| Arts in Australia |
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| Culture of Australia |
Australian art incorporates art made in Australia or about Australian subjects since prehistoric times. This includes Australian Aboriginal art, Australian Colonial art, Landscape, Atelier, Modernist and Contemporary art. The visual arts have a long history in Australia, with evidence of Aboriginal art dating back at least 30,000 years. Australia has produced many notable artists from both Western and Indigenous Australian traditions including the late 19th century Heidelberg School impressionists, central Australian Hermannsburg School watercolourists, Western Desert Art Movement, Heide Circle of Modernists, and the expatriates who worked in London in the nineteen sixties. Mid twentieth century Modernist figuration prevails in the Australian art market, prominent artists are Ian Fairweather, Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, Russell Drysdale, Brett Whiteley, John Brack, Jeffrey Smart and Charles Blackman. Rosalie Gascoigne, John Olsen and Fred Williams are exceptions whose landscapes border on abstractions. Harold Cazneaux and Max Dupain are noted for their modernist photography. Most of the celebrated artists of past decades have become less noted after their deaths, such as painters John Perceval, William Dobell, Lloyd Rees and Donald Friend. Since the late Nineteen-nineties, senior Indigenous artists and Baby Boomer and Generation X contemporary artists have commanded a rapidly increasing share of the Australian art market.
Australia has a number of major museums and galleries, including the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the National Gallery of Australia, National Portrait Gallery of Australia and National Museum of Australia in Canberra, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney. Notable Indigenous sites have been set aside as UNESCO listed areas such as those at Uluru and Kakadu National Park.
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Aboriginal Australians are believed to have begun arriving in Australia as early as 60,000 years ago, and evidence of Aboriginal art in Australia can be traced back at least 30,000 years.[1] Examples of ancient Aboriginal rock artworks can be found throughout the continent - notably in national parks such as those of the UNESCO listed sites at Uluru and Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, but also within protected parks in urban areas such as at Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park in Sydney.[2][3][4] The Sydney rock engravings are approximately 5000 to 200 years old. Murujuga in Western Australia has the Friends of Australian Rock Art advocating its preservation, and the numerous engravings there were heritage listed in 2007.[5][6] Rock Art Research is published twice a year and also covers international scholarship of rock art. In May 2011, the Director of the Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit (PERAHU) at Griffith University, Paul Taçon, called for a national database for rock art [7].
In terms of age and abundance, cave art in Australia is comparable to that of Lascaux and Altamira in Europe,[8] and Aboriginal art is believed to be the oldest continuing tradition of art in the world.[9] There are three major regional styles: the geometric style found in Central Australia, Tasmania, the Kimberley and Victoria known for its concentric circles, arcs and dots; the simple figurative style found in Queensland and the complex figurative style found in Arnhem Land which includes X-Ray art. These designs generally carry significance linked to the spirituality of the Dreamtime.[10]
William Barak (c.1824-1903) was one of the last traditionally educated of the Wurundjeri-willam, people who come from the district now incorporating the city of Melbourne. He remains notable for his artworks which recorded traditional Aboriginal ways for the education of Westerners (which remain on permanent exhibition at the Ian Potter Centre of the National Gallery of Victoria and at the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery. Margaret Preston (1875–1963) was among the early non-indigenous painters to incorporate Aboriginal influences in her works. Albert Namatjira (1902–1959) is one of the most famous Australian artists and an Arrernte man. His landscapes inspired the Hermannsburg School of art.[11] The works of Elizabeth Durack are notable for their fusion of Western and indigenous influences. Since the 1970s, indigenous artists have employed the use of acrylic paints - with styles such as that of the Western Desert Art Movement becoming globally renowned 20th century art movements.
