Intense interest abounds for Connolly’s work, she is highly sought by collectors across Australia and abroad. Having held recent solo exhibitions in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, Connolly began exhibiting in the 1980s at Sydney’s First Draft and Arthaus Galleries. Retuning to painting in the late 1990s after a decade of addiction issues, she began exhibiting widely on the NSW North Coast. She was included in “Carizma Exhibition,” curated by Dave Furnell at the Grafton Regional Gallery in May 2005 and FEEVA 2004 and 2005, receiving second prize in the people’s choice award.

Connolly’s latest body of work,The Matilda Divine Series, follows incidents of women in the landscape, a recurring theme in Connolly’s oeuvre. Its central figure, infamous madam Matilda “Tilly” Devine, became Sydney’s richest woman, but her’s was a life of betrayal, struggle, fear and addiction, themes which parallel closely the artist’s own experience.

“Tilly supplied her “girls” with Cocaine, which bound them into a kind of servitude once they became dependent. I here (on Scotland Island) began the first drawings of Tilly Devine, her girls and her boatman….. focusing once again on “fallen women” …and reworking Dante’s boatman Charon and the River Acheron in his famous epic, The Divine Comedy. I imagined the crossing of the waters as a kind of venture into hell – or nether regions of one’s soul. As an ex-worker I know only too well the “time out” periods are the most hellish, when you are confronted with yourself and the mess of your life”. Camilla Connolly.

Connolly’s provocative and powerful works entice with a richness of colour and form, as she masterfully creates her most powerful irony- female artist in male dominated modernist style. Like Nolan’s Kelly her heroines become legends and the stories, both historical and imaginative, live on in her work.

Camilla Connolly New Works: The Matilda Devine Series at Barrack Gallery. Opening 7 October until 20 October 2005.

Brenda Colahan

Media View

Choosing your art from the heart

“Australians are increasingly becoming aware of the art market and wanting to buy pieces for their homes and investment portfolios.” Chris Deutscher, of art auction house Deutscher-Menzies.

Michelle Hamer, The Age, August 31, 2005

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Few sure bets in art market

"In 1991, the publication Art Monthly Australia offered its readers the opportunity to purchase a print by the Canberra artist Rosalie Gascoigne. The colour screenprint, titled Across Town, was printed in an edition of 100 and sold for $99. Gascoigne, who died in 1999, made only one other print edition, Close Owly, in 1990."

"At Christie's sale of contemporary art in Sydney on May 24, a print of Across Town [by Rosalie Gascoigne] was sold for $6500 ($7894 when the buyer's premium charged by the auction house is included). This represents an increase in value of more than 6000% over 14 years. It is the sort of return that investors in any market dream of, and the collector who bought the work in 1991 had the added benefit of enjoying it for many years before selling it. The big return on a very modest initial outlay shows that contemporary art is a market in which investors prepared to be adventurous can acquire collectable work without having to commit big money. "

John Kavanagh, Personal Investor, July 2005,
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Art as an investment: Picture Perfect

Australian art auction totals
1996: $27.10 million
1997: $33.51 million
1998: $49.70 million
1999: $68.69 million
2000: $78.09 million
2001: $70.39 million
2002: $79.20 million
2003: $91.80 million
2004: $86.27 million

[2005 (year to date): $72.5 million (source: www.aasd.com.au)]

“Another recent trend is people who manage their own superannuation funds buying art with their super, which attracts a much lower rate of capital gains tax than if they had bought it personally. Under Australian Taxation Office rules, however, this art must be stored or rented out, not hung on your walls for personal enjoyment.”

Katrina Strickland, The Weekend Australian, Review, 7 September 2005
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The Apprentice

On the rise artist, Ben Quilty was profiled as one of five top Sydney artists in the (Sydney) Magazine, Sydney Morning Herald.  In it, Margaret Olley describes Quilty as one of her "success stories" -

"He has at last got his signature.  His work is strong and full of vigour, a little quirkiness.  It's in his own handwriting and that's very important"

Interiews by Victoria Hynes and Annemarie Lopez , (The Sydney Magazine) The Sydney Morning Herald Issue #29, September 05
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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.

