In celebration of the Guringai Festival and NAIDOC Marianne Newman Gallery presents Colours of Yuendumu - Warlukurlangu Painters, a display of vibrant paintings and prints including works by collectable artists Shorty Jangala Robertson, Judy Napangardi Watson and Liddy Napanangka Walker.

Located in Yuendumu, 300km northwest of Alice Springs, Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation is a not for profit, fully Aboriginal owned and governed art centre with over 600 members. 100% of the sales go directly to the artists and their community projects. Manager Cecilia Alfonso states, "The art centre is both a stronghold of traditional Walpiri culture and an essential part of Yuendumu's community life."

Known for artwork with strong design elements and a stunning colour palette, Warlukurlangu artists are well regarded internationally and are amongst the most widely exhibited of any contemporary Aboriginal art, with Yuendumu artists having participated in well over 1500 group exhibitions. Having over 25 years of painting history, Warlukurlangu is one of the top five art centres in Australia.

Established in 1985 Warlukurlangu, meaning ‘fire dreaming', was one of the earliest and most significant art centres in the Nothern Territory. Instrumental in the establishment of Warlukurlangu, Paddy Japaljarri Stewart and Paddy Japaljarri Sims, alongside other male elders, painted the Yuendumu school doors to pass on Jukurrpa (dreaming) knowledge to the youth in 1983. These doors are now on permanent display at the South Australian Museum.

Daughter of two founding artists, Paddy Japaljarri Sims and Bessie Nakamarra Sims, Alma Nungarrayi Granites taught for many years at the Yuendumu school and has been painting with Warlukurlangu since 1987. Alma depicts stories passed down from her father Paddy Japaljarri Sims, the last living Walpiri Japaljarri who knows all the traditional stories, songs and dances for the Star or Seven Sisters Dreaming. Alma paints the Seven Sisters aspect while Paddy Sims' part of the story is about how the Milky Way was lifted up into the sky. When Paddy Sims (born around 1917) dies a whole body of traditional knowledge and culture will pass away with him.

Some of the stories survive through his family and their ability to paint at Warlukurlangu. They keep the culture alive as well as being able to earn a living ethically. Alma, her brother Otto (current Chairman), his wife, Alma's sisters and all their children and grandchildren paint at the centre.

Since 2007 Alma has been exploring her techniques and expanding her dreaming knowledge by painting at the centre everyday. She has been a part of many national and international exhibitions including Desert Mob at the Araluen Art Centre in Alice Springs.

Opening on Friday 4 June from 6-8pm, Indigenous curator and independent arts writer, Djon Mundine OAM, will give the opening address.

Colours of Yuendumu - Warlukurlangu Painters is on show at Marianne Newman Gallery, 1 Albany Street, Crows Nest from 11 February - 13 March 2010. Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 10am - 5pm.

Opening at Marianne Newman Gallery on Friday 30 April will be "Characteristic Views". Geoffrey Adams and Lynne Sung explore the Australian landscape, discovering its changing atmospheres from both personal and historical perspectives and in distinct styles of painting and mixed media. Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO, Governor of New South Wales will give the opening address on Friday 7 May.

Practising art for over 20 years, Geoffrey Adams is continually inspired by the Riverina landscape where he spent his childhood in Coleambally. In his most recent series of landscapes Adams captures the rolling hills of the Riverina region with a looseness and a softness which reflects his familiarity with the region while at the same time welcomes the viewer into the landscape.

Adams' quick and fluid watercolours also suggest this intimate personal connection and he captures the colour and texture of the Riverina's red dirt by incorporating the use of clay and earth pigments.

A graduate of Sydney's National Art School with a major in painting, Adams is fascinated with the exploration of materials and techniques, pushing the boundary of the medium itself. Adams uses unconventional methods and paints with knives and sticks as well as brushes to produce unusual and distinctive effects when combined with his characteristic coloured drips and spatter.