The National Gallery of Australia exhibits a great many indigenous art works, including those of the Torres Strait Islands who are known for their traditional sculpture and headgear.[12]
The first artistic representations of the Australia scene by European artists were mainly "natural-history art", depicting the distinctive flora and fauna of the land for scientific purposes. Sydney Parkinson, the Botanical illustrator on James Cook's 1770 voyage that first charted the eastern coastline of Australia, made a large number of such drawings under the direction of naturalist Joseph Banks. Many of these drawings were met with skepticism when taken back to Europe, for example claims that the platypus was a hoax.
Despite Banks' suggestions, no professional natural-history artist sailed on the First Fleet in 1788, so until the turn of the century all drawings made in the colony were by soldiers, including British naval officers George Raper and John Hunter, and convict artists, including Thomas Watling.[13] However, many of these drawings are by unknown artists. Most are in the style of naval draughtsmanship. Most of these drawings were of Natural history topics, specifically birds, and a few depict the infant colony itself.
Several professional natural-history illustrators accompanied expeditions in the early 19th century, including Ferdinand Bauer (who travelled with Matthew Flinders), and Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, who travelled with a French expedition led by Nicolas Baudin. The first resident professional artist was John Lewin,[13] who arrived in 1800 and published two volumes of natural history art, while ornothologist John Gould was renowned for his illustration's of the country's birds.[13]
As well as natural history, there were some ethnographic portraiture of Aboriginal Australians, particularly in the 1830s. Artists included Augustus Earle in New South Wales and in Tasmania.[13]
Art in Australia from 1788 onward is often narrated as the gradual shift from a European sense of light to an Australian one. The lighting in Australia is notably different to that of Europe, and early attempts at landscapes attempted to reflect this.
Conrad Martens (1801–1878) worked from 1835 to 1878 as a professional artist, painting many landscapes and was commercially successful. His work, though, is regarded as softening the landscape to fit European sensibilities.[13] Martens is remembered for accompanying scientist Charles Darwin on the HMS Beagle.
Another significant landscape artist of this era was John Glover.
S. T. Gill (1818–1880) documented life on the Australian gold fields.[13]
A few attempts at art exhibitions were made in the 1840s, which attracted a number of artists but were commercial failures. By the 1850s however, regular exhibitions became popular, with a variety of art types represented. The first such was in 1854 in Melbourne. An art museum, which eventually became the National Gallery of Victoria, was founded in 1861, and began to collect Australian works as well as gathering a collection of European masters. Some of the artists of note included Eugene von Guerard, William Strutt, and Louis Buvelot.
The colonial art market primarily desired landscape paintings, which were commissioned by wealthy landowners or merchants wanting to record their material success.[14] Knut Bull (1811–1889) was sentenced to fourteen years transportation in 1845, and after doing time at Norfolk Island arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1846. From 1849 he was permitted to work as an artist and by 1853 had received a conditional pardon. Bull created such history paintings as The Wreck of the George III in 1850 and is noted for his scenes of early colonial Hobart.
William Piguenit's (1836–1914) "Flood in the Darling" was collected by the National Gallery of New South Wales in 1895.[15]
Walter Withers (1854–1914) won the inaugural Wynne Prize in 1896.[16]
Among the first Australians artists to gain a reputation overseas was the impressionist John Peter Russell during the 1880s. Another notable expatriate artist of the era was Rupert Bunny, a painter of landscape, allegory and sensual and intimate portraits.
The origins of distinctly Australian painting is often associated with the Heidelberg School of the 1880s-1890s. Artists such as Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts applied themselves to recreating in their art a truer sense of light and colour as seen in Australian landscape. Like the European Impressionists, they painted in the open air. These artists found inspiration in the unique light and colour which characterises the Australian bush. Some see strong connections between the art of the school and the wider Impressionist movement, while others point to earlier traditions of plain air painting elsewhere in Europe. Sayers states that "there remains something excitingly original and indisputably important in the art of the 1880s and 1890s", and that by this time "something which could be described as an Australian tradition began to be recognized".