• Criss Canning
  Canning’s collagraph Banksia Cones and Hakea pod released in February this year has already achieved impressive gains in value. Sold by Art Equity for $3,000 seven months ago, the RRP for the print is now $4,000. See MARKET WATCH for recent auction results.
  Watch out for Criss Canning’s planned book launch and retrospective exhibition set to tour in early 2007.
• Margaret Olley
  Margaret Olley's Oil on board, Still Life with Lemons sold at Sotheby's Melbourne auction on 19 September for $68,650 (incl. buyers premium).
  Olley's etching titled Turkish Pots and Lemons 2004 (sold out) was sold by Art Equity in November 2004 for $8,250.  The print is currently valued at $11,000.
  Margaret Olley was the cover story Good golly, Miss Olley for Good Weekend, The Sydney Morning Herald Magazine September 24, 2005. 
  Her new biography Far From a Still Life (Random House) has just been released.
• Kathleen Petyarre
  Kathlene Petyarre's paintings have seen impressive secondary market performances this year. Her synthetic polymer paint on linen My Country Hailstorm achieved a record auction price for the artist of $47,800, placing it in the top 35 prices achieved by Australian artists at auction in 2005 to date.  This result was the 12th highest achieved by an Indigenous artist this year.
• Barbara Weir
  Barbara Weir is establishing a secondary market for her paintings. Wild Bush Grasses, 2001 sold at the Lawson Menzies May auction for $21,600.
• Suey McEnnally
  Suey McEnnally was selected as a finalist in the Dobell Drawing Prize for her dyptichCreation Concerto (Flowering Desert Campfire) on show at the AGNSW until 16 October.  Art Equity will be exhibiting Suey's work in a solo show at Barrack Gallery from 16-30 November.
• Jeff Makin
  Jeff Makin's Tasman Series was a sell out exhibition at Barrack Gallery in May.  Deakon University's Stonnington Stables Museum of Art has scheduled a "survey of drawings" by Jeff Makin in March / April 2006.  A major catalog will be published for the show and for public sale.
• Craig Waddell
  Craig Waddell has achieved excellent results in four significant art prizes in the last 12 months including; 2004 Paddington Art Prize - Winner, 2004 Norville Australian Landscape Prize, Murrurundi - Winner, 2005 Wynne Prize for Landscape Painting - Finalist and Brisbane Tattersalls Landscape Art Prize - Winner.
• Matthew Johnson
  Matthew Johnson is the feature artist and on the cover of the October-December 2005 Australian Art Collector magazine. 

MARKET WATCH

Auction sales of Australian art for2005 totals $72.0 million to date, compared with a yearly total of $86.3 million for 2004. Sotheby's leads the auction house sales with 27.9 million with $13.3 million resulting from their sale of the Foster's Collection.  (source: www.aasd.com.au)

The highest price achieved at auction to date this year was $1.853 million for Arthur Streeton's Sunlight Sweet, Coogee.  The painting, part of Sotheby's Fosters Group Collection was the second highest sale price for a work sold in Australia.

Garry Shead's oil on canvas, The Threat, 1991 sold for 110,950 AUD (including buyers premium). The estimate for this work was 50 –60 AUD.  According to Artprice.com, 100 USD invested in 1997 in a work by Garry Shead currently has an average value of 1630 USD (includes all mediums).

The Sotheby’s Aboriginal Art Sale set new records for sixteen artists.
The highest price was 411,750 AUD for Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s Man’s Love Story, 1993-1994.

A photograph by Max Dupain (1911-1992) titled Sunbaker was sold at Sotheby's Melbourne auction on 19 September for 35,750 AUD (including buyers premium) .  The silver gelatin print was estimated to bring 12,000-15,000 AUD. 

A Criss Canning oil on canvas (61.0 x 61.0 cm) titled Blossom from the Valley achieved 22,800 AUD (incl. buyers premium) at the Deutscher Menzies auction on 21 September - a price well above the estimate of 8,000 AUD to 12,000 AUD.

SMART PORTFOLIO

As a subscriber to Art Insight, you have the exclusive opportunity to invest in a tailored art rental portfolio from Art Equity Rentals.  Each month, a limited number of premium portfolios wil be available to subscribers with artworks handselected by our Art Director, Ralph Hobbs. 

ART EQUITY RENTALS

Art Equity Rental portfolios enable you to earn income from the art you own.  You purchase an art portfolio from around $10,000 which we then rent to the corporate sector.  This way you earn income of between 6.5% to 9 per cent per annum as well as the potential capital appreciation of the artwork over time.