Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Paddington is currently hosting new installation works by Indigenous-Australian artist Jonathan Jones. Untitled (The Tyranny of Distance), 2008 is positioned within the main exhibition space and is composed of a series of six blue tarpaulin covered walls, each extending to over eight meters in length. Each of them radiate with light from fluorescent tubes positioned to make arrow like chevron patterns. The audience is not allowed access between the walls, and are instead allowed only to move around the perimeter of the installation. This makes reference to the Australian government’s 2006 intervention of the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal community, raising issues of land ownership and civil rights. Positioned outside the gallery space is Jones’ installation Genesis, 2008. Comprising of a series of stacked emu eggs illuminated by florescent light, this work also makes reference to indigenous issues as a symbol of traditional art and new life.

Jones is of the Kamilaroi/Wiradjuri people of South Eastern Australia. He has worked as a curator for Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative; the only Aboriginal owned and operated contemporary art space in Sydney. He has received numerous awards for his art practice including the 2002 New South Wales Indigenous Artists Fellowship and the 2006 Xstrata Emerging Indigenous Art Award. He currently lives and works in Sydney, while acting as a museum educator at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

A new collection of works by Sydney artist Noel McKenna are currently on display at Darren Knight Gallery, Waterloo. Entitled The Weekly Bus-Rail Ticket: The Return Journey, the series depicts scenes of Sydney life, some as momentous as Anthony Mundine claiming the Middleweight Championship of the World, while others such as Kambala School Girl portray the more seemingly mundane aspects of city life. Depictions of cityscapes, oversized vehicles on suburban roads, children dressed in designer fashion and grand residencies of Sydney businessmen also make an appearance within the show. While most take form as works on canvas, Sydney Chair of Influence, embroidered with the names of prominent community figures, acts as a sculptural inclusion to the exhibition.

McKenna lives and works in Sydney. He has studied at various Australian institutions including The University of Queensland, Brisbane College of Art and Alexander Mackie College. His work has been exhibited on an international scale within galleries including John Batten Gallery, Hong Kong, Bowen Galleries, New Zealand and Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea. He has won numerous awards for his art practice including the 2006 Fleurieu Peninsula Vistas Prize, the 2003 Mosman Art Prize and the Wynne Prize for Watercolour in 2001, 2002 and 2005.

A new collection of works by Hong Kong born artist Kate Beynon are currently on show at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Demonstrating influences from a range of art forms including calligraphy, graffiti and textiles, the series reflects a variety of multicultural stimuli in order to create the artist’s interpretation of today’s global citizen. Oriental inspired imagery is a prominent feature of the artist’s work, while the merging of Western attributes reflects the artists own dual heritage of being born to a Chinese mother and Welsh father. Her work is bold and ornate, often consisting of both acrylic paint and aerosol enamel, on either canvas or linen, adorned with clusters of Swarovski crystals.

Beynon immigrated to Australia as a child where she later studied at various universities including The University of Melbourne, Prahran College and The Victorian College of the Arts. Her work has been exhibited on both a local and international scale at institutions including The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Bendigo Art Gallery, Netherlands Media Art Institute and Stills Gallery, Edinburgh. She has received various awards and grants for her art practice including The 1995 George Award at Melbourne Fringe Festival, the 1999 Arts Victoria Women’s Artist Award and a 2004 Professional Development Grant from the Visual Arts/Craft Board of the Australian Council for residency in Harlem, New York.

A new collection of paintings, collage works and drawings by Sydney based artist Ben Quilty are currently on display at Grantpirrie, Redfern. Entitled Smashed, the exhibition contains numerous works which are influenced by Rorschach inkblot tests, as the canvases have been folded in half with paint to create a symmetrical print. Skulls are a common motif within the series, as some eerily appear as black and white Chinese ink works, while others as school boy doodles in blue biro. Quilty’s oil paintings are vibrant and textured, often appearing quite momentous as some extend to almost three metres in length.