Key figures in the School were Tom Roberts,[16] Arthur Streeton (1867–1943),[17] Frederick McCubbin,[17] and Charles Conder.[16] Their most recognised work involves scenes of pastoral and wild Australia, featuring the vibrant, even harsh colours of Australian summers. The name itself comes from a camp Roberts and Streeton set up at a property near Heidelberg, at the time on the rural outskirts of Melbourne. Some of their paintings received international recognition, and many remain embedded in Australia's popular consciousness both inside and outside the art world. Jane Sutherland (1853–1928), noted for her En plein air technique, was a student of McCubbin.
Nature loving artists of previous generations are numerous, however some of the more idiosyncratic examples were Merric Boyd (1862–1940) and Sydney Long (1871–1955).[15] Long's early paintings were influenced by the symbolists, art nouveau and partly by the Heidelberg School.
[18] The early twentieth century saw some Australian artists making their careers in Europe. These include impressionist John Peter Russell, bohemian painters like Rupert Bunny (1864–1947) and Agnes Goodsir, printmaker Hall Thorpe, a religious man who intended to make spiritually uplifting work, and the internationally renowned sculptor Bertram Mackennal.
Arthur Streeton was a plein air painter who continued to be highly successful in the first part of the twentieth century. The romanticist view of Australian rural scenes was shared with Hans Heysen (1877–1968), an artist famous for his luminous watercolour paintings of River Red Gums, won the Wynne Prize nine times from 1904 to 1932.[16]
Bertram Mackennal, (1863–1931) was a well known sculptor from this era, particularly for his rendition of Circe the Greek magic goddess.
Leading up to World War I, the decorative arts, including miniature, watercolour painting, and functional objects such as vases, became more prominent in the Australian arts scene. Norman Lindsay's (1879–1969) watercolours of baccanalian nudes caused considerable scandal around the turn of the century.[19] One famous drawing, Pollice Verso (1904), caused his first scandal, as it depicted Romans giving the thumbs down to Christ on the Cross. There were the fashionable artists such as J.W. Tristram, who did misty Corot-influenced watercolors of the bush and beach.
George Washington Lambert was a prominent painter and sculptor of early twentieth century Australia who moved between decorative arts and portraiture, and is a notable war artist (World War I).[15]
After World War I, early proponents of modernist art in Australia were cubist influenced Roy de Maistre (1894–1968).[15] and Margaret Preston, and the post-impressionist Grace Cossington Smith. European Modernist art had fierce critics such as Norman Lindsay, who wrote for the nationalist publication The Bulletin, and the idiosyncratic teacher Max Meldrum. Ironically the Max Meldrum-led Australian Tonalism movement, which rejected modernist art and promoted a unique form of painting in accordance with Meldrum's theories of art, has since been recognized as a precursor to Modernist forms of art, including Minimalism, and art historian Bernard William Smith noted that Meldrum is perhaps the only Australian artist to develop and practice his own fully formulated theory of painting.[20] Meldrum's student Clarice Beckett was rediscovered in the 2000s.
Popular illustrators of children's books were May Gibbs, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite and Dorothy Wall (1894–1942) (the creator of Blinky Bill the Koala).[21]
1921 saw the founding of the Archibald Prize, Australia's most famous art prize, for portraiture, though defining portraiture has always caused controversy - most notably in 1943 when William Dobell's semi caraciture portrait of an artist friend won the prize and was challenged in court on the basis that it was a caricature, not a portrait.[15]
Art deco made its mark in advertising posters, architecture and consumer goods, as well as fine art. In 1934 the ANZAC Memorial in Sydney's Hyde Park was built and featured the sculpture "The Sacrifice" by Rayner Hoff (1894–1937). The decorative art deco arches of the Sydney Harbour Bridge embody Australian fondness for the fashionable modernist style. Australia's most iconic Art Deco painting, Australian Beach Pattern was painted by Charles Meere (1890–1961) in 1940.[15] Modernism in the fine arts, however, continued to be a fledgling movement in the 1930s.
