Galah's art editor Fiona Bateman cherrypicks new works by Australian contemporary artists.
This work is the most delightful example of the joy that colour and form can bring. Brennan’s practice spans four decades and includes painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics and smartphone movies. A long history of using text in her work is seen these days only through her mysterious titles, which provoke a complicated connection with what is otherwise pure visual delight.
@angebre1 @thecommercial @niagaragalleries
Why wait any longer for the world to begin (2023), oil on linen, 220 x 180 cm
Western Desert Pintupi artist Adrian Jurra Tjungurrayi uses rhythmic compositions to draw on familial and cultural artistic lineages. The traditional land of the Pintupi people lies west of Lake Macdonald and Lake Mackay in Western Australia.
@alcaston_gallery @papunyatulaartists
Yunala (2023), synthetic polymer paint on linen, 122 x 122 cm
3 Phoebe Hillard, Amidst the forest floor
Wouldn’t this make a beautiful Galah cover! Hillard works from the New South Wales Northern Tablelands and finds inspiration in the landscape around her. “The rubble of the forest floor has always fascinated me with its endless and diverse beauty,” she says. “Every time I walk in a forest, I spend the majority of the time studying the ground along the paths where I find as much beauty in the micro as I do in the views around me.”
Amidst the forest floor (2024), soft pastel on paper, 69.8 x 49.7 cm
Working in still life is new for Cummins, who’s based in Mittagong in the New South Wales Southern Highlands. This body of work explores the relationship between light and darkness and how one cannot exist without the other. I’m loving her sasanqua camelias, with their bold colour and classic form.
@lilycummins @bowralartgallery
In the quiet IV (2024), oil on timber, 25.5 x 20.5 cm
Based in Collaroy on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Rosnell paints in oils with a focus on sunbathers and ferries, celebrating the glorious Sydney coastal life. This current series of foreshortened beach figures, often reading, are making me yearn for summer.
@jenrosnell_art @michaelreid.northernbeaches
Rosnell, Sunbathing Indi (2024), oil on board, 43 x 43 cm
Born on the banks of the Fitzroy River (Martuwarra) at Noonkanbah community, Kurarra has continuously painted her country in the west Kimberley region of Western Australia for more than 30 years “Martuwarra is my river country,” she says. “This painting is all about the Fitzroy River, which flows down through Noonkanbah where I live.”
Martuwarra (2024), acrylic on canvas, 90 x 60 cm
Portals into an underground realm are represented in Budge’s beautiful paintings, where she turns our world upside down and has us standing on clouds. I adore the curved lines in these works and the title, too, which comments on contemporary political life.
They have developed an allergy to questions (2024), oil on canvas, 42 x 35.5 cm
Coulter’s perfectly executed works come after a lengthy process of generating ideas, sketching, and rearranging colour and form. As she explains: “The gestures of paint flatten into a two-dimensional space, where deconstructed drawings and ideas recombine to subtly purport ideas about art and life that transgress beyond the visual.”
@emma_coulter @jamesmakingallery
Space in motion (2024), synthetic polymer on linen, 81.5 x 81.5 cm
If you'd like to get in touch with Galah's art editor Fiona Bateman, find her over on @fionabatemanart
