Archive for the ‘Argus’ Category

Newcastle by Jason Mowen

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As Michael Reid’s offsite projects platform gears up for an expansive, site-responsive Newcastle group show this November, writer Jason Mowen reflects on the rich artistic heritage of Australia’s second-oldest city and the exciting cultural efflorescence now sweeping through its oceanside scene.

Freewheeling convict-painter Joseph Lycett was sent to Newcastle after being busted forging five-shilling bills in Sydney in 1815. It was a punishment reserved only for the worst offenders, but having caught the attention of the commandant, Captain James Wallis, rather than digging for coal around the mouth of the Hunter River the talented Lycett was soon painting the town. This included 14 scenes of the traditional practices of the Awabakal people, including Corroboree at Newcastle, the first known oil painting to depict an Aboriginal corroboree at night.

While this colonial Alcatraz may not seem as if it was ever going to be especially arty, scratch away at the surface and the Newcastle connections abound. Jon Molvig, John Olsen and William Dobell were born there. National Gallery of Australia director Nick Mitzevich went to university there. And for decades creatives left there, while the rest of us gave it a wide berth on our way up and down the New South Wales coast.

The exception was, of course, Margaret Olley, who famously fell in love with Newcastle the second she stepped off the train in 1964. She described it as a “city with muscle” and moved there the following year, turning out her Newcastle Watercolours in between buying and selling terrace houses on The Hill. As legend has it, she would bank-hop along Hunter Street, securing a mortgage for one property in the morning and another mortgage for a different property—from a different bank—in the afternoon.

Over time the proceeds from Olley’s trailblazing portfolio (there were also mansions in the suburbs and a slew of terraces in Paddington) allowed the otherwise frugal artist to donate millions to the galleries. The Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Australia acquired pictures by Degas, Cézanne, Freud, Matisse and Picasso with Olley’s cash. Newcastle Art Gallery received a chunk of her collection—the artist’s own work alongside that of Cressida Campbell, Nicholas Harding and Ben Quilty—while money from her estate went toward the gallery’s current expansion project, providing 1,600 square metres of additional exhibition space for its $126 million collection.

From the closure of BHP’s steelworks in 1999 to the relaunch of the gallery, Newcastle is, astrologically speaking, making its Saturn return. An epic transformation, although it’s the town’s mix of dynamic energy and nostalgia that makes it sing. You’ve got the profile of Norfolk Island Pines along the foreshore, architecture to rival The Rocks and Potts Point, city beaches outshining Bondi to Bronte, a flourishing food scene and a charming, working-class spirit that no amount of gentrification can dull.

Launched earlier this year as a roving offsite platform, Michael Reid Beyond takes the exhibition of contemporary art to unexpected spaces, from artists’ studios to empty buildings and regional museums. After knockout shows as far afield as Perth, Newcastle (7–10 November) forms the centrepiece of this year’s program. “Newcastle is no longer a city that can be overlooked,” says Michael. “Having galleries in Murrurundi and Sydney, it makes sense to engage. So many people from Newcastle come to Murrurundi and so many people from Newcastle go to Sydney. It is our duty to do something there—and this is only the beginning.”

It was at the wedding of a mutual friend that Michael met Joel Castle, director of BEM Group and proud Novocastrian, specialising in project and development management services across social infrastructure, community and cultural spaces. “Anyone who has grown up in Newcastle is proud of their roots,” says Joel. “We’re chameleon-like, deeply connected to the community and evolving through changing times. When Michael and I met, we quickly realised that we both had an itch to scratch, positioning a quality art showing for Newcastle’s clientele while also showcasing local business through partnership.”

Painter Sally Bourke moved from Dubbo to Newcastle the same year the steelworks closed. “I was visiting a friend at the time and met a group of people here that I instantly clicked with. It turned out they all went to art school! There’s a voracious art scene here, highly supportive and integral to Newcastle’s arts culture. It feels like a country town, but it’s still big enough to get lost in.”

It’s a fitting picture. Few places offer so urbane a selection of trappings in an environment of such sleepy charm. Perched across the park from Newcastle Art Gallery is the brutalist beauty Crystalbrook Kingsley—a heritage-listed council building turned hotel with slick interiors and knockout views. Around the corner, tiny deli Arno does Firenze-worthy panini and a mean spritz at the end of the day. For mind-blowing natural wine, head down Hunter Street to Humbug alongside the not-to-be-missed anchovy and parmesan custard pastry.

Nagisa on the Honeysuckle Promenade does the best Japanese; Alfie’s in New Lambton does excellent Italian; Equium Social in Mayfield East does insane chocolate peanut butter smoothies. The red lentil and carrot dip at canal-side Elementa may very well change your life. Leading the vanguard is local superstar Flotilla in Wickham—Newcastle’s first restaurant to receive a Hat—kept company by the cocktail bar Vecina, next door. Newcomers like Blanca and Thermidor take the scene from strength to strength, celebrated in all its glory every April during Newcastle Food Month.

Sally is one of more than 20 artists selected by curator Dean Phillips-Andersen for Beyond’s Newcastle show. Others include Newcastle-born Trent Parke, Newcastle-based Michelle Gearin, First Nations artist Vicki Yatjiki Cullinan, Troy Emery and Dr Christian Thompson AO. It’s a relaxed but sophisticated line-up presenting the best paintings, sculptures and photography from across the Michael Reid congregation of galleries, assembled for what Michael describes as “a city recapturing its historical, architectural and creative centrality to the nation”.

“There is an unfiltered energy that exists in Newcastle,” says Dean. “Not under the microscope and scrutiny of the bigger cities, artists and curators are free to take greater risks. The exhibition space at 14 Perkins Street, Newcastle, will be raw and industrial—like the roots of the city—and very much in keeping with the Berlin-like rawness that echoes through the Michael Reid visual sensibilities.”

While much has changed since Olley fell for Newcastle in 1964, of its burgeoning art scene we can imagine she’d be proud. “Margaret was a charmingly cantankerous individual,” says Michael.

“She wielded her zimmer frame like a weapon and smoked wherever she wanted and I just admired that so much. I met her when I worked for Christie’s in Brisbane in the nineties, where my office overlooked Cloudland in Bowen Hills. She would stand in my office having a ciggy and looking out the window, reminiscing about the American GIs who danced there during the Second World War. There was segregation, African American GIs dancing on a different day, and Margaret always danced with the African Americans. She was a bohemian, free spirit, against convention, eminently fair and incredibly charitable.”

Channelling a similar spirit, the exhibition includes the work of artists from outside Michael’s stable. “Art is a broad church and we often have shows where we bring in people,” he says. “We’re non-denominational. We want the best practice, so will go beyond our own altar to the wider community. It brings interesting flavour.”

Michael Reid Beyond’s Newcastle exhibition is on view 7 10 10 November at 14 Perkins Street, Newcastle. To receive exclusive previews and priority access to works from the featured artists, please email dean@michaelreid.com.au

The Business of Gardening by Michael Reid OAM

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To celebrate spring’s arrival – and the publication of a beautiful garden story in the August issue of Australian House & GardenMichael Reid OAM walks us through the idyllic grounds that envelop the gallery, concept store and kiosk at Michael Reid Murrurundi and seed the inspiration for a flourishing creative business.

An understanding of gardening makes for good business, and my art gallery business at Murrurundi, in turn, informs the design and role of my garden. But to begin with, what is gardening? For me, gardening is the experience of an emotion made physical. Formal parterre-style gardens are designed to reveal their majesty through an all-in-one, almost architectural viewing sweep—their symmetry, their topiary, their scale of precise awe. Emotionally, formal gardens aspire to reverence.

My emotional horticultural go-to word is ‘drowsy’. Not informal or unkempt, far from it, but certainly not overly clipped or ruthlessly symmetrical. In my garden’s climate at Murrurundi in the Upper Hunter of New South Wales, no plant has ever died from lack of mowing or hedging, yet all things wither for lack of water. I lean toward a soft, well-watered, relaxed garden, one that slowly wakes with a walk-through reveal.

Gardening keeps me occupied without overtly engaging with people, and that is generally best for everyone. I like to tinker and think, after all, weeding is simply a remodelling through removal. I would love to own a Bobcat. To be frank, I am not so much of a gardener as a designer. I will point out the weeds; I rarely pull them out. I find profound joy in my garden coming together—its intention or purpose, the plants used to this end or that, their health, and growth. The season. The light. The rain. I have an understanding to my bones of how the English word for Paradise derives its root from the Persian word for a walled garden. A garden is an earthly delight. A garden is Eden.