Works of watercolour or pastel on paper have for many years been less marketable than oil paintings on board or canvas.[22][23] This has been reflected in the historical cheaper pricing of key Australian artists who worked on paper, including expressionist-surrealist Joy Hester, romanticist landscape painter Hans Heysen, modernists Frank and Muriel Medworth, landscape painters Albert Namatjira and Kenneth MacQueen, Bauhaus trained teacher Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack and the master printmaker Murray Griffin, famous for his prints of birds.
Social realism in the forties and fifties involved Herbert Badham, Jacqueline Hick (1919–2004), Noel Counihan (1913–1986), Herbert McClintock (1906–1985) and Roy Dalgarno (1910–2001). Yosl Bergner (1920-) worked in Australia in this decade.
Cubism was an enduring influence on painting. Grace Crowley is remembered as one of the key cubist influenced painters. Abstractionist Godfrey Miller (1893–1964) was influenced by cubism and the mystical writings of Rudolf Steiner.[24]
In the 1940s a new generation of artists began experimenting with styles such as surrealism and other techniques. James Gleeson (1915–2008) eventually became recognised as Australia's most significant surrealist painter. Robert Klippel (1920–2001) a constructivist and surrealist influenced sculptor who was influenced by industrial settings. Klippel also collaborated with Gleeson.
In Melbourne Arthur Boyd (1920–1999)[25] and Albert Tucker (1914–1999) were prominent,[13] and a number of artists spent time at Heide, a house in Heidelberg - the site of the Heidelberg school several decades before. Amongst the artists who spent time there were Joy Hester (1920–1960)[26] and, the internationally well known painter Sidney Nolan (1917–1992), the best artist of the immediate postwar period, whose iconic Ned Kelly images are probably better known than the artist himself. The effect of the Ern Malley poetry case, its cover illustrated by Nolan, also reflected around the art world.[15]
Olive Cotton and Max Dupain went onto successful photography careers after studying with the early modernist photographer Harold Cazneaux. George Caddy's beachobatics photography was influenced by what he saw in American Life magazine. Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) arrived in Australia in August 1938. He specialised in architectural and industrial photography. In 1946, Helmut Newton (1920–2004) established himself as a fashion photographer in Melbourne. Mark Strizic,[27] (born 1928, Berlin), migrated to Melbourne from Zagreb, Croatia 1950, was another major portrait and architectural photographer from the late fifties to the present day, noted for his documentation of many buildings that have now been demolished. David Moore (1927–2003) was a photojournalist.[15] His 1966 photo Migrants Arriving in Sydney, originating from a commission by National Geographic, is one of the most famous works of modern Australian photography.[28]
An art centre was established at Ernabella in 1948.[29] Art centeres are an important factor in the story of the development of contemporary aboriginal art.
In the 1950s Scottish expatriate Ian Fairweather (1891–1974) settled on Bribie Island, South-East Queensland, and produced calligraphic paintings influenced by the arts of China and Indonesia.[30] Various influences from Chinese art did not gain equal acceptance in Western art. The early acceptance of Fairweather as an artistic hero in the Forties is in sharp contrast to the resistance American composer John Cage faced when he debuted his alleatory compositions to American audiences in the Fifties.
Abstract expressionism was an influence in artists Ralph Balson (1890–1964), influential art teachers John Passmore and Desiderius Orban, Carl Plate (1907–1977), Inge King, Nancy Borlase (1914–2006), William Rose, Tony Tuckson (1921–1973) Tom Gleghorn, Ann Thomson, Stan Rapotec, Clement Meadmore (1929–2005) and Yvonne Audette (1930-). Meadmore became a well known artist in New York. Tuckson's work is featured on the cover of the 2006 edition of the prestigious McCullouch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art.
