Guy Maestri talks to Elissa Blake

Archibald Prize winner Guy Maestri hands me a cane toad. “Feel that,” he says. “Its skin is like the finest leather. It feels like a beautiful leather purse.” The toad is dead, by the way, stuffed with what feels like cotton wool. It’s also been furnished with plastic googly eyes like those found on a child's toy. But it is wonderfully soft. ... more

JUST before he won the Archibald Prize earlier this year, Sydney artist Guy Maestri felt impatient and dissatisfied with his work. ... more

David Larwill, New Paintings

In the 1980's, David Larwill was a member of Roar, a group of young, anti-establishmentarian artists who ran their own exhibitions and occupied themselves with a provocative, new-fangled style of painting known as figurative expressionism. 

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Michael Johnson is rummaging in his back trouser pocket. “I have some rocks in here,” he says, pulling them out and unfolding his palm. A cluster of river stones sits in his hand. He gives one to me and one to the photographer. “They are for luck. Hold them in your hands,” he says stuffing his own hand back in his pocket. “I'll keep mine in here.” ... more

Davies is popular with buyers and his latest exhibition of unpeopled architectural paintings - some of which feature fine, hand-cut stencil work and each of which has its own note of mystery - has sold out. ... more

Abstract artist Michael Johnson's vivid grid-like paintings use colour to create energy, His works are inspired by Australian colours - rivers, oceans and earth pigments, even the luminescent patina of a beetle. ... more

Channelling the bleak panoramic vision of a young David Hockney, Australian artist Paul Davies’s newest series of paintings, on show this month at Sydney's Tim Olsen Gallery are a contemporary lesson in pure aesthetics. ... more

Until April 5, Robert malherbe will have an exhibition at Tim Olsen Gallery in Woollahra. Born in Mauritius in in 1965, Malherbe immigrated to Australia in 1971. ... more

MY SPACE
PAUL DAVIES

While he’s fast gaining recognition for his paintings of deserted, modernist houses, the cliché of the artist who thrives on solitude doesn’t apply to Paul Davies. The Sydney artist shares his city studio warehouse with fashion designers Chronicles of Never and Asuza and the art directors of The Oxford Art Factory, Edward Woodley and Mark Drew. Next door is Missoni importers Spence & Lyda, opposite a crowded café.

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Paul Davies’ ongoing interest in modern architecture is yet again in his new show at Tim Olsen Gallery. ... more

Revelling in paint's materiality, Guy Maestri creates abstract gestures of colour and line supplement by a figurative lexicon expressive of environmental concerns. ... more

Guy Maestri is no stranger to rejection. Before this year, the Surry Hills artist had entered eight of his paintings into the Archibald Prize, each going no further than the storeroom of the Art Gallery of NSW.

"So to those artists whose paintings didn't get hung, keep it up," he said.

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GUY MAESTRI won the Archibald Prize yesterday for a portrait of the blind Aboriginal singer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu.

The Sydney artist's work has been rejected eight consecutive times, ending up in the salon des refuses. But when he saw Yunupingu perform at the Peats Ridge Music Festival last year he knew he had found a winning subject.

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Artist Guy Maestri has taken out the prestigious Archibald Prize with his portrait of blind Aboriginal singer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunipingu.


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A PORTRAIT of Arnhem Land singer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu has won this year's Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney. ... more