Articles and Reviews ~ Artist features

Big Fish

Big Fish

Art Collector

May 2013 

Portrait is very well Done

While not instantly recognisable, Ken Done has once again show his face at the Archibald Prize.
The Mosman artist has been painted by Melbourne artist Amanda Marburg and the portrait hung in the Archibald. Self Portraits by Done have been finalists in the Archibald twice, in 1984 and 2011. ... read more

Cultural Capital

The moment of creative inspiration is often characterised as a flash, a spark, a spontaneous flicking of a light switch or - somewhat dangerously - a lightning strike. Yesterday visited Paul McCartney in a dream. William Blake and Giacomo Puccini described themselves as careful transcribers of heavenly dictation. ... read more

Photographer snaps up prize

When photographer Tamara Dean won a prestigious trip to the US, no one was more surprised than she was. ... read more

Noah's art lets innocence shine

TIM OLSEN will not hang the artworks of any old celebrity in his gallery.
The gallery owner said he turned down showing works by tennis great Martina Navratilova and Sir Paul McCartney.
''I'm too busy to do a pretentious exhibition of someone just because they're famous,'' he said.
But he was drawn to the Australian actor Noah Taylor's artworks ''because he's a f---ing good artist … he's not trying to give a lesson in nude drawing or classical cross-hatching.'' ... read more

Noah takes time out for a doodle

"I think everyone has their own doodling style," says Taylor, a prominent actor ever since his appearance in the 1987 hit film, The Year My Voice Broke.
He is referring to that automatic writing of symbols that people indulge in when they're "on the phone and talking about whatever to an accountant or something". He has found his personal symbols have tended towards the figurative. ... read more

Behind the lines of Noah Taylor's art

IF you came of age in Australia in the 1980s, as I did, you will probably be familiar with the name Noah Taylor. You must also recall The Year My Voice Broke, the movie about sexual awakening, teenage angst and unrequited love in a country town that launched the acting career of a gawky-looking kid from St Kilda. ... read more

Noah Taylor's art a place to connect with people in depth

NOAH Taylor may be a fixture in the Australian psyche for his acting performances over 27 years but his passion has always been closer to canvas than cameras.
Taylor, who scored his breakthrough role in The Year My Voice Broke in 1987, has revealed little of himself in interviews over the years but he told The Weekend Australian his art was a connection to people. ... read more

Pavement: Colour My World

Artist Stephen Ormandy of Dinosaur Designs works with his signature solid colour and organic shapes to showcase the latest paints in vibrant style. ... read more

Nicholas Harding

In a loft studio in the old Westons biscuit factory in Camperdown, Nicholas Harding is trying to find a clean chair to sit on. Everything in the room - the easels, his shoes, the floor - is covered in dollops of dried paint that appear to be building up like a coral reef.
... read more

Art, Paint + Sculpture: Artist Paul Davies

Modernist homes and a bright colour palette caught our attention, but its what Australian artist Paul Davies is not showing us that has kept us interested. ... read more

At Home With.. Louise Olsen & Stephen Ormandy

Jewellery designer and artist Stephen Ormandy is perfectly happy to be working for the Olsen 'family firm', as he explained to Jo Casamento, just before his solo exhibition opened at the Tim Olsen Gallery. ... read more

Bird Girl

Leila Jeffreys finds her wings giving flight to birdlife as art. ... read more

Pretty Boy

Meet Slim, a sulphur-crested cockatoo snapped by Leila Jeffreys as part of her native Australian cockatoo portrait series. Her photographs, printed at over one metre tall, capture the endearing personalities of these beloved birds, from shy and sweet to downright cheeky. 7–25 November, Tim Olsen Gallery, 63 Jersey Road, Woollahra NSW; timolsengallery.com. ... read more

Wild Cockatoos by Leila Jeffreys

I have always had an inexplicable fascination with birds, particularly the unique array we have here in Australia – from Lorikeets to Lyrebirds and everything in between. ... read more

Marisa Purcell: Halo

Ethereality is inherent in Marisa Purcell’s latest body of work, aptly titled ‘Halo’, presented by Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney. Her series of oil paintings are contemporary meditations on pre-Renaissance sacred imagery, responding particularly to the work of Fra Angelico in Florence’s San Marco monastery, which took Purcell’s interest during her residency in Chianti, Italy earlier this year. ... read more

Design News

As Brisbanes creative scene continues to burgeon, the annual design calendar is filled with gatherings that celebrate local, national and international design genius. Returning to Brisbane for the fifth year, Semi- Permanent is one such event, which will invite eight of the worlds leading artists and designers to the Australian stage to discuss their work, philosophies and design identity with the local crowd. Speakers who will be fuelling the imaginations of attendees at the event (held at Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on August 30) will include artist Paul Davies, designer Ben Orpin and photographer Andrew Quilty. ... read more

