Life as a contemporary artist in Australia

FromThe Art Show

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Life as a contemporary artist in Australia

FromThe Art Show

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Length:

53 minutes

Released:

Jan 8, 2020

Format:

Podcast episode

Description

Ed speaks to three guests about issues affecting contemporary artists working today, including pay and funding, gallery representation, and attitudes within and towards the art industry.

Released:

Jan 8, 2020

Format:

Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

Artists tell us how they create and why they do it. From artists’ studios, exhibitions, and live issues, we take art out of the white cube and into your ears.

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Hisham Matar on art, grief and healing: In A Month in Siena, Hisham Matar travels to Tuscany to look at the city's ancient paintings. In the process, he finds himself grieving for his father who disappeared 30 years prior. by The Art Show
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COVID-19 and visual art: The Australian artist Sally Smart talks about her planned exhibition and the impact of COVID-19 on artists worldwide. For Home is Where the Art Is, we journey to Polynesia to learn about a garment from Tuvalu called the titi, and we meet renowned APY Lands artist, Robert Fielding. by The Art Show
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Olafur Eliasson's disappearing glaciers: Two decades ago, artist Olafur Eliasson hired a plane to fly across Iceland so he could document the epic glaciers of his homeland. When he returned years later, many of the glaciers were completely unrecognisable. Or had disappeared altogether. by The Art Show
53 min listen
Matisse and Picasso: rivals, friends, frenemies: Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso are thought of separately as two of the 20th Century's greatest artists, but did you know they had an enduring friendship and rivalry? by The Art Show
54 min listen
Mother courage: Sirli Raitma's unusual photography: The irresistible theme of Water is explored in a new exhibition at GOMA in Queensland. And we meet Estonian photographer Sirli Raitma, and reflect on the life of Australian sculptor Robert Klippel. by The Art Show
54 min listen
What does masculinity look like in Australia today?: Greg Semu and Alun Rhys Jones explore what the ideal of masculinity looks like in contemporary Australia. A clock from the 19th century is counting down to doomsday. And Brian Tucker checks the books at Australia's remote Aboriginal art centres. by The Art Show
55 min listen
Creativity and the gig economy: Have you ever rented out a room in your house to a stranger? If you have, you've been part of the gig economy - that growing sector that promises ease and flexibility to consumers. But what are the costs of working this way? And what might artists learn from looking closely at the gig industry? by The Art Show
54 min listen
Abdul-Rahman Abdullah on family, religion and animals: Artist Abdul-Rahman Abdullah discusses family, winning the Australian Muslim Artists Art Prize and why his art features so many animals. by The Art Show
54 min listen
Hans and Nora Heysen, shearing sheds and finger painting: Hans and Nora Heysen are renowned for their almost spiritual love of nature, and the way they meticulously observed and painted Australian light, trees, and flowers. Ed speaks to Chris Heysen - grandson of Hans and nephew of Nora - and National Gallery of Victoria curator Angela Hesson about these two important Australian painters. by The Art Show
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The tricks and turns of Marcel Duchamp: When Marcel Duchamp brought a bicycle wheel on a stool into the gallery, he turned ideas of sculpture and authorship on their head. We reflect on the legacy of this great 20th century figure and meet a couple of contemporary art innovators working today. by The Art Show
55 min listen
The Art of Life — a Children's Hospital Special: Come and visit an extraordinary world where world-class medicine intersects with world-class art; you will meet children, emergency doctors, and artists to find out how art is not only on the walls, but literally built into the hospital from the ground up. by The Art Show
55 min listen
Art history greats reimagined on social media: From Kahlo to Klimt, Monet to Matisse... If famous artists from history were alive today, what would they post to their social media? by The Art Show
54 min listen
100 years of Bauhaus: Last year marked the centenary of the Bauhaus school, which revolutionised art and design. We revisit the legacy of the school in Australia, and meet a costume designer making bodysuits for Beyonce. by The Art Show
55 min listen
Collecting art on a budget: We speak to a couple of art experts who insist you don't need to be a big spender to get started collecting art, drop by the studio of Australian artist Patricia Piccinini, and hear about a very special piece of art that connects Melbourne man Guido Melo to Brazil. by The Art Show
