Entries Tagged 'Current students’ news' ↓

See the link to emaj (electronic melbourne art journal) for opportunities for referreed online publishing of essays of art historical interest. And glimpse, for nostalgia’s sake, your blogwrangler’s work on the cover illustration.

Many thanks to our host Cath Bowdler (Director of Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, and Curator of Colour Country, Art from Roper River) here explaining how abstraction and figuration can say the same thing in the one picture for the Points of View group… Want to see more? Go to guess-where…

If you’re interested in the potential of a blog as an individual research tool, take a look at how Maya Haviland is doing it… And come and talk to us about it.

Kevin Miller (MPhil, Photomedia, ANU School of Art) is also in the NT on reconnaissance. He sends us some images which gives us all itchy feet! In his words: “I made my way to Bathurst Island complete with whole family – including grandparents.  This ended up being the best way to learn about the Tiwi way of life, culture, different clans (skin groups), who can marry who, etc.  Our guide (Trevor) was proud to show as much as possible and displayed enormous patience with my eldest son who never left his side for the whole trip.  It was great to experience a community where art and the connection to the land is such an embedded way of life.

It was hard to select just a few images, but here is a taste:
1. Burning off on Melville Island across Apsley Strait with red sand beach
2. Wall of Tiwi design arts centre in Nguiu – we purchased a work by Maria Josette Orsto who has exhibited often in Canberra
3. Sometimes it is easy to see the inspiration for the patterns and colours in the artwork
4. Detail from the Catholic Church with Tiwi decoration, this is the old church now only used for special occasions.  This church designed by a Dutch architect in the 1940s is a fine example of tropical architecture and probably the coolest building (temperature) we visited.  The new church is just a roof – also appropriate.

Ximena Briceno (PhD, Gold and Silver, ANU School of Art) has been on fieldwork in Beijing. She sends this milky treasure: “Amid all the artifacts, antique markets and museums, the Chairman still comes out on top.  This is an image of Chairman Mao carved in hetian white jade, made by Master Jade carver Wang Shu-shen in 1964. This small sculpture is 24 cm h x 8 cm w, and it is found in the Arts & Craft Museum in Beijing.”

Vanessa Barbay (PhD Painting) has just spent some time at Gunbalanya in preparation for a further period involving the study of colour in Aboriginal visual culture. You can see how distracting the surroundings can be…

“This is the morning view over the wetlands from the school where we stayed in Gunbalanya.
The image below is a view over red lily lagoon, the lily appears in rock art, particularly in association with crocodiles, which, we were constantly reminded, live in the lagoons, therefore no swimming allowed. Both lagoons are teeming with fish which were literally jumping out of the water and such a diverse range of birds including large predatory Kites (one of which was stunned out of the sky with a rock by local boys watching the AFL football match between local teams Arguluk and Injalak, and dragged home for cooking), magpie geese (important to local dreaming site Arguluk Hill), and the Night Heron (whose eerie cry in the night is associated with the frightening soul hungry spirit Namorrodoh who is seen as a shooting star) and insects, especially the biting kind (large dive bombing mosquitos and hoards of sandflies).

Envious?

and her friends are slaving to complete her work for her finale in August. See Blaide Lallemand’s great portrait taken in the midst of it all on iconophilia.

Sydney photographer Tamara Dean is the featured artist for July in Light Journeys, the site edited by research students Lee Grant and Ursula Frederick. Transitlane offers a prize for the art historian amongst us who picks the greatest number of art historical references…

Maya Haviland has announced an exciting new initiative called Side by Side Project Galleries. She writes: “This is an online gallery space featuring work from collaborative art and ethnographic projects around the world. These are projects that work collaboratively with individuals and communities to tell stories – of their lives, places, histories and cultures – using creative tools, such as photography, film, creative writing, visual arts…  The Galleries aim to feature work from projects that have not had a wide audience to date and have been established in conjunction with Side by Side blog – a blog about practices in collaborative art and ethnography I’m running to support my ongoing research into this topic. Please visit the blog  and follow the links to the Project Galleries. On the blog you can subscribe for regular updates, find more info about other projects, how to submit work to the gallery (we are welcoming submissions from projects that would like to be featured), and leave comments.

The initial projects featured are two participatory photography projects from Aboriginal communities in the West Kimberley, Western Australia. More will come in the future, so please keep visiting or subscribe for updates.

Jan Hogan (PhD, Printmedia and Drawing) has her final examination exhibition Becoming in the School of Art Gallery from this Wednesday onwards. All postgrads are welcome to the reception at 6.00pm. At 6.30 pm Professor Toni Makkai, Dean of the College of Arts and Social Sciences will open the show and announce the Materials Awards.