New Home for Mural

Newcastle born artist John Olsen gathered his emotions as he stood in front of his artwork at Newcastle Art Gallery yesterday evening.
Olsen painted the 1964 ceiling mural titled The Sea Sun of 5 Bells for his friend Dr Ann Lewis and it was unveiled last night as part of the gallery's latest exhibition. ... read more

Ian Grant

My Exhibition with Tim Olsen Gallery develops the imaging of land and sky that has been a focus for me for the past 15 years. The broad source for this imagery comes from my experiences in central New South Wales, to where I often travel and where I am always an outsider, a visitor. It is my encounter there with distance, stillness and silence that I find memorable, and the imaging of this experience has propelled much of my recent painting. ... read more

My Chilling Ordeal

Artist Sophie Cape recalls avalanche terror
... read more

An Instinctively Australian Artist

Nominated as a finalist for the past two years in the Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW, Jo Bertini’s art has come full circle. As a young, budding artist in the early 1980s, Jo eagerly left Australia for Milan and all the opportunities that Europe offered culturally and artistically. After being firmly ensconced in Italy and France for ten years, a brief visit to Australia saw Jo experience a ‘shock of recognition’ that Australia really was ‘home’. ... read more

Living Colour

Painter Gria Shead keeps the words of Australian still-life Margaret Olley in mind as she works. "Margaret always said, 'Paint what is in front of you' and it's a mantra that I live by," says the Sydney based artist. "what she meant is not to search too far from what's close to you and relates to your life. For her, that was painting her home. For me, it is finding a common thread linking me to the interiors of the buildings I paint." ... read more

Pagan Rites

In her photographs Tamara Dean tries to recreate the old rites that used to mark our way through life write Ashley Crawford. Portrait by Nicholas Watt. ... read more

Frozen moment

If there are paintings on the walls of artist Martine Emdur's living room, I must have overlooked them. Dominating the room is a dramatic view of the Pacific Ocean, framed by French doors flung open on this balmy summer day. Fitting indeed, for the artist who has made her name exploring it's depths. "It's different every time I go underwater," says the petite Emdur, who has invited me into her home to see her latest body of work. "Theres endless amounts of offerings from down there, which I'm happy to grab." ... read more

Men at work

Sleek, stylish and versatile, the HP Spectre is the perfect laptop for the Modern Male. ... read more

Angus and Tim Talk Art

Internationally renowned Lennox Head artist Angus McDonald will join friends and guests at The Byron at Byron Resort and Spa on August 9th to discuss the art world he inhabits and how it has changed in the past twenty years. ... read more

Ben Ali Ong

Jane Somerville finds romance and mystery in the floating monochromatic works of a photographer whose heritage is Persian and Malaysian. ... read more

Not the Way Home

Jennifer Keeler-Milne’s recent work has investigated light and space in an urban context, partly created during residences in France and Japan. In travelling to Fowlers Gap, she was forced to engage in a different mode of looking She created a suit of drawings that were inspired by what covered the ground in this desert landscape – a rich abundance of flowers and plants that had spring to life following usually high rainfall. Keeler-Milne contrasted her detailed recordings of these plants and flowers with interpretations of the seemingly endless sky. ... read more

The Work of Paul Davies

We have always been fascinated by architectural fine art, whether it be Evan Hecox' city paintings or even the way that Ian Francis has incorporated buildings into his dreamy paintings. Today, we were stroked by the work of Australian artist Paul Davies, whose work is primarily concerns with modern architecture, and has been influences by the like of Jeffrey Smart and Frank Lloyd Wright. ... read more

Death or Glory: The Rococo Rebellion of Adrienne Gaha

The Australian artist Adrienne Gaha has lived in Europe since 1993. This past summer she returned to Sydney for a solo show, a painting stint at a small studio with the National Art School and screen printing workshop in Melbourne after a fairly long hiatus from exhibiting. She took a seven-year break from painting to concentrate on her family, and in that time absorbed herself in drawing and exploring the more obscure small museums of Paris and London. ... read more

A Big Day For... A New Start in Art

You remember them, don't you? The steel sculptures of athletes appearing to strain and swing off the top of Sydney Tower, commissioned to celebrate the Sydney Olympics in 2000? ... read more

Right Now Art

Sacred Geometry

Paul Daives's paintings reveal his passion for modernist architectur, with the geometry of his house subjects juxtaposed against the surrounding landscape.

Paul Davies

Paul Davies upcoming exhibition at the Tim Olsen Gallery 'Pentimento' February 22 - March 12 2012 is featured in the February edition of Art Alamanc, Australias gallery guide. ... read more

Walking on Eyre

From Lake Eyre to Sydney Harbour the Australian landscape remains a treasured muse for John Olsen, one of Australia’s most acclaimed artists.

