2 November – 8 December 2002

The National Trust

 The panel of selectors comprises Patrick Corrigan AM Collector and benefactor, Pat Corrigan Artists Grants;  John McDonald Arts writer, Australian Financial Review and Director, New Contemporaries Gallery; Laura Murray Cree Editor, Art and Australia; Jane Watters Director, S H Ervin Gallery & Vivienne Webb Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art

The exhibition will highlight contemporary practice in Sydney and bring the work of living Australian contemporary artists to a wider audience. Some of the artists whose work will be featured include Lionel Bawden, who was selected in the 2002 National Sculpture Prize at the National Gallery of Australia, Rosella Namok, Guo Jian, Anna Eggert, George Tjungaurrayi, Rosemary Laing, Anne Wallace, Noel McKenna and Archibald Prize winner Nicholas Harding.

PUBLIC PROGRAM

Sunday 3 November – Anna Eggert will discuss her figurative sculptures; Archibald prizewinner Nicholas Harding and Michael Cusack will speak about their paintings.

Sunday 10 November – Laura Murray Cree, editor of Art & Australia and panel selector for the exhibition, will speak with artists Lynne Roberts Goodwin, Anne Judell and Janet Laurence about their work.

Sunday 17 November – Julian Beaumont, Chairman of the Macquarie Bank Art Committee, will discuss the organisation’s collecting practices and the works that have been loaned to this exhibition. Nick Vickers, curator of the Sir Hermann Black Gallery, will also speak about his role as a collector.

Sunday 24 November – Lionel Bawden on his innovative sculptures created with coloured pencils; Jon Cattapan discusses the political dimension to his work and his return to figuration and Susan Andrews will speak about her ‘scientific’ approach to painting, following a residency in the faculty of Science at Sydney University.

Sunday 1 December – Steven Harvey will discuss his abstract painting of the coastline and the enduring fascination of the landscape. Jayne Dyer on the subtlety of texture and surface in her large, multi-panelled work and Salvatore Gerardi on his gestured and expressive diptych, that explores his response to the environment.

Sunday 8 December – Shen Jiawei will discuss his large and powerful group portrait of past and present leaders of the Third World, Guan Wei, on his work and its resonance with the recent refugee crisis,  and Guo Jian will talk about his work depicting American popstar Mariah Carey with the soldiers of the Chinese army.

image: George Tjungaurrayi