It is unsurprising that the land was our species’ first industry. Initially, we organised through hunting the animals that moved across the land, and then we cultivated land to create food certainty—cultivating growth. Seeding ideas. Bearing fruit. Fertile ground. Cross-pollinating. Cultivating relationships. Green thumb. Blossoming. A thorny issue. Cutting back or pruning ‘deadwood’ are all land-use terms that thrive within our understanding of business. It is hardly surprising, then, that one of the most feared corporate arborists in this country’s history, the infamous downsizer, was nicknamed ‘Chainsaw’ Al Dunlap. Business gets gardening and the tools of gardening, and I would argue that an understanding of gardening makes for good business. You have an idea. Within your understanding and growing knowledge—for you always learn with gardening–you devise and plan and give things a studied go. You are persistent in wanting to make your ideas and plans work, and if they don’t, you begin again. You redesign and change from root to branch, taking all back to dirt in a need to pivot and salvage.

Like a garden, a business does not endure through an over-concentration on established trophy plantings. Even the oldest and sturdiest of oak trees eventually die, and it may surprise many to learn that our national floral emblem, the Golden Wattle tree, has a life expectancy of just over a decade. Beautiful, important, and established gardens are always planting anew and replanting the old. A centrepiece of my gallery’s 2024 Strategy Paper, a yearly document that reviews what has come before and charts our intended directional growth for the coming 12 months—from the tips of our many branches to our well-established roots—was to further develop the Murrurundi Garden.

The gallery, Concept Store, and Kiosk at Murrurundi are destinational retail; the entire purpose of this creative space is to entice our audience to visit, slow down, enjoy the garden, eat and drink well, and view and acquire nationally significant art. The garden is both an aesthetic and commercial drawcard. It is within beauty that one can best absorb the beauty, enjoyment, and value on offer. To enter the gallery garden, you walk a Rhyolite gravel path. A meandering path, that wends its way through beds of Oyster plants (Acanthus mollis), winter roses (Hellebores) and May bush (Spiraea). I mass plant. Down the garden path you approach the monumental new structure of the art gallery, nestled a distance from the Concept Store, a former colonial cell block converted into a buggy stable in the 1890s. The garden is designed to draw people across the Murrurundi spaces. My outside cantilevered fireplace is designed to create a “wow” moment and bookend the gravelled central courtyard. The fireplace acts as a monumental Donald Judd style sculpture. From the central outdoor space, overflowing with Anatolian Hollyhocks (Mallows) visitors are drawn around the new art gallery, between the gallery and the outdoor fireplace to the newly constructed front garden.

The entire new front garden space rises from the disaster of a heroic 160-year-old River Red gum collapsing during the drought and finally falling, taking all with it. The canopy of this most majestic gum shaded and dominated the land between the new gallery and the New England Highway. When it came crashing down and smote all before it, the carnage opened this space to the searing summer sun. Tackling this side of the gallery garden for the first time, with the help of garden designer Gay Stanton, we created a wide-open new space with a nine-metre-long concrete water trough placed in front of three interlocking, 9-meter-long gabion walls, resulting in a more formal garden than I usually prefer. But there you go. That was Gay’s idea, and a damn good one at that.

The new front garden, like the older stone Concept Store and new gallery, now has a steel pergola planted with white wisteria and ornamental grapes. Over the last year, I have planted three large pergolas. I am moving away from large umbrellas, which, no matter how well secured, catch the wind and end up being scattered, fractured remnants of their former selves. The pergolas are mostly lit for the next phase when the space is opened into the evenings. Pergolas offer shade whilst make a striking hanging-garden framework.

There is less room for subtlety and delicacy in a more public garden. Open gardens take a beating from people traffic, and as much as I enjoy leaf variations as the next person, the finer points of a whore-to-horticulturist can be lost on many. I still chuckle when I remember a member of the public asking me, “Why have the deciduous trees lost their leaves?”; I didn’t say, “Because they are deciduous, you fuckwit”; but I may have.

More public gardens must express a degree of visual clarity and overall impact simplicity than can be privileged in a private garden. Shade and beauty draw in my people and entice them to stay a while. The garden, in turn, compels my audience across and around my Murrurundi space, enticing them to settle and enjoy. These are all similar yet distinctly different propositions that a commercial garden designer anticipates, but a private space gardener may not.

Carly Le Cerf by Sarah Hetherington

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Within the Western tradition, to paint the Australian landscape is to bear the weight of over 200 years of artists who have travelled this well-trodden path. And yet, its lure continues to captivate contemporary artists today, eager to make their own mark.

Carly Le Cerf is one such artist, with a very particular intention in mind. Originally from the United Kingdom, Le Cerf relocated to Australia at age five and now lives and works in Denmark in Western Australia. In the early 2000s, Le Cerf resided in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in a house that was the last in town. She recalls, “Across the road was an endless stretch of nothing. So, at the end of the day or on weekends, I would go for long hikes, sit, and paint the landscape. I haven’t stopped since.”

With a background in art education and a deep interest in art history, Le Cerf’s knowledge of the lineage of Australian landscape painters is informed. Rather than derivation, she is aware of previous artist’s motifs and how not to emulate. She notes, “When I am in the landscape, I see Fred Williams’ trees, or Sydney Long’s trees.” Although not a direct influence in her work, Le Cerf acknowledges and respects Indigenous knowledge and Country.

Whilst other locations including the MacDonnell Ranges in the Northern Territory have featured as subjects, it is the rugged beauty of the Pilbara that she continues to return to, capturing its distinctive red earth, weathered rock formations, tree-dotted plains, and vast, open spaces. These landscapes showcase her ability to translate, through colour, perspective and texture, not just the visual aspects of the Pilbara in a linear sense, but also it’s intense heat, isolation and even profound stillness.

Now, however, Le Cerf has embarked on a new artistic journey in the Blue Mountains, undertaking a month-long residency at Bilpin international ground for Creative Initiatives (BigCi) which is situated on the edge of Wollemi National Park. The UNESCO World Heritage site, located west of Sydney in New South Wales, offers a stark contrast to the arid landscapes of Western Australia, marking a significant shift in Le Cerf’s painting. Known for its panoramic escarpments – astonishingly steep valleys and cliffs with waterfalls throughout – the region’s name comes from the blue haze that often envelops the mountains, created by oil droplets released from abundant eucalyptus trees.

The recent residency, partly funded by Regional Arts Australia, presented itself at an opportune time in Le Cerf’s career and practice. Relishing a new challenge, her plan was to undertake an upscaling of her work, creating a 4-metre-long panoramic painting on board that could also function as individual panels. Additionally, the residency has allowed her to immerse herself in the landscape for a sustained period, with an immediacy not previously experienced. She comments, “Unlike my time in the Pilbara, at the residency, I can be in the landscape daily. I can go for a drive or a walk, do some drawing, figure something out and then add that back into the painting.”

Le Cerf’s practice is process driven and it is imperative that time is spent in the landscape – looking, walking, meticulously recording colours, photographing, capturing the light, sketching, writing and making gouache studies en plein air. Significant time is taken embedding the memory and experience of a place into her mind. She posits, “John Olsen referred to it as ‘being a journey person.’” Upon returning to the studio, her critical source material is gathered, laid out on the studio table and attached to the walls. At this point, the encaustic painting process commences. Le Cerf describes this as “sculpting the landscape”, in that her chosen medium is very three-dimensional, each layer applied sinks into the rigid and porous surface board and eventually becomes one substrate.

Gradually, her source material falls away and she starts responding purely to the painting process itself, noting it is “very physical – carving, painting, scraping, vertically and horizontally, I am constantly moving boards on and off the wall, all day and non-stop until the work becomes its own entity.” Much like its geography, the new panorama, Boundless Love (2024) has taken time to form and is compelling. Le Cerf has captured the breathtaking, soaring landscape of the Blue Mountains. Expanses of cool, deep greens coalesce with areas of rough sandstone under a muted wintry sky. Despite the dry, craggy rock formations, there is a rich lushness in the work, one can sense the eucalyptus scent being carried by the wind.

Le Cerf’s intention is to express awe – a powerful and universal human emotion. To be overwhelmed with feelings of reverence, admiration, even fear, in response to that which is grand, sublime and powerful. Of her painting, she states, “It must have that feeling, not just the appearance of the thing, but the vastness, of being moved by wonder. I keep going until I reach this point.” The Blue Mountains, with their spiritual and even psychological aspects, have provided the perfect location for developing this further. Le Cerf invites us to experience the wonder and majesty of the Australian landscape, encouraging us to pause and reconnect with the awe-inspiring natural world around us.

