LONG SHADOWS: THE GREAT WAR, AUSTRALIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
has been extended at the University Gallery until 1 December. Don't miss this opportunity to see a truly important exhibition about the ongoing impacts of the First World War.

If you have already been and want to revisit the exhibition again online, you can explore the installation images here!

The University Gallery is offering up an array of special free events for the University's 2018 Open Day, including basket weaving, guided tours and music performances by local vocalist Georgie Jones. See below for all the details and we will see you there!

OPEN DAY at the University Gallery
SATURDAY 25 AUGUST

SPECIAL EVENTS:

Basket weaving with Aunty Tracey Coombes
at the University Gallery, Callaghan Campus
11–11:30am: weaving demonstration
11:30–2pm: drop-in basket making workshop

Discover the ancient craft of basket weaving with Kamilaroi artist Aunty Tracey Coombes. Starting with a half-hour weaving demonstration at 11am, Aunty Tracey will guide you through the basics of basket coiling and discuss Indigenous weaving techniques and materials. Following the demonstration, make your own basket in an open, drop-in workshop until 2pm. During this event you can experience our current exhibition Painting the Song, which draws from the celebrated Aboriginal art collection of Deborah Sims and Matt Dickson.

Open Day Guided Tour
of the Visual Arts and Media Studies building, Fine Art workshops and University Gallery, finishing with Georgie Jones’ 1pm performance at the gallery:
Session Three – 12:15–1:00pm. Departing from the FEDUA precinct.

Georgie Jones performances
at the University Gallery, Callaghan Campus
1pm and 2:30pm

World-class Newcastle vocalist Georgie Jones will perform two sets at the University Gallery at 1pm and 2:30pm. Described as ethereal, delicate, raw and soulful, one reviewer recently observed of Jones: “…you’re about to experience something special when a naked voice can silence a room”. Jones will perform a mix of her own songs and interpretations of well-known covers. The performances will resonate with our current exhibition, Painting the Song,  which explores the relationship between Aboriginal Art and music.

These events are FREE, all welcome to attend.

For more information on Open Day tours visit: https://bit.ly/2M8Gdzp

Our current group exhibition Memoranda opened this past Saturday 2 June in dedication to our dear friend and colleague
Dr Angela Philp.

Comprising 45 artists, including past and present staff and students, Memoranda is conceived as a celebration of the visual arts community to which Angela belonged and contributed
so much.

Angela began her career as a secondary visual arts teacher in Sydney before going on to work as a Senior Lecturer in Education at the National Gallery of Australia, and Lecturer in Art History and Theory at the Canberra School of Art.  She was the Director of the Nolan Gallery in Canberra and the inaugural Director of the Canberra Museum and Art Gallery before completing her PhD on ‘Museums and the Public Sphere in Australia’ at the Australian National University.

Joining UON in 2007 as Lecturer in Art History and Theory, she shared a wealth of knowledge and expertise with her students over a period of almost 11 years. Angela held the position of Deputy Head of School for research, establishing systems and processes for supporting and developing research. Her interests spanned feminism and art; museology; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art; politics and food in contemporary art; the creative industries and the museum sector. As Lecturer in Fine Art in the School of Creative Industries, she initiated and developed the Museology course, arranged international excursions for Art History students including a trip to China in 2016 and supported the establishment of the Friends of UON Margaret Olley Postgraduate Scholarship and University Gallery interns.

Angela was part of the Watt Space Committee and Valuer and Advisor for the University’s Art Collection. Widely published, she was recently commissioned to write chapters for Thames and Hudson on the topics of Renaissance painting. She was in the process of researching and writing her own publication on food and art.

Memoranda will continue until 14 July 2018. 

The University of Newcastle is proud to have the significant work 'Interior' 1974 by Margaret Olley from the University Collection on loan to Orange Regional Gallery. Curated by Gavin Wilson, the exhibition Interiors probes how we are shaped by the spaces that surround us, through the eyes of a select group of modernist and contemporary artists. On until 24 June 2018. Repost below from Orange Regional Gallery instagram showing a review by Christopher Allen in The Weekend Australian 5/6 May, 2018, with our Margaret Olley front and centre!

If you would like to discuss a donation of artwork to the University Collection, contact us here

Please join the artist for the exhibition opening at The University Gallery, Saturday 21 April at 2pm.

Since 1981, Imants Tillers has been using his ‘canvasboard system’, in which multiple painted 
boards are arranged in grids to form large-scale paintings. Also known as the Book of Power, the project was inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé’s idea that ‘everything in the world exists to end up a book’. Through this system, Tillers’ aims to accommodate of ‘all modes of expression: from the trivial to the serious, the banal to the profound’. Using predominately appropriated imagery, Tillers combines existing artworks and texts to address a wide range of themes. Each canvasboard is numbered on the reverse, beginning at the number one, in November 1981, and ascending methodically towards the goal of infnity. The present count has exceeded 108,000. 

From the Studio presents 10 paintings made up of approximately 840 of these panels. The works are drawn from Tillers’ personal collection and span four decades of his career, from the 1980s to the present. They address issues of power, identity and diaspora and also chronicle a shift in Tillers’ practice towards increasing layers of imagery and text. In the early 1990s, textual references such as poetry and place names gradually made their way into Tillers’ vortex, becoming crucial elements of the work. Around this time his technique also changed from a more painterly style to his now distinctive method of masking, cutting and layering. From the Studio underlines the scope, continuity and cumulative power of the ‘canvasboard system’. 

A University Gallery Project – curated by Olivia Sophia 

Don't miss the opportunity to view the incredibly accomplished works by Newcastle artist and PhD candidate Peter Tilley, showing at the University Gallery until 14 April 2018.

Read about it in the recent wonderful review 'Brilliant Tilley' by the Newcastle Herald here

And if you can't make it in person, view the exhibition installation and read the catalogue on our 2018 exhibitions page.

PETER TILLEY
SEEING THE SHADOW
21 March - 14 April 2018
The University Gallery
The University of Newcastle

Yarn by Sally Bourke and Nicole Chaffey & In/Site by Michelle Catanzaro are underway this week and we are thrilled with the result. Come along to see the exhibitions, maybe buy yourself a stunning artwork, or hang out with the artists this Saturday 4 November from 1:30pm at the launch. Exhibition continues until 18 November.