What does it mean to be in isolation, but in isolation together? In this first edition of our new podcast series Faraway, so close, we take a personal look at solitude, creativity and the arts under COVID-19, talking with Archibald-winning artist Yvette Coppersmith and executive director of Artspace, Alexie Glass-Kantor. “We’re just going to have to be more accountable, more present, more determined, to be open to creating space for complexity, contradiction and difference, and for...

“In some ways I don’t think of my life and art as separate things, I think it’s one in the same thing,” says artist Louise Weaver when speaking of her creative pursuits. “I don’t see it as a career as much as something that is an extension of my life and would go on regardless of whether I had opportunities to exhibit or not.” With a practice spanning three decades and multiple mediums, Weaver has continuously worked both within and beyond a variety of juxtapositions: nature and culture,...

Even Agatha Gothe-Snape struggles to define her art. While performancemay be the easiest description, there are many avenues winding through her practice including dance, collaboration, text, public works, PowerPoint slide presentations, augmented reality and documentary. If the form of Snape’s work can be slippery, so too can the content. Broadly speaking, much of her work looks at artistic processes, the canon of art history, and the social and aesthetic contexts that artworks sit...

“Each curator is unique like every artist is unique, I believe,” says Nici Cumpston, who holds the dual positions of Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia and artistic director of TARNATHI. Not to mention that Cumpston, a Barkindji woman of Afghan and European descent, is also an artist, educator and writer. In this podcast, the second of four episodes which focus on contemporary curating, Cumpston discusses how for her curating is a...

When Anna Davis discusses being a curator, she talks about collaboration, conversation and experimentation: “It’s about working with artists and working with ideas.” It’s also about the relationships: “The exhibition really starts to take shape in a real sense once the artists are really talking. I think when you get the chance to work with someone like Jenny Watson or Louise Hearman and it’s over a number of years, which is fantastic, you get to develop this relationship with them and...

In this podcast Gemma Smith talks through her process in the studio, as well as discussing the artists who have influenced her. And finally, she tells us what she has learnt about painting from almost two decades of explorations into colour, space and form.

The contexts that Fiona Abicare has worked within are plentiful: the Golden Age of Hollywood, the shabby chic aesthetic and objects of mass culture, just to name a few. Working with locations such as window shop fronts and gallery settings, the Melbourne-based artist’s work explores the cultural and personal associations and histories we have with various sites, objects and historical periods; creating works that blend art, design, architecture, film and fashion. As Abicare explains in the...

This podcast has been produced in partnership with the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in recognition of the annual Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. The Interview with Gunybi Ganambarr was produced and hosted by Tiarney Miekus. Episode mix by Mino Peric and soundtrack by Jessie Warren.

Luke Scholes on curating, caring and collaborating by Art Guide Australia

Glenn Iseger-Pilkington on being a conduit by Art Guide Australia

“I think the challenge with all of the disparate references is not that it’s difficult for all of them to come together. I think that the challenge is not to make the photograph too derivative of one reference, because then I’m just recreating something that already exists." Georgina Cue’s large-scale, staged photographs bring together many disparate references ranging from film noir, German Expressionism, femme fatales, graffiti, classical Greek aesthetics and contemporary sportswear. In...

In this first series of Five on Five we're asking five painters to speak about a painting that has influenced, inspired or resonated with them. In this episode Prudence Flint reflects on 'Virgin and Child' (1455-60) by Dieric Bouts, discussing how she’s drawn toward the maternal and erotic nature of the painting, alongside its nostalgic resonance. To view the painting as you listen along, head to Art Guide online. Also check out other episodes with Kate Beynon, Peter Waples-Crowe, Kylie...

In this first series of Five on Five we're asking five painters to speak about a painting that has influenced, inspired or resonated with them. In this episode Huseyin Sami reflects upon 'Suite Segond' (1980) by French artist Bernard Frize. In particular, Sami is intrigued by Frize’s lifelong dedication to painting and how the artist has continuously worked through the problems of painting. To view the painting as you listen along, head to Art Guide online. We'll be releasing more episodes...