54 min listen
Life as a contemporary artist in Australia: Ed speaks to three guests about issues affecting contemporary artists working today, including pay and funding, gallery representation, and attitudes within and towards the art industry. by The Art Show
53 min listen
The art and life of Joy Hester: This year marks 100 years since the birth of Australian artist, Joy Hester. We celebrate the milestone by reflecting on Hester's art and probe the question: when everything is now 'curated,' what does the word actually mean? by The Art Show
54 min listen
Kirsten Lyttle on connecting to culture through photography: Mixed media artist, Kirsten Lyttle, reflects on the ways her arts practice continues to bring her closer to cultural identity. We meet the Serpentine Galleries Curator of General Ecology, Lucia Pietroiusti, and hear about some treasured 'bounce back' Japanese dolls called okiagari-koboshi. by The Art Show
53 min listen
Critiquing the 'colonial propaganda' in our museums: When you go to a museum, do you ever wonder how the objects were acquired? Alice Procter is an Australian art historian who wants us to critique what she terms the 'colonial propaganda' within our museums. by The Art Show
54 min listen
Maree Clarke on maintaining cultural practices: After three decades in the visual arts world, Maree Clarke's practice continues to evolve, inspired by places and objects, and even roadkill! by The Art Show
52 min listen
What does it mean to be idle?: Turner prize winning artist Helen Cammock reflects on the art of being idle, for Creation in Isolation we check in with members of the Australian arts community adapting their work as a result of COVID-19, and self-described 'propaganda' artist Jonas Staal explains what propaganda art is, how it works, and why he wants to see more of it. by The Art Show
54 min listen
Del Kathryn Barton on the dangers of losing touch with our child selves: Del Kathryn Barton discusses her debut feature film Puff, and the dangers of losing touch with our child selves. by The Art Show
52 min listen
Confronting our fraught family histories: Megan Evans is a multi-disciplinary artist and curator whose art examines Australia's colonial history, looking at the impact that history has had on her own life and the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. by The Art Show
53 min listen
Djon Mundine on creating Aboriginal memorials: Djon Mundine OAM is a writer, curator, activist and self-described 'occasional artist'. He reflects on the importance of creating memorials to Aboriginal people across Australia, including the regions. by The Art Show
52 min listen
The surreal homes of Ian Strange: For a decade, Australian artist Ian Strange has been making art that investigates our complex relationship to the notion of 'home'. by The Art Show
55 min listen
Olafur Eliasson's disappearing glaciers: Two decades ago, artist Olafur Eliasson hired a plane to fly across Iceland so he could document the epic glaciers of his homeland. When he returned years later, many of the glaciers were completely unrecognisable. Or had disappeared altogether. by The Art Show
53 min listen
Aretha Brown on confidence in activism and art: What role does confidence play in becoming a visual artist? We find out with First Nations Aboriginal activist and artist, Aretha Brown. by The Art Show
50 min listen
John Kaldor on what's next and who he's excited by now: Since successfully bringing Christo's Wrapped Coast to Australia, John Kaldor has become one of the country’s most significant collectors and private patrons. Where to next, and who is he excited by now? by The Art Show
54 min listen
Brook Andrew is leading artists in urgent times: Brook Andrew's passions have never been contained to the artist's studio, from his interest in the anonymous sitters of early ethnographic photographs and memorials to the lives lost in Australia's frontier wars, to the repatriation of Aboriginal remains. Brook speaks to guest host Rosa Ellen about what drives him and what he set out to do as the first Indigenous artistic director of the Biennale of Sydney, which he renamed NIRIN. by The Art Show
53 min listen
Sebastian Smee on criticism during COVID: Pulitzer prize-winning Australian art critic Sebastian Smee on finding new ways to work as a critic during the pandemic, being an ally and how he came to art. by The Art Show
54 min listen
Body talk: Julie Rrap's creative journey around the female form: Artist Julie Rrap has been preoccupied with the female body since the 1980s, so what is her take on the changing politics of the body happening in visual art right now? Painter Ash Keating tells us about his favourite tool of the trade - the fire extinguisher! - as part of our Artist's Tools series. Plus, an artist couple who turned lockdown into video art. by The Art Show
54 min listen

