»  10.00AM - 5.00PM 04 OCT - 18 JAN CASULA POWERHOUSE, 1 CASULA RD, CASULA, NSW. CASULA

Philip George creates stunning inscribed surfboards with artwork and motifs from the Islamic world. Borderlands is a culmination of 7 years of work carried out by Phillip George within Australia and throughout the Middle East.

The emblematic ‘Inshalla’(God Willing) surfboards symbolically provide buoyancy in the spaces between borders: the Australian beach and the edges of Western culture, and the Islamic world.

Borderlands celebrates the metaphysical art of Arabic, Ottoman and Persian worlds and the transcendental nature of surfing, of which both traditions speak to the wonder and complexity of the universe.

The Borderlands exhibition will be opened on 18 October by Pam Burridge, Womens’ Surfing World Champion 1990 from 5–7pm.
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»  10AM - 5PM DAILY 08 NOV - 25 JAN PENRITH REGIONAL GALLERY & THE LEWERS BEQUEST, 86 RIVER RD, EMU PLAINS EMU PLAINS

Sydney Ball is one of Australia’s most acclaimed masters of abstraction. This year he turns seventy-five and in honour of his extensive creative output over the years, this exhibition draws from public and private collections to gather together a remarkable collection of works for public appreciation.

Sydney Ball: The Colour Paintings examines the interests that have consumed this prolific and committed artist: abstraction and colour. Curator Anne Loxley’s selection brings together the finest examples of work from all of Ball’s colour periods – from his flat colour beginnings to gestural abstraction and his eventual return to flat colour.

The exhibition begins with the celebrated Canto series, which launched Ball in New York in the early 1960s. These paintings locate expanses of colour in circular formats on contrasting backgrounds. Ball later experimented with shaped, assembled canvases to create sculptural, explosive forms. In his Stain series, created during the 1970s, he used high key splashes and drips of colour, whereas the more recent years have seen Ball return to flat colour abstraction with his Structure series.
 

Sydney Ball: The Colour Paintings will be accompanied by a comprehensive colour catalogue edited by Dinah Dysart and featuring an interview with the artist by Anne Loxley and an essay by Wendy Walker.  Following its season at Penrith, the exhibition travels to Melbourne and Adelaide.  MORE

»  EXHIBITION MON-SUN 10AM-5PM, BUSINESS FORUM 22 NOV 2-5PM, MASTER CLASSES SAT 29 NOV, 10AM-5PM 08 NOV - 18 JAN CASULA POWERHOUSE, 1 CASULA RD, CASULA CASULA

Casula Powerhouse has commissioned six local Indigenous artists: Bronwyn Bancroft, Steven Barton, Karla Dickens, Joe Hurst, John South and Leanne Tobin to make work about the Aboriginal sacred sites in the Liverpool area.

The exhibition, Confidential Business, explores traditional stories and oral histories, looking closely at the importance of place, land and country, both natural and urban, to contemporary Indigenous identity. It also considers urbanisation and how this has affected indigenous sites, and investigates the way we privilege different histories and transform the environment.

Confidential Business Public Programs run alongside the exhibition and provide opportunities to get together with local artists and talk about indigenous art making, and learn techniques from Confidential Business Artists.

The Confidential Business Forum is an opportunity for people of all backgrounds to participate in conversations and learn about oral histories of Liverpool. Participants will have the chance to explore traditional and contemporary stories and talk about the significance of sacred sites. The forum will also look at how the art world frames urban Indigenous identity. It is an opportunity for emerging Indigenous artists to discuss their practices, their reception and the role of art in Indigenous culture.

Who: All ages
When: Saturday 22 November
Time: 2-5pm

This is a Free program, with refreshments provided, and bookings are essential.

Master Classes are also being run as part of the Public Program. Selected Confidential Business artists will run in-depth master classes for adults, focusing on art production, ideas inception, and expression through a range of mediums including new media and sculpture.

Who: 18+
When: Saturday 29 November
Time: 10am-5pm
Cost $18, refreshments will be provided.
Bookings are essential   MORE

»  SUNRISE TO SUNSET 01 DEC - 30 MAY BICENTENNIAL PARK, SYDNEY OLYMPIC PARK OLYMPIC PARK

Artists Sean Cordeiro and Claire Healy have re-created a floating Splavovi within Lake Belvedere at Sydney Olympic Park called The Flats.

In post-communist Belgrade, along the rivers Danube and Sava, there exists a housing phenomenon dubbed Splavovi. These floating houses are fashioned from the remains of Soviet industry: 44-gallon drums are welded together on angle-ironed frames and topped off with wooden decking, a small wooden cabin, and maybe a little garden and some used car tyres wrapped around the plimsoll line.

These quaint housing structures are the stopgap answer to Belgrade’s housing shortage and utilise the available materials at hand.

This house will not be accessible to the public, but will serve as a subtle teaser to remind the viewer of Homebush Bay’s colonial and industrial past as well as the all-too-possible future under the pressures of real estate within a steadily growing city.  MORE

»  VARIOUS TIMES, SEE DETAIL IN LISTING. 04 DEC - 17 JAN CASULA POWERHOUSE, 1 CASULA RD, CASULA CASULA

Half-hour tours of the Liverpool Migration History Project exhibition will be conducted in Vietnamese, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian, Hindi, Arabic and English. Guides will also be available after each tour to answer questions from the floor.

Hindi: 11:30am:

6 December 2008 and 17 January 2009

Arabic 12pm:

6 December 2008 and 17 January 2009

English 12:30pm:

6 December 2008 and 17 January 2009

Vietnamese 4:00pm:

4 December, 18 December 2008 and 15 January 2009

Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian 4.30pm:

4 December, 18 December 2008 and 15 January 2009

For the Liverpool Migration History Project, twenty migrants searched their lives and cupboards for personal belongings and stories to share their story with other Australians.

You can experience Liverpool, its people and places, through these objects shown alongside items from the Liverpool City Art, Heritage and Local Studies Collection.  MORE