Innehållsförteckning för Issue 45 från Artist Profile

KARLA MARCHESI 16 JAN TO 10 FEB MIRANDA SKOCZEK 13 FEB TO 3 MAR GUY WARREN: CURATED BY SUZANNE ARCHER 6 TO 24 MAR ALUN LEACH-JONES: LATER PAINTINGS 1998 - 2010 27 MAR TO 7 APR DAN KYLE 10 TO 28 APR PHILJAMES 1 TO 19 MAY HEIDI YARDLEY 22 MAY TO 9 JUN KEVIN CONNOR 12 TO 30 JUN ANTONIA SELLBACH 3 TO 21 JUL RHYS LEE 24 JUL TO 11 AUG MILES HALL 14 AUG TO 1 SEPT KYLIE BANYARD 4 TO 22 SEPT SUZANNE ARCHER SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY WENDY STAVRIANOS 25 SEPT TO 13 OCT BRAD RUSBRIDGE 16 OCT TO 3 NOV JOHN BOKOR 6 TO 24 NOV LEITH MAGUIRE 27 NOV TO 15 DEC…

I DIDN’T RESEARCH HIROMI TANGO PRIOR TO DRIVING to Tweed Heads in far northern New South Wales to meet her. I arrived empty and ironically encountered the minimalist lifestyle of the artist and her family. Hiromi shares her home/studio with her husband, artist Craig Walsh, and her two young daughters, who were all absent on the day of my visit. Hiromi tells me she has only four sets of clothes. Showing up earlier than the appointed time, I surprised the artist and caught her in her all navy blue ‘cleaning lady’ attire. Once her two girls are taken to school, she routinely cleans and vacuums her home – aka the ‘Hiromi Hotel’ – before showering and changing into an all-white outfit. This daily ritual of cleansing fashions is, for the…

YOU GREW UP IN THE COUNTRY. WHAT MADE YOU decide to go to art school? I didn’t think about doing anything else. I was looking at the Hunter series of paintings in 2010. Did you hunt as a child? Yes, sometimes with my father and brother. With those works I started thinking about what is the relationship between a human being and an animal. Most of the paintings I made were of ‘prize shots’. They’re curious photos because the animal isn’t there really. It’s dead. I think a lot about that stuff; how a picture does or doesn’t embody a living presence. Do you paint from photographs? Most of my work has a basis in photography. I am interested in daily life, reality and what it is to experience the…

DAVID GOLDBLATT Capturing seven decades of Goldblatt’s (1930–2018) work, this Sydney-exclusive retrospective presents 357 photographs chronicling the political and social turmoil of South Africa during the apartheid era, marking the photographer’s final project before his death. Until 3 Mar 2019 The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney KIRSTEN COELHO Using her unique iron oxide treatment that gives the effect of pewter, Coelho’s porcelain forms reference household items and tools to fuse the formal and the abstract. 20 Nov – 15 Dec 2018 Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane BEYOND REASON A cornucopia of contemporary works focusing on the subjective, irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary and the transcendental – inspired by a childlike openness to elements of play. 17 Nov 2018 – 3 Feb 2019, QUT Art…

THE ARTIST PROFILE TEAM PUBLISHER John Feitelson jfeitelson@artistprofile.com.au EDITOR Kon Gouriotis kgouriotis@artistprofile.com.au ART DIRECTOR Kim Gregory kgregory@artistprofile.com.au DEPUTY EDITOR Elli Walsh ewalsh@artistprofile.com.au PRINCIPAL WRITER John McDonald jmcdonald@artistprofile.com.au INTERNATIONAL ARTS WRITER Lucy Stranger lstranger@artistprofile.com.au SUB-EDITOR Jamie McIlwraith artistprofile@artistprofile.com.au NATIONAL ADVERTISING MANAGER Jill Trochei jtrochei@artistprofile.com.au CONTRIBUTORS BRIDGET MACLEOD is an arts writer and curator based on the South Coast of NSW LOUISE MARTIN-CHEW is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland; louisemartinchew.com DR ASHLEY CRAWFORD is a Melbourne-based arts journalist; cargocollective.com/ashleycrawford NUR SHKEMBI is a Melbourne-based curator, writer and PhD scholar; nurshkembi.com KIM GUTHRIE is a photographer based on the Sunshine Coast, Qld; kimguthrieaustralia.com ELLINOR PELZ is a Melbourne-based artist and writer DR JUDITH PUGH is an arts and cultural writer based in regional NSW KEVIN WILSON is a Brisbane-based writer…

For me, the more I think about the work, the more problems I run into. I prefer to let the thing direct me. HOW DO YOUR PAINTINGS BEGIN THEIR LIFE? I never set out with a plan of what I’m doing; I usually just have some kind of inclination – I find an image, a photo or a painting that I like, and I go with it. I don’t have to wait around to be inspired. If I’m not making work then I’m anxious and depressed, so making work is like my medicine. There isn’t a moment when I’m not thinking about my art. For example, I’m currently looking at the floor, I’m staring at this rug. It’s hand-woven, it has symmetry, and someone with a naïve hand has done…

JENNY, YOU GREW UP IN SUBURBAN MELBOURNE AND you have spoken about how that experience hugely influenced your practice. Now you split your time between rural Queensland and Europe. What motivated you to pursue opportunities overseas? As a graduate in the 1970s I felt that I was at the end of the world and certainly some foray had to be made overseas to feel you were a part of something. You have been exhibiting overseas for twenty-eight years now. What have you learnt about yourself as a person and an artist from that experience? I had my first show in Frankfurt in 1990. That was a case of perfect timing. I was certainly ready, and mature enough, to take on the world, and the world seemed ready to take on…

