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Australian Abstraction in Context

20 June - 10 Aug 2024

Australian Abstraction in Context reflects upon the legacies of this international art movement with its varietal imports, indices and counterparts. These expressions cast a different spin on the current generation of Australian artists adhering to abstraction. Their diverse practices challenge the aesthetic orthodoxies of abstraction, particularly the idea of shape as content, by revealing new ways of thinking and talking about Australian abstraction.

Artists featured: David Aspden, Yvonne Audette, Sydney Ball, Lee Bethel, Leonard Brown, Andrew Christofides, Consuelo Cavaniglia, Andrew Christofides, John Coburn, Virginia Cuppaidge, Janet Dawson, James Doolin, Lynne Eastaway, Nicole Ellis, Ian Fairweather, Aaron Fell-Fracasso, Chris Gaynor, Helga Groves, Royston Harpur, Julie Harris, Ariel Hassan, Margel Hinder, Christopher Hodges, Louis James, Jan King, Robert Klippel, Ildiko Kovacs, Eva Kubbos, Alun Leach-Jones, Margo Lewers, Hilarie Mais, Tony McGillick, Darren Munce, John Olsen, Ti Parks, Emmanuel Raft, Charles Reddington, Ken Reinhardt, Campbell Robertson-Swann, Robert Rooney, William Rose, Khaled Sadsabi, Henry Salkauskas, Nike Savvas, Rollin Schlicht, Joseph Szabo, Ann Thomson, Freddy West Tjakamarra, Vernon Treweeke, Tony Tuckson, Telly Tu'u, Peter Upward, Trevor Vickers, Henry Jock Walker, Dick Watkins, William Wright and Coen Young.

The Australian Abstraction in Context will exhibit at the Macquarie University Art Gallery until 5 August 2024.

Curators: Rhonda Davis and Kon Gouriotis

Image Caption
Aaron Fell-Fracasso
Red Oxide Rendered on Yellow Ochre with Pink Border
2023
oil, sand and acrylic on board
150 x 115 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Egg & Dart
Photography Effy Alexakis, Photowrite

In Conversation - Australian Abstraction in Context

Friday 9 August, 1-2pm

In Conversation with a panel of artists, curators and academics discussing the exhibition Australian Abstraction in Context

Drawn to Abstraction - workshop

25 July 10am-midday

Australian Abstraction in Context

Workshop - Drawn to Abstraction

Presented by artist Patrick Shirvington

We will first view the exhibition using our responses on ways we can discuss abstract art. This will be followed by a drawing session using a range of materials to express your visual interpretations of abstraction.

A collaborative exhibition between artists Patrick Shirvington and Hadyn Wilson, informed by the Macquarie University History Museum.

The Macquarie University History Museum contains a visual cacophony of artifacts that led to the creation of this art/artifact collaborative exhibition project.

Image caption:
Patrick Shirvington
Hidden tombs and artifacts
mixed media on paper

Macquarie University Library Exhibition Space
16 Macquarie Walk Level 2
Macquarie University

Women artists from the collection and beyond - Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Women’s Art Movement in Australia in Macquarie University’s 60th anniversary.

Macquarie University Art Gallery is proud to present this two-venue exhibition program in partnership with Gallery Lane Cove.

A collection can reveal multiple viewpoints and conceptions, nuanced by its history of continuity and gaps. In recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Women’s Art Movement in Australia we have tapped into the collection by reappraising those shifts and generational legacies. This has unearthed a rich visual narrative of women's creative spaces.

Curators: Rhonda Davis, Leonard Janiszewski and Miguel Olmo

Effy Alexakis, Davida Allen, Suzanne Archer, Bronwyn Bancroft, Polly Borland, Cora Boyer, Joanna Braithwaite, Charlene Carrington, Paula Dawson, Christine Dean, Tamara Dean, Rhonda Dee, Elisabeth Frink, Rosalie Gascoigne, Juno Gemes, Marea Gazzard, Celia Gullett, Nathalie Hartog-Gautier, Anna-Karina Hermkens, Margel Hinder, Linde Ivimey, Carol Jerrems, Therese Kenyon, Rosemary Laing, Janet Laurence, Lindy Lee, Kathrin Longhurst, Kerrie Lester, Tara Marynowsky, Tracey Moffatt, Teena McCarthy, Mai Nguyễn-Long, Susan Norrie, Susan O’Doherty, Bronwyn Oliver, Vivienne Pengilley, Bridget Riley, Sally Ross, Anne Thomson, Jenny Watson, Anne Zahalka and more.

