looked beyond the iconic chimneys.

Janet Kossy has history and diversity in mind as she walks through the park or does a shift at the protest camp. Her paintings attempt to connect intuitively with the varied, edgy and mostly unknown stories of Sydney Park.

Artist’s Statement:

Sydney Park is now beautifully landscaped and much-loved by locals.  It is known for its dog walkers and bird-filled wetlands, dance parties and children’s playgrounds, sporting teams and rough sleepers.   But of course there is history here. The park sits on top of millennia of changing conditions as a hunting and fishing ground.  In early colonial days it was granted by the government to a convict business woman.  The lans provided fertile ground for gardens and orchards and then for decades was deeply excavated, with queries, brickworks, factories and a municipal tip.

Currently the State Government is shaving off edges and corners of Sydney Park for the WestConnex motorway.   But passionate defenders of the park have occupied a protest camp since September 2016, fighting against the toll road and its destruction of trees habitat and community.

My Sydney Park paintings attempt to connect intuitively with the varied, edgy and mostly unknown stories of this place.

Printmaking, drawing and collage techniques in conjunction with painting have helped me to play with pattern, colour, texture and layering to deepen the elements of narrative suggestions in the images without forgoing the pleasures of accident and experimentation.

24 April

US Atong Atem

As a place for gathering and exchange, Customs House provides the perfect home for US.  Juxtaposing historical and contemporary cultures, Atem creates compelling photography by drawing on her South Sudanese heritage.  Critical sentimental and visually striking her works pay homage to West African studio photography in the 1960s.  Popularised by those such as Mallik Sidibé and Seydou Keïta, whose works subverted the ethnographic gaze traditionally seen in colonial Africa. Following this tradition, Atong Atem turns the lens back on herself and her community, reclaiming the very tool that was used to deny black identity.

Critical, sentimental, and visually striking, Atem’s studio series use an array of cultural iconographies, black visual languages and diasporic traditions to return the camera to the colonised subject, and in turn, celebrates the personal and cultural identities of first and second generation Africans living in Australia.

Her self-portraits are equally as bold and just as declarative. As a young black woman, Atem uses both photography and social media as a powerful tool to analyse the world she lives in, her own experience and place in the world. Whether as a Martian, a marble statue, or decadently dressed with plastic flowers, Atem’s self-portraits perform and construct a sense of self and identity.

Strongly focused on people US provokes discussion about the role of photographic image in connecting us and engaging us in conversations about our diverse histories and imagined futures.

19 April

Royal Easter Show Sydney

Braved the last day, coming home on dusk, totally exhausted and like always impossible to see it all, let alone in one day.

A new exhibition transformed the Daily Telegraph Paddock into the Little Hands on the Land paddock, it was set up into a kid-size working farm with free activities. Out in the open, with lots of space, it took me through nine stations, including a cook shed, vegetable patch, fruit orchard and outback tractor pull with the last stop, the Woolworths supermarket. A fantastic addition to the show.

As it happens every year, the farmers come from far and wide with their treasured live stock and produce to show case for all who wish to see and this year did not disappoint. Children of all ages were lining up to see chickens hatching, view the cattle, horses and dogs and to see the little faces patting sheep and goats in the farm yard nursery.  The horse arena was busy with proud riders warming up and competing in there chosen events.

Again the Flower & Garden, Arts & Craft and Fashion & Style pavilions had a wonderful display that was lovingly put together, showing people’s skills and passions that had been submitted for competition.

The district exhibits, which I never miss, where five districts create massive sculptures made from their product, did not disappoint.  More than 50,000 pieces of fresh fruits, vegetables, grain, wool and other produce was being taken down with nothing going to waste.  Leftover produce is collected by Oz Harvest and distributed to the community.  People coming to view the displays were purchasing the produce for very reasonable prices from the farmers with their big, warm, country smiles.