Quilty has earned various degrees related to his art practice while studying at Sydney College of the Arts, Monash University and the University of Western Sydney. His work has been recognized on an international scale, appearing within exhibitions at Chiang Mai University Art Museum, Thailand and Hohenstrausenstr, Germany. In 2002 he received the Brett Whitely Travelling Art Scholarship, while in 2007 he was awarded the National Self Portrait Prize by the University of Queensland Art Museum. His work appears within collections all around Australia at galleries including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Burnie Regional Gallery, Tasmania and Dubbo Regional Gallery.

One Breath below Consciousness, is a new, corporeal exhibition by Spanish born artist Dani Marti. Currently showing at Breenspace, Waterloo, the display consists of both video works and textile weaving. These interlaced canvases are often a mix of both simple, structural materials such as nylon braiding, leather, polyester and knitting yarn, as well as more brilliant substances including Swarovski glass, beaded necklaces and Spanish rosary beads. Last year Marti took this fixation with weaving and applied it to more unconventional forms. . His installation work Off my Noodle, consisting of a giant tangled ball of pink, polyethylene foam pool noodles was displayed at both The University of Technology, Sydney and Newcastle Regional Art Gallery.

Although born in Barcelona, Marti currently spends his time living and working between Sydney and Glasgow. He has studied at various institutions around the world including Esade, Barcelona, Julian Ashton Art School, Sydney and Glasgow School of Art. His work has appeared in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including Dark Bones at Citric Gallery, Italy, Missing Spain at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney and the 2007 Cornice Art Fair, Venice. In 2007 he was awarded the Newcastle Regional Gallery Residency as well as a New Work Grant from the Scottish Arts Council.

A new collection of works by Imants Tillers is currently on display at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Paddington. Entitled The Tears of Things, the exhibition is the artist’s first Sydney-based solo show in three years. The tiled paintings are a collection of landscapes built in the Tiller’s signature style. Many are monolithic portraits of Australian panorama, some even extending to almost 10m in length. Images of the outback, desert motifs and drought stricken land are overlaid with poetic text and names of regional Australian suburbs.

Tillers lives and works in Cooma, Australia, a regional town located near the Snowy Mountains. With a respected career spanning over thirty years, his work has been widely displayed on an international scale at institutions including Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Galerie Susan Wyss, Zurich and Bess Cutler Gallery, New York. He has received various awards for his art practice including Grand Prize at the 1993 Osaka Painting Triennial, First Prize at the 1999 Visy Board Art Prize, South Australia and a Prize for Excellence at the 2003 Beijing International Art Biennial. In 2005 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of New South Wales for his long and distinguished contribution to the field of arts.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in conjunction with the Biennale of Sydney is currently showcasing a selection of works, centered on the theme of Revolutions- Forms that Turn. Many of the works on display have attracted controversy following a series of complaints by patrons. Maurizio Cattelan‘s Novecento, which consists of a dead horse hanging from the gallery ceiling has outraged animal rights groups, while Leon Ferrari‘s Western Christian Civilization depicting Jesus crucified to a plane has also been deemed offensive by some. Other artists whose works are part of the display include Rosemary Laing, Miroslav Tichy, Tracey Moffat and Anawana Haloba.

Rosemary Laing has studied at several Australian institutions including The College of Fine Arts, Paddington, Sydney College of the Arts and The Tasmanian School of Art. Her work has appeared in various group and solo shows on an international scale, at galleries including Galerie Lelong, New York, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland and Queensland Art Gallery. She has won several awards for her art practice including the Australian Research Council Grant from the University of New South Wales, The Perc Tucker Acquisition from Townsville Regional Gallery and the Blanche Louisa Buttner Bequest, Queensland Art Gallery.

A new collection of works by Sydney photojournalist James Brickwood opens this week at the Australian Centre for Photography, Paddington. The exhibition is a documentation of the annual Schoolies week, an end of year vacation for year 12 high school graduates. Brickwood documents drunken pashes, messy hotel rooms and the sunny beachfronts of Queensland’s Gold Coast, which predominantly hosts the graduation festival.

