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Articles on Painting

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A detail from Vincent Van Gogh’s, Olive grove with two olive pickers, December 1889 Saint-Rémy, oil on canvas 73.3 x 92.2 cm. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo © Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands

Here’s looking at: Vincent Van Gogh’s Olive grove with two olive pickers

Ted Snell, The University of Western Australia

The pickers and sinewy olives in this painting all strain upward towards the hope of spiritual salvation. But six months after he completed it, Vincent Van Gogh walked out into a wheat field and shot himself.
‘Maus’ and ‘Watchmen’ are two of the most well-known graphic novels. Ken Whytock/flickr

How the graphic novel got its misleading moniker

Joel Priddy, Penn State

The graphic novel has become a literary phenomenon, but the name doesn’t adequately describe the medium’s flexibility, diversity and potential.
Detail of Judy Watson, black ground (1989) courtesy of the National Gallery of Victoria. © Judy Watson/Licensed by VISCOPY, Australia

Here’s looking at: black ground, 1989 by Judy Watson

Ted Snell, The University of Western Australia

Judy Watson pours ochre and pigment onto unstretched canvases laid on the ground. The puddling and drying created an image of a simple termite mound with a profound connection to country.
Mike Parr’s performance work ‘Jackson Pollock the female’ is part homage and part sabotage. National Gallery of Australia

Here’s looking at: Mike Parr’s Jackson Pollock the Female

Edward Scheer, UNSW Sydney

Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles is one of Australia’s most famous cultural acquisitions. When Mike Parr lay supine before it, streaked with his own blood, he offered a new way of looking at the act of painting.
Detail of Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, Dibirdibi Country – Topway 2016. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Collection Image courtesy Alcaston Gallery © The Estate of the Artist and Viscopy Australia

Here’s looking at: Dibirdibi Country – Topway by Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori

Ian McLean, University of Wollongong

Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori began painting in her 80s, and over ten years created an extraordinary body of work. Her paintings are more like music and dance – depicting the stories of the Kaiadilt people for the first time.
Detail of Frida Kahlo, Self-portrait with monkeys 1943. The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Mexican Art © 2016 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico DF

Here’s looking at Frida Kahlo’s Self-portrait with monkeys

Barry Carr, La Trobe University

The Mexican artist Frida Kahlo kept monkeys as pets and painted them often. They symbolised the children she couldn’t have and were worshipped as gods of fertility in Aztec times.
Big Blue Lavender Bay, one of the three paintings at the centre of trial. AAP Image/Genevieve Gannon

Is your artwork genuine and who can you trust to advise you?

Felicity Strong, The University of Melbourne

The conviction of two men in relation to the sale of forged Brett Whiteley paintings indicates that Australia needs to get its act together when it comes to authenticating artworks.
Why is Whistler’s mother one of the most persistently famous images in the world? James McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in grey and black no. 1 (Portrait of the artist's mother) 1871. Image courtesy of the NGV.

Here’s looking at: ‘Whistler’s Mother’

Ted Snell, The University of Western Australia

Whistler’s Mother, which arrives in Melbourne on March 25, is one of the most famous portraits in the world. But James Whistler never wanted the sitter’s identity known.

Related Topics

  1. Archibald prize
  2. Art
  3. Art history
  4. Australian art
  5. Give me perspective
  6. Here's looking at
  7. Portraiture
  8. Visual art
  9. Visual art review
  10. Visual arts

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