I'm Not Ready to Go Yet

John Olsen, our greatest living artist on squeezing the juice from his final years.

Visceral Experience

THE dark and moody portrait of anti-whaling campaigner Captain Paul Watson was painted “with blood, bone and fat”, according to the artist. ... read more

Yolngu Boy

Guy Maestri’s portrait of the musician, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, was conceived after the artist saw Gurrumul perform in Sydney on New Years Eve 2008. Maestri found the performance unforgettable and recalled that, ‘word had been going around all day and the rumours were true- people really were moved to tears.’ ... read more

Robert Malherbe Masterclass

Artist friends, Nicholas Harding and Robert Malherbe, dscuss the influence of past masters on teir drawing practices, and what is it about these hisotrical innovators that makes their influence so enduring

Marie Hagerty's Mutating Canvases

Prue Gibson explores the artists swelling and elastic forms which appear to change shape before the viewers eye. ... read more

Ben Ali Ong - Ballads of the Dead & Dreaming

http://www.goneatdusk.com/project/ben-ali-ong/ ... read more

Peter Vandermark

Although Peter Vandermark was born in Melbourne in 1960, he is essentially a Canberra artist, who trained at the Australian National University School of Art, worked for almost a decade as a studio assistant to one of Canberra’s most famous artists, Rosalie Gascoigne, and has practised his art from Canberra and worked in Canberra art institutions. ... read more

John Olsen - A Life on the Line

In his eighth decade, artist John Olsen’s legendary lust for life is as obvious as ever and so is his devotion to drawing, a practice that has underpinned his long and distinguished career. What is also evident when talking with Olsen is that his diverse life experiences have informed his approach to art. Memories of tough times during the Depression in the late 1920’s, creative battles of a life spent dedicated to art, and the many wonderful people who have shared his world and great places he has visited are all deeply intertwined through his work. He is still looking outward, projecting what he sees and more importantly celebrating life- just as he did as a young boy growing up in Newcastle, discovering a passion for drawing. ... read more

Gourmet News

Tribute – Vale David Band

The late David Band left a distinct stamp on graphic design in Australian restaurants, writes Michael Harden.

Olsen Finds New Shapes in the Vastness of the Landscape

At a table laden with paint-crusted crockery, John Olsen slides his brush into a dish if curdling watercolour. The paint is as thick and creamy as the salt deposits on the surface of Lake Eyre. It bleeds at the edges when Olsen strokes his brush across a freshly painted indigo background. “Look there,” he says. “It’s alive. And there’s sort of a running figure, you see? Ill just give it some arms.” ... read more

Patron, paint and the ceiling

Earlier this month Sydney lost one of its great arts patrons, Ann Lewis, to cancer. Over the years Lewis enriched the culture, donating remarkable and extraordinarily valuable paintings, photography and sculpture to the Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Gallery of Australia and others ... read more

Painting Down Under: Artist Paul Davies

For several years, and with hypnotic effect, Paul Davies has painted the same house over and over again. The house is always modernist – clean lines, hard angles – but the landscape around it changes constantly: in one piece, the house sits in a swamp; in another, a primeval forest, the skies above cloudy and foreboding. It’s a jarring juxtaposition, a nightmare version of an architecture magazine.
... read more

The things that still move us: Philip Hunter in conversation with Fiona Hile

Philip Hunter has talked about his work as ‘an invariably complex field of conceptual possibilities and material outcomes; a zone where different foci, fragments, textures, perspectives, illusory spaces, moods and views coexist.’  A conversation with the artist can be as complex as one of his paintings, and when I visited him recently at his Melbourne studio where he was preparing for a forthcoming exhibition at Sydney’s Tim Olsen Gallery we discussed, among other things, his recent trip to Europe; his new ‘tropical inland sea’ paintings; Borges; Calvino; wasp nests; dog fences; horseshoes; memory palaces; horizons and ‘a vast book with no pages’ . What follows is a slice taken from that conversation. ... read more

Olsen sees the light shining from a dead heart

... read more

Art 101

Love art but unsure how to start your own collection? Experts, curators and gallery directors reveal their tips on how to find what suits your taste, budget and home. ... read more

Art Throbs

The hottest new creatives in the frame. ... read more

20 Questions

20 Questions
Guy Maestri

Archibald winner, Johnny Cash fan, Mudgee boy, coffee snob.