Brickwood is a freelance photographer who has completed numerous projects for leading Australian publications including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun Herald. While best known for documenting Australian youth culture, as witnessed within series such as Schoolies and Sydney Jungle (an exploration of Sydney’s underground drum and bass music scene), he has also photographed various poignant subjects including the aftermath of the 2004 boxing day tsunami devastation in Sri Lanka and the funeral of late actor, Heath Ledger. He has recently been appointed a member of Oculi, a group of Australian award winning photo journalists. He has received various awards for his art practice including a highly commended within the sports category at the 2007 Nikon-Walkley Photographic Awards as well as becoming short listed for the 2007 Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize.

Indigenous Australian art has long been associated with traditional dot paintings. Such customary methods of art practice can be viewed as a system of keeping alive a culture otherwise threatened by assimilation. Contemporary Aboriginal artists are now charting new territory, creating works based in photo-media, video and film. The documentary nature of these mediums enhances a political agenda and evades ethnographic pigeonholing. The works displayed within Living Black have been created entirely from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, and consist of both traditional and contemporary artforms.

Brenda L. Croft’s poignant ilfochrome photography reflects her experiences growing up in suburban Australia with an Aboriginal father and Caucasian mother. Other works of hers on display narrate her father’s plight as a victim of the Stolen Generation. At the age of two he was taken from his family due to government policy and raised in a Christian run missionary. Alongside Croft’s works are those by Tony Albert, Daniel Boyd, Sally Morgan and Richard Bell, all of whom steer away from what can be perceived as traditional Aboriginal art.

Located within the Yiribana exhibition space of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the room is devoted to hosting indigenous art exhibitions. Its positioning within one of Australiaís most renowned galleries creates a level of accessibility, which is somewhat marred by its placement in the basement of the gallery.

A collection of works by acclaimed Australian artist, Mike Parr are currently on show at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Darlington. Entitled Milk, the exhibition takes form as a photographic montage, documenting various performance, installation and pictorial works by the artist. Some particularly memorable represented pieces include the shocking Cathartic Action: Social Gestus No. 5, where Parr appears to be amputating his own arm by hacking into a prosthetic one, and the Emetics (Primary Vomit Series), which sees the artist vomiting a series of red, blue, and yellow paints. Parr is known for the masochistic nature of many of his performances with titles that are often very literal in meaning. These include Crush Some Meat in Your Hand, Pull Hairs in Your Armpit and Hold Your Breath Underwater for as Long as Possible.

Parr studied at Queensland University and East Sydney Technical College. He has been exhibiting his work for nearly 40 years, where it has appeared on both a local and international scale at institutions including the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Japan, the Guggenheim, New York and Museo de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro. In 1997 he was awarded the Sponsorís Prize at the Sapporo 4th International Print Biennale.

Ceramic artist, Vipoo Srivilasa‘s latest exhibition, Roop-Rote-Ruang is currently on display at Gallery 4A: Asia-Australia Arts Centre. Translating as Taste-Touch-Tell, the exhibition coincides with several dinner parties the artist will host within private Sydney residencies throughout the exhibition’s duration. Srivilasa created ceramic dinner sets especially for this project, which the guests will eat from. He will prepare a four course meal and get the audience to engage in a range of activities that reflect his Thai heritage. The exhibition is also interactive in nature, focusing on issues regarding environmental damage. Tickets to the artist’s dinner parties are able to be bought for $150 a head.

Srivilasa was born in Thailand, before migrating to Australia as an adult, where he currently lives and works. He has studied at various institutions including Rangsit University, Bangkok, Monash University, Melbourne and the University of Tasmania, Hobart. His work has appeared within numerous group exhibitions on an international scale, including at SOFA, Chicago, Gallery Twenty Five, New Delhi and Brisbane City Gallery, Queensland. He has also had several solo exhibitions within Australia and Thailand. He received first prize at the Golden Teapot Awards in 2003, and an honourable mention at the 4th World Ceramic Biennale, Korea.

