Born in Hamburg, Anke Stäcker immigrated to Australia in 1988 and embarked on her artistic career here, exhibiting widely in artist run spaces and in group exhibitions. Since completing her Masters of Visual Arts from Sydney College in 2000, Anke has been chosen by leading curators and artists, being a finalist in the 32nd Alice Prize 2002 and the Helen Lempriere Traveling Scholarship and Hazelhurst Art Awards in 2003. Her pieces were featured in "Sydney Looking Forward", a joint exhibition between Sydney City Council and Stills Gallery in Hyde Park, and have been exhibited alongside leading photo artists, such as Bill Henson.

Stäcker’s images take inspiration from surrealist visions and film noir's moody urban fringes and rich night scenes. Her desolate laneways and stark city buildings suggest a dark underworld, emphasized by glowing coloured neons, and backlit windows. Hers are the transient "in-between" dwellings and abandoned premises which are “some place” in all cities, and always on the edge.

Mark Munro is a Melbourne-based commercial photographer working in numerous fields. He has been commissioned by many of Australia’s biggest institutions including Telstra, ANZ bank, Origin Energy, Housing Industry Association, Heritage Victoria, Bionic Ear Institute, Victorian Arts Centre Trust & Asko Appliances; and for editorial clients including BRW, Houses, Monument, Inside, Architectural Review UK, Arquitectura Viva Spain & Architecture Australia. His fine art pieces have received much critical acclaim and his work has been featured in several Society of Australian Commercial and Magazine Photographers (ACMP) collections to date.

Completing studies in 1989 at Photography Studies College (PSC), South Melbourne, Mark has exhibited widely over the past 15 years in various group shows and includes commissions for the Victorian Art Centre Trust. In 2004 he held his first solo exhibition, "Factory” in Melbourne’s Prahan, an exhibition extended due to popular demand. He was included in the group show to commemorate the opening of the Domayne Design Centre in Sydney in 2004. And was included in the critically acclaimed exhibition – “New Media: Photography and the Moving Image” at Poliform Australia, held in Sydney in the same year.

Munro’s very specific recordings of site also generate a mood of isolation, emptiness and abandonment. As in Anke’s work, the human presence is implied in his images, but never portrayed. Evoking questions about the usage of sites, their subsequent desertion and decay, Munro resurrects his urban spaces giving them an after life made eternal in his work. Powerful, with a mastery of the geometry of Mondrian, his work has an almost painterly, and certainly a monumental presence.

......."Oh do not ask "What is it?", let us go and make our visit" T.S Elliot

Brenda Colahan 2006

Some Place: Site Specific opens at Barrack Gallery on Thursday 23rd March and continues until Friday 3rd April.

Media View

Max Dupain (1911-1992)

Over the past decade and a half, collecting photography, in particular famous images, has become increasingly popular. But while many people concentrate on buying a photographer’s best-known image, they miss out on experiencing the depth and breadth of an artist’s work.  Buying a not-so-well-known image can be both more interesting and more affordable.

Michael Reid, The Art Oracle, Sydney Morning Herald Goodweekend, February 25, 2006.
Click here for full article


Constable Plod

For generations, John Constable has lived in Turner's shadow. Now a new exhibition shows his powerful influence on Australian painters.

Dr Anna Gray, the gallery's assistant director, Australian art, has spent the past two years immersed in Constable's life and art - "begging" for the 108 paintings, watercolours, drawings and sketches by the artist that make up the main exhibition, Constable: Impressions of land, sea and sky.

She has also curated a free "bonus" exhibition, Constable and Australia, which examines how "the power of Constable's art" has inspired and influenced generations of Australian artists, from Conrad Martens, Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton to modern-day artists such as the photographer and printmaker Lesley Duxbury.

Steve Meacham, Sydney Morning Herald Spectrum, February 25, 2006.
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Face up to Change

For young Sydney painter Ben Quilty, the Archibald Prize for Portraiture is the Kosciuszko of Australian art. The prize bestows instant fame and a very handy $35,000 to the winner, pulls massive crowds, and it's ``a living, breathing animal''.

Elizabeth Fortescue, Daily Telegraph, February 25, 2006.
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Top Performers

These Australian artists are currently amongst the markets most
sought after.  Art Equity has sold works by all the artists listed and for some, is a representative gallery in NSW. 

• Willy Tjungurrayi

• Ronnie Tjampitjinpa

• George Ward Tjungurrayi

  Willy Tjungurrayi traveled from Alice Springs for the February 16 opening of Their Country, an exhibition of major paintings by Willy Tjungurrayi, George Ward Tjungurrayi and Ronnie Tjampitjinpa at Barrack Gallery.   With the help of his niece Mavis acting as an interpreter, Willy captivated the audience with an emotional interpretation of his paintings and their importance as a communicator of his culture to future generations. The sell-out exhibition attracted the interest of collectors and investors Australia-wide. 

