EVENTS 2024

Fairytales Draw Along - Dark Theatre

Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art QAGOMA, 27th April, 2024

In conjunction with the QAGOMA Fairytales exhibition - a dramatic drawing workshop led by Dr Bill Platz, participants learn how to use simple materials to create your own weird world in a dark theatre. Delve into the realms of storytelling, layering, and the captivating interplay of shadow and light to bring your drawing to life.

Finalist: The Darling Portrait Prize

National Portrait Gallery

The Darling Portrait Prize is a biennial national prize for Australian portrait painting honouring the legacy of Mr L Gordon Darling AC CMG (1921-2015).

This year the prize will be judged by Bree Pickering, Director, National Portrait Gallery; Erin Vink, Curator First Nations Art (local and global), Art Gallery of New South Wales and Tara Heffernan, Art Historian and Critic. The judges are seeking the most compelling recent Australian portrait painting, whether they honour or push the genre, offer unexpected insights into well-known faces, or centre everyday people to explore the breadth of Australian identity.

All finalist artworks exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery from 22 June to 22 September 2024.

Dom (2024), oil and synthetic polymer on canvas

Launch Event @ National Portrait Gallery, Canberra: image courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, Canberra ©

STATEMENT

‘Dominique Chen is a proud Gamilaroi woman, practising artist, researcher and lecturer who personifies self-determination. I was compelled to paint Dom in response to her engaging teachings, as well as acknowledging her co-created live installation exhibition, Blak Laundry. Dom teaches us to be bold, brave, informed, and to hold space and listen with our ears and our hearts. She shows us the power of activist art and the way it can connect us to each other. Dom also helps us to learn more about our complicated history of colonisation. This painting celebrates the importance of humble trailblazers and change-makers such as Dom.’

Winner: Behlau Murakami Grant Contemporary Issues Portrait Prize

QCAD Galleries

This Art Prize is awarded to the best portraiture artwork exploring the theme “Pro bono publico” which is usually shortened to “pro bono”. This Latin phrase refers to work undertaken voluntarily and without payment.

Exhibition: 16 - 24th of August, 2024

Professor Beck Davis, Ron Behlau, Anna Weston & Simon Degroot

STATEMENT

Debbie Kilroy OAM has a phenomenal life story. She experienced significant adversity in her early years and a perilous time in a women’s prison. Despite these hardships and through immeasurable resilience and agency, she proceeded to forge ahead to found Sisters Inside in 1992. This now Internationally recognised organisation advocates for the human rights of women in the criminal justice system.

On meeting Debbie, I was particularly moved by her dual strength and kindness. Debbie and Sisters Inside are worthy of recognition for the critically important and far reaching pro bono support they provide.

Drawing Festival

Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art QAGOMA, 21st May 2023

Drawing Festival at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane / May 2023 / Photograph: C Baxter, QAGOMA / Image Courtesy: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

Humans of the Outback

Winton QLD, June 2023

Queensland College of Art students joined students from the Griffith Film School to work together and celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Film in Winton.

A small selection of students studying painting and photography connected with the local community in Winton to capture and tell their stories in a series of portraits coming together in an exhibition installed in shopfront windows along Elderslie St.

Students engaged in meaningful discussions with locals creating new works that preserve and share individual stories from this Outback Community. In consultation with the community and Guwa-Koa Aboriginal elders, as well as with support from Council, students worked collaboratively with local participants, spending time in the community to create meaningful relationships that helped to inform the final artworks.

These artworks capture a productive relationship between emerging artists and regarded locals to celebrate the Winton community through their stories for generations to come. At the conclusion of the Film Festival, the artworks have joined the collection at Waltzing Matilda Centre becoming a legacy for the 150-year celebrations of Winton in 2025. Prints of these artworks will also be displayed on the iconic Spirit of the Outback train travelling between Brisbane and Longreach.

Information courtesy of the LiveArt website https://www.qcaliveart.com.au/portfolio/humansoftheoutback_winton/

Queensland College of Art, Griffith University Public Art Program. This project was made possible by the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund, provided through Regional Arts Australia, administered in Queensland by Flying Arts Alliance. Program Director: Dr Simon Degroot.

Statement: Janice is a vibrant, entrepreneurial and community spirited Winton local. The Evert family have owned the local Royal Theatre and are key figures in the opal industry. She has many business interests; however, Janice’s true passion is opal. Her enthusiasm is palpable as she excitedly shares knowledge of all aspects of opal mining, craft, and trade. I most enjoyed hearing Janice explain her appreciation of opal in their natural form, their materialisation from the prehistoric era, and her assertion that each opal is a unique celebration of perfection. Janice and her husband John have pursued many other opportunities throughout the years however, the call of the outback has summoned them back to Winton where they have permanently settled. It has been a privilege to get to know Janice and paint her portrait, and I was compelled to capture her kindness and generous nature.

Anna Weston, Janice (2023), acrylic on canvas, 76 x 61cm. Photograph: Adam Young / Image Courtesy: Liveart, Queensland College of Art