Macquarie is a university of service and engagement. What better way to engage our students and staff and the many visitors to the Wallumattagal Campus than with the extraordinary depth and breadth of the Macquarie University Art Collection. Its presence is one of the most talked about features on campus.

The Art of Giving series has become a highlight in our exhibition calendar, featuring new donations that enriches the dynamism of the university art collection. The new acquisitions by donations have developed our arts and cultural ecology on campus. You get to explore and discover the art collection across the entire campus throughout our buildings including the library, hospital, chancellery and faculty areas. Art has become part of our everyday working environments that inspire creative thinking and different ways of learning.

Art engages our students, staff and the broader community through transformative learning and life experiences, the discovery and dissemination of ideas, and innovation underpinned by deep and varied partnerships.

David Aspden, Monika Behrens, Marion Borgelt, Judy Cassab, Michael Cusack, Adrienne Doig, Neil Frazer, Joe Furlonger, Craig Koomeeta, Tim Johnson, Ildiko Kovacs, Tom Loveday, Fiona Lowry, Michael McHugh, Alexander McKenzie, Jennifer Keeler-Milne, Nigel Milsom, Yessie Mosby, Larakin Munmun, Mary Brown Napangardi, Paul Newton, Susan Norrie, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi, Margaret Olley, David Pallister, Gloria Petyarre, Emily Pwerle, Paul Ryan, Johan Tahon, Dick Watkins and Nawurapu Wunuŋmurra.

Image caption is:

Michael McHugh
Swimming in the Clouds 
2022
acrylic paint on canvas
200 x 600 cm (3 panels)
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Michael McHugh, 2023
Macquarie University Art Collection
Photograph by Effy Alexakis, Photowrite
Courtesy of the artist and Martin Brown Contemporary, Sydney

Vibrations in Australian Drawing is an exhibition demonstrating the essence of the practice and the importance of drawing underlying a range of disciplines. Vibrations that elicit a kinetic force that underlies the action of drawing with diverse energy flows, where the fusion of technique and idea takes shape.

Vibrations in Australian Drawing examines the materiality and manifestations of drawing that constitute its essence. The exhibition reveals the importance of drawing as a transformative, interactive element within a range of multi-disciplinary practices

Curators: Rhonda Davis, Kon Gouriotis, Leonard Janiszewksi, Tom Murray

In partnership with the Creative Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie University and Cowra Regional Art Gallery

Image Caption:
Dongwang Fan
Dragon In Water #10
2015
pencil, paper
35 x 50 cm
Collection of the artist Fan Dongwang, photography by Effy Alexakis, Photowrite

Margaret Ackland, Arthur Apanski, Suzanne Archer, Jacqueline Balassa, Del Kathryn Barton, Ray Beattie, Drew Bickford, Yvonne Boag, John Brack, Joanna Braithwaite, Leonard Brown, Brad Buckley, Michael Butler, Anthony Cahill, Judy Cassab, Jan Cleveringa, Jon Cockburn, Alana Collins, Mark Davis, Janet Dawson, Rhonda Dee, Robert Dickerson, William Dobell, Fan Dongwang, Blak Douglas, Russell Drysdale, Chris Dyson, Maclean Edwards, Nicole Ellis, David Fairbairn, Donald Friend, Joe Frost, Sam Fullbrook, Nathalie Hartog-Gautier, Chris Gaynor, Adam Geczy, Simryn Gill, George Gittoes, James Gleeson, Geoffrey de Groen, John Havilah, Sali Herman, Frank Hinder, Ian Howard, Helen Hyatt-Johnston, Lisa Jones, Michael Kelly, Hendrik Kolenberg, Donald Laycock, Norman Lindsay, Mai Nguyen-Long, Steve Lopes, Francis Lymburner, Euan MacLeod, Dusan Marek, Teena McCarthy, Tony McGillick, Noel McKenna, Brett McMahon, Godfrey Miller, Ian Milliss, Jennifer Keeler-Milne, Christian Narsamma, Trevor Nickolls, Sidney Nolan, Chris O'Doherty (aka Reg Mombassa), Peter O’Doherty, Susan O’Doherty, Catherine O’Donnell, Siobhan O'Gorman, Margaret Olley, Miguel Olmo, Desiderius Orban, Rachel Ormella, Ian Parry, Janaki Peart, Julian Playoust, Tom Polo, Al Poulet, Peter Powditch, Elizabeth Pulie, Ben Quilty,  Lloyd Rees, William Rose, Khaled Sabsabi, Charlie Sheard, Kurt Schranzer, Rollin Schlicht, Gary Shinfield, Pat Shirvington, Jeffrey Smart, Eric Smith, Fiona Somerville, John von Sturmer, Sue Pedley and Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Luke Thurgate, Noel Thurgate, Matthew Tome, Ken Unsworth, Danila Vassilieff, Craig Waddell, Regina Walter, Brett Whiteley, Haydn Wilson, Can Yalcinkaya and Salvatore Zofrea