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Prison, pokies and colour: Three artists who turned art into therapy: Damien Linnane was serving a prison sentence when he took up art as mental health therapy, going on to edit the magazines for prisoners Paper Chained and working on a PhD. Damien is the curator of a new art exhibition at Boom Gate Gallery at Sydney's Long Bay gaol, showing art from people incarcerated around the world. My Thing...is using art to talk about gambling harm. All his life, Nelson Nghe has seen up close the harm caused by gambling on poker machines, or 'tiger machine' in Chinese language. It's cost members of his family and his wider community a lot -- even homes. Nelson explores this in his powerful installation artwork I Bet You, on display at The Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture (IAC). Triple J's Stacy Gougoulis visits an exhibition of the late Gunditjmara, Yorta Yorta and Barkindji artist Josh Muir, who died at age 33 in 2022. In his neon street art-style prints and projections by The Art Show
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Palestinian-Saudi artist Dana Awartani + Anna Park flip the script: Saudi-Palestinian artist Dana Awartani studied at a famously conceptual art school, before learning traditional Islamic crafts and principles, like sacred geometry. Now Dana is exploring the destruction of build heritage in the Arab world, most recently the devastated city of Gaza. Her work is being shown at Adelaide's Samstag Museum of Art and at the Venice Biennale. Rosa visits the Melbourne studio of ceramic artist Georgia Harvey. Taking influences from Mesopotamian art and our cross-cultural obsession with lions, Georgia tells us about her 'cauldron' of inspiration. Artist Anna Park was first exposed to American culture through Disney. By the time her family migrated from Korea to Utah, USA, she was a keen observer and prodigiously talented drawer. Anna's satirical and masterful charcoal drawings capturing online life, are the focus of Look, Look. Anna Park, at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. by The Art Show
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Archie Moore wins at the Venice Biennale + Leonardo Da Vinci + Nikki Lam: Archie Moore has won the top honour at one of the world's most prestigious and oldest art festivals – the Venice Biennale-- for a monumental work showing thousands of years of family lineage, and invoking lives lost under the colonial state. Monsignor Alberto Rocca is an Italian priest and art curator who has a singular job: accompanying pages from Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus, to the other side of the world. This Codex is the largest collection of Leonardo's drawings and notes, made up of thousand pages. After spending so much time with Leonardo's works as curator of the Ambrosiana Library in Milan, Rocca has some theories about the Renaissance polymath. 'Unshakable destiny' was how democracy and self-rule was supposed to manifest for the people of Hong Kong, according to the last British Governor. Nikki Lam has been working on a trilogy of art films about that promise, as personal tragedy and the i by The Art Show
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Nicholas Mangan makes art from phosphate, coral and bitcoin: Nicholas Mangan is drawn to the stories behind some of our most contentious commodities: phosphate from Nauru, copper from Bougainville and cryptocurrency, which Nick compares to an ancient form of stone money from Yap, a Micronesian island. Nick takes the viewer into these histories through sculptural installations and intriguing films. His survey exhibition World Undone is now on at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. My Thing is… GPS Art. ABC science reporter Belinda Smith makes art on the run, creating increasingly detailed pictures of animals on GPS maps, that she then matches with perfect puns, via her Inst account @animalpunruns. First broadcast May 2023. A teapot made by the South Australian ceramic artist Bruce Nuske is a beautiful thing to behold: ornate, whimsical, exquisitely crafted – and importantly, it can also pour a hot cup of tea… if you’d dare put it to use! Bruce's teapots and vessels are also ste by The Art Show
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A graphic designer in the spotlight + Adelaide's art biennial: Visnja Brdar's art motto is “The more nothing, the better”. She is one of this country’s most internationally successful graphic designers, the child of Croatian migrants who took her solo agency from Melbourne to New York, head-first into the competitive world of international branding -- and she's the subject of the first significant art survey of a female graphic designer in Australia, Visnja Brdar: Design Exalted at MUMA. Inner sanctum is the title of the 2024 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art. Rosa Ellen speaks with three of the artists taking part: Lawrence English, George Cooley, Ruha Fifita and curator Jose Da Silva. The chamber music is ‘All Flesh is Fire’, sung by the Adelaide Chamber Singers, composed by Anne Cawrse, conducted by Christie Anderson, recorded by Jakub Gaudasinski. by The Art Show