George Johnson, a paragon of the Melbourne geometric abstractionist joked about in David Williamson's Emerald City (1987), held his first exhibition in 1956.[15]
Bob Woodward's El Alamein Fountain (1961)[31] showed the public that small scale modernist public sculpture could enhance the appeal of inner city areas. The public sculptures of Tom Bass and Bert Flugelman had mixed reactions.
Artists demonstratively concerned with Australian identity Albert Tucker, Clifton Pugh, Barry Humphries, Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, Fred Williams, for example) had great success with the public. The Fred Williams (1927–1982) exhibition "Fred Williams - Landscapes of a Continent" was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1977. Williams is now regarded as one of the definitive painters of the Australian landscape. Williams is known for his aerial abstractions of the arid Australian inland, and suggest the viewer is in an aircraft, flying above the land. Russell Drysdale (1912–1981), a painter of outback scenes, represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1954. Drysdale, William Dobell (1899–1970), Eric Thake (1904–1982) and the cartoonist Paul Rigby (1924–2006) helped to shape the visual archetype of the plain, hearty Australian.
Figurative artists popular in the sixties also included Ainslie Roberts (1911–1993), Jeffrey Smart,[32] Charles Blackman,[13] Robert Dickerson,[13] Donald Friend (1915–1989)[13] and John Brack who is one of the highest regarded figurative painters today.
Richard Larter arrived in Australia in 1962 and started a long career in pop painting,[15] with the female nude being the subject of many of his works. Mike Brown (1938–1997) and Peter Powditch were early Australian pop artists.[15]
Psychedelia in 1960s Australian art was not common, a famous example is the cover of the Cream album Disraeli Gears (1967), created by Martin Sharp. Vernon Treweeke was briefly a star of psychedelic painting.[33] Vivienne Binns exhibition of paintings at Watters Gallery in 1967 was notoriously genre defying and established her position as a contemporary of the Feminist art movement.
Definitive events in the late sixties included the exhibition of Hard Edged Abstraction The Field at the National Gallery of Victoria, Charlie Numbulmoore painting his famous Wandjina spirit figures, The Power Institute of Fine Arts was established in 1968 eventually leading to the establishment of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and Christo and Jean-Claude's wrapping of Little Bay in Sydney.
In 1971-2 art teacher Geoffrey Bardon encouraged the Aboriginal people of Papunya to paint their Dreamtime stories on canvas, leading to the development of the Papunya Tula school, or 'dot art' which has become possibly Australia's most recognisable style of art worldwide. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (1932–2002), Long Jack Phillipus Tjakamarra and William Sandy are some of the best known Papunya artists.[15]
The abstractionist John Passmore (1904–1984) was part of the inspiration for the artist Hurtle Duffield in Patrick White's novel The Vivisector (1970). Decades later in 2003, Passmore's friends Elinor and Fred Wrobel converted a pub into the Passmore Museum. It is one of the few museums in Australia dedicated solely to one artist's life and work. Passmore was a teacher of John Olsen (1928-), an innovative and original landscape painter. Patrick White's art collecting efforts are to this day generally unadmired but he was a collector of modernist art and an early collector of the sort of art that later came to be known as Postmodernism, including art by James Clifford, Imants Tillers, Frank Littler, Robert Boynes, Patricia Moylan, John Davis (1936–1999), and Tony Coleing.[34][35]
Artists founded alternate practices apart from commercial galleries and art museums. Performance art and interactive art in communities throughout Australia saw the development of public art and community projects. Vivienne Binns project "Mothers' Memories Others' Memories" at UNSW and Blacktown was a ground breaking participatory project. Other artists around Australia, such as Anne Newmarch in Adelaide were involved in these kinds of practices.[36] Performance artists of the 70s included Ken Unsworth, Mike Parr, Mike Kitching, Philippa Cullen (1950–1975),[37][38] Ivan Durrant, Pat Larter (1936–1996) and Jill Orr. Installation artists of this decade included Kevin Mortensen, Rosalie Gascoigne (1917–1999), Ti Parks and Tony Trembath.
