Renowned for creating artworks that explore the dilemmas of human existence, British artist Damien Hirst’s For the love of God, laugh rebels against mortality by transforming the human skull into a glittering object of desire. Coated with diamond dust, the print depicts Hirst’s sculptural work For the Love of God 2007, a platinum cast of…
At art school in the 1970s, a young Joe Furlonger was ‘happy just to be painting’ — an activity enjoyed since childhood and a counterpoint to his work on the family’s market garden farm and stints on fishing trawlers. Now on the cusp of turning 70, the Queensland artist’s urge to paint is undiminished. A…
Continue reading » “Wide horizons: The art of Joe Furlonger”
In 2013 Shirley Macnamara began to make skullcaps, reminiscent of a customary funerary practice for some Aboriginal women where their heads were plastered with white clay or burnt gypsum to form a cap, covering their hair completely. The wearing of this cap could extend for some time after a death, with successive coatings making it…
Continue reading » “‘Skullcap’ honours Australian servicemen”
Nature Morte (Agriculture) and Nature Morte (Blackbird), from Australian photographic artist Michael Cook’s ‘Natures Mortes’ series, draw on visual strategies affiliated with the still‑life genre — particularly the memento mori, a visual reminder of the inevitability of death — to highlight the devastating impact of colonisation from an Indigenous point of view. Michael Cook ‘Nature…
Continue reading » “Photographic tableau highlights historical injustices”
On 18 September 1894 local artist and president of the Queensland Art Society, R Godfrey Rivers, sent to the Queensland Government a full proposal for a State Art Gallery, Rivers noted that the Government was already in possession of a number of fine engravings. He suggested in his proposal that about fifty be mounted and…
Continue reading » “Queensland’s National Art Gallery: The opening Collection”
In 1940, William Dobell (1899-1970) returned to Australia after ten years in Europe. He completed The Cypriot (illustrated) that same year, a portrait of his friend Aegus Gabrielides. Was it the first major painting he produced, and what is the mystery behind the work? RELATED: The life and art of William Dobell DELVE DEEPER: The…
Continue reading » “The Mystery behind William Dobell’s ‘The Cypriot’”
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