VAULT EXTRA 20 March 2024
The Dowse Art Museum
Nell x Colin McCahon: Through the Wall of Birth and Death
Renowned Australian multidisciplinary artist Nell’s current exhibition at The Dowse Art Museum draws out fresh dialogues between her work and the key works by iconic Aotearoa artist Colin McCahon that she has selected to show as part of her solo. The symbolism of opposites – light and dark, birth and death, feminine and masculine, joy and sadness – is a common thread across both artists’ work, and Nell has long been inspired by McCahon, so the exhibition plays out in part as a homage to her New Zealand counterpart. In staging a solo show with an unconventional twist, Nell x Colin McCahon: Through the Wall of Birth and Death reveals new interpretations of both intellectual yet playful art practices and claims a universal personhood across modernist and contemporary timelines.
17 February – 4 August 2024
Image credit: Nell, self-nature is subtle and mysterious - nun.sex.monk.rock, 2010, glass reinforced plastic, silver leaf, varnish, nickel plated bronze, Nell size, 2 parts: 121 x 8 x 4 cm; 91 x 75 x 59 cm. Courtesy of National Gallery of Australia
Praxis Artspace
They walk amongst us
George Raftopoulos’ mythological and allegorical abstractions are currently showing at PRAXIS Artspace. Identifying with Odysseus from Homer’s ancient Greek epic, and weaving classical references with Australian colonial history, Raftopoulos galvanises the viewer with the spirit of heroes, compelling his audience to acknowledge and build on history in the way he adds luscious line and textural painting to his works to present more layers of imagery. Those layers, like figures and faces in the works, slowly and organically reveal themselves.
28 February – 30 March 2024
Image credit: George Raftopoulos, Gardener of Memory, 2022, oil and acrylic on canvas, 180 x 180 cm. Courtesy PRAXIS Artspace
Shepparton Art Museum
Yearbook
Over seven hundred vinyl-printed studio portraits by acclaimed American photographer Ryan McGinley come together as a single artwork installation, Yearbook, currently exhibited at Shepparton Art Museum after being presented in previous evolutions in New York, Tokyo, Denmark, Korea and Spain since 2009. McGinley’s subjects are creatives living and working in New York, celebrated in their individuality, whilst unified in a sense of joy with bold colour and form. The exhibition, part of PHOTO 2024 International Festival of Photography, employs techniques of mass commercial image production whilst achieving something profoundly personal.
1 March – 14 July 2024
Image credit: Ryan McGinley, YEARBOOK, installation view, Shepparton Art Museum, 2024. Photo: Leon Schoots. Courtesy the artist and Shepparton Art Museum
Murray Art Museum Albury
National Photography Prize
The National Photography Prize, with a major $30,000 acquisitive prize, runs every two years to bring together artists working in innovative ways with the photographic medium. Generously supported by the MAMA Art Foundation, the Prize assists artists to present cohesive selections of work, or works in series, which then form an exhibition. This year’s finalists are Alex Walker & Daniel O’Toole, Ali McCann, Ali Tahayori, Ellen Dahl, Ioulia Panoutsopoulos, Izabela Pluta, Kai Wasikowski, Nathan Beard, Olga Svyatova, Rebecca McCauley & Aaron Claringbold, Sammy Hawker and Skye Wagner.
23 March - 1 September 2024
Image credit: Ali McCann, The Democratic Voice, 2022, archival pigment print, 126 x 105.5 cm. Courtesy of the artist
PIERMARQ*
If Hollywood Don’t Need Us
Preston Daniels and Jeremy Shockley are part of a rich history of artist friends in LA, having moved from childhood in the rural south forward through exciting careers to now be working from studios that share a narrow hallway. If Hollywood Don’t Need Us is an exhibition of new works by the artists at PIERMARQ*, referencing Don Williams’ 1982 country song to reflect enduring kinship through adventures and trials of the big city. Both artists’ work are vibrant and buoyant, referencing art history and playing with perception.
14 March – 14 April 2024
Image credit: Jeremy Shockley, Hummingbird, 2023, oil on canvas, 76.2 x 61 cm. Courtesy PIERMARQ*
Lennox St. Gallery
How Things Work
The largest exhibition of Adam Cullens’ work in a private gallery is currently showing at Lennox St. Gallery. Titled How Things Work, the exhibition comprises 28 paintings, 5 sculptures, 42 works on paper and 25 etchings; and is complemented by an online component of a further 32 limited editions. The Archibald Prize winner’s paintings draw upon Colonial Australian history, most notably the figure of Ned Kelly, the subject of his master’s thesis and with whom he came to identify, advertising, commercial television and a background as a cartoonist.
12 March – 6 April 2024
Image credit: Adam Cullen, God Improves as we Mature, 2000, acrylic on canvas, 260 x 200 cm. Courtesy Lennox St. Gallery