Backpage

Paul Davies designs the artist page for the latest edition of GQ ... read more

Broken Dreams of An Athlete

The paintings in artist Sophie Cape’s first solo exhibition reflect the pain of her former career as a downhill ski racer. Sophie’s paintings have been described as “shocking in impact with their shattered bones and broken dreams”. Sophie grew up in Mosman and is the daughter of Mosman artist Ann Cape ... read more

Artists get their heads around animal instincts

A roar and snore sleepover with the animals this week for the Taronga Zoo artists-in-residence was perhaps more accurately a “draw and pour” (alcohol, of course). A who’s who of 20 artists including John Olsen.. ... read more

It’s all about frogs for artist John Olsen

It’s all about frogs for artist John Olsen

Prominent artist John Olsen is one of the 20 artists invited to take part in the Artists in Residence program at Taronga Zoo this year.
It is quite a coup for the zoo to have Olsen bring his sketchpad along.

... read more

Songs for Sorrow

What does it take to become an art photographer? While well-known artists can command high prices for their work, most started with small shows and built their reputation over number of years. Ben Ali Ong is at the beginning of his career, having just secured representation with the Tim Olsen Gallery in Sydney where at his first exhibition with the gallery he sold 22 pieces. ... read more

What Now?

What Now?

MELINDA HARPER

Your dazzling paintings in the 1990’s with right, clashing colours, attracted a lot of attention. What have you been working on lately?

The Getting of Wisdom

Lessons learnt from life.

John Olsen

The artist, 82, tells what he knows about… 

Photographer Battles to Stay in the Picture

Rex Dupain quickly acknowledges his favourite subject in his new book and exhibition, Australia: 150 Photographs. “Turn to page 57,” he says, deadpan. “She was the most obedient model in the book. I said stay still and she did just that. I didn’t even have to get her to sign a model release.” The joke becomes clear when you reach the right page: a statue in Waverley Cemetery
... read more

Creative Symbolism

Art, design and family come together in painter David Band's Melbourne home and studio, providing inspiration for his fertile mind. ... read more

Secrets of the Old Masters laid bare

Its contemporary painting done the old school way, writes Steve Meacham. The large, colourful Kandinsky- influences abstracts that dominate Charlie Sheard’s studio in a former warehouse in Redfern give little hint of the 50-year-old painters obsession with Titian, Velasquez and Rembrandt. ... read more

If only I had...

When an earthquake struck while costume’ designer Jodie Fried was in India she did what she could to help. Meeting women with excellent textile skills, her business Bholu was born. Using designs created by children, she produced cushions, throws and soft toys made by local women. Money is used to support the community. To date nine schools have been built. Colour bind.. As a big fan of David Band I would take anything from his painting collection. This one particularly strikes a chord. I love the mix of red, pink and orange. David Band, Acid Tongue #3, 2010, $9900 from Tim Olsen Gallery. ... read more

New Portrait Head

A deputy director at the National Portrait Gallery, Louise Doyle, is expected to be announced as its new director today. The news comes as the Canberra based institution acquires Cherry Hood’s 2002 Archibald Prize-winning portrait of pianist Simon Tedeschi, which Sydney gallery owner Tim Olsen donated to it. ... read more

NGA buys 'tough' Olsen

The National Gallery of Australia has bought John Olsen’s Butcher’s Cart Deia de Mallorca. Painted by the 82-year-old artist in the past year, it depicts a meat cart he used to walk past while living in Spain in the 1950’s. ... read more

What Now?

What Now? Six contemporary artists talk about their most recent work? Matthew Johnson.. ... read more

Olsen ready to brush with MPs to save art

John Olsen, the elder statesmen of Australian art, is preparing to go toe-to-toe with the federal government over proposed changes to superannuation policy, which he says threaten Australia’s status as a creative nation, the livelihood of emerging artists and the viability of the art market. ... read more

Outback and Red- But Green All Over

Revelling in outback colour ... read more

The Art of Design

Artist George Raftopoulos was amongst the several top Australian artists chosen to help celebrate 15 years of Australian Fashion Week. George collaboratively worked with designer Alex Perry to create a unique stuning piece that will be auctioned for charity.

Ben Ali Ong Interview

Of all the photographic exhibitions we're likely to see in 2010, the long anticipated solo show of Ben Ali Ong's latest series is guarenteed to be among the best. While the softly spoken artist may often be too humble to admit it, his thought and thought provoking bodies of work are nothing short of brilliant. ... read more

The Luxe Factor

Architects and designers get to talk design all the time, but what about all the other artistic dynamos out there? Belle asks nine creative Australians to consider luxury in design. These actors, artists, fashion designers and entrepreneurs are all influenced by good form, but what is luxury for them? Overwhelmingly, beauty, originality and old-fashioned craftsmanship get the nod from this inspired group. ... read more

The Luxe Factor

Architects and designers get to talk design all the time, but what about all the other artistic dynamos out there? Belle asks nine creative Australians to consider luxury in design. These actors, artists, fashion designers and entrepreneurs are all influenced by good form, but what is luxury for them? Overwhelmingly, beauty, originality and old-fashioned craftsmanship get the nod from this inspired group. ... read more