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Katy Hessel never stops looking for the great women artists: Katy Hessel's podcast and bestselling book on the great women artists ride the wave of interest in a parallel cannon of art, where women have long been missing. So, what sparked her work correcting the record, and what has changed since she started? Katy is appearing at Sydney Writers Festival and other book events in Australia in May. Ellen Dahl ventured out to a frozen archipelago in the Arctic Ocean to take photos. The striking images won her Australia's National Photography Prize. She speaks to Daniel about her motivations to show climate change in action, and the influence of her Sami heritage. Read about her win here. My Thing is... the ocean. They describe grief as being a wave - it can hit you when your back’s turned. Julia Ciccarone knows that. The Melbourne figurative painter also finds peace in the water, particularly the open sea. by The Art Show
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Who reaps the profits from Aboriginal art re-sold overseas?: Australia's art resale royalty scheme was supposed to help artists (or their families) get a small percentage when paintings were re-sold at auction for big bucks, particularly Indigenous artists. But it hasn't gone according to plan. ABC national business reporter Emilia Terzon tells Daniel about her year-long investigation into what many says is an unjust state of affairs. For four decades Judy Watson has been making layered, ethereal art about the most profound and difficult subjects in Australian art: truth-telling, violence and ecological destruction. From her beginnings with the famed Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative, to her monumental public artworks, Daniel speaks to Judy Watson at her largest survey show at the Queensland Art Gallery. by The Art Show
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Jennifer Higgie on the art of interviewing artists: Interviewing visual artists is just one of the things that Jennifer Higgie has mastered in her decades-long career at the helm of Frieze magazine, as a writer, reviewer and podcast host. Daniel speaks with London-based Jennifer as her new podcast series for the National Gallery of Australia is released. Listen to Jennifer and Daniel's conversation about women artists and the spirit world. In 2007, a group of 'new media' artists came together in India's largest city to form CAMP, a studio with a rooftop cinema. In early-2000s Mumbai, experimental digital media didn't fit into an existing art scene. CAMP founders Ashok Sukamaran and Shaina Anand tell Daniel how they started and why they remain fiercely non-commercial. Ashok and Shaina are in Australia for PHOTO 24 festival. Larrakia artist Gary Lee has led a powerfully creative life including pioneering work in Indigenous queer sexual health during the AIDS epidemic. The new book Heat by The Art Show
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An artist paints her lush Far North home, plus the secrets of Vermeer: Great conversations with visual artists, gallery and museum directors and curators. by The Art Show
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Reviving a Maori artform in a new political climate + doors to an artist's life: We meet the Maori artist who’s single-handedly reviving the lost cultural tradition of barkcloth making. As a right-wing conservative government winds back the prevalence of Maori culture and the teaching of Te Reo Maori, Nikau Hindin is collaborating with artists from across the Great Ocean for the Biennale of Sydney. She explains the complexities and risks in trying to breathe new life into a cultural practice after more than a century. My Art Crush …is Lavinia Fontana. National Gallery of Victoria curator Laurie Benson has long been fascinated by Europe's first professional female artist, 16th C. Baroque master Lavinia Fontana. First broadcast February 2022. Nik Pantazopoulos has been revisiting all the significant doors in his life. The artist started the exercise alongside therapy, digging through his memories to capture the flyscreen door of his childhood home, to the intriguing stall door of a tr by The Art Show
