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…

Laying down the lines: Isaac Walter Jenner’s underdrawing

The oil paintings of Isaac Walter Jenner (1836-1902) are executed in a fine and detailed manner which invite close and careful viewing. Like many artists, Jenner used sketching or ‘underdrawing’ to develop subjects beneath oil paint layers. Here, we highlight the artist’s style and detail some of the discoveries found when we look at Jenner’s…

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,…

The life cycles of colours

Australian artist Jonny Niesche’s artworks investigate how we perceive and experience the space around us. In these three pieces — Schein blossom (feueur), Schein blossom (mond), and Schein blossom (sonnen) 2020 (illustrated)  — Niesche stretches multiple layers of digitally printed sheer voile fabric over one another, creating vibrating and pulsating patterns that can be seen…

Isaac Walter Jenner’s grand history mystery

Australian artist Isaac Walter Jenner (1836–1902) painted Cape Chudleigh, Coast of Labrador in 1893 and reworked it in 1895 (illustrated). The grand history painting depicts the search led by British naval officer, hydrographer, and explorer Sir Edward Belcher (1799–1877) to rescue the ill-fated 1845 British expedition by Sir John Franklin (1786–1847) which set out to…

Go behind-the-scenes as we reframe ‘Red-tailed Black Cockatoos’

We delve into a major reframing project for prominent Queensland ornithological artist and taxidermist Anthony Alder’s (1838-1915) painting Red-tailed Black Cockatoos c.1895 currently on display in the Queensland Art Gallery’s Australian Art collection. Anthony Alder (Standing 3rd from the right) DELVE DEEPER: Go behind-the-scenes as we conserve ‘Red-tailed Black Cockatoos’ The oil on canvas Red-tailed…