Artist: Tezuka
Venue: Art Gallery of NSW
Exhibition dates: 23 Feb- 29 Apr
Tezuka Osamu is acknowledged as an artistic master, and is revered as the figurehead of the manga and anime industries in Japan. In the West he is best known for Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion which were serialised internationally for television in the 1960s.
Manga is the Japanese word for comics and print cartoons. Manga is respected both as an art form and as a form of popular literature. Manga has a huge global following and has had a major influence on international comics and animation.
Tezuka Osamu (1928-1989) drew over 150,000 pages of manga and created over 700 manga titles during his lifetime. His work is acclaimed for its complexity and originality and his drawings showcase an extraordinary calligraphic dynamism.
The Exhibition, Tezuka: the Marvel of Manga is a tribute to the importance and depth of Tezuka’s creativity. The exhibition features over 200 original works from the late 1940s to the late 1980s including black and white ink drawings as well as colourful designs for covers and posters.
Philip Brophy, curator of the exhibition and Australia’s leading authority on Japanese manga and animation and said “This is the first time Tezuka’s original drawings have been seen outside of Japan. The exhibition presents the unique power and importance of the manga form within Japanese culture”. It features both aspects of his work, introducing Western audiences to the complexities and extraordinary range of the manga form.
Organised by the National Gallery of Victoria in association with Tezuka Productions in Tokyo, the exhibition features work from the two main streams within Tezuka’s prolific output; his manga for children and youth-based audience (including Astro Boy, Jungle Emperor and Princess Knight), and his gekiga (drama pictures) that are more seriously toned, adult orientated narratives (including Crime and Punishment, Buddha and Phoenix).
My Response- impressions, feelings and understanding
I found the Tezuka Exhibition fascinating. I enjoy watching Astro Boy and I was excited to see the works of the creator. From a distance, when looking at the artworks, the images seemed like they came straight from a comic book, however, I noticed when analyzing the artworks closely, that they were the original copy that were hand drawn and coloured. I was surprised to see quite a few mistakes on some of the artworks, where liquid paper or stuck on paper were used to cover the imperfections. It made me come to realize that it is okay that these type of artworks don’t need to be perfect and that everyone, even well known ones can make mistakes. It was very interesting reading the panels next to each artwork because it told the story behind the artworks, which made it easier for me to understand. I found Tezuka’s drama pictures such as the Phoenix, more interesting than his manga for children and youth-based audience. Overall, I enjoyed the exhibition.
Exhibition: Art Express 07
Venue: Art Gallery of NSW
Exhibition dates: 14 Feb- 22 Apr
A dynamic and popular exhibition featuring a selection of outstanding student artworks developed for the HSC examination in Visual Arts 2006. It includes a broad range of approaches and expressive forms, including ceramics, drawing, photography, painting, printmaking, sculpture and video.
ARTEXPRESS is a cutting-edge, stylish series of contemporary exhibitions of outstanding artworks created by NSW Higher School Certificate (HSC) Visual Arts students from both metropolitan and regional New South Wales, Australia.
ARTEXPRESS has grown from a small, educational exhibition of student work in the late 1950s to become a major touring exhibition that is a highlight of the annual exhibition program in many parts of New South Wales. During this time, ARTEXPRESS has gained national and international recognition and is unparalled in exhibitions of high school art for the richness of ideas and technical prowess.
Every year ARTEXPRESS presents a snapshot of up-to-the-minute insight into students' creativity and the issues and ideas they elect as especially relevant to them. It provides a window on the sustained and focused engagement with art practice by youth, alongside a confirmation of the outstanding talent and ongoing professionalism of NSW Visual Arts teachers.
Selections of works submitted for the NSW Higher School Certificate Visual Arts examination have been presented in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the exhibition's principal venue, since 1983. ARTEXPRESS affirms the Gallery's commitment to, and participation in, art education by encouraging the work of student artists to be seen alongside that of professional artists in a Gallery environment.
The Art Gallery of New South Wales is proud to present this exhibition of outstanding art practice being generated in our classrooms.