Building on the innovations of photomontage and artists such as Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008), Man Ray (1890–1976), Gerhard Richter and Richard Hamilton, urban Australian artists were fascinated by the creative nexus of photography and painting. Painters combined painterliness with the look of photography (Carl Plate, Richard Larter, James Clifford (1936–1987),[39] Ivan Durrant, Tim Maguire,[40] Jill Orr, Ken Searle, Susan Norrie,[33] Annette Bezor, Robert Boynes,[39] Kristin Headlam,[15] Ken Johnson, Julie Rrap, Louise Hearman, John Young, Sally Robinson, Lindy Lee, Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, Philip Wolfhagen,[15] Leah King-Smith,[15] David Wadelton). Those artists found limited but enthusiastic audiences. Contemporary Australian artists such as Patricia Piccinini,[41][42] Tracey Moffat[42] and Bill Henson[43] were artistic leaders primarily using photography, using techniques of drawing, Scenic painting and Chiarascuro respectively. Julia Ciccarone circumvented the trend with her Trompe-l'œil paintings. In the world of Rock music, Richard Lowenstein was creating similar graphic effects using grainy overlays, as he did for the Hunters & Collectors video "Talking to a Stranger" (1982).
Experimental film and video was documented from the 1970s by Arthur and Corinne Cantrill, a couple of filmmakers with an interest in surrealist films publishing Cantrill's Filmnotes. In this format, innovative art was made outside of the commercial and public gallery system. Innovative and internationally recognised art videos from this era were Despair (1982) by industrial music innovators SPK and Human Jukebox (c.1986) by The Scientists.
Some depictions of angst and human suffering in the late 20th century were: Peter Booth's dystopian expressionist paintings.[44] George Gittoes drawing and painting the anguish of the Rwandan Genocide. Steve Cox's Criminological paintings of youths and men lapsed into and out of True crime.[44] David McDiarmid (1952–1995), Peter Tully (1947–1992) and society photographer William Yang used their art to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic.[45][46] (Epidemic levels within Australia). Figurative painters Nigel Thomson[47] (1945–1999), Stewart MacFarlane[48][49][50] and Fred Cress (1938–2009)[15] explored the seamy side of urban Australian life. Their styles were akin to cinematic Black comedy. Tracey Moffatt's series "Scarred for Life" treated psychological suffering in a camp but heartfelt way. Bill Henson's unsettling depictions of teenager's suburbia were grim[51] depictions of revelry.
Ken Done's work has featured on the cover of the weekly Japanese magazine Hanako for over ten years. In 1999, Done was asked to create a series of works for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies programs of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Done and Hart became role models for artists who aspired to commercial success. Done's success is primarily as a designer of mass market goods, but he has gone on to be a painter, mainly of scenes of Sydney Harbour.
Redback Graphix produced some striking didactic poster art in the 80s and 90s, raising awareness of drink driving, sexually transmitted diseases, racism and workplace harassment.
The most famous performance piece of 1988 was Burnum Burnum's planting of an Aboriginal flag on the white cliffs of Dover in the United Kingdom. Burnum Burnum (1936–1997) was an Aboriginal rights activist protesting the lack of legal recognition of Aboriginal ownership of Terra Australis prior to British settlement.
The proliferation of Australia's big things developed an ironic cult following, and Maria Kozic took the joke a step further with her schlock billboard "Maria Kozic is BITCH" (1989).[51] On the serious side, cultural historians in Australia joined the global vogue for writing about Car culture[48] and roadside memorials.[52] In public art there was the introduction of sculptural features on concrete noise barriers along freeways.
