Bett Gallery in Singapore

Bett Gallery will be on show at the Australian Consulate in Singapore in an exhibition featuring selected ACGA (Australian Commercial Galleries Association) member galleries.  Urbandigenous will take place from the 1st to the 31st of August 2013.  Bett Gallery will be featuring the work of Richard Bell and Vernon Ah Kee.

Hobart City Art prize finalists

Belinda Winkler, Brink 2013, bronze and steel photo: Peter Whyte

Judges for the 2013 City of Hobart Art Prize have chosen 35 works from a field of 490 entries.
Congratulations to our Bett Gallery artists (and staff, hi Mish) included in the finalists. The winner will be announced on 19 July 2013.

Jane Burton
Amanda Davies
Neil Haddon
Annika Koops
Mish Meijers
Tom O'Hern and Lou Conboy
Megan Walch
Tricky Walsh
Belinda Winkler

Sculpture by the Sea Dick Bett AM Memorial Invitation

Cluster by Ian Bonde Sculpture by the Sea Dick Bett AM Memorial winner 2012

We are pleased to announce that Matt Calvert has been awarded the Dick Bett AM Invitation to exhibit in Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi.The exhibition this year will be held from 24 October to 11 November, 2013.

For more info visit the sculpture by the sea website: http://www.sculpturebythesea.com/Home.aspx

Les Blakebrough AM

Congratulations to Les Blakebrough who was made a Member (AM) in the General Division of the Order of Australia  for significant service to the visual arts as a  ceramicist and educator and through professional associations.

Illumination: The art of Philip Wolfhagen

Philip Wolfhagen is to be congratulated on the launch of his National touring exhibition curated by the Newcastle Art Gallery and Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

The exhibition opens in Newcastle by Sir Guy Green AC KBE CVO on 22 June 2013 and will tour to the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.

Tasmanian Artists for Bushfire Relief

Going bush

Skullbones Plains in central Tasmania will soon host 11 visual artists, 7 of which are Bett Gallery artists on a very special retreat. 
A Tasmanian Land Conservancy project, the selected artists will spend four days on residency in an immersive wilderness experience. 
The residency being held mid February will be filmed and maybe the subject of a documentary. 
An exhibition of works produced as a result of the residency will be held in September 2013 - we will keep you posted where it will be.

Artists include:

Immants Tillers, John Wolseley, Phillip Hunter, Phillip Wolfhagen, Richard Wastell, Vera Moler, Janet Laurence, Julie Gough, Tim Burns, Joel Crosswell and Megan Walch

Happy Holidays

Bett Gallery will close on the 24th of December for a qiuck break, opening in 2013 on the 3rd of January.  Thank you to all of you for your support over 2012.  We look forward to catching up in the New Year.

Opening tonight: Thornton Walker – Koay teow th’ng

Peranakan II, 2012.  Watercolour, ink and acrylic on paper. 172 x 140 cm

Thornton Walker is a Melbourne based visual artist, whose practice explores memory, stillness and nostalgia. Since his first solo exhibition in 1980, Walker has exhibited widely, and his works are held in both national and international collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of NSW, Parliament House, and the British Museum. 

Walker produced his latest body of work Koay teow th’ng, while undertaking an artist’s residency in Penang, Malaysia. In this exhibition, Walker mediates on the past through capturing the faded faces that decorate Penang’s temple walls. Through his characteristic use of photography, the artist translates atmospheric images into watercolour, ink, acrylic and oil paint. The intimately cropped works suggest a quiet fragility and passage of time, though their ink stained and spattered surfaces. 

In Koay teow th’ng, Walker gently mocks our enthusiasm for the allure of foreign cultures. With a wry irreverence, the artist contrasts his dreamy portraits with unrelated Chinese characters. In his Nonya girl image, the script reads “lychee in heavy syrup.” The banality of the text belies the atmospheric and romantic portrait. Indeed, the title of the exhibition takes its name from a popular noodle soup dish sold at road side stall in Malaysia. 

Come and join us for the opening at 6pm, November 9.

Koay teow th’ng runs until December 1^st.

