News

Peter Griffen, 'Contruction With Blue Pole', 2007, acrylic on paper 42x59cm.

COFA Visual Arts graduate Peter Griffen will launch his new book In and Out of Abstraction at Wagner Art Gallery.

In and Out of Abstraction is a stunning showcase of Griffen’s artwork with the artist’s own commentary about each painting covering the background and techniques, and often the thoughts and influences that may have come into play in its creation.

More info.

COFA Professor Jill Bennett has published a book titled Living in the Athropocene.

The topic of this notebook is life in the anthropocene, the present eon, which is characterized by human activities.

More info.

NIEA website.

Students make public art in Japan.

Senior lecturer in the School of Art, Louise Fowler- Smith, has just returned from one month in Japan where she co-taught a course in Environment and Spirituality: Walking the Pilgrimage in a World Heritage cultural landscape in the  Kii Sacred Mountain Range.

The course brought together students from the UNSW, COFA, Salisbury University in the USA and from Wakayama University in Japan. The aim of the course was to learn about the  spiritual cultures of Japan, especially the  Shingon Esoteric Belief, Shinto and Animism.

Vale Katthy Cavaliere, 'Loved', Performance, 2008 (detail) Artspace 25th Anniversary ARTSPACE 24/25.

Highly respected and much loved artist Katthy Cavaliere passed away peacefully on January 23, 2012. She was 39 years old.

Born in Sarteano, Tuscany, Italy in 1972, Katthy was awarded two degrees from COFA: a Master of Art (Coursework) and BFA (Hons) in Photomedia. In 2000 she was awarded the prestigious Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship and continued working within a multidisciplinary practice, included photography, performance, installation, site-specific projects and drawing in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally. She also studied at Fondazione Ratti, Advanced Course in Visual Arts, in Como and the Accademia di Belle Arti, Brera, Milano, Italy. Visiting Professor Marina Abramovic took an interest in Katthy’s work and was considered by Katthy as a mentor. Katthy exhibited widely in solo and group shows in ARIs, international galleries and in 2011 a video work Loved was included in The Venice Biennale. She was the recipient of Australia Council for the Arts Grant and participated in numerous, exhibitions, residencies and workshops. Katthy described her work as using “real and poignant material from her life and creates a personal almost biographical thread in her work to date”.

Katthy was well known in Sydney’s art scene and was admired for her commitment, passion and support for fellow artists. She will be greatly missed.

The staff of Photomedia and COFA UNSW are saddened by this loss and along with fellow artists, extend heart-felt wishes to family and friends.

Alexandra Byrne, 'Riggers' (detail) 2011, collage, charcoal, graphite, pastel, pencilon paper.

COFA staff member and Master of Fine Arts candidte, Alexandra Byrne, is a finalist in the Dobell Drawing Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

More info.

Volker Kuchelmeister, 'Hong Kong Skydrive' (screen shot from monoscopic 2D version), 2011.

Volker Kuchelmeister’s experimental, stereoscopic 3D short film, Hong Kong Skydrive, has been selected for screening at the Parallax Stereoscopic Video Art Festival in Prague, Czech Rebulblic, December 8, 2011.

Kuchelmeister is a Lecturer in COFA’s School of Media Arts and School of Design Studies. He is also Head of the Media Laboratory at the iCinema Interactive Cinema Research Centre.

Watch a 2D version of Hong Kong Skydrive.

Izabela Pluta, production still, November 2011.

Izabela Pluta, Lecturer in the School of Media Arts, is currently in Northern Ireland at the Art and Design Research Institute, University of Ulster in Belfast on a 1-month UK Academic Research Exchange.

This project was initiated by Sydney College of the Arts (SCA), The University of Sydney, and made possible by the generous support of the British Council, Sydney and The NSW Government through Arts NSW.

The Academic Research Exchange Program has enabled two academic staff members from SCA and one academic staff member from COFA to spend one month at either Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Art and Design Research, University of Ulster, Belfast and Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, Southampton.

COFA Associate Professor in the School of Art History & Art Education, Fay (Fae) Brauer was invited to give a paper at the international conference, The Study of Eugenics – Past, Present and Future, held at the Uppsala Universitet in Sweden, 8-12 November 2011.  Her paper was entitled  L’Art eugénique:  Biopower and the Bioculture of Neo-Lamarckian Eugenics.

Delegates were invited from all over America, Britain and Europe, with Brauer the only invited from Australia.

(L-R) Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, Professor Jill Bennett, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, Lord Mayor Clover Moore.

Curating Cities, curated by NIEA, launched over the weekend to a star studded reception. Crown Prince Frederik & Crown Princess Mary of Denmark were in attendance having spent some time at Sculpture by the Sea.

Artists, designers, curators, educators and creative thinkers will address the fundamentals of urban sustainability–energy, food and resource consumption–and propose strategies for change throughout the Curating Cities Conference & Exhibition.

More info.

David Nolan, 'Flash bax' (detail) 2011.

Each year, COFA gives the  Professional Development Award to an Aboriginal artist who has submitted work for consideration in the Parliament of NSW Aboriginal Art Prize.

The winner of the Award is provided with a two-week residency working with any one of COFA’s master practitioners.

The winner of the COFA Professional Development Award was David Nolan, for his work Flash bax.

In addition to the main prize, over $120,000 in scholarships will also be offered through COFA.

Nolan’s artworks were on display in an exhibition at NSW Parliament House until 27 October 2011.