A grunge art movement occurred, mainly in Sydney in the 90s. It included Destiny Deacon,[33] Nike Savvas, Hany Armanious and Adam Cullen, amongst others. Cullen's works evolved out of an unfortunate place he calls "Loserville".[53][54] There had been a proto-grunge music scene in the eighties with bands such as Lubricated Goat and The Scientists. Another angry artist was Gordon Bennett, whose paintings were of white Australia's mistreatment of Indigenous Australians.[25] Many artists chose distinctly more cheerful subject matter but they did not earn the esteemed reputation of Margaret Olley, a painter of still life floral arrangements and domestic interiors.[55]
Aboriginal artists using western medium such as Emily Kngwarreye (c.1910-1996), Rover Thomas (c.1926–1998) and Freddy Timms have become known internationally and Emily Kngwarreye is regarded as a "genius" by curator Akira Tatehata.[56]
Ian Burn, the leading conceptual artist, died in 1993.[51][57] He was one of the few Australian artists to contribute to a new international art movement (Art and Language).
Expatriate artists made their mark in Britain. In 1979, Russell Mulcahy directed the influential Video Killed the Radio Star for The Buggles. The story of that video is featured in a documentary by the same name. Leigh Bowery (1961–1994) was a performance artist working in London, famously called "modern art on legs" by Boy George. Ron Mueck became known for his oversize lifelike sculptures. Marc Newson is a particularly successful industrial designer.
Sculptor Rosalie Gascoigne[51] was increasingly well known for her assemblages of cut up wood, most distinctively cut up road signs.
Howard Arkley (1951–1999),[58] rediscovered culture in suburbia. Juan Dávila specialised in sensationalised statements about social hipocrisy. Guan Wei, an artist of the post-Tiananmen Square Massacre era, delved into geopolitical issues of the Asia-Pacific. Tracey Moffatt was arguably the most celebrated Australian contemporary artist of the 1990s, her work involved the slickness of advertising and accurately diverse artistic representations of women. Stelarc is one of the country's most prominent performance artists and was known for his technology inspired transhuman pieces in the 1990s.
The late Arthur Boyd had donated the Shoalhaven River property Bundanon to the Australian people, and this property became a new focal point for artists in residence. Artist residencies began there in 1998.[15] Michael Leunig the cartoonist followed Arthur Boyd's prolific lyricism.
Garry Shead and John Kelly emerged as popular figurative painters in this decade.
A large proportion of artists work with paint on canvas, in styles such as classical realism, pop, magic realism, expressionism and abstraction. A number of Australian artists have recently been official war artists for the Australian War Memorial such as Wendy Sharpe and Rick Amor for the East Timor peacekeeping mission; George Gittoes in Somalia; Peter Churcher in the “War on Terrorism”, and Lewis Miller in the 2003 Iraq War. Gittoes is also a documentary maker.
Ricky Swallow represented Australia in Venice in 2005. Swallow became known for his wooden carvings of skulls and constructions of bicycles. Artists making lifelike models has been a growing trend, and Patricia Piccinini's biotech showstopper The Young Family was publicised in 2003. A counterpoint to this is artists making crude models, wallowing in the materials used for their construction. Soft sculpture in Australian art may be traced back to Jutta Feddersen in the 1970s.[59]
In 2006, the newly updated McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art featured an extensive section on Aboriginal Art. Inclusion in the encyclopedia is dependent on the artist being included in a public gallery and or having won an art prize of note. The practice of carpetbagging has damaged the reputation of the Aboriginal art market and recently there has been the introduction of a royalty system for all Australian artists. Previously, the Australian Indigenous Art Trade Association and the Australian Commercial Galleries Association was formed to promote ethical standards across the art industry. Aboriginal art has also suffered from critics tending to compare it unfavourably to western ideals and standards. The art buying public has generally ignored these critiques. Collecting milestones in the noughties included the Molly Gowing donation to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, also the publication of Beyond Sacred: Recent painting from Australia’s remote Aboriginal Communities: The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty. In 2011 the Felton Bequest gifted one of the greatest collections of Western Desert and Central Desert paintings to the National Gallery of Victoria.