Neil Haddon at Inflight

Bett Gallery artist Neil Haddon is currently exhibiting 'the black mirror, the hunter, the basement, the studio'  at Inflight Gallery. The exhibition runs until November 30th, with a floor talk from Neil on November the 24th, 2pm.

What our artist's are up to

Heather B Swann, Bronek Kozka, Annika Koops and our own lovely staff member Mish Meijers are all finalists in the Substation Contempoaray Art Prize, announced 21st of September 2012.

Raymond Arnold, Neil Haddon, Tim Burns and Megan Walch are all finalists in the 2012 City of Hobart Art Prize.  Announced 5th of October 2012.

Barbie Kjar, Peter Atkins, Heather B Swann and Prudence Flint have all been selected for inclusion in this years Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery 2012 National Works on Paper exhbition.  Ends 7 October.

Bronek Kozka is a finalist in the 2012 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, announced 26 October 2012.

Joel Crosswell selected for Shotgun

This is a great show.  Don't miss it.

Joel's work is creepy and superb.

15 September to 7 October 2012

CAST, Tasma Street, North Hobart

Pat Brassington: Á Rebours, interview at ACCA 2012

Congratulations Helen Wright

Congratulations to all the winners in this year's Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, especially our own Helen Wright who took out 2nd place in the Works on Paper category with her wood cut print titled The Exquisite Corpse of Seaweed Man .
 
The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize is a prestigious art award that celebrates our intricate and complex global biodiversity and encourages excellence in natural history art within Australia and around the world.

The prize was established by the South Australian Museum in 2002 to honour its first curator, the eminent zoologist Frederick George Waterhouse. Now in its tenth year, the Waterhouse is Australia’s richest prize for natural history art. It has proudly contributed over one million dollars to the arts community since its inception.

The enduring popularity of the prize is testament to the unique opportunity it gives artists to interpret the beauty and fragility of our natural world.

The exhibition of finalists' artworks are on display at the South Australian Museum until 9 September 2012.

Annika Koops featured in current Australian Art Collector magazine p.122-129

Melbourne Art Fair 2012

Heather B Swann wins Swan Hill Drawing Prize

Cloud, ink on paper, 100 x 150 cm

Congratulations to Heather B Swann, having just won the Swan Hill Drawing prize, judged by Roger Butler from the National Gallery of Australia.  Bett Gallery are thrilled to announce a drawing exhibition by Heather B Swann in it's upcoming program.  Watch this space...

For the diary

Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery acquire David Keeling work

Slow walk, coastal track, oil on linen, 184 x 138cm

Bett Gallery are thrilled to announce the recent acquisition by the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery of David Keeling's major work, Slow Walk, Coastal track.  This work is currently on show at Bett Gallery as part of David's most recent exhibition Views from the Dream Palace. Exhibition continues to 30 June 2012.

Julie Gough featured in 2nd Indigenous Triennial

From May to July 2012, the National Gallery will celebrate the second National Indigenous Art Triennial, unDisclosed. Over autumn and winter, Gallery visitors will have the opportunity to experience the dynamic visual expression of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. 20 artists have been selected for their commitment to excellence and their daring to explore new fields of practice and artistic vision, these artists both inform and redefine contemporary Indigenous art as we presently know it.

The twenty artists featured in UnDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial are: Tony Albert, Vernon Ah Kee, Bob Burruwal, Michael Cook, Lorraine Connelly-Northey, Nici Cumpston, Fiona Foley, Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, Gunybi Ganambarr, Julie Gough, Lindsay Harris, Jonathan Jones, Danie Mellor, Naata Nungurrayi, Maria Josette Orsto, Daniel Walbidi, Christian Thompson, Alick Tipoti, Lena Yarinkura and Nyapanyapa Yunupingu.

The exhibition’s theme, ‘unDisclosed’, alludes to the spoken and the unspoken, the known and the unknown, what can be revealed and what cannot. It captures the duality of the disclosed and undisclosed embedded within the works and the exhibition as a whole. Viewers are invited to unearth the layers of hidden and subtle meanings and to place them alongside those that are conspicuous.