Blood ties: artists prove that talent trandscends family

Having a famous surname has been a great motivator for a woman called dove, writes Keilie Hush... Making a splash, John Olsen and Paloma Picasso meet for the first time at the Tim Olsen gallery in Woollahra. ... read more

A feast for the eyes

John Olsen uses paint in his culinary masterpieces, writes Tracey Clement. Judging by the bulging band of celebrity chefs cooking up a storm on the telly, Australia has become a nation of foodies. But long before the popularity of MasterChef, Jamie Oliver and the luscious Nigella, iconic Australian painter John Olsen was getting busy in the kitchen. ... read more

The Art of Dining - John Olsen's Creative Flair with Food

For the passionate and creative John Olsen, food is art and, in
his latest exhibition and book, art is food, writes Helen Pitt. En route to the Spanish island of Majorca, artist John Olsen had an epiphany in Barcelona's La Boqueria market. The year was 1957 but, growing up in 1930s Australia, he thought green beans were meant to be khaki-coloured and peas were grey and mushy. Born in Newcastle in 1928, where his father ran a clothing shop in Hunter Street, he says his mother as a cook was typical of her time: everything was over-boiled. ... read more

A Taste of Spain - Olsen mixes memory and desire

The man who is arguably Australia's greatest living artist has combined his love of food and art - and family - in an exhibition with a twist, writes Katrina Strickland. John Olsen and Stephen Ormandy were discussing openings. The 82-yearald Olsen has had dozens, including one for his latest show, Culinaria: The Cuisine of the Sun, which opened at Tim Olsen's Sydney gallery last night. Olsen's son-in-law, Ormandy, had his second only last month ... read more

Art Design and a Dinosaur

Designer Stephen Ormandy revealed his true origins as an artist when Nicky Logo asked whom it was that inspires him After almost 25 years of creating, the trio behind Dinosaur Designs hardly needs an introdcution. Their name has become synonymous with contemporary Australian design, and the prolific collection of jewellery and homewares produced since their first experiments with resin in 1986 are testament to their relevance and longevity. ... read more

Culinary Arts

A lifelong love of cooking is the inspiration behind John Olsen's latest exhibition It's not often that you get the chance to have Australia's greatest living painter advise you on the finer points of cooking - in particular. how to make a paella - but that's exactly what happened when I spoke with Dr John Olsen A0 about hisnew exhibition, Culinaria. The show, which opened at son Tim Olsen's Woollahra gallery on March 2, is a series of works celebrating John's well-known passion for food that began when he lived and worked in Majorca in the 1950s.
... read more

Stephen Ormandy

Stephen Ormandy - Successfully straddling the divide between the busiens of art and the art of business. Stephen Ormandy met his wife Louise Olsen and Liane Rossler at art school back in the 1980s, and, around that same time, the trio started creating fabric and jewellery to see at Sydney's Paddington Markets.

Dinosaur Den: Steve Ormandy

A small but perfect garden makes a summery oasis for one cleve design duo, writes Susie Burge

The Art of Collecting

Ever wondered what makes a great art collection? Milissa Deitz talks to a few collectors to determine what drives them to buy a particular work of art. ... read more

Lunch with Mat McHugh and Guido Maestri

We join our musician man-crush and the Archibald-winning artiste extraordinaire for some horse play for high achievers In this case it secures the create space of Guido (Guy) Maestri, who was until earlier this year a very talented and well-selling, but little known artist. That was until one not so small painting of musician Gurrumul Yunupingu saw him take out this country's most famous art prize, the Archibald. Joining him for catch-ups this afternoon is one of his ol' mates Mr Mat McHugh - core of the Beautiful Girls and master of his own solo project. ... read more

Bright Stars - Louise Olsen and Stephen Ormandy

A creative couple with an eye for design and an artistic heritage display an impressive collection in a breezy beachside Sydney home. YOU'VE CLIMBED THE umpteen steps to the front door, but you've come to the right house - a large, brilliant artwork by Gemma Smith leave  no doubt. "We love that painting here because it creates a wonderful energy when you walk in," says Louise Olsen - artist, designer, Dinosaur Designs creator and living image of her Archibald portrait by David Bromley (which hangs upstairs, a generous gift from Bromley). ... read more

The Art of Happiness: Emma Walker

Emma Walker had the art world at her feet, but she had to return to the country to learn she could be creative without feeling miserable. ... read more

Figuratively Speaking

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. ... read more

The Hot Seat

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.” ... read more

Box Office

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. ... read more

Paul Davies

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. ... read more

This Week - Sydney

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. ... read more

My Space

MY SPACE
PAUL DAVIES

Right Now Art

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

Persistance Pays off

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.