One of my favourite desert bars, KOI, had delicious deserts all beautifully lined up ready for making the impossible choice.  The Country Women’s Association tea room cannot be missed.  Volunteers selling over 40,000 scones in ten days as well as a sandwiches, salads, tea, coffee, cakes and cold drinks. Don’t miss the home made jams, fruit cake and cook books for sale on their promotions table.

Loved the Australian Knitting Mills, Serenade bags, The Heraldie Shoppe and much more, could not carry another thing, arriving home happy and totally exhausted.

18 April

• Gain expert knowledge about knowing who your users/audience are, where they are, what they are viewing, and how they are interacting long before you start development or production.
• Find out about the importance of Design Thinking and Human Centered Design (HCD) principles within any digital project, as well as Ideation and Design Strategy tips and tricks.
• Hear from an experienced filmmaker how to take an idea from script to screen, to create a powerful story that connects with your audience.

Write up of my notes can be found via this link, go down the page and you will find the heading.

31 March

INFRASTRUCTURE and the CITY – Sydney | Berlin | New York.

The Civilising WestConnex exhibition at UNSW is on Mon-Fri 10-5pm until April 5th. Its not open weekends. Its in the Red Centre, west wing, ground floor gallery. 

In association with the Reid Lecture, the UNSW Master of Urban Development & Design Program presents the Studio work of 2016-2017, its 22nd year.

1. Sydney – Civilising WestConnex
2. Berlin – River as Urban Resource  (hosted by Technical University, Berlin)
3. New York – Hudson Yards & Midtown West, Manhattan  (hosted by Kohn Pedersen Fox)
4. Studies in Urban Form – Nine Water Cities.

We are honoured to announce the 10th Annual Paul Reid Lecture in Urban Design and first Utzon lecture for 2017. Presented by Reiner Nagel, Director of the German Federal Foundation of Building Culture on the theme: Culture, Ideas, Strategies in the Making of the City – Baukultur and the German Federal Cities Program.

We are honoured to announce the 10th Annual Paul Reid Lecture in Urban Design and first Utzon lecture for 2017.  Presented by Reiner Nagel, Director of the German Federal Foundation of Building Culture on the theme: Culture, Ideas, Strategies in the Making of the City – Baukultur and the German Federal Cities Program.

I live in the Burwood Council area and found the following information interesting:

Three main issues identified for the subject site are:

• the unbalanced development of Burwood suburb
• traffic congestion along Parramatta Road, which is heavily used by trucks, buses, private cars and lead to frequent traffic jams and air pollution
• the lack of diverse land use, mainly residential uses near the subject site, it lacks cultural uses, good quality retail uses and any sense of the area being a destination precinct

VISION  STATEMENT

To proved a mixed-use and new environment counter to the harsh interface of Parramatta Road, that encourages a new culture precinct for this part of the city.  The vision of the project is to enhance pedestrian street connectivity and optimise the social, cultural, environmental and economic benefits of the neighbourhood.  The basic principle is to rebuild a liveable environment for local residents,

STRATEGIES

• to create a mixed used and commercial area to existing replace the fragmented retail uses along Parramatta Road, that would be supported by a new Metro Station
• to create a podium buildings mainly on the corner of Parramatta Road and Burwood Road of mixed uses.  The proposed smaller tower form would mainly provide office uses.  The lower floors would provide commercial uses.  The roof level would be designed as a landscape common open space area.   The landscaped space would be accessible for all users in the buildings below
• to create a commercial corridor along Parramatta road, which enhanced street activation and provides a significant economic boost to the neighbourhood
• to create a real tree lined boulevard style road to Parramatta Road, as well as provide a separate bicycle lane
• to create a central open space providing opportunities for social activities, enhancing the relationship between the neighbours, while providing access to the Metro station

27 March

HARBOUR  SCULPTURE Clarkes Point Reserve, Woolwich

An exhibition of contemporary Australian sculpture held along the foreshore of Sydney and inside Hunters Hill Sailing Club function space.  With Sydney Harbour as a backdrop, the exhibition showcases works that reflect a sense of history and place in Australia.