In this first series of Five on Five we're asking five painters to speak about a painting that has influenced, inspired or resonated with them. In this episode Kylie Banyard reflects on Breast-feeding (2015) by American artist Dana Schutz. In particular, Banyard is captivated by the image's “yuck yum” qualities and its depiction of the maternal experience of breastfeeding. To view the painting as you listen along, head to Art Guide online. We'll be releasing more episodes of Five on Five:...

In this first series of Five on Five we're asking five painters to speak about a painting that has influenced, inspired or resonated with them. In this episode Peter Waples-Crowe reflects upon 'Bad Moon Rising' (1989) by David Wojnarowicz. In particular, Waples-Crowe is captured by Wojnarowicz’s symbolism, his aids’ activism and the queer politics underlying his imagery. To view the painting as you listen along, head to Art Guide online. We'll be releasing more episodes of Five on Five:...

In this first series of Five on Five we're asking five painters to speak about a painting that has influenced, inspired or resonated with them. In this episode Kate Beynon reflects on 'The Creation of the Birds' (1958) by Spanish artist Remedios Varo. Beynon is captivated by Varo’s hybrid owl-woman and her spiritual presence, which in turn inspired Beynon’s blue shaman, a guardian figure that appears throughout Beynon’s work. To view the painting as you listen along, head to Art Guide...

Well-known for her hybrid creatures that shift between the beautiful and the grotesque, in this conversation Patricia Piccinini discusses questions of empathy, genetics and realism, and how we understand the concept of nature. The artist also discusses her exhibition at QAGOMA, 'Curious Affection'. See more at Art Guide Australia online: https://artguide.com.au/podcast-patricia-piccininis-curious-affection

When artist Caitlin Franzmann discusses the larger ideals behind her art practice, she mentions the ambition of “invoking what is bigger than ourselves.” The artist looks at the fluid links between spirituality, ritual practices, and contemporary art. In this interview she discusses these ideas, and explains how the two sensibilities of slowness and intimacy infuse her work, at both a personal and collective level. Caitlin Franzmann is a prominent Brisbane-based interdisciplinary artist...

The punch lines found in Kenny Pittock’s work are almost endless. An illustration of a double power point becomes the ‘power couple’, while a drawing of a giant foot carries the tagline ‘good things are a foot’. Pittock’s work is relatable and commands us to look at the minutiae of every life. In this conversation Pittock talks about the organic use of humour in his work and his well-loved ceramic book sculptures. Kenny Pittock is a Melbourne-based artist who works primarily in drawing and...

An empty black speech bubble, borrowed from Roy Lichtenstein, hangs above the heads of gallery goers. An androgynous figure visits an exhibition in outer space. A few well-known artists meet disastrous endings. These are just some of the scenes we encounter across Arlo Mountford’s work, which centres on questions of time, history, the Western art canon and the concept of the ‘new’. The artist discusses these themes in our podcast conversation. Arlo Mountford is a Melbourne-based artist who...

The work of artist Fayen d’Evie is motivated by, as she says, “an interest and curiosity about how we encounter the world, about how we understand it, about how we talk about it, about how we remember it..." With her practice spanning writing, publishing, sound, performance and touch-based works, d’Evie explores questions of materiality, embodiment, knowledge and translation. d'Evie discusses these themes in our conversation, shedding light on the overarching threads that characterise her...

For Simone Slee the perfect sculpture is the sculpture that ‘fails’. These failures come in many guises; sometimes her works are left to the fallibility of humans, cucumbers and rocks. At other times Slee’s sculptures fail by toppling over, as weight and gravity eventually exert their influence. At the heart of these failures is an ongoing interest in the nature and the parameters of sculpture. In our conversation Slee talks about the nature of sculpture, as well as questions of failure,...

Ricky Maynard isn’t solely interested in creating great pieces of art. Instead Maynard aims for what he calls “great pieces of evidence.” Since the 1980s the photographer’s practice has focused on the history, trauma and struggle of Indigenous people, capturing significant historical sites, landscapes and community figures. In this way Maynard’s practice is marked by the ongoing intent to tell the story of Aboriginal people beyond a colonial gaze. He discusses this in our conversation,...