So long, salon des refuses: ninth time lucky for artist

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

Yunipingu portrait wins Archibald

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


... read more

Yunupingu portrait wins Archibald

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

Guy Maestri Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunipingu wins Archibald Prize

Guy Maestri Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunipingu wins Archibald Prize

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

The Hot Seat

LOOKING for Martine Emdur at her next exhibition opening? Check the women's toilet. The Sydney artist, described by her friends and family as "painfully shy", "very humble" and even "a bit kooky", is more than reticent when it comes to talking about her work and sipping champagne with potential buyers - she is almost phobic. ... read more

Vera Moller: Hybrids

Fired by a fascination with the possibilities of the surreal, art intersects  with science, the real converges with the imaginary in a studio inhabited by pseudo-organic objects. Jo Bertini captures the sci-fi world of 'otherness' of Vera Moller. ... read more

Art World

The New.... Until December 21st David Bromley's famous work can be vewed at the Tim Olsen Gallery. ... read more

The Art Oracle

Showcasing the best of Australian art, with an eye to artistic merit and market value. ... read more

New Work - Joanna Logue

“How I see the landscape at any given point is how I want to articulate it. I can’t lie; I want to convey the truth of what I see…”

Joanna Logue is based in Oberon in the central west region of New South Wales. She is well known for her atmospheric landscape paintings based on aspects of her immediate environment in Oberon. Although the paintings are inspired by the particular landscape where she lives and are therefore quite personal, Logue pares back the various elements in the composition and softens the focus so that the final works become dreamlike recollections of landscape rather than images tied to a specific place. More recently, Logue’s exploration of the landscape has extended to video, although, as she explains, she will “always be a painter.” 

Twilight Zone

Few see inside artist David Bromley's secret "headquarters" - a vast, crumbling building where Howard Arkley once had a studio. We take a tour... ... read more

Boxoffice - Art

Luke Sciberras - Works on Paper ... read more

Tim Storrier AM on Studio

... read more

Raising the Famous Father...

Children can struggle to find their identities growing up in the shadow of a celebrated parent. ... read more

Pure & Simple

Angus McDonald's serene and mesmerising still-life paintings make you see objects in a whole new light. "If there's something that binds my pictures together it would be light," says Australian painter Angus McDonald. "In almost every piece, I'm chasing after the light as it passes over surfaces and planes and empty space. ... read more

Open Gallery

Australian landscapes are usually characterised by dry red earth by Ryan's paintings work with a different pallette. The Victorian-born artist depicts the landscape of her home state in cool blues and greens, capturing fields and trees in the misty light of a cold, wet morning. ... read more

The conundrum of Slessor's sixth bell

... read more

Robert Jacks

Robert Jacks is one of Australia's most well-known abstract artists. He studied sculpture and painting at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in the late 1950s. His first solo exhibition was held at Gallery A in Melbourne in 1966, and in 1968 he was included in The Field, the groundbreaking exhibition of abstraction at the National Gallery of Victoria. Although known as an abstractionist, Jacks's work has numerous figurative references, particularly to musical instruments, reflecting his passionate interest in jazz. ... read more

Face Value

She's an enormously successful Archibald Prize winner, but Cherry Hood's portraits of beguilingly beautiful boys continue to cause contoversy.  Janet Hawley learns why she can't stop painting them. ... read more

John Olsen at 80

CWK salutes a grand old master from a generation of painters who taught us how to read the country.

A Palette and a Plate of Paella

Ahead of his 80th birthday, John Olsen is revisiting his boyhood seaside haunts on canvas, writes Louise Schwartzkoff.
... read more

Memories in the Frame

... read more

Sea Change

Artist John Olsen turns his attention from the outback to the beach in his latest works.

On the eve of his 80th birthday, John Olsen sparkles with excitement as he
reveals he has been realising some new paintings. “I’m in love again,” he says, referring to two vast canvases he’s been working on in his studio over the last three months. They evoke, he says, “memories of being brought up at Bondi and around the harbour. There is such a kind of myth
in Australia of being born under the sun.”

High Tide for the Harbour Master

The record-setting John Olsen is still painting with the excitement of a child in awe of Sydney Harbour, writes Lyndall Crisp.

An American collector who'd never heard of John Olsen and had seen only an image of his work in an email attachment has paid a record price for a painting sold through an Australian commercial gallery. The prominent Washington art lover, acting on advise from an agent, paid $750,000 for 'Spring Tide', a 200 x 400cm oil on board by Olsen. ... read more

Pure Poetry of art's dreamers

The idea came from Barry Pearce, head curator of Australian art, who has prepared the gallery's big summer exhibition, Sidney Nolan: A New Retrospective, which opens on November 2. Pearce's starting point was Nolan's fascination with the 19th century French poet Arthur Rimbaud. ... read more

Dispatch/ Need to Know Designers

Sydney based artist Paul Davies is building a reputation with a new take on landscape painting; glorious panoramas of moderninst houses in bold washes of colour. Inspired by artists like Richard Hamilton and David Hockney, Davies' take on 1970's modernism has resulted in a world of houses that would make perfect feature material for this magazine. ... read more

Philip Hunter - The Memory of Water

Philip Hunter's creative enquiry into the sublime and the human psyche produces his well-recognised and highly idiosyncratic notion of landscape. Ashley Crawford examines his recent works. Portraits by Kirstin Gollings.