•  Garry Shead
  Garry Shead has been selected as one of Australian Art Collector's 50 Most Collectable artists for 2006  The list, compiled by leading market experts, critics and consultants are suggested as being "artists whose work you should be looking at now."
  The highest price paid for a work by Shead was $216,000 for his oil on canvas, Epiphany 1998 which exceeded the estimates at Deutscher~Menzies March auction last year.

  It is expected that prices for Shead's works will escalate with the upcoming release of a new book about the artist.

• David Stephenson
  David Stephenson's reputation as one of Australia's leading photographers was acknowledged with his inclusion in a major photographic exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW over the summer months. Points of view explored developments in Australian photography from 1985 to 1995. 

  Judy Annear, curator of the exhibition and senior curator photography at the Art Gallery of New South Wales made the comment: "While some commentators in the Australian photography scene saw that photography as we had come to understand it to be could be exhausted as a medium by the mid 1990s, artists in Points of view showed no sign of this exhaustion as they continued to explore and refine their ideas and practice."

• Bill Henson
  A significant collection of Bill Henson's work will be included in an exhibition titled Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London from 11 October until 10 December 2006.  The exhibition will include the publication of a major book to accompany the show which is set to tour to several other venues. Bill Henson's work has seen tremendous growth in recent years. At Christie's contemporary art auction last May, an image of a New York emergency worker by Henson reached $45,410.  According to Artprice.com, 100 USD invested in 1999 in a work of Bill Henson had an average value of 370 USD in December 2005.

MARKET WATCH

The performance of the global art market is driven by secondary sales - predominately auction results, being the most transparent of indicators. The secondary performance of an artist is also an indicator to their current status and potential "value". However, a solid auction record shouldn't be considered in isolation. Some of Australia's critically acclaimed artists are realising excellent growth without thriving auction results.

"...it is very likely that the auction star fifteen years from now – whoever that may be – has not yet sold a single work at auction.” Artprice.com

John Olsen
John Olsen's culinary theme has been a recurrent and profitable one throughout his career.  A work on paper sold recently for $77,512.50 at Mossgreen's auction of Modern Australian and International art. Seafood Casserole, mixed media on Toronoko paper 95x99cm exceeded its estimate of $50,000 to $70,000. Olsen's hand-woven tapestry titled The Paella sold at Deutscher-Menzies February 22 auction for $57,600.

Olsen is one of the Top 10 most traded Australian artists since 1973 with over $16 million worth of sales during this period. (Source: artrecord.com.au.)

Tim Storrier

An oil on canvas by Tim Storrier titled Arm (Will) brought $57,600 at Deutscher-Menzies February 22 auction.

According to aasd.com.au, the average price of Storrier's oil paintings sold in 1996 was $7,915.  In 2006, the average price had risen to $63,104.

Photography market
The photography market has seen a recent burst of price inflation and record auction results. Just 10 years ago, paintings were the only medium of significant interest to investors.  However, the combination of increased demand and artistic renewal has seen photography emerge as an equally impressive investment option.

The photography market entered a new phase in New York on February 14th when the record for a photograph at auction was broken three times in one night.  Topping the bill at Sotheby's auction was a photograph by American artist, Edward Steichen.  The Pond-Moonlight, taken on Long Island in 1904, sold for $US2,928,000 setting a new world record.   

Two photographs by Georgia O'Keefe by Alfred Stieglitz also beat the previous high of $US1,248,000, which was set in November 2005 by Richard Prince's for Untitled (Cowboy). 

Australia's leading contemporary artist Tracey Moffatt, who now lives in New York, was back in Australia late last year to present her new work at the inaugural ARC Art Craft and Design Biennial in Brisbane.

Moffatt is at the height of her artistic career, with her iconic photographic work held in every leading Australian gallery, in New York's Museum of Modern Art and London's Tate Modern.

A photograph by Moffatt titled Scarred for Life will go under the hammer at Deutscher-Menzies March 15 auction with a price estimate of $28,000 - $30,000. 

* The Art Gallery of NSW will be exhibiting winners and nominated entries for the Archibald, Wynne & Sulman Prizes, as well as the Photographic Portrait Prize. 25 March - 28 May 2006

Aboriginal art in Paris

In mid 2006, Australian Indigenous artists will feature in the spectacular new Musee du Quai Branley opening in Paris as well as solo exhibitions throughout Europe and the USA, further affirming their international importance.  Eight Australian artists have been commissioned to create an artwork to cover the walls and ceilings of this major new museum which will house a collection of 300,000 pieces of indigenous art and artifacts from around the world.

The 8 selected artists include; Yirrkala's Gulumbu Yunupingu, John Mawurndjul from Arnhem Land, Paddy Bedford and Lena Nyadbi from The Kimberley, Ningura Napurrula and Tommy Watson from the desert, and Judy Watson and the late Michael Riley from urban Australia.

SMART ART

The March Smart Art offer includes a "pre-release" of two spectacular photographs from our upcoming exhibition Some Place: Site Specific.  Anke Stäcker's Blue Hour 2005, and Mark Munro's Factory #2, both editions of 5, will be available exclusively to Art Insight subscribers. 

To view the works, click on the link below.