Six First Nations language groups maintain deep connections with the Country of the Greater Blue Mountains. These groups are the Dharawal and Gundungurra peoples (in the south), the Wiradjuri (in the west and northwest), and the Wanaruah, Darkinjung, and Darug (in the northeast).

The artist and Michael Reid Sydney acknowledge these First Peoples. We pay our respects to their Elders, past, present, and emerging.

Pecora Dairy by Michael Sharp

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Cressida and Michael Cains are the dedicated couple behind artisan sheep’s milk dairy and cheesery Pecora Dairy. For the 40th Edition of The Argus, the recipients of the President’s Medal at this year’s Sydney Royal Easter Show invite us to their 200-acre property in Robertson, NSW, where their ewes graze lush pastures and drink from crystal-clear creeks, producing rich, creamy milk for Pecora’s award-winning cheeses.

After a five hour dinner, including a spectacular interlude of fireworks, while overlooking the Main Arena at Sydney Showground during the Sydney Royal Easter Show, a raw milk cheese produced by Pecora Dairy was announced as the winner of the 2024 President’s Medal.

The finalists for this prestigious prize were all champions in their respective competition classes and the award “celebrates truly inspirational, innovative agricultural food and beverage achievers. Producers who prioritise sustainable environmental, economic and social practices throughout the production cycle from gate to plate, and whose contribution is beyond simply bringing a product to market, but also serves to ensure the sustainability and prosperity of the future of Australian agriculture.”

Having their names read out in a room full of their primary produce peers was “all a bit surreal” for Cressida and Michael Cains, the close couple behind Pecora Dairy. It was also “particularly special” because it recognised their two decade journey pursuing a philosophy of not just producing beautiful food, but doing so sustainably while capturing the unique qualities of their land.

Cressida spent her early years in the Sydney beachside suburb of Manly until, when she was 10 years old, her parents bought a hobby farm in Mittagong. Portentously, the neighbouring property was a dairy. She enjoyed an “amazing childhood’, spending as much time as possible riding horses at historic Throsby Park.

“I would stay in the old servants’ quarters with a bunch of girls and guys on weekends and in the holidays. There was no supervision and we had a lot of fun.”

After she finished school, Cressida completed a hospitality course in Sydney and later a business degree in Canberra. She then travelled overseas and when she returned to Australia she worked in the wine industry. This is where she met Michael, who had been born in Wollongong and studied at the University of Sydney.

The young couple bought a house in Leichardt where they “grew vegetables, had chooks in the backyard and dreamed of getting out of Sydney”.

Cressida and Michael took a step toward living this dream by buying a small property near Picton, about an hour’s drive south-west of Sydney. They planted a market garden and pecan trees and made butter from their “house cow”. Fascinated by the science of making cheese from milk, they bought some dairy goats “but they kept jumping fences and we decided they were not for us”.

Then, in 2005, they purchased six East Fresian ewes, renowned for the quality of their milk. The Cains milked their herd of half a dozen sheep daily and began making cheese.

“We knew we wanted to go into cheesemaking,” recalls Cressida. “We discovered that goats weren’t suitable for us and we liked the fact that sheep are much lighter on the land than cows – they eat and drink less and their milk is very nutrient dense and excellent for cheesemaking.”

Their experience in the wine industry also piqued their interest in cheesemaking.

“When I was working at Tyrrell’s, I saw that they made a number of lines of shiraz which were all different,” recalls Michael. “Each wine reflected the soil of its vineyard – sandy loam or basalt or chocolate – and was distinctively of its place. You could taste that. Both Cress and I developed a deep appreciation of the notion of terroir – that something tastes a certain way because it’s a reflection of its time and place and characteristics such as soil and temperature and climate; that food has the capacity to tell a story.”

In 2008 the Cains purchased about 200 acres of land near the Southern Highlands village of Robertson.

“The area around Robertson and Kangaloon is some of the oldest and best dairy country in Australia,” says Cressida, “and we also wanted proximity to market. A significant barrier for many small producers is the cost of transporting your product around Australia.”

It took about five years of research and development from their first milking in 2005 before they were ready to sell their cheese commercially.

“In 2010 we submitted our Jamberoo Mountain Blue to the Sydney Royal Cheese and Dairy Produce Show and it won a gold medal – so we knew we had a great product. We began commercial operations the following year with Jamberoo as well as [mould-ripened] Bloomy and our fresh curd, which shows the incredible sweetness and creaminess of our milk.”

From the outset, Cressida and Michael knew it was important to target “the top end of the market as a boutique brand”. They also wanted to produce a raw milk cheese, even though this was not permitted by the authorities at that time. What drove them to achieve that?

“Our property has some beautiful cool climate rainforest, which was originally called the Yarrawa brush, crystal clear creeks and we have lyre birds, echidnas, wallabies and a diverse variety of insects,” Cressida explains. “This is all part of the ecology of the property – the way the soil works, the way the pasture grows, the health of our animals and therefore the health of the milk. We wanted to express all of this in our cheese and the way to express that best is in a raw milk cheese because it incorporates all those macro and micro factors. It becomes an expression of the landscape on the plate. There is a direct link to time and place. This also means that each cheese is different – it’s a snapshot of our farm at a particular point in time.”

Michael explains why production of raw milk cheese was not permitted in Australia.

“The science of cheesemaking wasn’t understood as well as it is now, so it was just easier to require all milk to be pasteurised. A conventional cheese is made safe by the milk being pasteurised. A raw milk cheese is made safe through maturation, through the aging process, which is just as effective as pasteurisation. We know this now, but it took the industry a long time to understand that.”

In 2016, after extensive research, Food Standards Australia New Zealand changed the regulations to permit the production of raw milk cheese. Pecora Dairy then worked with the NSW Food Authority to become the first Australian operator licensed to make raw milk cheese.

First produced in 2018, Pecora’s award-winning raw milk cheese is named Yarrawa, after the Indigenous word for the local cool climate rainforest. They also produce a raw milk fetta.

Pecora’s path to winning this year’s President’s Medal involved a rigorous examination that included several site visits, searching interviews and a review of the business’s current financial position and also its long term strategy. The judges observed the extraordinary natural attributes of the property as well as the investment in solar panels and batteries.

It was also important that Pecora had contributed significantly to the local community, including Kiama Farmers Market and the establishment of Pecora Cheese & Wine in Robertson.

“Our business is so much more than making cheese,” observes Michael.

In the two decades since they purchased their first East Fresian ewes, the Cains have faced many challenges – and that doesn’t include raising two children. In the past five years alone, like so many others, they have had to navigate the natural disasters of drought, devastating bushfires and major floods as well as the substantial impact that COVID had on supply chains and markets.

“There have been some incredibly tough times, but everything that is worthwhile involves hard work and we have worked unbelievably hard,” says Cressida.

In their first year of commercial production, Pecora Dairy made about two tonnes of cheese. Today they run around 200 sheep and produce about 10 tonnes of cheese, selling directly to consumers through Pecora Wine & Cheese and a small number of specialty cheese shops, while also supplying selected restaurants through a distributor.

The Cains continue to study and learn and they remain passionate about working together to build Pecora Dairy’s future.

“It’s our life’s work,” says Cressida.

 

For further information, visit pecoradairy.com.au

Joseph McGlennon by Michael Reid OAM

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The latest series of photographs by Joseph McGlennon harks back to one of his earliest subjects. To mark this new release – and the opening of an accompanying exhibition spanning key several bodies of work – Michael Reid OAM reflects on the enduring power of the artist’s beautiful and beguiling pictures.

I had a stuffed kangaroo.

As you do.

My friend Kimberley rang to ask if her friend could photograph the taxidermied roo as part of a series of artworks he was undertaking. Sure, no one in their right mind says no to Kimberley. Anyway, this bloke set up a photoshoot at the old Sydney gallery in Elizabeth Bay some 14 years ago. I was squirrelled away in my office, so it wasn’t until late in the day when I ventured out to check out who this character was and what he was doing. We shook hands and said howdie. I was intrigued. The bloke, Joseph, was focused. We talked about the idea behind his proposed series. The idea was strong, historically interesting, with an eye to contemporary cultural thinking. I asked Joseph McGlennon if he had any examples of this series. Joseph rolled out some working prints. I just knew. I knew that I was standing in front of great significance.