"I am devoting more of my time and energy to the processes of underpainting and using different coloured washes and glazes to represent the moods of the landscape," Adams explains. Adams is able to replicate the changing moods of the landscape using this technique, along with his choice of colour palettes, to place the images in time, from the dry heat of summer or the pink hues of dawn to the crispness of winter.

Lynne Sung's works revolve around her interest in how perceptions of the landscape are shaped through personal experience and written documentation of the land, past and present, fictional and factual. Intrigued by words, Sung incorporates writing or text like marks in her uniquely layered works.

Watkin Tench travelled to Australia with the First Fleet and recorded his personal observations of the landscape in his diary. Inspired by his writings Sung speaks of Tench as, "a young man full of enthusiasm for the journey and a positive approach to the new settlement." She created direct responses to these writings and then further developed the idea to produce mixed media works that describe vaguely familiar landscapes. These textured works are built up underneath the distant horizon, overlaying maps, text, thread and translucent fabrics to create a tactile interpretation of this historical diary. Through these materials emerge the shapes of distant hills, dry grass, and beach.

Lynne Sung is a founding member of the 6+ Group and practices from her Lilyfield studio. After a career as a successful education writer Sung returned to study Fine Arts and her art soon reached semi final level of the TAFE national drawing prize. She has been a finalist in numerous art competitions in both Sydney and Melbourne and in 2009 Sung won the Works on Paper Prize at the Glebe Art Show.

Characteristic Views is on show at Marianne Newman Gallery, 1 Albany Street, Crows Nest from 30 April - 29 May 2010. Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 10am - 5pm 

Joseph Austin and Natasha Florean are both artists inspired by the organic elements in our natural world. Opening at Marianne Newman Gallery on Friday 19 March, these exhibitions feature richly coloured etchings and paintings of oceania and detailed collagraphs of interlaced images.

Memoirs of Oceania has evolved from Joseph Austin's experience of living on a tropical coastline and references his family's 1970s shell collection. Inspired by the shapes and patterns apparent in marine life, Austin says that he wants to "evolve the designs into objects of mystery and enigma connected to the natural world but open to other possibilities". This is achieved by breaking down forms and developing strong, symbolic graphic images.
 
Austin is presently focused on etching and painting and the reoccurrence of warm tones, vivid reds and oranges, exploits their emotive qualities. He has an ability to transform organisms of the ocean and their delicate movements into two dimensional, intricate and dynamic representations.

Austin received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Tasmania and after involvement with artist run gallery spaces in both Tasmania and South Australia he currently practices at his Coogee studio.


Sea Earth and Flora is created around the question Quo vadis? Where are we going? How do we as humans fit into the make-up of the world, specifically sea earth and flora. Natasha Florean's collagraphs reflect this complex structure with textural images built layer upon layer. She describes her finished work, "beneath the simple surface there are often hidden, difficult structures. Individual layers gradually break: what is hidden beneath the surface appears on the surface and vice versa. What is visible at first glance becomes part of the inner structure."

Florean's imagination is captured by her surrounding environment and she explores the small role we play as part of an unimaginably large whole. The line work and compositions of her art produce a synergy of constant motion, a definite approach to questioning where this movement might take us. Her subdued colour palette makes direct links to the sea and earth and human figures often appear amidst elaborate atmospheres.

After completing a printmaking degree at Sydney's National Art School, Florean went on to study painting in Florence and since then has shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide. In 2009 she had a major exhibition in the City Gallery of Bratislava, Slovak Republic and the gallery purchased a number of her works for the city's collection.

Memoirs of Oceania and Sea Earth and Flora are on show at Marianne Newman Gallery, 1 Albany Street, Crows Nest from 19 March - 24 April 2010.  Gallery is CLOSED 2-12 April for Easter break. Gallery Hours:  Tuesday to Saturday 10am - 5pm

Norio Takamiya, and Robyn Kennedy are two artists as diverse as you could expect to find from an exhibition entitled East Meets West but both are influenced by Japanese culture, aesthetic and medium.  Opening at Marianne Newman Gallery on Thursday 11 February, this show features distinctive, traditional Japanese woodblock prints and exquisite textile collage works of outstanding craftsmanship.