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A Timor Leste artist heads to the Venice Biennale + a Yucky exhibition: Maria Madeira escaped the Indonesian invasion of Timor Leste in 1975, to end up in a refugee camp in Portugal. In 2005 she returned as the first artist to hold a solo exhibition there, ever. Now the artist, who came to Australia in 1983, is representing Timor Leste at the Venice Biennale. A fountain of drool, the realities of catheter bags and people 'seeing but pretending not to see': Yucky is an exhibition developed by artist Sam Petersen that confronts ideas of 'yuckiness' and other prejudices faced by people living with disabilities, those who are chronically ill or neurodivergent. Producer Anita Barraud speaks with Sam, Danni Zuvela, Makeda Duong, Josh Campton and Lorcan Hopper. A transcript of this story is on the Transcript tab above. by The Art Show
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Tacita Dean + Hydraulic Press Girl + conflict avocados: Tacita Dean is one of the UK's most acclaimed artists, best known for working with 16mm analogue film. Daniel speaks with her about recent work on important living artists, and her huge, mesmerising chalk drawings, from her exhibition at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art. My Thing is... getting squished. Actor and choreographer Smac McCreanor went viral for her Hydraulic Press Girl videos, imitating household objects getting crushed by a hydraulic press. Now she's in the art gallery -- featuring in the National Gallery of Victoria's Triennial. In parts of Mexico, a high price is being paid for the world's insatiable appetite for avocados. Artist Fernando Leposse investigates the ecological and social costs of the industry in his art project Conflict Avocadoes. by The Art Show
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An artist paints her lush Far North home + the secrets of Vermeer: Naomi Hobson grew up on some of the most beautiful country on the continent, Cape York Peninsula in far north Queensland, and is named after the hoop pine that grows there. Her southern Kaantju and Umpila culture has always been a driving force in her art, from bold expressive paintings to ceramics and photography. Her series Adolescent Wonderland features teenagers in her small community of Coen, displaying their humour, creativity and brilliance. First aired March 2023. My Thing is ...the Persian poet Hafez. Artist Ali Tahayori always returns to the lyrical poetry of the master Hafez for inspiration in both life and art. Ali works with sparkling hand-cut mirrors that reference the traditional Iranian craft of Āine-Kāri. Through light and mirror, he explores transcendent moments and what it means to be queer and diasporic. First aired February 2023. The 2023 Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was the by The Art Show
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In the studio with painter Prudence Flint + photos of 'Humpty Doom': Painter Prudence Flint has a career spanning 35 years, best known for enigmatic pictures of female protagonists in surreal domestic scenes. Despite a serious local following, her paintings have proved much more popular overseas, and she only produces around eight a year. All situate the viewer in an intriguing psychological space -- but does the painter ever feel too exposed? A Beginner’s guide to art openings. The art exhibition opening is a rite of passage for artists and art lovers alike, but it can be an intimidating and exclusive social affair. Artists Ming Liew and Thitibodee Rungteerawattananon made a pact to break into the Melbourne art scene by attending as many art openings as they could together, culminating in an art film about the project, by Ming. Rosa tags along to one gallery to see how it’s done. Charles Lai runs a public calendar of the city's visual arts events. First aired July 2023. Humpty Doo i by The Art Show
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The rise and rise of the artist-in-residence + Rosa Bonheur: When did artists begin doing ‘residencies’? From the patronage system of Renaissance Italy, to artists’ colonies of the 19th Century and the decades-long stint of an artist-in-residence at the NYC Sanitation Department, researcher Amaara Raheem tells us the history and ideas behind the Artist-in-Residence. Producer Lisa Divissi catches up with the artist-in-residence of Melbourne’s Footscray Railway Station, David Wells. And artists Nicole Barakat, Nikki Lam and Gegee Ayurzana share messages from their studios-away-from-home. In the 19th Century Rosa Bonheur was one of the most popular artists in Europe, inspiring public statues, royal visits and even dolls sold in her likeness. Rosa painted animal portraits, but was equally known for her unconventional life, from wearing pants and keeping a lion, to living with her female companion. Author Catherine Hewitt explains why she was so celebrated, and how she slid from view. He by The Art Show