Joseph McGlennon possesses an entirely original visual language. He had trained in his youth at the National Art School before venturing forth into the creative world of international business. Back on his art tools, later if life, Joseph came to each series with ideas and images fully formed and mature. There was no undergraduate angst. His inaugural solo exhibition, Strange Voyage, in 2011 established visual, aesthetic and curatorial benchmarks and parameters that have influenced every subsequent artwork and series.

The consistent quality of his creative output is exceptional. Strange Voyage delved into the historical reality of the 19th century, when a mob of kangaroos were shipped to Kew Gardens in London. The Royal Family just loved wild animals besporting themselves in the gardens for their pleasure. The kangaroos froze to death. The underlying philosophical theme of the exhibition was the notion that some things simply cannot be uprooted and transplanted culturally.

McGlennon’s series Thylacine 1936 envisions the apex predators, the Tasmanian tigers, hunting and reigning supreme in their natural habitat. Often depicted atop mountains, the tigers are portrayed feasting on the carcass of an introduced chicken, with a tall ship visible in the background. Unaware of their impending doom. First contact between species, and for many species is utterly devastating. And macabrely enough, the Last Tasmania tiger, froze to death in Hobart Zoo in 1936 because a keeper forgot to house the animal overnight in winter.

Joseph’s photographs are beautiful, their message subtly powerful. Upon winning the most prestigious photography prize in the country, the William & Winifred Bowness Prize in 2015, artist judge Bill Henson commented on McGlennon’s practice, stating, “The work has an almost anonymous perfection that reinforces the fact that culture is never outside nature.” In a nutshell, across numerous bodies of work I would say that for McGlennon, Henson was spot on – culture and our impact is never above nature.

Numerous articles have been dedicated to the hundreds of individual images captured with McGlennon’s Hasselblad camera – to make a single artwork – which are skilfully woven together to narrate his poignant stories. The power of his unrivalled skills is without question. Many now blatantly copy McGlennon’s style. However, the flattery of imitation to one side, it is the ever roving and evolving scope of McGlennon’s practice that simply defies his peers.

Drawing on the primal tooth and claw drama of a 17th-century European deer hunt, reimagined in the New World of Colonial Australia, Joseph McGlennon recently began another extraordinary visual and technical departure from the orthodox rules of contemporary photography by paying homage to the great Flemish painter Frans Snyders.

Frans Snyders (1579–1657) made a significant contribution to Flemish Baroque art as a painter of animals, hunting scenes, market scenes and still life. One notable collection of his work can be found in the Snyders Hall at the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Within Snyders Hall, a magnificent, indeed a heroic suite of massive oil paintings spill across the Cardinal red walls of one of the world’s great museums depicting elements from the wild hunt to the table feast. From the chase to the plate. Within the hall, you can read one of Snyders’ paintings as a stand-alone moment and a great masterwork. Or the viewer can take in the artist’s sweeping vision of each painting being a vignette or brief evocative episode to the whole of an expansive idea.

Individual photographs can spill over and build into a grander narrative across multiple fronts that form a larger creative whole. This use of multiple photographs to be read as one, or separately, is a landslide in contemporary world photography. Looking back across time, to march contemporary art forward, both in storytelling and the material viewing of an idea, McGlennon shatters the one image, one photograph orthodox delivery of a contemporary body of work. McGlennon’s hunt series is a pivotal moment in the development of contemporary photography.

With his Murrurundi exhibition, McGlennon very much wanted and asked for his new kangaroos to find expression outside of a metropolitan space. McGlennon wants the work to ground its paws in the very soil of regional Australia. McGlennon’s new series, Leap, captures kangaroos mid-air, symbolising resilience against wild colonial hunting dogs. The dogs remain just out of frame, but their urgency and presence can be sensed through the dynamic leap of the kangaroo. These creatures embody untamed beauty, reflecting the unwavering spirit of the Australian wilderness.

Through dynamic leaps, the kangaroo’s sinuous form becomes a living poem of fluid motion. Inspired by the ecological dance between predator and prey, Leap explores the delicate balance within this unique ecosystem. It serves as both a celebration of nature’s elegance and a poignant commentary on the challenges faced by early colonial indigenous species. Leap invites reflection on the human impact that is still needed for conservation in today’s fragile Australia.

Works from Leap by Joseph McGlennon can be viewed in his exhibition Culture is Never Outside Nature, a curated survey of arresting images drawn from several key bodies of work by the artist. The exhibition is now at Michael Reid Murrurundi and can be explored online here.

Collections
Artbank, Australia, Sydney
Australian National Gallery, Canberra
National Museum of Australia, Canberra
National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh
Parliament of Australia, Canberra
St John of God Collection, Perth
Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo
Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle

Series
2022 Culloden
2021 Pollen
2021 Silentium
2020 Awakening
2019 Morphosis,
2018 Eclectus Australia,
2018 Australian Bird Studies from McGlennon’s Audubon Folio
2018 to 2020 Ghost Ship
2017 Heavenly Fighters
2016 Florilegium, Michael Reid at 602, Melbourne
2015 Winner of the William & Winifred Bowness Photography Prize
2015 Skyestags, Edinburgh Fine Art Society
2015 Skyestags, Michael Reid, Sydney and Berlin
2014 Strange Voyage at Customs House, Michael Reid
2013 Thylacine 1936, Michael Reid, Berlin, Sydney
2012 Troopers
2011 Strange Voyage

LA Story by Michael Reid OAM

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Our chairman and director, Michael Reid OAM, traverses the City of Angels and finds a sparkling cultural scene among its concrete sprawl and palm-fringed swimming pools.

Imagine, if you will, holding a Snow Globe of New York City in your hand. Inside that small, sparkly glass sphere of joy, you have everything that NYC has to offer – every language, culture, cuisine, religion, race and lifestyle. Essentially, all of planet Earth is crammed into Manhattan, which is, in itself, crammed inside the glass Snow Globe that you hold. Now, throw the Snow Globe on the ground and watch it shatter into thousands of glittering pieces that spread all over the floor, filling the entire room. This is Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is big. Very big. I will mention the sheer sprawl of its size several times within this missive. And beautiful it is not. Many years ago, I asked the actor Hugo Weaving what Los Angeles was like and he told me, “Everywhere you look, it’s the Parramatta Road”. And it is. Los Angeles is sprawling and fractured. Driving Los Angeles from top to bottom, or approximately 170 kilometres of dense city, would, on a bad day, take many, many hours. Did I say it was big?

On one’s first encounter with Los Angeles, it is all too easy to exclaim: “What the fuck, and why would anyone choose to reside here?” However, Los Angeles should be considered a region rather than just a city because it covers a vast area with very different constituent neighbourhoods and communities. If someone were to visit “Sydney” and spend their entire time only in places such as Rooty Hill or Marsden Park, they might equally wonder who would choose to live in Sydney. Nevertheless, the difference is that in Sydney, it is not too challenging to discover good, open, public and beautiful aspects of the city, whereas in Los Angeles, they are not immediately apparent, and the favourable aspects are not concentrated in any one location.

One key to understanding Los Angeles is that it lacks good public spaces, such as parks, town squares and forecourts – the types of places where people can stroll and actively engage with the city. These public spaces are abundant in “beautiful cities” but scarce in Los Angeles. Unlike cities such as Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia and even San Francisco, which generally adhere to older European or British colonial principles of urban planning, with downtown areas featuring public parks and squares, sculptures of heroes, civic buildings, commuter rail connections to suburbs and working ports that eventually gentrify, Los Angeles largely exploded in the post-war era of the automobile and freeway. As the American composer, songwriter, record producer and pianist who is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential figures of 20th-century popular music, the magnificent Mr. Burt Bacharach, along with his often co-lyricist Hal David, conjured up in 1968 with Do You Know the Way to San José:

LA is a great big freeway,
Put a hundred down and buy a car.
In a week, maybe two, they’ll make you a star.

This automobile-driven focus for much of mid-twentieth-century town planning resulted in a decentralised city, where each person could have their own bungalow with a swimming pool and palm tree, like some large, calm, azure David Hockney palm tree-fringed swimming pool painting. This massive and fast-decentralised urban growth was quite different from cities like New York, where multiple families often share one building. Los Angeles prioritised private spaces over public spaces for gathering. An unintended mid-century social consequence was that, across Los Angeles, people traditionally entertained at home.

This social inclination led to some of the world’s most spectacular post-war single-family homes. With big budgets, perfect weather, abundant land and plenty of wall space for art, affluent and successful Angelenos created stunning architectural statements to positive, personal success – with the style result that almost all architectural schools in the world will spend some time studying post-war Californian modernism. For the most part, however, the world influence of this everyman’s American version of their home-castle remains hidden behind hedges and walls.