ARTEXPRESS is a joint project of the NSW Department of Education and Training and the Board of Studies NSW in association with the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Artist: Cassandra Pryor
Artwork: Exploration Of Natural Surfaces
Media/ Form: Textiles and Fibre
School: Coffs Harbour Senior College
Description: Exploration of Natural Surfaces is an abstract series of pieces that explores a variety of traditional and experimental textile and fibre techniques. The limited colour scheme and organisations is derived directly from observing nature. This examination produced artworks that are at times formal and schematic but at other times spontaneous and tactile.
Artist: Sarah Moth
Artwork: Native Patterns
Media/ Form: Sculpture
School: Hunter Valley Grammar School
Description: “Native Patterns” explores the aesthetics of the environment and the naturally occurring patterns that we often neglect or overlook. The artist, Sarah Moth, lives on a property that is bush land, thus nature is her world. Through the processes of selection and manipulation each sculptural piece forms an individual acknowledgement of nature and its expressive beauty. The uniqueness of each piece will generate a diversity of observational opinions, symbolising the individuality of nature and also revealing the attitudes of society that define what is aesthetically pleasing and what is not.
Exhibition: Gifted- Contemporary Aboriginal Art
Venue: Art Gallery of NSW
Exhibition dates: 2 Dec- 15 Apr
This collection-based exhibition brings together significant works the Gallery has purchased with the support of Indigenous art patron Mollie Gowing since 1992, through the Mollie Gowing Acquisation Fund for Contemporary Aboriginal Art. Gifted pays tribute to one of the most significant champions of the gallery and to her ongoing support for contemporary Indigenous art. Included are major acquisitions by Emily Kam Ngwarray, Mawalan Marika, Ginger Riely Munduwalawala, Queenie McKenzie, Ken
Thaiday and local artist Roy Kennedy.
Edmund Capon, Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, opened an exhibition, Gifted: Contemporary Aboriginal Art, made possible by the generous support of Mollie Gowing.
Since 1992 The Mollie Gowing Acquisition Fund for Contemporary Aboriginal Art has cumulatively grown to represent one of the most significant private benefactions in support of Indigenous art in Australia.
Mollie Gowing's support has enabled the Art Gallery of New South Wales to buy 362 works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.
Gifted will display more than 100 of the works by artists including Ginger Riley Munduwalawala, Michael Jagamara Nelson, Emily Kam Ngwarray, Judy Watson and Gloria Tamerre Petyarre.
Edmund Capon, launching today’s exhibition, said almost one-third of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art collection acquired since 1992 owes its presence to Mollie Gowing.
Mollie Gowing has been a quiet donor who hasn’t wanted any spotlight on her generosity. She is passionate about Indigenous art and began her association with the gallery several decades ago. Gifts from Mollie Gowing’s personal collection include the woven handbags, a group of fibre works collected by her late husband Jim Gowing in the 1930s.
The beginning of the 1990s was a watershed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and their status in Australia. In 1994 the Art Gallery of New South Wales opened the Yiribana Gallery to showcase the gallery’s major Indigenous collection.
Emily Kam Ngwarray Untitled (Alhalker) 1992 Mollie Gowing Acquisition Fund for Contemporary Aboriginal Art 1992
Kngwarreye's 'Untitled (Alhalker)', 1992, has been perceived as a lyrical mapping of country, a poeticising of the desert in bloom, or simply as a spectacular abstract painting. Alhalker, the desert country of Kngwarreye's birth, is anchored by a sacred rock in the form of a spectacular arched monolith, and shaped by the vagaries of the harsh desert environment. From the beginning, Alhalker remained the means and end of Kngwarreye's art.
Kngwarreye attained artistic maturity as a woman in her seventies, not long converted to the techniques of painting on canvas, but with decades of painting in a ceremonial context and activity with the Utopia Women's Batik Group behind her – as well as life as a camel handler and stockhand. In an extraordinarily prolific eight years of professional painting, she produced magnificent canvases in which she appears to have aimed for essentialist visions of the multiplicities and connectedness of her country, as imaged in terms of its organic energies. Kngwarreye's vital traceries both conform to, and seem to expand beyond, her clan codes, in abstractions of ceremonial markings and imagery of her country's flora and fauna.
