Artist Profile

BY REG MOMBASSA People sometimes ask what is art, or what do artists do. Well, generally speaking, art is the concrete response of a human to the outer world and sometimes to their inner world, or perhaps an admixture of the two. When asked what an a

STORY SARA SWEET DURING HER CHILDHOOD, KAREN MILLS KNEW LITTLE about the origins of her Aboriginal family. Born in Katherine in the Northern Territory, she was adopted as a baby and raised in South Australia. After leaving home, she returned to the T

STORY BRIDGET MACLEOD PHOTOGRAPHER STEPHEN A’COURT “After 15 years in London ... when came back I saw the New Zealand bush as exotic and jungle-like. YOUR BACKGROUND IS IN FASHION DESIGN. WHEN and why did you start painting? As far back as I can reme

STORY KON GOURIOTIS WHEN DID YOU BEGIN MAKING ART? I’d been in Guatemala and picked up hepatitis from food, by the time I’d reached London I ended up in an isolation room, in Coppetts Wood Hospital. As I got better, I started drawing a series of head

REVIEW BY LUCY STRANGER YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE AN AVID follower of Aboriginal art when it comes to the fascinating pull of Ngarra and his life, as told through his texta drawings. Hailing from up north in the Kimberley, this Indigenous artist created w

BEN QUALITY IN 2016, THE ART GALLERY OF NEW SOUTH WALES (AGNSW) is my church. I am an artist and an addict of culture and the visual language of contemporary art. I am also resolute in my belief in the power of art to engage and shape and change my s

ESSAY JOE KINSELA SYDNEY-BORN AND COUNTRY-BRED in NSW, I have always been impressed by my visits to rural Victoria, where state governments of all political views have encouraged the arts, heritage and, hence, tourism. Within an hour’s drive of each

“IT’S A DISTURBING THING THAT WE STILL HAVE TO defend the National Arts School,” Ann Thompson says in the most recent issue of ARTIST PROFILE. Ann was referring to the possible merger with a Sydney university and the relocation of the National Art Sc

REVIEW LAETITIA WILSON WESTERN AUSTRALIAN ARTIST Miriam Stannage finds herself in an enviable position at this stage in her life. Recently recognised as a Western Australian State Living Treasure, she has been a trailblazer locally and developed a ce

STORY OWEN CRAVEN So for me, painting is the vehicle, the medium, of a very mysterious process. IN HIS COLLINGWOOD studio, Nick Mourtzakis paints for himself. His diligent and disciplined approach to drawing and painting is driven by a cerebral pursu

STORY STEVE LOPES PHOTOGRAPHER TONY LOPES “I’ve always had the two approaches – the sublime and the ridiculous or the ugly and beautiful. YOU HAVE A BOOK COMING OUT WHICH CHRONICLES 50 years of your work, focusing particularly on your landscapes. The

I LOVE PAINTING. IT IS MY WAY OF understanding the world around me. Everywhere I look I see a face or a landscape that demands to be caught on canvas. I do lots of drawings with ink, pencil and charcoal to know a subject, but it is oil paint that rea

STORY ANNA JOHNSON PHOTOGRAPHER STEPHEN OXENBURY WHEN JUSTINE VARGA GRADUATED WITH HONOURS from the National Art School (NAS) with honours in 2007 she faced a void. Literally. After an intensive technical training she was finally confronted with the

STORY JOE FROST PHOTOGRAPHER ROBERT LINNEGAR THE PATH TO BECOMING A PAINTER OF LANDSCAPES has not been a straight one for Ross Laurie. Introduced to the Old Masters of European art by a fondly remembered art teacher and later inspired by modern Ameri

STORY LUCY STRANGER YOU’VE HAD A LATE BEGINNING IN THE ART WORLD, but your practice has a maturity and strength that outreaches this. What led you to begin practising? I worked as a lab technician for many years. When my last child went to school I j

PREVIEW BY KON GOURIOTIS ANDREW CHRISTOFIDES IS VERY well-known to serious artists and curators in Australia for his relief constructions and paintings. Since his very first show in the early 1980s, few artists have been as uncompromising in their pu

STORY ASHLEY CRAWFORD STRANGE BEASTS HAUNT THE LAIR OF BRUCE Armstrong’s studio. Looming out from the shadows are bears and birds and other denizens of the sculptor’s iconic deities, poised and powerful. At times creatures not of this world emerge as

MY PRACTICE DEALS WITH THE inherent desire of young people, particularly males, towards risk-taking behaviour as a means of understanding themselves and their place in the world, even if it ends in scenes of failure or disaster. I use personal narrat

GROWING UP IN COEN IN NORTH Queensland’s remote Cape York Peninsula, I felt like I had it all. In a material sense I had nothing, but I had a vast country passed down to me through more than a thousand generations that gave me the power to imagine an

STORY CHLOE MANDRYK PHOTOGRAPHY WILLIAM MANSFIELD DANELLE BERGSTROM COMPOSES AND RIFFS IN PAINT. As they coalesce, the earth, air and water enrich the visual vocabulary of her story. In the presence of her large and outstretched works you get a sense

Something strikes a chord in me when I see the huge blocks of geometric colour of a ship against the rather drab and hazy landscape behind. I MOVED FROM SYDNEY TO THE industrial town of Port Kembla, south of Wollongong, four years ago. While settling