Another key to understanding Los Angeles is the money. California’s economy is poised to overtake Germany’s as the fourth largest in the world after the US, China and Japan. California has already leapfrogged Brazil (No. 7) and France (No. 6) in 2015 and surpassed the United Kingdom (No. 5) in 2017. Some estimates suggest the state may have already caught up to Germany, with at least one forecast implying California is ahead by $72 billion.

I stayed downtown at the Jonathan Club. Less of a traditional English club and more resort, the Jonathans, as they are known, have at their fingertips a beautifully tiled 1930s Art Deco swimming pool, full-size indoor basketball court, roof deck bars and garden, grand rooms and great service. They have a beach club – private, of course – at Santa Monica. Should you ever have the opportunity to stay at this private club, if only for a few days, do.

A late 19th-century Romanesque architectural confection that takes up the better part of a block, the club is a grand example of private LA at its best. The University of Southern California was founded in this club. The 1932 Olympic Games were run from the club. Ronald and Nancy Reagan appear on the club’s walls, as do Buster Keaton, General Chuck Yeager, Sandra Day O’Connor, Bob Hope, Arnold Palmer, Billie Jean King, Clint Eastwood and on and on.

Apart from major corporate offices, the central business district, Downtown Los Angeles, was abandoned for decades. It’s a bit of a zombie apocalypse. Some industrial areas within this region have recently experienced a renaissance as an Arts District. Galleries such as Hauser & Wirth have opened. This Arts District, extending for a few blocks around Hauser & Wirth, offers a walkable area with good eateries, galleries, and shops, primarily during daylight hours. The Southern California Institute of Architects, a major school, is located nearby and the area is often populated by students when classes are in session. This district was mainly populated by working artists fleeing places like Brooklyn between 2005 and 2015 and then fleeing all over again during the pandemic. It has also attracted hipsters who appreciate living in converted lofts in an artsy neighbourhood.

In downtown Los Angeles, you’ll find cultural landmarks such as the Broad Museum, located next to the Disney Concert Hall designed by Frank Gehry. These places play civic roles but are privately funded and owned. Nearby, you can explore the historic Bradbury Building at 304 S Broadway, known for its interior atrium featured in the original Blade Runner film. Across the street, Grand Central Market offers an interesting food court, which includes the fabulously named providore Eggslut (@eggslut). Eggslut, which since 2010 has grown from a humble food truck into a global, albumen-focused fast food game changer – LA, New York City, Tokyo, Seoul, London – is the first take-out stand that you greasy-spoon into, on visiting Grand Central Markets.

I am no Lonely Planet guide, so I will skip a region-by-region description of must-dos, BUT you should visit the Broad Museum and Getty. The Broad Museum was one of my most magical LA experiences. Big ticket artworks head-hunted for super big money by property developers and philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad – who built shitty tract housing, but I won’t hear a word against them. For me the Broad ranks with The Frick in New York City, the Wallace Collection and Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the Getty as my world favourites. Ohhhhh The Getty.

When I worked at Christie’s London in the day, I knew Tara Gabriel Galaxy Gramophone Getty well (yep, his parents did heroin) and stayed for many a weekend over the years at the family estate Wormsley Park in Buckinghamshire. Tara more than once enthusiastically offered to introduce me to his uncle, then a director of the Getty. I was always busy; I said no thanks. It was one of the great ongoing fuckwit moments of my life. The Getty is a hilltop art fortress of stupendous vision and, by now, I should have been the Director for at least a decade. Just saying. The Getty citadel has scattered across its mesa numerous art pavilions, each representing styles and centuries within world art history. Given the museum’s size and footprint, you could be forgiven, on first viewing, if you considered the architecture more important than the somewhat thin collection. Wrong. The collection is deep and one of the best. It is just scattered over the hilltop and somewhat difficult to picture as being the one big thing.

Amid all the joys of this sparkling, shattered Los Angeles Snow Globe, it would be remiss of me not to mention the next-level homelessness on the West Coast of America. Please see my earlier photo essay on New York City to obtain a roundup of some of the structural economic reasons as to why this is so. But suffice to say, homelessness in Los Angeles occurs with a casual frequency that would leave all Australians with a staring bewilderment. How can so many, with so much, ghost those with absolutely nothing. Mental health and an opioid crisis are significant contributing factors – from what I have experienced. But we would all agree the fourth largest economy in the world could do better. Much better.

Los Angeles Tips

If you are a member of an affiliated private club, take the opportunity and stay for at least a few days at the Jonathan Club, downtown.
545 S Figueroa Street, Los Angeles CA 90071

The Broad
221 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
At 250 South Grand Avenue, across the road from The Broad, MOCA is almost quaint by comparison.
250 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles CA 90012

Gallery Luisotti
This raw-spaced, Berlin-style photography gallery is a long-term and significant player in the market. Modest with a big visual punch.
818 S Broadway, 10th floor, Los Angeles CA 90014. Building door code: #4104

Hauser & Wirth restaurant/cafe
901 E 3rd Street, Los Angeles CA 90013

Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Architecturally as coherent and interesting as the splatter of dog’s vomit. They can, however, draw on one of the most interesting and diverse art collections and archives.
5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036

The Getty
1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90049

All-day cafe Great White
8917 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood CA 90069

Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90404

I went for a calm, delightful walk around the UCLA campus at Westwood.

Julz Beresford by Michael Sharp

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Words: Michael Sharp

Photography: Ashley Mackevicius

Being outdoors and in nature has always been at the heart of Julz Beresford’s existence, from her early years roaming around the family farm to today’s tinny trips on The Hawkesbury River and solo hikes in The Snowy Mountains.

“I love going to different locations and landscapes,” she says. “I’m happy outside and totally inspired by nature. I head out with my paints and I don’t have any pre-fixed ideas – it’s more about how the day evolves, the light, the weather, the seasons. I make gouache studies and when I come back to my studio I use them as a reminder of what it was like when I was out there.

“I’m interested in not just painting what I see – I want to paint how I feel in the landscape too.”

Beresford enjoyed a happy childhood on a property in rural New South Wales.

“I was a really busy kid who lived outside and loved riding bikes, climbing, playing with our horses and chickens, always creating and making things.”

The property was only a few hours’ drive from The Snowy Mountains and her family would go camping there in summer while in winter they would ski at Mount Selwyn. So began a lifelong love of this landscape with its meadows, mountain rivers and snow gums.

When she was seven years old, her family moved to Sydney.

“My parents became really keen boaties. We’d hire yachts and go sailing, so I experienced the Hawkesbury from a very young age. I just loved being out on the water. It was how I was brought up and it was part of who I was.”

It was on these cherished sailing trips that she first learned to draw and paint.

“Mum liked being creative. She would take drawing stuff with us and I’d draw with her using charcoal.”

A seed had been planted and Beresford studied Art at school, including 3 Unit Art for her Higher School Certificate (HSC). She was inspired by the local bushland, walking and jogging through the Ku-ring-Gai Chase National Park whenever she could.

“There had been bad bushfires north of Sydney, so I collected charcoal and used it to draw with in my major work. I was pretty dedicated in Year 12. I used to paint at lunchtimes, which the Art Department thought was quite unusual. But I just loved it.”

After finishing high school “I wanted to do what I loved and I Ioved painting. It’s all I wanted to do. I wanted to go to COFA [College of Fine Arts] and fortunately I got in.”

She specialised in painting, drawing and printmaking and was inspired by tutors such as Idris Murphy. It was a wonderful three years but she laughs and admits: “I was partying far too much and just passed in the end.”

I’m in London still

After graduating from COFA, Beresford travelled overseas with friends. She bought a one way ticket “because I knew I’d be there a long time”. After six months of travelling she ran out of money and found a job in the ski fields of France before crossing The Channel to London, ready for a new challenge.

“A girl I studied with at COFA was working as a photographer’s assistant. She said: ‘Julz, I’ve found this great career for you – food styling.’ I said: “What’s that?”

Her friend gave her a brief description and Beresford decided it was a great idea.

“I visited the local library and went through food magazines. I made a list of all the best food stylists that were busy and in the good magazines. I found their phone numbers and just rang them.”

This old fashioned cold-calling soon produced results.

“I was really lucky,” she says. “I worked with some of the best food stylists in London, giving me a great foundation in the industry.”

Busy in her new career, her art was placed on the back burner. She would draw or paint occasionally in her bedroom “but nothing consistent, which you need to do to get better”.

