2005 EXHIBITION PROGRAM
Places That Name Us: RAKA Award Contemporary Indigenous Visual Arts #3
24 February– 3 April
The Kate Challis RAKA Award is one of Australia’s most valuable and prestigious national awards for Indigenous creative artists, and has been instrumental in fostering writers, filmmakers and visual artists for over a decade. Places that name us: RAKA Award contemporary Indigenous Visual Arts #3 is an exhibition of works by 13 outstanding contemporary Australian Indigenous artists, all of whom were short-listed for the Kate Challis RAKA Award. The exhibition includes bark and canvas paintings, photography, prints, drawing and sculpture in a carefully selected cross section of contemporary Indigenous art that provides an excellent forum for the discussion of art, Australian Indigenous studies and Australian history. The exhibition includes works by Vernon Ah Kee, Lorraine Connelly, Sylvia De Serville, Julie Dowling, Dorothy Galaledba, Gordon Hookey, Roy Kennedy, Ricky Maynard, Ivan Namirrkki, Trevor Nickolls, Janice Peacock, Wingu Tingima, and Tommy Watson.
Ron McBurnie: The Artist's Studio
7 April– 8 May
An artist’s studio is a place that the public rarely visits but is often most curious about. The Artist’s Studio is an exhibition that gives a rare insight into the creative working processes employed by 26 artists in their studios through large scale etchings developed in situ by north Queensland printmaker Ron McBurnie. Complementing McBurnie’s etchings are paintings, prints and drawings by each of the portrayed artists in the series, including Yvonne Boag, John Coburn, Helen Geier, Colin Lanceley, Euan Macleod, Jan Senbergs, Robin Wallace-Crabbe and Guy Warren.
William Creek and Beyond
19 May– 3 July
William Creek and Beyond is the result of an ambitious project that enabled a group of artists to explore and paint some of the most remote areas of central Australia in 2001. Chosen for their diverse range of styles and generational mix, the artists Jason Benjamin, Rodney Pople, Robert Jacks, David Larwill, Jeff Makin, Mark Schaller, Andrew Sibley, Hazel Dooney, Tim Storrier and John Olsen set off to work in a number of different locations including William Creek, Lake Eyre, Chambers Pillar, West Macdonnell Ranges and Kings Canyon. From the body of work produced, a selection has been made that reflects the artists’ interpretations of the central Australian landscape.
Reflections on the Built Environment, glass works by Judi Elliot
19 May– 3 July
For decades Judi Elliot has been passionately interested in architecture and our built environment. Elliot’s glass works reflect her passion for the built environment while also addressing the human condition, the daily concerns and preoccupations of the inhabitants. Developing a technique for distorting shapes and bleeding colour, Elliot works like a painter composing from sheets of glass.
Every Day, selected paintings by Debra Dawes 1990-2005
7 July – 14 August
This exhibition features paintings from the past 15 years by distinguished artist Debra Dawes. In 1988 Elwyn Lynn wrote: “Let's be thankful for the subtle visual and intellectual pleasures that Dawes provides.” Dawes’s paintings are simultaneously restless and poised — poised between abstraction and depiction, aesthetics and politics, imagery and installation, melody and rhythm, spatial fields & temporal lines.
Janet Laurence Survey
18 August – 25 September
Janet Laurence is one of Australia’s leading contemporary visual artists. Laurence’s art explores ideas of memory, perception, history and the environment through a juxtaposition of materials and images. Combining natural, organic and fluid elements with architectural materials, Laurence’s art creates a meeting point between the natural and built environment. This survey exhibition features sitespecific installations. Laurence’s most recent works are presented in the context of important earlier works.
John Peart Paintings 1964–2004
29 September– 30 October
John Peart Paintings 1964–2004 is a timely exhibition that demonstrates Peart’s artistic development and his significant standing in contemporary Australian painting. He has had a long and distinguished career over the last 40 years, having first come to prominence through The Field exhibition of 1968, at the National Gallery of Victoria. His early work is defined by his exploration into various modes of late modernist painting before settling on a style that encompasses both the influence of American minimalism and the Australian landscape. Peart’s more recent work continues to reflect his passion for experimentation and commitment to pushing painting beyond the predictable.
Jean Bellettte: A Retrospecive
10 November– 18 December
Jean Bellette (1908–1991) was a seminal figure in the visual arts in Australia in the 1930s until her death in Majorca. Bellette’s work is best known for its classicist vision. Her avid reading of Homer and the Greek tragedies result in the frequent use of mythology as the subject matter of her work, which, unlike the sunny bacchanalia of other Australian classicists, often has a prevailing sense of melancholy. This exhibition, curated by respected art historian, Christine France, consists of over 80 works including paintings, watercolours and drawings from private and public collections, including works from the ANU Art Collection. Bellette’s artworks will be presented with her writings, photographs and memorabilia.