Art Talk 3: Australian Art

Drop in, no booking required

Join leading contemporary artists Danie Mellor, Julie Rrap and Khadim Ali to learn about their practices and hear the stories behind their works currently on display in the newly opened presentation of Australian Art.

Danie Mellor is a contemporary artist living and working in Bowral, New South Wales. His multidisciplinary research and practice explore intersections between contemporary and historic culture, and the legacies of cultural memory and knowledge. Mellor’s re-evaluation of iconic landscape traditions is informed by his connection to place through Aboriginal heritage, and an ongoing preoccupation with Australia’s landscape. Mellor’s work is held in regional, state, and national collections, including the National Gallery of Australia and MCA Australia, and international museums including the National Gallery of Canada, The British Museum, and National Museums Scotland.

Gadigal Nura/Sydney based artist Julie Rrap has been a major figure in Australian contemporary art for over thirty-five years. Since the mid-1970s, Rrap has worked with photography, painting, sculpture, performance and video in an ongoing project concerned with representations of the body. Between 1986 and 1994 Rrap lived and worked in Europe. Rrap has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally including countries across Europe and in the Pacific Region. Her work has appeared in four Sydney Biennales, Auckland Triennale and Jakarta Biennale. Rrap's works are held in major public collections in Australia as well as many private collections in Australia and overseas.

Khadim Ali was born in Quette, Pakistan and now lives in Gadigal Nura/Sydney. Ali studied Persian and Mughal miniature painting in Pakistan and calligraphy and mural painting in Iran before moving to Sydney in 2010. Informed by the techniques and iconography of his training, and his experiences as an Afghan-Hazara refugee, his works explore legacies of conflict, persecution, displacement and migration and, more recently, respond to the geography of Australia and worldwide environmental issues. Ali’s work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Australian War Memorial, Art Gallery of New South Wales, QAGOMA, Brisbane, Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

A series of Art Talks across the weekend of the National Gallery’s 40th Anniversary with artists and National Gallery curators sharing stories of works from the collection.