Creativity calls

Beresford returned to Australia after eight years abroad and set up her career as a freelance food stylist. As time passed, however, it became increasingly apparent that this career wasn’t creative enough for her any longer. She decided to limit her work as a food stylist and paint as often as she could in her garage.

She summoned the courage to post some of her paintings on Instagram and these images attracted the interest of Amber Creswell Bell, Director Emerging Art for the Michael Reid galleries.

“Amber kindly offered me the opportunity to exhibit in a group show and that led to an invitation to participate in A Painted Landscape, a group exhibition at the Michael Reid Berlin gallery in late 2020.”

She participated in two more shows the following year at the new Michael Reid Northern Beaches gallery before being invited to hold her first solo show, in March 2022, at Michael Reid Northern Beaches. This was followed by solo exhibitions at Michael Reid Southern Highlands in November 2022 and Michael Reid’s Sydney headquarters in January 2024. All three of these solo shows sold out.

On the water

Beresford’s Sydney home is about 10 minutes from Cottage Point, a secluded Sydney suburb of just 50 homes that is less than an hour’s drive north of Sydney. It sits serenely at the junction of Cowan and Coal & Candle Creeks and is surrounded by the beautiful bushland of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. This is Beresford’s favoured base for exploring the Hawkesbury River and, as a regular customer, she is welcomed warmly by the staff at Cottage Point Kiosk and Boat Hire.

She usually books a tinny for two or three hours “but I often lose track of time and am out there for longer and have to apologise. There is something very peaceful and restful about being on the water. You are on your own, miles from anywhere. There is no mobile phone reception and you can really tune into nature. It’s like a release for me, being on the water. I feel alive, I feel amazing.”

Asked if she has any favourite spots, she replies: “I love being in a little bay with a hill in the distance. And I love the shadowy side of the Hawkesbury. There is always a sunny side and a shadowy side and I stick to the shadowy side. I like its moodiness and the depths of colours you can find. I’m really interested in colour and every time I go out it’s different because of the light, the time of day, the season, whether it’s rained the day before. I want to find the uniqueness of that day.”

In the studio

With her gouache field studies around her, Beresford gets to work.

“I am quite expressive in the way I paint. I’m very physical. It’s a fast, back and forward, back and forward, on the painting, off the painting, joyful and intense time. And I paint wet on wet, alla prima. It’s all about the moment, trying to convey the energy of the place and, I suppose, my relationship with it.

“I always scratch and draw in the composition, putting in the darker tones and building up. I use a brush for most of the early stages – I put on and take off, put on and take off – and I love keeping those brush marks visible in the painting.”

Beresford’s use of a palette knife “goes back to my food styling days of icing cakes and getting the cream perfect. I love the yummy ooziness of the oil paint and I use a medium to thin them out a bit and give them that luscious, velvety feel.”

Not everything will go to plan but Beresford revels in the problem solving aspects of her craft: “That bit’s not right, fix it; and that bit’s not right, fix that – it’s constant.”

Even during this brief visit, her passion for painting is evident.

“I am really focused when I’m in the studio,” she admits. “I literally fall into a trance. I have to set an alarm because otherwise I forget to pick up the kids from school.”

As Time Drifts on a River’s Path

Beresford’s latest exhibition, titled As Time Drifts on a River’s Path, features paintings from the two regions she has had a close relationship with since her childhood and with which she still has a deep connection: The Snowy Mountains and The Hawkesbury River.

“I tend not to paint the Hawkesbury all year because I yearn to improve my trade and I believe to get better I need to shift gear to a different landscape. It’s important for me to jump around a little bit. It keeps me alive and makes me really think about what I am trying to achieve.”

And what is she trying to achieve?

“I am always questioning myself, asking if I am expressing the feeling of the place when I paint. I want to capture the moments when I was on the water or the magic of the mountains. I want to remember the way I held the paintbrush while I was out there ‘plein air’ because it felt right. Each painting has its own story.”

Pieces of paper attached to her studio walls have handwritten notes reminding her to “express the purpose of place”, “celebrate the paint” and “lose yourself in the moment of expression”.

Remarkably, Beresford has only been painting full time for three years. She has built a strong following and is looking forward to the future with her characteristic calm yet energetic determination.

“I’m totally addicted. I can’t get enough of it. I know the only way I’m going to get better is to keep practising, to keep working every day. It’s who I am now.”

 

As Time Drifts on a River’s Path will be showing at Michael Reid Southern Highlands until 24 March.

Sydney Contemporary by Jason Mowen

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Jason Mowen reports from the 10th edition of Australasia’s largest art fair – where close to 100 local and international galleries converged last September to present dazzling and dynamic work by 500 emerging and established art stars.

Words & Photography Jason Mowen

You might remember an Argus story from 2022, Murrurundi to Matino, in which I mention a visit to Il Convento di Costantinopoli. The Italian home of the late Lord Alistair McAlpine, Il Convento is now one of the world’s most magical guesthouses – run by McAlpine’s equally magical Greek wife, Athena – and, pertinent to this particular tale, a repository of Australian art.

A slightly incongruous repository, considering its location in the southernmost reaches of Puglia, except that McAlpine was not only a great aesthete but also an Australophile. There are monumental pictures by his friend, Sidney Nolan, and dozens of texta drawings by Indigenous artist Ngarra, as well as a collection of Ilma, rare hand-held objects used in corroboree dances and ceremonies by the Bardi people, lining a vaulted hallway. They were, Athena told me, by the Bardi elder Roy Wiggan.

Fast forward to 2023 at Carriageworks, the cavernous 1880s railway workshop turned multi-arts cultural precinct in Eveleigh that is home, each September, to the art fair Sydney Contemporary. Arriving early, wearing the mandatory yellow vest as cherry pickers whizzed down aisles and gallerists put the finishing touches on their stands, I was thrilled to see a group of Wiggan’s Ilma inside the main hall.

Presented by the Brisbane gallery A Secondary Eye, they were arranged like brightly coloured totems between double doorways, each one taller than a person, painting and sculpture and performance art all at once. I thought about them after the fair and read up on Wiggan, who created his Ilma outside of their original ceremonial context for institutions and private collections as a way of preserving them for future generations. A sage move if I’m anything to go by, having met them halfway around the world on the thick stone walls of Il Convento before running into their colourful cousins at the fair.

Indigenous works feature prominently at Sydney Contemporary. Utopia Art exhibited giant canvases by Western Desert artists such as Bobby West Tjupurrula, George Tjungurrayi and Joseph Jurra Tjapaltjarri, alongside a striped painting by Emily Kame Kngwarreye. Roslyn Oxley showed the work of a single artist, Yolŋu woman Dhambit Munuŋgurr, whose dynamic bark paintings and larrakitj (hollow poles) stood en masse in otherworldly shades of cobalt blue. Another Yolŋu artist, Gaypalani Wanambi engraved images of trees, delicate and folkloric, onto the back of discarded yellow metal road signs for Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin, in a mixed hang with paintings by Betty Chimney and Regina Pilawuk Wilson and a massive quadriptych by photographer Dr Christian Thompson AO.

Now in its 10th year, Sydney Contemporary is Australasia’s most dazzling art fair and 2023 was no exception, with the work of 500 artists exhibited by 96 galleries from across Australia and the world. It’s not Frieze or Art Basel; you could probably knock a couple of zeros off the average price of a work. Although in many ways, therein lies the charm: Australian art is affordable. And Sydney knows how to throw a good party, with champagne or Campari bars around every turn.

I ran into my old friend David Robinson – David has lived in Bangkok for many years and was instrumental in establishing Thailand’s first portrait prize in 2021 – who was at Sydney Contemporary with American collector and portrait prize judge, Tom Van Blarcom. I asked Tom what he thought. “I’ve been three times and have thoroughly enjoyed it. It isn’t stuffy like the other fairs; it isn’t riddled with attitude – or at least not too much, it is the art world after all! But for the most part, the galleries make you feel welcome. At fairs like Art Basel, the attitude should be cut into small white cubes and sold in the gift shop. Frieze Seoul is going on right now but I’d rather be at Sydney Contemporary. Great art and It’s more fun. I’ve bought three pieces so far and am mulling over two more.”

For me this year’s fair was looking only, although I imagined what I would have bought had I been cashed up. Monochromatic works on paper such as Godwin Bradbeer’s Performance Suite 10, Homage to Stelarc #2 at James Makin Gallery, and the wall of Tiger Yaltangki’s Malpa Wiru (Good Friends) at Alcaston were definites. Wiggan’s Ilmas and a lineup of Dhambit Munuŋgurr’s exuberant bark paintings for sure.

