Issue 71

The qualities that have empowered cover artist Janet Dawson to move back-and-forth from figurative to non-figurative works is closely observed in Sasha Grishin’s essay. Dawson studied at a time when students expected and respected art teachers to teach. Senior artists and art teachers today tell me they feel almost powerless to apply their years of knowledge and experience because, in this era of user pays, art school curriculums favour what students think they want, as opposed to what they may learn from their teachers. Grishin contextualises Dawson’s early art studies to a diversity of prominent artists and teachers including Harold Septimus Power, Sir William Dargie CBE and Alan Sumner. Dawson recognised that these teachers gave her solid foundations in drawing, painting and printmaking, and importantly the confidence to work as an artist.

Eve Sullivan’s insightful tribute to the late Leon Paroissien recognises many of his important contributions in the development of Australian visual arts. Sullivan focuses on Paroissien’s great work as the inaugural director of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and as the founding director of the Visual Arts Board (VAB), Australia Council for the Arts, established by Gough Whitlam’s government in 1975. Paroissien led the VAB from 1975-80.

Under the Australia Council’s charter, Paroissien’s VAB and the other artform boards were provided autonomy to allocate federal arts funding without any interference from the chief executive officer (CEO) or chair. Paroissien was tasked, along with his government appointed board members of leading artists and arts administrators, with providing expert advice to the government on all matters relating to the visual arts locally and internationally.

Whitlam’s Australia Council was depleted in 2013 when Julia Gillard’s government removed the autonomy of artform boards, replacing them with a centralised corporate arts agency. Led by Gillard’s arts minister, Tony Burke, the agency cut the number of VAB members to one. Burke also handed control of all the visual arts grant decisions to the CEO’s administrators to appoint peers on a grant-to-grant need, ignoring the threat to artistic freedom.

As arts minister in Anthony Albanese’s government, Burke implemented the Creative Australia Act 2023, further erasing the concept of “art” and giving more power to the non-executive and executive of the now titled Creative Australia, wiping away the final traces of Whitlam’s vision. In Artist Profile issue 68, artist Brad Buckley noted that the rebranded Creative Australia “could easily [be] confused with a fertility clinic.” Perhaps more concerning is that Burke’s Creative Australia derives mostly from Creative Scotland complete . Now that’s not very creative!

In my last editor’s note (issue 70), I congratulated 2026 Venice Biennale team of Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino. Less than a week after their announced appointment (and after publication of issue 70) they were dismissed unanimously by the Board of Creative Australia (CEO Adrian Collette AM, chair Robert Morgan, deputy chair Professor Wesley Enoch AM, Stephen Found, Courtney Stewart, Alexandra Dimos, Caroline Wood AM, Christine Simpson Stokes, Professor Larissa Behrendt AO, Kitty Taylor, Amanda Jackes, Lindy Lee [visual arts expert], Rosheen Garnon and Caroline Bowditch).

On May 3, Albanese’s government was elected for a second term. In his victory speech Albanese spoke about a new leadership of “respect,” “kindness,” “fairness” and “generosity” for “all Australians.” Whoever is given the portfolio of Creative Australia, I ask that they go to their favourite art gallery cafe (in Australia of course), with their favourite Australian poet, and contemplate on the pwords. I hope after their meaningful contemplation they then remove Creative Australia’s government appointed leadership team of Morgan and Collette. I hope that they then dump all those other board members who unanimously dismissed Sabsabi and Dagostino. After removing the board, the ashould then apologise on behalf of the p to Sabsabi and Dagostino for disrespecting them, for being unkind, for being unfair and for being disingenuous to two exceptional Australians, and reinstate them and the entire 2026 Venice Biennale team.

After the ahas delivered these important actions, they should then convene a national summit to rewrite that deeply embarrassing, unoriginal Creative Australia Act, with the key goal in mind: to protect the artistic freedom for all Australians.

Kon Gouriotis
Editor

Artist Profile acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional owners of the land on which we work.

CONTENTS

ISSUE
Issue: The vision of Emily Kame Kngwarreye by Lucy Stranger

COVER FEATURE

Janet Dawson by Sasha Grishin

PROFILES

Linda Sok by Tai Mitsuji
Patrick Pound by Roslyn Orlando
Penny Evans by Emma Walker
William Mackinnon by Peter Hill
Ebony Russell by Jack Howard
G.W. Bot by Nikita Holcombe
Nigel Helyer by Judith Blackall
Peter Graham by Josephine Mead

INSIGHT

Poem: Caldera by Hannah Jenkins
Process: Jeff Mincham
Process: Colin Pennock
Essay: Man about town: Callum Morton by Felicity Fenner
Essay: Aboriginal Stars and Stories travel to North America by Kathleen Linn
Essay: 30 years of Defiance by Rhonda Davis
Tribute: Leon Paroissien by Eve Sullivan
Review: Frida Kahlo: In her own image by Mimi Kelly
Review: A difficult artist by Kon Gouriotis
Review: Stop Making Sense by H. R. Hyatt-Johnston
Review: Ken Unsworth: Love is the Sweetest Thing by Adam Gezcy
Review: Are we not all colonisers and migrants? by Brad Buckley
Review: Chutzpah: Spirit. Recollection. Self. by Gregory Uzelac
Book: Until Justice Comes by Brooke Boland
Film: Ghosts in a Cave by Aleksandr Wansbrough
Preview: Turner & Australia by Inga Walton
Poster: Franck Gohier
Preview: Hannah Quinlivan by Alex Wisser
Preview: Melitta Perry by Joseph Brennan
Discovery: Matt O’Brien by Solomiya Sywak
Short Story: Careful What You Wish For by Nola Farman