Bundaberg Post Office: Then (1891) & Now

Although the artist of A view of the new Post Office & School of Arts, Bourbong St. Bundaberg from Barolin St., Augt. 1st 1891, Queensland 1891 (illustrated) is unknown — like the artists of many images of nineteenth century Queensland — the watercolour quite possibly by an architectural draftsman, is significant in showcasing the growing…

The Shahnameh: Persian miniatures

The Gallery has acquired ten miniature paintings from a volume of the Shahnameh, or ‘Book of Kings’, by the Persian poet Abu’l Qasim Firdausi (935–1020CE), the epic poem captures the lives and stories of the ancient Iranian kings, from the creation of the world to the Arab conquest of Iran in 642.1 The Shahnameh —…

Rosalie Gascoigne: An alternative form of art making

Rosalie Gascoigne (25 January 1917–1999) first came to public attention in the mid 1970s through her installations and boxes of found objects. She is best known, however, for her wall-based assemblages, which brought diverse materials from everyday life into new frames of reference. Gascoigne worked with items that had been discarded and left to weather,…

How do we perceive light, space & colour?

Australian artist Taree Mackenzie creates videos and installations that explore how we perceive light, space and colour. The artist’s ‘Pepper’s ghost’ works stem from the optical illusion of the same name, originally popularised in the 1800s in Victorian stagecraft and entertainment and named after British scientist and inventor John Henry Pepper. Still commonly used in…

Memories of homeland

In Hafiz in diaspora (illustrated) Amin Taasha has used sheets from a book of poetry by Hafiz (Persia c.1315–90) to render symbols and motifs from his own life and the history and mythology of Afghanistan and Central Asia. These include illustrations of the Gandharan Buddhist–style imagery that Bamiyan was known for; ammunition and weaponry of…

Chance is a key element of weather paintings

In ‘weather paintings’, Australian artist Lindy Lee looks beyond figuration to embody the forces of nature. Lee creates abstract, constellation-like images that speak to the power of fire, wind and water. To make these works, Lee meditatively flings Chinese ink across sheets of paper and burns holes in the surfaces with a soldering iron. Afterwards,…