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Zhong Chen Exhibition Podcast
Beijing Girl: August 4 – August 19, 2009

The Beijing Girl series considers the depiction of the female image in both contemporary and historical Chinese culture. The Girls series are often city or region specific, (the previous paintings were based on Guangzhou girls). In this show the new Beijing muse will be hung side by side with Zhongs other major subject the Australian landscape many of which have been Wynn Prize finalists, and acquired by Macquarie Bank and other important collections.

Both change and continuity are evident in this new work while Chens approach has evolved to bold, gestural canvases, beyond the pixel paintings that brought him his earliest recognition, he has continued to work in the portrait and landscape genres and to explore historical and contemporary aspects of Chinese culture

Duration : 0:2:38

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October 17 – 23, 2009

Several works seek to recreate fleeting moments on station platforms or city parks, while broader emotive and psychological qualities are sought through the careful compositional arrangement of these recreations. Figures are carefully placed. A receding procession of umbrellas is used to carry the eye along a station platform in much the same way as a colony of pesky ibis across a field in Hyde Park. The horizontal lines of a station platform offer a subtle time-line metaphor for the transitory figures that appear along its breadth.
By portraying these everyday visions using a traditional art training, the artist constructs a dialogue between commonplace existence and artistry, where subtle ironies along with a reverence for the art of the past are explored. The iconic figures of mother and child or a figure exuding pre-Raphaelite beauty may appear on a station platform, for instance. Special care in the portrayal of atmosphere and time of day acknowledges the legacy of the impressionts, while the introspective possibilities offered by the tradition of portraiture are explored.
The artist seeks to draw on these lessons from the past in order to create a dynamic commentary on contemporary urban life.

Duration : 0:2:27

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Don Rankin New Paintings 2009: Dead Calm
Opening Saturday 11th July 3-5pm

Don Rankin brings a keen awareness of the historical achievements in painting to his work. He is intent on reuniting with tradition while taking modernism into account. As with his 2007 exhibition at Eva Breuer Art Dealer, this new series of paintings focuses on the genre of still-life but there is a new emphasis on flower paintings. The flower paintings use devices borrowed from the history of still-life painting, particularly the theme of the transience of life. However, Rankin is more subtle there are no skulls or clocks in his work. Instead, the flowers are often depicted as they near decay, retaining the essence of their former beauty even as they droop and contract, providing satisfaction and hope.

Duration : 0:2:11

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Tony Irvig Exhibition Podcast
Other places, other views: September 12 – 25, 2009

Other places, other views draws on the local architecture of Irvings native Victoria, his extensive European travels and a love of the Old Masters. The large scale of works such as the monumental, Motel, forces the viewer to consider bland 1960s architecture in a new context along side similarly large paintings of European side streets. Siesta in Constantina is precisely executed, as are all the paintings; every detail is paid acute attention from the faded stripes of a pedestrian crossing to the cast iron arabesques of street lamp brackets. Shadows in Time is based on a street in Castlemaine Victoria but brings to mind the vast Venice panoramas of Canaletto.

Irving softens the seriousness of the size and detailed execution of these paintings with his characteristic humor placing a squashed Mcdonalds cup on the tarmac in Shadows in Time, a loan dog pacing the street during siesta in Bar Gregorio or a cat at the window of a down and out Motel in Motel.

Duration : 0:1:58

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Tony Irvig Exhibition Podcast
Other places, other views: September 12 – 25, 2009

Other places, other views draws on the local architecture of Irvings native Victoria, his extensive European travels and a love of the Old Masters. The large scale of works such as the monumental, Motel, forces the viewer to consider bland 1960s architecture in a new context along side similarly large paintings of European side streets. Siesta in Constantina is precisely executed, as are all the paintings; every detail is paid acute attention from the faded stripes of a pedestrian crossing to the cast iron arabesques of street lamp brackets. Shadows in Time is based on a street in Castlemaine Victoria but brings to mind the vast Venice panoramas of Canaletto.

Irving softens the seriousness of the size and detailed execution of these paintings with his characteristic humor placing a squashed Mcdonalds cup on the tarmac in Shadows in Time, a loan dog pacing the street during siesta in Bar Gregorio or a cat at the window of a down and out Motel in Motel.

Duration : 0:1:58

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Zai Kuang Exhibition Podcast
Children’s World: 21 July – 4 Aug 2009

Kuang is a realist who creates works focused around the familiarity of home life and, unsurprisingly, he names his home life as his inspiration for his works. He explains that in his images he aims to explore spaces in a domestic environmentto create a tranquil atmosphere in [his] painting. However, despite painting everyday scenes and objects Kuang manages to make his works transcend the humdrum by carefully choosing which elements of the work to highlight with detail and which to leave softer. With Childrens World Kuang focuses his attention solely on children and childhood.

Duration : 0:1:22

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The small masonite paintings from Raine Street Bondi Junction 1974-1976: August 20 – September 8, 2009

Victor Rubins August show will be an important historical showing of some 44 1970s paintings on masonite which have never been exhibited. Painted when Rubin was in his early to late 20s the boards have been archived in Victors studio since they were painted. The period covers 1974-1976 with the majority of paintings from 1974-75 when he was living in Raine Street Bondi Junction in Sydney.

This period of his work follows on from his involvement with the famous Yellow House in Macleay Street, Potts Point where he exhibited in 1971 at which point the Yellow House attracted the most cutting edge contemporary artists of the time including Brett Whiteley and others. The period is also marked by a strong influence from John Olsen who was Rubins teacher at the Bakery Art School and who remains a close friend.

Duration : 0:2:18

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The late Sir Sidney Nolan is regarded by many as Australias finest twentieth century painter. Our most respected scholars lavish superlatives on this unique painter. As Andrew Sayers said Nolan was the great intuitive Australian artist everybody else was struggling away. With extraordinary originality, he actually grasped what it was to make modern art.

Nolans technical facility and original way of seeing was combined with a rare communicative ability. He said in 1964 painting is an extension of mans means of communication. As such, its pure, difficult and wonderful. Reminding us that the young Nolan thought first of becoming a writer, Lou Klepac points out that the artist was always a voracious reader – it was through books that Nolan developed his distinctive personality which laid the foundations or the kind of work he would produce as a painter.

Duration : 0:2:36

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Judy Cassab & John Seed Exhibition Podcast
The Two of Us: 30 Sept – 13 Oct 2009
To be opened by the Hon. Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG

“Within a few short years of arriving in Sydney with her family in 1951, Judy Cassab became Australia’s most celebrated portrait painter. At the same time Mrs. Cassab realized a deep affinity with the outback which allowed her to develop an abstraction that would lead her to similar accolades for her landscapes.”

“The Two of Us opening September 30th is the first time Judy Cassab has exhibited with her son John Seed. Jon’s wielded steel sculptures were exhibited at the Bonython and Holdsworth galleries in the 60s and 70s as well as at the Centre Prize Gallery in London, at that time exhibiting under the name John Kampfner.”

Duration : 0:2:22

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