I’ve finally gotten around to this: spruiking my own work for sale. The delay is not, as has been suggested, because of modesty but simply not having the chunk of time and brainage to tap out the blog. The project on the counter is a series of portraits of notable Australian writers and cultural figures. [...]
READ MOREFebruary, 2011
A racist outburst
The twelve-year-long study from the University of Western Sydney, the Challenging Racism Project, was published today. What I read struck me as somewhere between surprising and disturbing. As reported in Fairfax: Anti-Muslim sentiment proved widespread in every state and territory, while Victoria recorded one of the lowest levels of anti-Muslim sentiment (42.8 per cent, third [...]
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Farewell to a great artist and a great spirit, Les Kossatz
It is terrible, a terrible thing to hear or tell of the death of someone you know and admire. Yesterday evening, on February 15th, 2011, the artist Les Kossatz passed away at home; by his side were sons Yuri and Matt, and his wife, Diana Gribble. He had recently turned 68 and had been suffering [...]
READ MOREVoices from Cairo: “We were chuffed to bits.”
BBC World Service have been conducting street interviews with Cairenes: it is thrilling to hear them speak; youthful voices totally at home in English. Mina Mustafa: “I was blank, I was blank for a little bit, and then I started screaming, the ground beneath me was shaking. It went insane.” A young man: “… they [...]
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A picture of a silent moment in Cairo
In recent days, Egypt has contributed an extraordinary folio to the world’s photo archive of historic moments. The Guardian’s Sean Smith shot a fantastic series of the tent city in Cairo’s Tharir square — the sheer orderliness of it compells the viewer to recognise the disciplined determination of the uprising (a exact description of the [...]
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Self-portraits: why do it? (Rembrandt in NGV’s “Naked Face”)
I’ve been a couple of times to see the NGV’s self-portrait exhibition, Naked Face. Christopher Allen in the Australian totally trashed the show. On the catalogue: “Gerard Vaughan, the gallery’s director, describes Vivien Gaston’s catalogue text as inspiring … The writing is dull, peppered with cliches and seldom even perceptive, let alone thought-provoking.” Paragraph 5 [...]
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Hoppy New Year (challenging, complex and difficult)
That Renaissance bloke, Brekky Dürer, made his watercolour, Feldhase, young hare, in 1502. We saw it in Vienna’s Albertina some years ago and were properly astonished … segue … Happy new year! I wish you great leaps in this Year of the Rabbit, which promises to be (insert astrological nonsense). If you’re a rabbit (born [...]
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