 

I’d design a whole room around the monumental canvases by Virginia Cuppaidge at Nicholas Thompson Gallery, including the six-metre-wide Cytheria, a delicate gradient of yellow to lilac and orange marked by the odd Miró-like line; and another room for Archie Moore’s suite of skin-coloured shapes alongside Box Sculpture by Augusta Vinall Richardson at The Commercial. And hard to say no to one of the blocky Anthony Gormley sculptures at Galleria Continua from San Gimignano, an exciting addition to this year’s fair.

So much talent and too much terrific work to list, although I keep thinking about Gaypalani Wanambi. On install day, I was hanging out at Michael Reid’s stand as Toby, Daniel and Will positioned art, ready to hang. Among a flurry of levels and drills, frames and bubble wrap, I saw a couple of battered old road signs leaning against the wall. With so much construction paraphernalia whirling around I wondered where, between the hard hats and cherry pickers, they fit in. Peeking behind, Wanambi’s sublime etchings were revealed. A moment of pure joy – much like rediscovering Wiggan’s Ilma.

The US of A by Michael Reid OAM

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Our chairman and director travels to New York to take the pulse of the city’s vast art scene – and finds a country at a fascinating crossroads.

Words & Photography Michael Reid OAM

Over dinner in Berlin, in September before Donald Trump announced his first candidacy, I made a bet across the table that Trump – should he run – would be the next President of the United States. There was much chortling at this seemingly far-fetched idea, so I bet against everyone at the dinner for a good bottle of wine. One of two others paid up. I mention all this because I am a boundary rider. In checking the fences, I go to the border; I rove in my thinking far and wide. However, having clearly seen the coming of Trump, only recently having been on a business trip to New York City, have I fully understood the populist pull of his Make America Great Again mantra.

To understand how Republicans have become the party of the blue-collar working class, I must briefly digress.

There can be no doubt that in the last twenty years, the disparity across our world between those with the greatest resources and those with almost none has narrowed. The People’s Republic of China has elevated at least 400 million people from rural poverty to the edges of the middle class and beyond over this period. China, India, and Indonesia, to name but three countries, have done much to reduce poverty and world poverty. This closing of world wealth disparity has come at the expense of the American working class.

America is fraying at the edges. When I walk across the road in New York City, I look down to where I am walking. I mean, I really look down to where I am walking. Broken ankles, caused by innumerable potholes, are a day-to-day hazard in New York. American infrastructure is hurtling towards the third world. The American health, education, transport, and systems of law and order are akin to Robert De Niro’s Russian Roulette in The Deer Hunter.

Until Trump, the Republican Party attracted a constituency often characterised as the conservative, affluent class, sometimes likened to the new Brahmins or the pinnacle of the ruling elite. Trump – an overly orange-coloured, media-savvy figure – emerged as a blunt populist candidate, lacking a defined political ideology, and operating more from a standpoint of wanting power rather than entrenched political theories. He managed to resonate with and mobilise the frustrations and real anger of the working class, bringing them into the fold of the Republican Party, a move that deviated from the party’s conventional base.

Ironically, today the Democratic Party is seen as the political party of a woke ruling financial elite, lost in all their over-educated, pronoun-weaponised sensitivities and adrift from the real problems besetting real America. The Democratic Party, lost down the rabbit hole of the worthy, has had significant ramifications. They have lost the electoral votes needed to push through badly needed economic policies such as long-term public investment, as well as more progressive taxation, plus healthcare and educational reform, that would temper rising inequality. Add in a rebirth of the 1980s “greed is good” culture of self-interest and global market forces pushing only what’s good for the financial quarter, and you get a country facing a “We need to talk about Kevin” movie moment.

America, and consequently the world, is at a crossroads. There’s a pull between Trump’s authoritarianism and the ongoing muddle that is the struggle for American democracy. Presently, the Make America Great Again nostalgia for a world that has slipped away could well make Trump the next President of the United States of America. Although I do not think this will pass, it could.

I have undertaken this rather rambling preamble because, at the crossroads, America is a great nation. America is Great. The United States is a powerhouse of personal positivity. Amidst their fractious relations with the growing, possibly stumbling power of China, American manufacturing is returning to America. Employment is strong. The United States is the engine room of the world economy and international finance, more so today than ever with the city of London ‘Brexiting’. London’s growing financial irrelevance is New York City’s and America’s great gain. Whatever could have been done financially in the City of London can now be done ten or sixty-fold in New York. California’s $3+ trillion economy ranks it fifth in the world. California is expected to overtake Germany as the world’s fourth-largest economy in the next few years.

Although many dreams have died in New York City, there can be no doubt in my mind that America is a formidable economic rock. I would not and never bet against America. The capacity for an entire population “to get on the program” and act in concert as one is unmatched across the histories of any industrial society. It is within the midst of this heady, contradictory storm that I believe our galleries should, in some manner, have a presence in the American market in 2024.

To get to New York, Helsinki, the capital of Finland, is the long way around. But given that a Finnair business class ticket was less than half the cost of Qantas, and my overall indifference to another change-over in the war-torn Middle East, it was a good stopover option. The Finnish National Museum was solid.
Finnair was most excellent.

On the first day in New York, having walked off general old age and fatigue, my first stop was the Frick Madison and being able to see the Frick Collection at the old Whitney Museum. In their temporary home at the Whitney, you could get far closer to the Frick paintings than you ever could at the under-renovation original house museum. In the house museum, they placed furniture in front of their paintings. In the unobstructed clear view of a temporary museum setting, up close, the artworks were staggeringly strong.

Viewing an important 18th-century collection such as the Frick in wide sweeps made me realise that, until quite recently, art was undertaken by a few practitioners for the actual enjoyment in private of a very few. Art was then a great rarity and very much a power statement within a ruling elite. Maybe it is just that today.

A takeaway from the Frick Madison was the museum decorating whole walls with an element from a single painting. The 18th-century painting sat on top of a wall decorated with an element from that painting. Not just colouring a wall, but more like what we do in the Sydney gallery with, say, a Petrina Hicks photography exhibition, where we place a Hicks photograph on a much larger wall image of a Hicks photograph. Our stand at this year’s Sydney Contemporary art fair was a good example.

I visited the Metropolitan Museum, and the Manet and Degas exhibition was my overall art-viewing highlight for the month. Super lucky me, I went on the opening day to an early morning private viewing event. The exhibition was a truly original idea. Few exhibitions are. The friendship and animosity between the two artists was broadly documented in at least 100 paintings. Comprehensive in its undertaking and idea. A massive exhibition. The insurance value of this presentation means that the exhibition could never tour as is. The indemnity insurance costs would be vast. So New York is the place to see it.

I used the subway. Stop the presses.

Sunday was walking around ‘deep Chinatown’, the place for up-and-coming gallery spaces. I then had dinner with an Australian/US friend and former Christie’s director. He lives in upstate New York and works three days a week in the city. He is a generalist objects valuer, and the takeaway from him is that all the New York City local auctioneers own all the artworks and objects they auction. They buy outright art and objects for cash. They do not take consignments as such. Buying everything is apparently easier to post-sale administer, with greater potential for profit margins when they purchase well.

Monday was lunch and studio visits with New Yorkers Sebastian Blanck and Isca Greenfield-Sanders, artists we proudly exhibit in Sydney. A delightful afternoon. Their Manhattan studios were brilliant, and they are truly creative and good people. We talked widely across the New York arts scene as experienced by New York artists.

As part and parcel of the business reconnoitre, I decided to open a US bank account. Well, opening the bank account stalled on the last unexpected hurdle. I had everything. Every skerrick of paperwork I needed to open an account. In the end, they needed to cite my NSW driver’s licence as identification. Not that I was asked to bring it to the interview, mind you. Not that such a licence entitled me to drive in the United States. They had my passport. But it’s hardly surprising in a culture so reliant on cars. I wasted four hours of my life, which I’ll never get back. I’ll have to return with my driver’s licence during my next visit to the States. On the upside, I made a contact at Citibank.

Later that day, the Morgan Library was simply extraordinary – worth a visit off the beaten path. To sit in the private study of the titan of industry was to be immersed in a Gothic fantasy of a great Lord not born to the manner. He must have been one of the greatest book collectors to have ever walked the planet. I had the great fortune to be viewing a side exhibition, Seeds of Knowledge, and heard a collector who lent books to that exhibition tell a fellow collector how his books had not been opened in 57 years. The 17th-century illustrated volumes were in pristine condition. No unnecessary light, you see. Bibliomania is the only mania one should have the great fortune to be born into.