Portraits by Kirstin Gollings

Bush Art

After years in a small London loft, artist Stefan Dunlop’s family were ready for a life change. They found it in the Noosa treetops...

Desert Heart

Photography by Prue Ruscoe

Artist Jo Bertini has become a passionate advoctae for the conservation and understanding of Australia's interior. Her wild, dark curls, arresting green eyes and sun-kissed complexion belie the city setting in which we meet. Even in her suburban home, Bertini seems like someone who is most comfortable sleeping under the stars in a swag. Her shoes come off within five minutes and conversation swings from her immediate surroundings to her love of the desert.

Stefan Dunlop

The question that is ultimately of interest to me is how to represent something, not what to represent. This is the focus of my work. A constant throughout the years has been a refusal to blend color or tone, to avoid what some people call "brushing out". In my work there has always been a distinct separation between unmoldulated color fields.

John Olsen

John Olsen is used to being treated like a star, but even he was surprised at the reaction when he won the 2005 Archibald prize with his Self-portrait, Janus faced. "I felt impaled by it," he says. "For three months it was impossible to walk the streets of Sydney or Bowral without being congratulated by very nice people. I was always being asked for interviews. ... read more

Art Bites

A single Chinese lantern hung at the entrance of Tim Olsen's Sydney art gallery hints at what lies beyond - a feast for the senses to celebrate the work of artist David Bromley.

Photography by Chris Chen

An Artist's Residence - Inside David Bromley's Private World

Few things can lure artist David Bromley, a self-confessed workaholic, away from his Melbourne Studio - but furniture shopping and music are two of them.

Young at Art

Who wil be the next big names? Kerrie Davies paints portraits of some promising young artists. ... read more

Right Now Art - Double Take

Two terrific painting exhibitions are coming up at Sydney's Tim Olsen Gallery, there's Rhys Lee, named in Australian Art Collector's 50 Most Collectable Artists. His are lavish and exhilarating works, with a hint of underlying menace.

Paul Davies' intense, idiosyncratic and popular paintings in homage to modern architecture, not to mention pools, can be seen at the Paddington Street Gallery.

Paul Davies, Modern Copy Exterior, 2006 (left)

Rhys Lee, Gaggedfix#8, 2006 (above)

Rhys Lee

50 Most Collectable Artists ... read more

Art splurge: $1m Olsen

Melbourne property developers Lustig & Moar appear intent on paying record prices for the paintings they want in their new contemporary art collection. After paying $2.04 million last month for Brett Whiteley’s Frangipani and Hummingbird: Japanese Summer, setting a new record for the sale of a Whiteley at auction ... read more

Artwork tops $1m

A new record for a work by a living Australian artist was set in Tasmania yesterday when John Olsen's Love in the Kitchen sold for $1.093 million (including buyer's premium) to a private Melbourne collector. ... read more

The Masterly Mr Squiggle

'You cannot paint true beauty, true happiness, unless you also understand the depths of despair and sorrow.'

John Olsen, grand old man of Australian art, talks to Janet Hawley

Yen Magazine

Directed and managed by Mark Drew and Edward Woodley, founded in 2004 and located in Sydney, China Heights Gallery sits on the 3rd story of a Surry Hills warehouse where, every Friday night, a cacophony of creatives, art lovers, locals, hipsters and walk-ins mill around work from the likes of Kill Pixie, Design is....... ... read more

Dreamy and Sensual

Martine Emdur's exhibition, Limelight, now showing at Schubert Contemporary, could be testimony to the words of Ta te Ching, 'nothing in the world is as soft and yeilding as water'. 

It's an Honour: Australia celebrating Australians

... read more

Master and apprentice: Tim Storrier and friends introduce art’s next generation.

“I remember staying up one night with Tim in his studio and doing some drawings. Tim looked at one of them and he worked magi on it. Then he tossed it into the fire.” ... read more

Cool Hand Luke

Following in the footsteps of famous landscape artists, Luke Sciberras takes to the dusty hills of Hill Ed, western NSW, to paint and ponder the nature of things.