Japanese born and trained, Norio Takamiya immigrated to Australia in1989 as a postgraduate art student. His brightly coloured woodblock prints weave the themes of his lifelong engagement with "cultural juxtaposition" and identity, both collective and personal. Takamiya investigates Orientalism and globalisation ... he explores the dichotomies of East/West, old/new, usual/unusual by borrowing ideas from other cultures and juxtaposing iconic images to reveal a new, different allure to the original elements.  The result is both charming and humorous with characters like Tin Tin, Astroboy, Mt Fuji, the Sydney Opera House and references to the Bauhaus and artists like van Gogh, Magritte and Klimt.

Completing his Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong in 1996, Takamiya has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in both Australia and Japan. In a review of Takamiya's 2006 Canberra exhibition Sasha Grishin said "... Takamiya is not a well-known name in Australian printmaking, but this large exhibition of his woodblock prints suggest that he should be taken seriously as an artist."  Since then Takamiya has enjoyed a substantial and increasing following.

Robyn Kennedy is a Sydney based, collage artist creating works on paper or canvas using exquisite antique textiles. She features images of exotic, oriental women or abstract works, intricately melding diverse cultures and fabrics into pieces of beauty, harmony and exceptional craftsmanship.

Kennedy's lifelong interest in design and the decorative arts became focused when she began to work in the interior design industry in the mid 1990s. Surrounded by exquisite and extremely diverse textiles, the remnants of which often ended up on rubbish piles, she was inspired to create unique contemporary artworks.

The beauty of pattern interests Kennedy and she highly values hand made objects in a world that is dominated by mass produced articles and digitally generated images.  This passion constantly motivates her to develop her individual style and techniques for working with and embellishing a diverse range of textiles.

The materials used in the current artworks are a blend of antique textiles and contemporary fashion and interior textiles, paper, acrylic paint, beads and brass stampings. The antique textiles from Japan are a mix of altar cloths, temple mats and silk brocade obis from the 1920s and later and those from India have been collected by Kennedy over the last 12 years when visiting Jaisalmer, Jaipur and Udaipur in Rajasthan - gold and silver hand embroidered sections and mirror work are from Rajasthani wedding dresses.  All works are finished with fine metallic and cotton thread embellishment.

The imagery is eclectic and includes exotic, Asian inspired and richly adorned women; abstract/modern creations with an assimilation of ideas expressed through the composition of unusual textures and textiles; moments in time - works symbolizing living and dreaming.
Kennedy's works are imbued with spirituality and harmony as she intricately melds the diverse cultures, fabrics and styles of past and present.

For all who are devotees of Japanese aesthetics this is a fine exhibition which also complements the great Kitagawa Utamaro's woodblock prints currently showing at the Art Gallery of NSW.

Robyn Kennedy will hold an Artists' talks on Saturday 27 February at 2:30, please RSVP.

East meets West is on show at Marianne Newman Gallery, 1 Albany Street, Crows Nest from 11 February - 13 March 2010.
Gallery Hours:  Tuesday to Saturday 10am - 5pm

This Christmas Marianne Newman Gallery presents Of the Landscape, a curated mixed show of artists who work with the Australian landscape its mystery, its flora and fauna.

Geoffrey Adams, Tony Ameneiro, Geraldine Berkemeier, Ghyslaine Bluett, Peter Day, Desmond Freeman, Jo-anne Fuller, Pamela Griffith, Colin Husband, Christine Shoji, Lynne Sung and Sandra Williams are the featured gallery artists whose works portray our ever inspiring, rich landscape.

The artworks have been created using a multitude of mediums including painting, drawing, ceramic, digital images and printmaking.

Through the exploration of technique and the manipulation of materials Adams, Freeman and Williams express the diversity of the landscape and its varying moods. 