I went to Chelsea to visit Isca and Sebastian’s gallery, Miles McEnery Gallery. It’s a massive gallery, occupying four spaces across two streets and heavily focused on abstraction. I met Miles and he was charming, offering to assist me in any way possible. One can’t help but note that these galleries must make sales every week, all year round. They operate like well-oiled sales machines. Similarly, David Zwirner Gallery was extraordinarily large. Zwirner is renovating another floor above its current flagship and has an entirely empty lot, simply waiting for a brand-new US $100 million+ gallery.

That night was reminiscent of the street scenes in the movie Blade Runner. It was wet and winter dark, with neon lights reflecting off long, oily puddles. The roads were choked with literal gridlock out of the city for Thanksgiving. At my hotel, a group of homeless men were running screaming into the road. Apparently, Jesus is here. Sirens wailed at every pitch within the sound spectrum, creating a wall of sound. It was a movie within a movie.

Thanksgiving isn’t just a day; it’s a week-long celebration, and the week of Thanksgiving was in full swing. Preparations for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade made me feel like slipping the safety catch off my revolver. That nation’s propensity for mass consumption of popular culture, to an infantile level, is unparalleled anywhere in the entire universe. Disney isn’t just a media company; it’s a way of life. Endlessly joyful. And that joy is fucking endless.

I tried, really tried, to visit the National History Museum on Wednesday before the big day but was unable to navigate the crowds, the police, the traffic, the foot diversions associated with parade preparation. There were thousands upon thousands of people thrilled to be witnessing the parade’s preparations. Thankfully, Central Park was beautifully empty. I walked for hours, taking photos of the commemorative plaques on park benches. Many were heart-wrenchingly sad and very funny.

The next day was Thanksgiving itself, the biggest celebration of the American year. Thanksgiving isn’t a religious holiday; it’s a day for every American. It’s possibly America’s only real home-grown celebration. No presents are required, and the entire celebration revolves around food and family. I was very fortunate to spend lunch with a fellow old boy from St Paul’s College, within the University of Sydney. His family began the meal with prayer and a discussion as to what we were all thankful for. I am thankful for much.

America is a simple and deeply complex nation of confederated differences. Amidst this jigsaw collision, now let me ponder as to our gallery in the U S of A’s next small steps.

– Michael Reid OAM

New York Tips

Banana Smoothies at Bloomingdale’s Forty Carrots 59th Street
1000 Third Avenue, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10022

Frick Madison
945 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10021

Dinner at the Harvard Club of New York City
35 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036

Drinks at the National Arts Club
15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY 10003

Foot massage at Yan May Foot Spa
188 Hester Street, New York, NY 10013

Viewing 56 Leonard Street by Herzog & de Meuron
56 Leonard Street, New York, NY 10013

The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Bagels from Russ & Daughters
179 East Houston Street, New York, NY 10002

Coffee at the hole in the wall, Aimé Leon Dore
224 Mulberry Street, New York, NY 10012 

Reading the commemorative plaques on the benches at Central Park

A shave and haircut/head shave at The Barber’s Blueprint
181 Mulberry Street, New York, NY 10012

Breakfast at Balthazar
80 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012

Manet/Degas at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10028

Scone Grammar School’s principal Paul Smart by Victoria Carey

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After growing up as the son of a headmaster, Murrurundi resident Paul Smart was well prepared for his role as Scone Grammar School’s principal.

Words Victoria Carey

Photography Pip Farquharson

The familiar strains of big band leader Glenn Miller’s 1939 hit In the Mood fill the classroom. The famous jazz standard is heralding that it’s time to go home at Scone Grammar School. Two boys rush out, slinging backpacks over their shoulders as they walk towards the school gates, happily talking about the day. “We decided a few years ago to replace the traditional school bell with music,” explains Paul Smart, who has been principal of the school since 2007. “And the kids love it.”

‘Positive education’ is a phrase that often pops up as we speak about this dedicated teacher’s approach to his job.

“It’s all about enabling the kids at this school to grow to their potential. Our goal is to create students who are independent learners who feel comfortable moving forward in their lives and careers,” he tells me from his office at the school which first welcomed pupils onto the grounds in 1845.

The world of education was a natural career choice for Paul as both his parents were teachers. His father Peter was also the principal of a country school, just like his son. Smart senior was at Tamworth’s Calrossy Anglican School from May 1976 until December 1988. “Watching him calmly and quietly getting on with things, while having to make big decisions is something I have certainly taken away with me,” explains Paul. “And I’ve always enjoyed and loved connecting with people. That’s been the driver for me.”

After graduating from the University of New England, Paul’s first teaching role was in Sydney’s Campbelltown. His wife Julie, another teacher, worked in the Mt Druitt area. “We are both country people, but we spent our early teaching years in Sydney before coming to Scone,” he explains. “It was very hard at that time as there was a glut of teaching graduates.”

The couple were keen to return to rural life.

“We started to look for a new school and we were both fortunate enough to be offered roles as primary teachers at Scone Grammar in 1990,” says Paul.

It was to be nine very fulfilling years before they moved south to work at Tudor House at Moss Vale. Four years later a position as head of junior school, and later middle school head, at MacArthur Anglican School in Camden followed.

By now with three young sons in tow — James, Tom and Matthew — the call of the wide open country further north was growing stronger day by day.

Finally in 2007, nearly two decades after he and Julie had started at Scone Grammar, Paul was offered the role of principal. “We came back even though we never expected that we would,” he recalls.

When Paul became headmaster, Grammar had 314 students. Today, there are 650 enrolled from kindergarten to Year 12 plus 85 students in the Yellow Cottage Preschool. 

He attributes this growth to the strong school community.

“A lot of parent involvement went into helping make sure that the school got going, it was a big effort from those behind the commencement of the school. I think that has been a hallmark aspect of who we are, and it hasn’t changed,” he says. 

A strong sense of community also led the Smart family to their current home in Murrurundi nearly 11 years ago.

“There is a nice sense of forward thinking and community here. It has a good diversity of people that bring culture and connection,” he says.

Once home to the town’s post office employees, Pear Cottage used to be on Mayne Street, but the old timber house had been moved to Karalee Row with views through to Woolooma and Gundy in the east by the time the Smarts saw it for sale.

“We were leasing a place in Gundy but decided we wanted a place of our own. We needed room for our three boys and fell in love with this small block. It’s such a beautiful part of the world,” he says. “The position is spectacular.”

When Paul is at home, his favourite way of relaxing is to garden and do projects around the house. “Those are the sorts of things I like to do to take my mind into a different space away from the core business of being a principal,” he says.

But somehow, I think, even in those moments in the garden, the school’s motto, ‘And let us run with perseverance, the race marked out for us’ is not too far from his thoughts.

And finally, I ask, do you love your job? “Yes, absolutely!” is the resounding answer. “Well, how could I not? Every day is all about working out ways to help our students be their best.”

60 Kingdon Street, Scone, NSW. Telephone (02) 6545 3131. For more information, go to sgs.nsw.edu.au

Paul Smart’s Address Book

Ask Paul Smart for his favourite places in the Upper Hunter and it’s a question he finds hard to answer. “We are very lucky to have a variety of options of places here — and we try to go to all of them,” Paul explains. Here he recommends a few things for visitors to the region.

Burning Mountain Nature Reserve

Australia’s only naturally burning coal seam is just 20 kilometres north of Scone. Take the moderate 4 kilometre return walk and observe how the flora and fauna have adapted to having a fire below ground for 5,5000 years. “I have had an affinity to Burning Mountain from my early teenage years as we used to go there on picnics before there was any established path. It is a unique spot,” he says.
Telephone (02) 6540 2300. For directions, safety and practical information, visit nationalparks.nsw.gov.au

Graze at the Willow Tree Inn

Built in 1913, the Willow Tree Inn is now also home to the award-winning restaurant Graze. The house speciality is the dry aged Black Angus beef produced from cattle raised on the pastures edging Willow Tree’s Colly Creek.
“Over the range, I always enjoy going to Graze. I love a good steak and they do a beautiful job,” says Paul. “They also sometimes do a sashimi style entrée which is pretty special.”
New England Highway, Willow Tree, NSW. Telephone (02) 6747 7711. grazewillowtree.com.au

The Cottage

Housed in an 1860s cottage, this much-loved restaurant is popular with the Smart family. “It’s always one we love to go to,” says Paul.
196 Kelly Street, Scone, NSW. Telephone (02) 6545 1215. thecottagescone.com or @thecottagescone

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