Significant contemporary Indigenous Australian artists include Polly Ngal, Lofty Bardayal Nadjamerrek, Bronwyn Bancroft, Barbara Weir, Naata Nungurrayi, Kathleen Ngala, Shorty Jangala Robertson, Jimmy Baker, Tommy Watson, Kathleen Petyarre, Gloria Petyarre, Paddy Bedford (aka Goowoomji) (circa 1922 - 2007), John Mawurndjul,[43] Minnie Pwerle (c.1915-2006), Makinti Napanangka, Ningura Napurrula, Nurapayai Nampitjinpa (Mrs Bennett), Dorothy Napangardi Robinson, Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri (circa 1920-2008), Regina Wilson, Angelina Ngal, Abie Loy Kemarre, Sarrita King, Ian Abdulla, Helen McCarthy Tyalmuty, Wintjiya Napaltjarri, Josepha Petrick Kemarre, Tommy Mitchell, Willy Tjungurrayi, Cowboy Lou Pwerle, Brook Andrew,[15] Ken Thaiday. Anna Price Petyarre is one of the more dynamic mid-career painters.
Like their overseas counterparts, Australian artists of various generations have taken up the conveniences of the digital revolution with Electronic commerce, artist blogging, photo sharing sites. Curating by computer, Modding and street art are shared over the internet. A new breed of artists have to some extent bypassed gallery hire spaces and the art world establishment, posting homemade manga on DeviantArt and displaying art on sites like RedBubble and MySpace. Talented and unrepresented photographers often find their way onto Flickr and similar sites. These practices are for commercial reasons and sometimes art for art's sake. Oleh Witer was one of the early artists to exhibit artworks in the virtual world Second Life. Art auction houses began to hold auctions online. Art sellers started using sites not exclusively used for art such as EBay.
Leading ceramacists and glass artists include Gwyn Hanssen Pigott,[15] Merran Esson, Thancoupie (1937–2011), Marea Gazzard,[31] Peter Rushforth,[31] Noel Hart, Klaus Moje, Pippin Drysdale, Yasmin Smith and Cedar Prest. The ceramics scene in Australia is generally scholarly, restrained and less parochical than in other categories of Australian contemporary art. Studio glass artists tend to be more individualistic in comparison to potters.
Installation artists include Fiona Hall,[43] Guan Wei,[15] Nike Savvas, Fiona Foley, Scott Redford, Asher Bilu, Justene Williams,[60] Lauren Berkowitz,[61] Chronox, and Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro.
Performance art: Jeremy Hynes,[62] Mark Shorter.
Regional galleries became crucial players in the contemporary art scene. Significant shows at regional galleries included a survey of contemporary outsider art at Orange Regional Gallery, and a survey of the important commercial Gallery A and Anne Judell at Campbelltown Regional Gallery, Lawrence Daws at Caloundra Regional Art Gallery and the Janet Dawson survey at Bathurst Regional Gallery. Boofheads and Scrubbers Revenge at Penrith Regional Gallery reflected shifting patterns of wealth and social mobility during the noughties.
The major new private art galleries were the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, White Rabbit and MONA (Museum of Old And New Art). These galleries are predominantly devoted to contemporary art.
Like the larger art markets in the northern hemisphere, fraud is a problem in Australian art. There is no public database of known fraudsters to date, although they are known to come from Australia and other areas ranging from Europe, China to southeast Asia. In addition to the growing number of faked paintings of artists including Minnie Pwerle, Charles Blackman and Robert Dickerson, sometimes galleries and art dealers are impersonated over the internet. The major commercial art magazines have websites with the correct links to their client's websites.
Shoddy auction practices are common, for instance low attention to provenance, pseudo collections where art market dross is implied to be part of a collector's personal effects, and ramping, where prices for artworks are manipulated (inflated at auction).
Films
Plays
Australian novels about artists
Novels with an artist as a main character
The museum for Australian Aboriginal art "La grange"[64] (Neuchâtel, Switzerland) is one of the few museums in Europe that dedicates itself entirely to Aboriginal art.
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