Colour, patterns and texture play an important role for Bluett in her depictions of the Northern Territory and Day, with the assistance of a helicopter, focused on these elements to create his manually enhanced digital prints. Husband represents the patterned vegetation of Mt Ettamolong.

Ameneiro and Berkemeier have a strong interest in mapping the land ... Berkemeier's prints are more abstracted with a texture and colour palette that soothe. Ameneiro has combined subject with surface as seen with his ink drawn images of Mount Gibraltar (Southern Highlands) on polished Gibraltar trachyte stone. Fuller has created ‘edible landscapes' with her handmade, fired ceramic tiles.

Shoji draws with a softness and a fluid motion that beautifully captures Sydney's foreshores while Griffith's detailed and vibrant etchings portray our marine life.

In her unique layered style Sung explores the bushfires that destroyed Marysville, Victoria

There is an intrinsic link between the people of Australia and the land on which we live, providing a constant source of inspiration and fulfilment for artists and viewers alike. Of the Landscape is sure to please a wide audience as we celebrate the diversity of Australia in this season of giving.

From Antiquities to Today features printmaking artists Terese McManus and Trevor Riach who both have detail oriented approaches to their practices. In differing styles McManus' works present flowing textures interlaid with symbols while Riach depicts flawless rural landscapes. The exhibition will be opened by Gary Shinfield, printmaker, artist and teacher, on Friday 23 October.

Jan Melville and Annie Day are both prolific artists who will exhibit beside one another at the Marianne Newman Gallery in Crows Nest.

Marianne Newman Gallery will be featuring an award winning emerging artist, Heather Kepski, in the upcoming exhibition A Touch of Red. This series of ‘virtual’, minimal colour landscapes meld Sydney’s harbour and skyline with Kepski’s imagination.

Inspired by English artist John Virtue whose works of London combine the depth of rich black and the starkness of white, Kepski’s series explores the idea of a recognizable place and the effect that occurs when landmarks, which make a scene identifiable, are interspersed with virtual locations created in Kepski’s mind. The end results provoke a sense of familiarity within the dreamlike landscapes causing pangs of recognition amidst the confusion of contradicting angles and planes and a lost sense of time.

The majority of artworks on show are mixed media on paper created with charcoal, shellac, ink, pastel, gouache and gesso. The lines and brushstrokes are soft and have an almost delicate feel in their foggy environs. The mixture of tight and loose line work assists to create the effect of the virtual, calling on the viewer to fill in the gaps of where this place might exist and what it means. Also featured are solar prints with multiple plates and pressings that revolve around the title of the exhibition A Touch of Red.

Kepski describes A Touch of Red as, “allusions to travel, history, cultural connections and spirituality can be found in all of the images. ‘Place’ cannot be separated from them. However, all images promise hope within times that can be turbulent.” This hope stands out in the warmth of the red that appears throughout her works.

Kepski’s work has gone to private collectors all over Australia and to France, Hong Kong and the USA. She exhibits on the first Sunday of every month in the Bundeena/Maianbar Art Trail on Sydney’s southern outskirts.

Kepski works prolifically in multiple mediums and this show further investigates the style and theme of her prize winning work at the 2007 Royal Easter Show.

Please join us at the gallery for a talk with Heather Kepski on Saturday 8 August at 2:30 pm, RSVP please.

A Touch of Red will be on show at Marianne Newman Gallery, 1 Albany Street, Crows Nest from 31st July – 29th August 2009.
Gallery Hours:  Tuesday to Saturday 10am – 5pm

Marianne Newman Gallery presents “Boolarng Nangamai -Together Dreaming” a collection of work by Aboriginal artists living on the South Coast or near saltwater. This collective of artists boasts a continuing culture that is proud of its traditions and embraces new expression in different mediums. The exhibition is a dynamic display of innovative artwork in the mediums of painting, weaving, sculpture, shellwork and jewellery.