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Thomas J Price makes monuments to the real world + fairy tales in Art: In the middle of a rarefied gallery or in a busy city square, a bronze statue of a woman looms in front of you. But this figure isn’t on a plinth or striking a heroic pose: she’s an ordinary modern woman, looking at her phone with a calm detachment. It’s said the monument Reaching Out is only the third public statue in Britain of a Black woman. The artist behind it is Thomas J Price - one of the country’s leading contemporary artists, who takes on the problem of colonial monuments and representation in British museums and art galleries by creating contemporary icons of modern Britain. Two of his statues are at the National Gallery of Victoria's Triennial. My Thing is... art as activism. It's looking to be the hottest year in human history. As world leaders negotiate a way forward at COP28, 18-year-old climate activist and artist Niranjana Ghosh has been thinking about the gendered impacts of the climate crisis. An by The Art Show
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Lee Miller's glamorous Surrealism and dark wartime photography: Lee Miller cut a glamorous figure among the Bohemian art circles of Paris. As a fashion model she captured the eye and heart of Man Ray; as a gifted photographer she rivalled his artistic vision, photographing their world with Surrealist wit and a feminist conviction. Lee's career lasted 16 years up until her time as a photojournalist in Nazi occupied Europe, when the horrors of the Holocaust led her to quit photography. Antony Penrose is Lee Miller’s only child and in charge of her archive which, incredibly, he only discovered after her death. Surrealist Lee Miller is on at the Heide Museum of Modern Art in Victoria. Daniel takes a tour of an exhibition designed to evoke the sounds and feel of a Fijian family home -- only fragmented, the same way that memory works. Artist Salote Tawale has partially recreated a real-life fishing raft and house in an installation that mixes paintings, sculpture, and video karaoke at Carri by The Art Show
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Kandinsky: the visionary artist 'brought back down to earth': Vasily Kandinsky was a pioneer of abstract painting, writing influential theories on spirituality and colour. But for all his correspondence, his inner life can be hidden to art historians, the Guggenheim's Megan Fontanella tells Daniel. And with the discovery of earlier abstract painters like Hilma Af Klint and Georgiana Houghton, does labelling Kandinsky 'the first' still apply? Daniel speaks to Megan on the new eve of an exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW. Inside the Victorian Spiritualist Union in north Melbourne, sits the largest collection of artworks by Georgiana Houghton. Her ecstatic, abstract paintings of spirit messages and visions from the 1860s are truly remarkable. Daniel speaks with Rev Lorraine Lee Tet and Jeff Stewart about the collection and their own beliefs about her art. by The Art Show
54 min listen
An outback monastery hides the biggest art heist you've never heard of: The town of New Norcia in WA is a monastery in the bush, home to a community of Benedictine monks and a treasure chest of 17th and 16th c. European religious art -- all of which was stolen in a brazen heist in 1986. It's an art crime that RN's Marc Fennell set out to unpack with art historian and fraud expert Dr Pamela James in a new SBS TV series. My Thing is… The Resilience Coat. Rowena and Angela Foong, from the label High Tea with Mrs Woo, have designed a coat for all bodies, all trends and all of life's upheavals, complete with an in-built repair kit. It's been shortlisted for a national craft award. The mining town of Broken Hill might still be best known for Pro Hart and his 'Brush men of the bush' but Barkindji artists David Doyle and Krystle Evans are part of a thriving contemporary art scene influenced by Barkindji stories and art practices. Producer Rosa Ellen visits their respective studios after the by The Art Show
54 min listen
The artist who recreates 'petrichor' plus James Tylor and painting house flies: Catherine Sarah Young is an artist working with science to talk about the climate crisis. Most recently, she's making art about petrichor -- the smell of recent rain emanating from the earth, and what it might be like when fire and flood obliterate it... or what petrichor smells like on Mars! Catherine is the Art Show's ABC RN Top 5 resident. When James Tylor discovered the laborious but beautiful 19th C. photography method of daguerreotype, he found a medium that expressed the darkness of historical memory. Drawing on his Kaurna heritage, James explores the ravages of colonial intrusion on landscape and language, through beauty and craftmanship. Daniel meets the painter Nadine Christensen in her backyard studio and learns why the ordinary - from house flies to front gates, cranes, and acrylic paint -- are worthy of examination on canvas. by The Art Show
54 min listen

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Life as a contemporary artist in Australia

Life as a contemporary artist in Australia

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