I HEAR YOU’RE GOING TO WORK IN NEW YORK … Yes, fortunately I’ll be spending my time in the Meatpacking District. It has a rich history in butchery, migrant gang violence, prostitution, trans and homosexuality and, right now, it’s in fashion! What will you be working on? Last year I discovered a fantastic material – gut, it’s used for food processing. It dyes beautifully and offers me many construction challenges. I’ve enjoyed where it’s taken me so far. I’m not sure where it’s going, but I’ll follow. It’s looking to be a rather nice rabbit hole. Is Conversations with a Caterpillar (2017) about Alice in Wonderland? Not really … though that’s one crazy story. Conversations is about a little girl talking to a caterpillar that’s sort of ugly and vulnerable.…

BORN IN QUETTA, PAKISTAN, YOU ARE A HAZARA woman, Rubaba. What does this means to you? When I think of the word ‘Hazara’, I think minority. I used to hide my identity; it was hard work living in threat. The persecutions started when my brother was seventeen, so my mother sent him to Australia by boat to keep him safe. We are grateful for her support and education; it’s a credit to mum. My brother is a social worker now. He went on to complete his double degree in social work and human science. He’s the one who brought us here, but not everyone was as lucky. Your hyperreal renderings of thread and needles exude an emotional tenor. Like a spider’s web, undulating folds form a delicate network dependant on…

THE WARM EMBRACE OF MY computer’s fan on my lap … When images online have become unnecessary to their original function, I collect and redistribute them. Pictures can shrink over time through neglect, as the websites around them expand with the continual growth of data. I see these shrunken and discarded images as being connected to one another, through their disuse and the ways in which they have been left behind. Using image-grabber apps on my phone and computer, I filter what is downloaded by name, size and colour, tying this stream of content together. I pick the fruits of Google Images, seeing how far a reverse image search can take you. Collating my search results lets me create a bridge from link to link and establish something that seems…

ISSUE 45 OF ARTIST PROFILE HAS reminded me of the value of independence, of the magazine and of its writers. The diversity of approaches and ideas, not only of the artists interviewed and reviewed, but of our contributors, makes me acutely aware that it is difference that binds us. Each article, independent and unpredictable, reflects the importance of original authorship. The work of the editor is to establish a framework of commissioned stories, then delight in unexpected results. In this issue the value of cultural independence can be seen; articles about the effects of oppression reminds me that independence of mind is crucial to produce imaginative work. The question of originality is considered from a different angle by John McDonald in his essay, ‘Indigenous Art: Where are we going?’. Questioning…

AS A VERY YOUNG ARTIST YOU WERE SELECTED BY THE prestigious World Press Photo as one of the top ten young photographers in Iran in 2006. Can you share the technical and philosophical approaches you began with in your practice and how they have contributed to your evolution as an artist? I have always been interested in the intrusive nature of the camera and its ability to document and make visible hidden realities. Looking back at those works, I was doing then what I’m doing now, fifteen years later. Of course, though, your ideas and approach become more complex as your vision and practice grow. Back then my approach was more intuitive. From the beginning, my image-making involved a degree of invention and intervention in the scenarios I was photographing.…

THE WORK OF KEN UNSWORTH IS OFTEN LABELLED as conceptual. His first public solo exhibit saw him pale, bare and pinioned to the wall in a series of performance works that fused the fragility of flesh to the geometric thrust of sculptural form. Anthony Bond, in his new monograph on the artist, accurately points out that after being exposed to the theatrical work of Gilbert and George, the young sculptor from Victoria saw that the body itself was an expressive medium, an art material in its own right. He hoisted himself into the frame and that idea continues to reverberate subtly. Five secular settings for sculpture as ritual, and burial piece was staged at 1 Central Street in 1975, a tall narrow space in an alleyway off George Street that…

ŊARRA MYSELF FIRST, WHEN I WAS A FIRST LITTLE boy and I was really fat, really dhumbuḻ, short, a really fat one. And I’m … and I always ritjan teased everybody ŋarra ritjan’thun, ŋalapalminha, wo miyalknha, wuḻguman. I teased old people and women and even old ladies. Yeah. One day and I start acting with Miḻma, Yinimalawu Yinimala’s Daddy, was there watching, and Mulkun. And we was acting comedy picture balanya, that sort of thing, comedy picture. Ah well, ŋarra, I was acting. Ŋarra man ga wangany ŋarraku miyalk yurru dirramu. I was a man and I had a girlfriend but it was really another boy. Acting. Fun, for fun. After that I went to Yaŋunbi, with my father with my clan and I stay there ninha, for a long…

FRESH FROM A SUCCESSFUL EXHIBITION IN LONDON, Colin Pennock has quietly settled back into his creative life with partner Katrina in Queenland’s Noosa Hinterland. I can’t help thinking about the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song lyrics – ‘our house is a very, very fine house with two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard’. With three cats and a beautiful secluded little house perched on a hill at the end of a road, Colin’s journey has been interesting and, indeed, at times hard. I visit on a day of intermittent rain and hear stories of an early life as a ‘Ten Pound Pom’ migrant in Sydney, a return to Belfast, a love of drawing, joining the police at seventeen years of age at the height of…