In the post-pandemic environment, many of us are reconsidering where we live, how we connect with community and how a spiritual life can be renewed. This exhibition explores the manifestations of what ‘spirit of place’ encapsulates in aesthetics and material content using both the University’s permanent collection and invited artists. Spirit of Place presents artworks that allude to the transcendental qualities in their formulation of light, space and form. An exhibition that will penetrate the senses to the glory of the spiritual realm in relation to place, site and markers within the landscape.

Curator: Euan Macleod Max and Gaibrielle Germanos are exceptionally passionate collectors of Australian contemporary art. Their collection, amassed over a 25-year period, stands as one of the most significant private collections in the country. Stylistically the pair have focused on the figurative and representatal works that they respond to without influence or following any trends. Their gallery-like home brims with artworks of varying sizes, mediums and stylistic temperament – a living testimony to their fervent and unrelenting activity as serious collectors and supporters of living artists. Each artwork elicits an emotional response that carries a contextual narrative which the Germanoses eagerly and entertainingly recount. The collection is reflective of the close and deep friendships that the couple have with many artists including those in their collection. Collecting in depth by acquiring multiple works by the same artist have been key in developing core strengths within the collection, attracting an elemental stylistic depth and breadth, through evolutionary developments, consistent with a public institutional approach to collecting.

The development of such a significant collection of Australian contemporary art and deep relationships with many outstanding artists led the Germanoses to establish the innovative program of 3:33 Art Projects, which expands viewing audiences of contemporary art and encourages young collectors. 3:33 Art Projects has set up a number of important programs including the Young Curators, Bank of America Art of Connecting and The Clayton Utz Art Partnership.

Artists: Clara Adolphs, Del Kathryn Barton, Joanna Braithwaite, Dean Brown, Nick Collerson, Adam Cullen, McLean Edwards, Neil Frazer, Brent Harris, David Griggs, Alan Jones, Jasper Knight, Mai Nguyen-Long, Fiona Lowry, Euan Macleod, Guido Maestri, Chris O'Doherty (aka Reg Mombassa), Noel McKenna, Madeleine Pfull, Philjames, Tom Polo, Vanessa Stockard, Telly Tu'u, Ken Whisson, Oliver Watts, Justin Williams and Caroline Zilinsky

Image caption:David GriggsBlood on the Streets  2007acrylic on canvas110 x 129 cmCourtesy of the artist and Station Gallery AustraliaPhotography Effy Alexakis, Photowrite

The Mysterious Swimmer exhibition
28 Oct - 9 Dec 2022

The Mysterious Swimmer focuses on the practice of contemporary artist Ambrose Reisch; how it has developed and changed over a 30-year period. Reisch studied classical drawing in Florence, Italy, which edified his approach to painting. In 1988, Reisch settled in Brooklyn, New South Wales there he found a visual language that drew upon subject matter from the rugged glamour he realised from the Hawkesbury River and its surrounds. Melding Italian aesthetics with the raw and rough terrain of the Hawkesbury, Reisch has produced works that reflect those encounters.

The exhibition conveys the socio-political context of the Hawkesbury where Reisch sensitively explores the relationship between the river and the encroaching effects of human occupation and industry. Reisch’s long-held fascination with the river can be gauged through the symbolic narratives his works present in this exhibition that features both paintings and drawings. The sub thematic division of The Mysterious Swimmer creates a synergy of the metaphysical spaces the artist employs within his overall practice.

