Tag: art
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JOANNE MAKAS: AN EMBODIED EXPERIENCE
The ambience of Joanne Makas’ studio is starkly different depending on what she’s working on. “When I am painting, I like listening to music; but when I am drawing, I work in silence and focus on my breath,” the Sydney artist explains. Joanne, who has a background in fashion, attended art classes at Waverley Woollahra Art…
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JAMES KING: A NOT SO FORGOTTEN LIFE
For Sydney-born artist James King, 2003 was a watershed year. He won the Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, organised by the South Australian Museum. “It was the year that changed everything, and I started to believe that painting was my true calling,” he tells. James’ figurative oil paintings and works on paper, re-contextualise found photographs from the…
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TOBY RAINE: BEYOND ENTERTAINMENT
“There are a few defining moments I can recall that shaped me in terms of realising I was an artist,” Toby Raine tells me. “One was a scene in Tim Burton’s Batman in which the Joker’s goons are vandalizing paintings in a museum; he prevents them from destroying a gruesome looking Francis Bacon. Bacon would come…
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Artist Profile: Leila Jeffreys
Written for Art Edit Photographic artist Leila Jeffreys wants to get people to reconnect with nature. “I want them to feel a sense of its value and to know that it sustains us,” she says. “It’s a reminder that we are not the only species on this planet and that these other societies have just as…
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Artist Profile: Katie Ravich
Written for Art Edit Artist Katie Ravich spent much of her childhood exploring the beach and bushland close to home. “I loved to [make] miniature worlds with mosses, leaf litter and sticks and house cicada shells and Christmas beetles beneath these creations,” she says. “I think this is where my fascination with studying the miniature landscape beneath…
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ARTIST PROFILE: DAVE CALKINS
Written for Art Edit CALIFORNIA-BORN, Perth-based artist Dave Calkins grew up in his abstract painter uncle’s studio. It’s where his passion for painting and the use of bold colours was born, and where he first discovered his creative side. “I have explored several areas of self-expression to arrive back at my first primal love – painting,” says Dave.…
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ARTIST PROFILE: PETER DAY
Written for Art Edit “QUIRKY, WEIRD AND WHIMSICAL” is how multifaceted artist Peter Day describes his work. The Sydney-born painter and sculptor says he has been practicing as an artist since he was just four years old. “I still have some of my first drawings – some I have turned into paintings,” he remembers. Peter’s paintings are an…
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ARTIST PROFILE: GEOFF TODD
Written for Art Edit VICTORIAN-BORN ARTIST Geoff Todd’s father, a dairy farmer, would spend his morning tea break completing crosswords in the daily newspaper, sketching in the margins as a way to resist young Geoff’s chatter. It was from here that Geoff’s own artistic flare took flight. His first solo exhibition was held in 1969…
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ARTIST PROFILE: ANNETTE RAFF
Written for Art Edit AS A CHILD, Gold Coast-based artist Annette Raff would draw to keep herself entertained, tossing each drawing aside as the fun was in the ‘doing’ rather than the finished piece. “My parents joke that I drew before I walked,” she says. That said, Annette’s pathway to becoming an artist hasn’t been entirely…
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ARTIST PROFILE: DAVID PAVICH
Written for Art Edit SYDNEY-BORN ARTIST David Pavich is drawn towards the vastness and variety of the Australian landscape. “There are the harsh, dry, arid regions of Australia, which provide an eerie atmosphere,” he says. “And other times lush regions, which generate certain feelings of paradise.” His paintings are built up from layers of oil paint, but…
Stephanie Vigilante 