A conceptual video work by acclaimed artist, Bill Viola is currently on display at The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Entitled The Tristan Project: Fall into Paradise, the work was created in response to the Celtic tale of Tristan and Isolde. Viola created four hours of video footage to accompany an operatic production of the legend that was directed by Peter Sellars. From 2004-2005 it was performed at institutions including the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles and Opera Bastille, Paris. Incorporating the use of water, many of the scenes involved underwater filming techniques.

Viola lives and works in Long Beach, California. He studied at Syracuse University, New York where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in experimental studios. His work has been exhibited widely on an international scale at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Wien Modern, Vienna and the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. He has received numerous awards for his art practice including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, as awarded by the French Government.

Currently showing at Blender Gallery, Paddington is a recent collection of works by acclaimed photographer, Toby Burrows. Entitled Footprint, the exhibition documents the artist’s journey to Broken Hill, a regional mining suburb located in the far west of outback New South Wales. Images of picturesque scenery and vast landscapes present the beauty within the isolated town, and are cleverly juxtaposed with close ups of bird droppings smeared on windscreens and bugs splattered on the front of cars.

Burrows studied at Sydney College of the Arts, Rozelle before later moving to London. There he became the manager of Holborn Studios, Europe’s largest photographic studio complex. Since his return to Sydney, Burrows has created advertising imagery for international corporations including Virgin mobile, Slazenger, Guinness and Epsom. He was commissioned by National Geographic to photograph deserted areas and remote communities within Australia, including Wilcannia, an outback region with a large indigenous population. Burrows has won several awards for his art practice including gold at the New York Festival, numerous finalist positions at the Cannes Film Festival and a World Press award.

Over the last fortnight Sydney’s Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery was scheduled to host an exhibition showcasing the work of acclaimed Australian photographer, Bill Henson. However, just hours prior to its programmed debut, the gallery was stormed by police confiscating 12 works on display and another 20 from the storeroom, while the gallery website was also forced to remove the offending imagery from its server. Such censorship was in play due to the depiction of naked adolescents within many of Henson’s prints.

This story has dominated Australian tabloids and news broadcasts since its occurrence, with sensationalist headlines such as “Gallery raided as Bill Henson child porn art removed” appearing in leading newspapers, while news bulletins slander Henson a pedophile. The artist and gallery owners are now facing possible child pornography charges, causing debate to erupt over the distinction between art and pornography.

With Australia’s own prime minister, Kevin Rudd declaring the images as “absolutely revolting,” it’s no wonder so many people have such an ignorant and philistine view on the topic. Boorish online groups entitled “Bill Henson is disgusting, perverted and a creator of child pornography,” are being created while gallery owners Roslyn and Tony Oxley have even received anonymous phone messages from people threatening to burn down the gallery.

Yet much vocal support is also being shown in favour of the artist, aided with the defense of former child models who appear in Henson’s earlier works, declaring they never felt violated when posing for the artist. Numerous high profile people have also voiced their support for Henson, including fellow artist Callum Morton, playwright Michael Gow and acclaimed actress Cate Blanchett.

Part of the current mass hysteria can be attributed to the way these images are being shown cropped, censored or out of context within the media. Close ups of adolescent girls’ breasts or figures with blurred genitalia certainly demean the artist’s broader body of work and have absolutely nothing to do with the way these images were intended to appear within a gallery environment.

One of the most shocking elements regarding the incident is Henson’s global reputation as a respected artist. His work has been displayed within many major institutions around the world including the Guggenheim, New York, the Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London- all without vilification. Within Australia his photographs are even studied as part of high school visual arts curriculum.

The current controversy in accordance with the Australian police force has required several other galleries, who have been displaying Henson’s prints for years to also remove his photographs from their walls. In 2005 the Art Gallery of New South Wales (a somewhat “conservative” art institution), hosted a large scale retrospective of Henson’s photography, which received no public objection whatsoever. Images within the exhibition contained the same form of adolescent nudity as present within the artworks at Roslyn Oxley9. The retrospective contained hundreds, possibly close to a thousand of Henson’s prints and nobody seemed to say a word. So why now?

As a fellow Sydney-sider and art lover, my deepest condolences are with Henson and those affiliated with Roslyn Oxley9. These are certainly very dark days for the Australian art world.