View virtual tour here

UNCOVERED: Northwood, Lloyd Rees and Beyond features an exciting and unexpected new discovery, a rare collection of ninety-one life drawings by renowned Australian artist Lloyd Rees now held in the Macquarie University Art Collection. Shown to the public for the first time, the drawings pertain to the celebrated Northwood sketch club Rees attended every Thursday evening at the Santry’s house that was situated nearby.

Rediscovered in Rees’ Northwood studio in 2019 the drawings displayed alongside eleven unfinished paintings produced by Rees, John Santry, Helen Stewart and Roland Wakelin capture the atmosphere and mood of the period. These unpublished artworks reveal how the Northwood collective worked between studio and outdoor spaces providing windows into their modes of production within the context of local modernism.

Contrary to previous accounts that have stated the sketch club was formed by John and Marie Santry, new information strongly suggests that Marie Santry was the founding member. It was a means of encouraging her then estranged husband John Santry to return to the Northwood home every Thursday evening. The decision to use a live model was instrumental in bringing the other three artists together − George Lawrence, Lloyd Rees and Roland Wakelin. This led to the formation of the Northwood Group.

This small artist’s collective embarked on painting trips each Saturday, armed with easels, paints, brushes, picnic food and a Billy can for making tea they travelled to local sites from Balls Head, Northwood, Lane Cove River to Ryde, North Ryde, Carlingford, Hunters Hill and Woolwich. A favourite spot was North Ryde, then a rural village surrounded by orchards, interspersed by magnificent buildings such as Pomona and the School of Arts captivated the attention of the group to sketch these sites and buildings plein air.

Retracing the steps of the Northwood Group, contemporary artist Brendan Kelly’s responses to site, place and buildings interweave a rich narrative ebbed with the tones and textures of history where the past meets the present. Kelly’s artworks will be shown over the three venues.

Macquarie University Art Gallery in partnership with Gallery Lane Cove + Creative Studios and Brenda Colahan Fine Art

View virtual tour here

Rebecca Agnew, David Griggs, NOT, Paul Ryan, Leanne Tobin and Nancy Yu

Nationalism in the Wake of COVID reviews the dialectic between nationalism, localism and internationalism within the context of the global pandemic and the signals that drove nation state border closures in Australia. The pandemic curtailed travel and tourism, putting the spotlight on the way events and place/name sites bound by geographical locations are spatially localised.

Contemporary art practices associate the long-term effects of the pandemic in dismantling fixed notions and a singular view of national identity. At stake is recognising the importance of localism and its diversity, the environment, decolonisation, and Indigenous knowledge systems as avenues for recovery and exploration in redefining our future.

The recent works of Rebecca Agnew, David Griggs, NOT, Paul Ryan, Leanne Tobin and Nancy You with artworks from the University’s collection including Arthur Boyd, Mark Davis, Lawrence Daws, James Doolin, Louise Forthun, Rosalie Gascoigne, James Gleeson, Rew Hanks, Tracey Moffatt, Sidney Nolan, Naata Nungurrayi, John Olsen and Margaret Preston form the narrative of Nationalism.

View virtual tour here

Luminosity: Salvatore Zofrea Retrospective

9 March - 29 May 2022

Luminosity presents the work of leading Australian artist Salvatore Zofrea, spanning a 60-year period. Zofrea has developed a unique visual language bridging the gap between the physical and spiritual worlds. He produces paintings that are alive with the tangibility of existence and in the intangibility of things felt. Luminosity presents a balanced and accumulative view of his life’s work. The continuity between his early figurative and landscape works through to the more recent paintings in their misty fusion of light and colour evidences Zofrea’s mainstay of vision.

Luminosity attests to the strength and depth of Zofrea’s vision that invites viewers into worlds both familiar and strange. The exhibition celebrates Zofrea’s life’s work that is everlasting.

Panels that Transform: Comics and Activism

18 March - 25 Aug 2021

A group exhibition featuring the work of Safdar Ahmed, Nicky Minus and Sam Wallman.

A group exhibition featuring the work of Safdar Ahmed, Nicky Minus & Sam Wallman. Curated by Can Yalcinkaya and Justine Lloyd. Presented by the Centre for Media History, with the support of the MQ Faculty of Arts.