During the early 1990s, Kngwarreye developed a painting technique that literally embodied her sense of the explosive, yet ordered, rhythms of the natural world: she energetically worked her canvas with fluid dots or blobs of colour that formed a pulsing layer over the 'mapped-out' underpinnings of her paintings. Later, she embraced the austerities of stripe compositions in works such as 'Untitled (Awely)', 1994, and in seething, linear 'yam Dreaming' paintings, before she created the remarkable blocky gestural abstractions of 1996, the final year of her life.
Exhibition: Archibald, Wynne & Sulman Prizes 07
Venue: Art Gallery of NSW
Exhibition date: 3 Mar- 13 May
The Archibald Prize is one of Australia's oldest and most prestigious art awards. J.F. Archibald's primary aims were to foster portraiture, support artists and perpetuate the memory of great Australians. Since its inception in 1921 the prize has been awarded to some of Australia's most important artists, including George Lambert, William Dobell and Brett Whiteley.
The Archibald Prize, from its outset, has aroused controversy while chronicling the changing face of Australian society. Numerous legal battles and much debate have focused on the evolving definitions of portraiture. It has become one of the most popular annual art exhibitions in Australia.
The Wynne Prize is awarded to the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours or for the best example of figure sculpture, by an Australian artist.
The Sir John Sulman Prize is awarded for the best subject painting or genre painting or mural project by an Australian artist.
2007 Packing Room Prize winner
Danelle Bergstrom
Take Two: Jack Thompson
Danelle Bergstrom from Sydney has been awarded the Packing Room Prize in conjunction with the 2007 Archibald Prize for her portrait of Australian actor, Jack Thompson called Take Two: Jack Thompson.
Danelle chose to paint Jack Thompson for several reasons; "He's an Australian icon whose acting career spans more than 40 years, he's a committed environmentalist and importantly because he's down to earth, unpretentious and a truly genuine Australian bloke." Jack Thompson has appeared in more than 70 feature films and television series. He is also a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN High Commission for Refugees.
Born in Sydney in 1957, Bergstrom studied at the Julian Ashton School of Art and then did a Bachelor of Art Education at Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education. She has exhibited in solo and group shows since 1980 including the Portia Geach Memorial Award, the Doug Moran Portrait Prize, the Kedumba Drawing Prize and the Archibald Prize. Her work is represented in collections in Australia and overseas, including the National Portrait Gallery of Australia. Danelle is a finalist in this year's Archibald and was a finalist last year for her painting of Kevin Connor.
John Beard
Janet Laurence
Sydney artist John Beard has won the 2007 Archibald Prize for his painting of Janet Laurence. The Archibald Prize is now in its 86th year. John receives a prize of $35,000
Janet Laurence is an installation artist whose work extends from the gallery into urban spaces. A former AGNSW trustee, she has undertaken numerous public commissions. Her work is held in public and private collections in Australia and internationally.
It has been said that Laurence’s work echoes architecture and yet retains a sense of the instability and transience found in nature; John Beard’s monochromatic portraits of fellow artists share similar qualities. While painting the structure, or architecture, of his friends’ heads and faces, he also aims to capture the sense of fleeting, ever-changing expression.
From this collaboration of artist and artist-as-subject, a kind of double portraiture emerges. If a viewer knows the work of the artist portrayed, another visual layer resonates. Without the use of colour – that might highlight the differences or similarities between his subjects – Beard focuses the viewer's attention not just on the individual sitter but on the structure of the painting itself. Light plays an important role in the visual dynamic of the image as we literally move around these sculptural works to fully appreciate their form and making.
"Many people will walk in and out of your life, But only true friends will leave footprints in your heart. To handle yourself, use your head; To handle others, use your heart.
Eleanor Roosevelt