Photography by Tony Amos

2005 Archibald Prize Winner

John Olsen has won the 2005 Archibald Prize for his painting Self Portrait Janus Faced. ... read more

Olsen wins Archibald Prize

Veteran Australian painter John Olsen has won Australia's most prestigious art competition, the 2005 Archibald Prize for his painting Self Portrait Janus Faced. Olsen was today announced as the winner of the prestigious $35,000 portrait prize by the NSW Art Gallery Trust. ... read more

Paintings that find words for the land

After a delicious pea risotto which he has cooked himself, John Olsen is back in the studio on his Southern Highlands property. It's a beautiful afternoon and the 76-year-old often described as Australia's greatest living painter can afford to relax. He has just delivered 14 oil paintings and water colours to his gallery-owning son, Tim, for framing. Next week, they will go on show in Paddington, his first exhibition of new works for two years. ... read more

John Olsen - Clive James

For all Australians, the name of John Olsen is part of the furniture of the Sydney Opera House, because his exultant painting “Five Bells” – based on the poem by Kenneth Slessor – was hanging in the foyer when the building set sail into the world. But John Olsen’s story is bigger and more complicated than a single impact, ... read more

John Olsen's and John Wolseley's Journals

Why do so many Australian visual artists keep journals? Do these journals constitute a specific genre which would distinguish them from autobiographical diaries, sketchbooks and artist's books? What are the implications of these journals for their private audiences ... read more

An Artist Celebrates Life

Lake Eyre continues to inspire artist John Olsen, writes Ashley Crawford. Standing on the edge of the wind-blasted Lake Eyre in late 2001, artist John Olsen flung his cane to the side. "Isn't this fantastic?," he cried, grinning broadly. ... read more

Back in stride at 75, Olsen sullies the age ceiling

The man regarded as Australia's greatest living artist, John Olsen , last night unveiled his first majorexhibition in four years and he was literally climbing the walls.

John Olsen: A Wandering Minstrel

Painter John Olsen is unquestionably one of our greatest living artists and not only is he a great artist, but he has a reputation for good living. As NSW Art Gallery Director Edmund Capon says, "John is the most naturally gregarious spirit that has ever been created. It is his natural way to be an incurable optimist, to embrace everything and I think it was from him that I learnt my regular New Year's resolution which is to give up nothing and take up everything!" ... read more

National Gallery of Australia acquires John Olsen's Sydney Sun

The Director of the National Gallery of Australia, Dr Brian Kennedy, today announced the purchase of one of John Olsen's most significant paintings, Sydney Sun 1965. 'The Gallery is delighted that this magnificent work by one of Australia's most distinguished artists is now part of the National Collection for all Australians to enjoy', he said. ... read more

Worthwhile after all, Olsen celebrates record sale

"I felt like the horse that won the Melbourne Cup," the artist John Olsen declared yesterday. He was describing how he felt when his painting, Salute to Cerberus, fetched the highest price paid for an Olsen $486,500 at a Christies auction on Wednesday night. It went to a private buyer. ... read more

John Olsen and Tim Olsen

John Olsen, 71, is a major Australian artist. His son Tim, 37, runs Tim Olsen Gallery in Paddington, Sydney. John Olsen has been married four times and has three children. Tim is the son of his second wife, artist Valerie Olsen. ... read more

Olsen's Five Bells Sells for $258,000

The Art Gallery of NSW last night paid an auction-record price of $258,000 for a 1963 John Olsen painting which the artist hailed as one of his four or five best works. Art Gallery spokesman Mr Barry Pearce said Five Bells was "one of, if not, the Olsen masterpiece of thesixties". "We were overwhelmed by its freshness and its clarity of expression. It is an art-museum picture and a Sydney picture." ... read more

Olsen's frog spawns mobile-phone covers

Australian artist John Olsen last night brought aesthetics to electronics, introducing new artworks that apply his trademark style to the latest digital mobile phones.

John Olsen "1969 Landscape"

The Library is the proud possessor of a work by John Olsen which was kindly donated to the Barr Smith Library in 1991 by Mr and Mrs Max Harris. Born in Newcastle in 1928, John Olsen moved to Sydney in 1935. Between 1947 and 1953 he studied under John Passmore, painting portraits and still-lifes with a marked 'Cezanne-style cubism', a reaction to what he described as the prevailing 'boutique art' of the early 1950s. ... read more

John Olsen at the AGNSW

During an early sojourn in Europe between 1957 and 1960, Australian painter John Olsen absorbed the influences of, among others, Hayter, Dubuffet, COBRA artists Lucebert, Jorn and Alechinsky, and Tapies. His work also shows affinities with Far Eastern art and demonstrates an interest in literature, particularly such Anglo-Celtic writers as Yeats, Thomas, Joyce and Beckett. ... read more

As large as life and as profound as the deep blue sea

Ballads of the Dead and Dreaming

For your latest series you close a darkly poetic title, Ballads of the Dead and Dreaming. What are some of the ideas behind the work?