Arts

South African ceramic artist Madoda Fani will be artist in residence at Denmark Arts from August to September. Madoda’s African heritage inspires his hand-coiled, burnished and smoke-fired pieces that are a contemporary evolution of the traditional ceramics of his country.

City of Coffs Harbour’s cutting-edge community building Yarrila Place has won construction industry acclaim, with the builders recognised for their part in the exceptional project at the Master Builders' Association NSW Northern Region Awards. Lipman, the commercial builders, won Best use of tiles, Best use of brick, Public Buildings over $50 million, and the esteemed title of Commercial Builder of the Year at the prestigious awards.    

The Kaniva and District Progress Association has been awarded a small grant ... [that] will help create the Wiregrass Main Street Heritage Trail. This is an exciting initiative which aims to shine a light on the social history of rural Australia through the lens of Percy Leason.

Jess Liddy. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And Moonta Bay’s Bev Dry sees beauty in almost everything and anything in order to create magical pieces of artwork.  

Naracoorte Lucindale Council's Arts & Cultural Facilitator Jane Ellis recently took the After School Art Club on a walking tour of Naracoorte's Art Trail. Naracoorte's newest art installation is at the Naracoorte Child Day Care Centre by artist Taylr Jay.

Jenni and Trevor Campbell. On our way home from our holiday in Northern New South Wales, we called in to meet Chris Fussell, the sculptor who is making Donald’s giant kookaburra ... Chris has our kookaburra well on the way and hopes to be able to bring it to Donald in the spring.

A new sculptural public artwork by Kabi Kabi artist and cultural leader Lyndon Davis will fittingly welcome visitors to Sunshine Coast City Hall with a story that is significant to the region’s First Nation’s people. Sunshine Coast Mayor Rosanna Natoli unveiled the piece today (July 1) ... “The 4.5 metre tall work titled Dura Gunga (Mullet & Sea Eagle), embodies the rich cultural narrative of the Kabi Kabi people,” Mayor Natoli said.

Laura Jones’ prize-winning portrait of Winton is helping to promote a documentary film supposedly aimed to save koalas from extinction ... The multimillion-dollar, multinational koala industry is part of the problem, not the solution. Well-meaning people are unwittingly donating money to increase koalas’ suffering. Sensible fire management could restore healthy and safe landscapes with naturally low densities of healthy koalas ...

Local magpie family, known as Hilary, Martin and Princess have come first in the wildlife section of the Camberwell Rotary Art Show. Captured in gouache (watercolour) on paper, local artist Robyn Riley has propelled the trio to stardom.

The author of the renowned ‘Silver Brumby’ series of books, Elyne Mitchell, has been nominated to have a park named after her. Wodonga Council is seeking feedback on a proposal for the Elyne Mitchell Park to be established in the Kinchington Estate on the southern outskirts of the city.

Corryong College presented its own version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland to appreciative audiences from June 19th to 21st, infusing contemporary elements into the timeless story. More than 100 students developed their acting, singing, musical and technical skills throughout Semester 1 culminating in a ‘wonderful wonderland’ of characters and musical experiences...

After a year of filming When the House is Empty: The Journey of Four Seasons is finally nearing its long-awaited completion. The film comprises over 200 hours of footage, spanning three locations, four major shoots and twenty-seven additional ones, telling a story of desire, love, loss and humour.

Nhill College celebrated ‘World Music Day’ on Friday with over 60 students performing. The Year 7 Bucket Drumming Group welcomed our concert goers with a series of traditional and not so traditional patterns they have been working on in class. This was followed by the Junior Voices singing, ‘I Am The Earth’, written by Glyn Lehmann in 2008.

Rachel Hagan. A fabulous creature from the deep has washed up at the Warooka Hotel, helped ashore by Marion Bay artist Jason Swales. Across the past two weeks, Mr Swales has brought his love for the coast onto Main Street, Warooka by creating two enormous murals at the hotel and the Ballara Art and Lifestyle Retreat.

The piano is often considered the ‘King of Instruments’ as no other instrument covers all 88 notes of the frequency range and its number of available octaves is unparalleled.   Its versatility of sound is also beyond compare as it can create sounds as soft as a whisper or as loud and rumbling as a thunderstorm. When pianist and composer Adam Cook sits down to play this most revered of instruments something quite magical happens.

Well-known Allora artists, Malcolm and Kerry Nicholson of the Nicholson Art company have spent a few weeks in Condamine turning a big tin shed into a showpiece. Businessman Eric Liljegren of Condamine Seeds and Tyres organised Malcolm and Kerry to paint a mural based on his business but also to reflect on the rural community and district of Condamine.

The upcoming Words in Winter festival promises diverse sessions exploring crime, ideology, farming, self-publishing, history, and memory. Attendees will delve into the impacts of crime in small communities, the influences of political ideologies, the journey of saffron farming, the intricacies of self-publishing, Melbourne’s history and ancient memory techniques applied in the modern world.

Australians bought 69.8 million new books in 2023, 70.9 million in 2022, and 65.4 million in 2021. In a world where there is so much competition for our attention, Australians continue to read, and we continue to read books written by Australians. Now, you can access the books you want to read through the new ARR.News Bookstore.

Cambooya Hall will play host to the Festival of Small Halls on Wednesday, 24 July. ECMA award winning Quote the Raven, formed by Jordan Coaker and Kirsten Rodden-Clarke ... Hailey Calvert ... Festival of Small Halls is a series of tours that takes the best folk and contemporary acoustic artists ...

Gemma Purcell. When your father is a physicist it’s hard to avoid experiments and well known Narrandera artist, performer, musician, teacher and conductor Lizzie Walsh happily confesses to being an experiment. "Dad wanted a classical musician in the family, so when my parents were expecting me, he was forever steering Mum’s belly toward the Mozart or Beethoven on the record player. I think it worked!"

The great didgeridoo virtuoso William Barton and powerhouse violinist Véronique Serret blend song lines and storytelling in Heartland, a compelling collaborative work that will tour the Darling and Sunraysia regions this June ... Supporting this tour is Music in the Regions, who, across their three years of operations have made a mark on regional NSW, successfully touring world class classical music…

Warwick Fry. 'Talking' to some (but not all) AI bots can be like talking to salespersons, call centres, MBAs and marketing executives ... The evolution of AI is leading thinkers (and novelists like Gibson) to revisit philosophical questions like what is consciousness, free will, identity? These are fields of enquiry which have been lacking since the commercialisation of academia ...