FBi's Canvas

Have you ever been keen on get-rich-quick schemes? Almost everyone fantasises about winning lotto at some point but we generally know it just isn’t going to happen, so we keep our day jobs, and remember to feel thankful when we find $2 coins at the bus stop. Khaled Sabsabi may just have struck the right balance between sheer talent and hard work. He’s just won $60 000 for the Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship and I don’t think anyone would be putting it down to luck.

Associating dead animals and glamour is a trend that has long been out of fashion and to say that visual artist Troy Emery is glamorising dead animals would be taking things a little far....

Few people can deny the thrill of adrenalin pulsing through their body, their rising heart rate, anxiety and sweaty palms that accompany the excitement of an auction. It was quite a sight at last year's Still Life art auction, the FBI Fundraiser that saw the works of some of Sydney's most talented artists go under the hammer at the MCA. It was such an outstanding success that it's happening again this year and one talented artist who donated work both last year and this year joined Nell Greco in the studio.

In recent months, you may have noticed a major public debate unfolding that wasn't the election or a mining tax squabble. The debate is about Australia's arts policy and arts funding. The very insightful Marcus Westbury joined Nell Greco to discuss these issues.

Have you ever considered dinosaurs or the study of ye olde dinosaur bones sexy? The only time I’ve ever come close to thinking Paleontology was ‘sexy’ was when actress Laura Dern wore those short shorts in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. But playwright, producer and performer Patrick Lenton will convince you otherwise.

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘opera’? Big hair and garish make-up? Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman almost pee-ing her pants? For many of us opera is a closed world that seems to be inhabited by overdressed people our parents’ age. Nell Greco was joined by a woman who’s part of a new generation of singers taking over the genre.

Did you have a friend in High School who knew a second language? Cast your mind back to what the first words you asked them to teach you were. Profanities right? Saying them in another language lent you all the freedom from censorship you ever wanted - until that kid’s mother heard you saying it and dobbed you in of course... In good humour, Will French, is an artist who has devised a conceptual method of insulting those who view his art - like Duchamp might have - without them even realising it.

You can fold it, read it, recycle it, shred it, wrap it, and perhaps even burn it? Call it parchment or papyrus, but you certainly couldn’t say paper was boring... Nell Greco got to speak with Sian McIntyre, the lady behind The Paper Mill, a new gallery dedicated to art involving paper.

Do you have a favourite fairy tale that you were told as a child? Some favourite fairy tales are ones with happy endings, like Thumbelina, but classical mythology, where the fairy tales stem from, rarely had that idyllic, happily ever after ending. Kath Fries has set her eye on cobwebs, bamboo and ancient Japanese mythology. She joined Nell Greco in the studio to discuss her works.

You know that guy who’s always the last to leave a party? When everyone else has crawled home to hide from the dawning parades of Sunday cyclists, he’s the one you notice, spooning the toilet bowl in the back shed, dressed in your mother’s bathrobe three days after you swept the yard and scared the neighbours cat with your piles of recycling? Maybe that’s even been you a few times too? Nell Greco was joined by a guy whose new book’s about someone who consciously wants this party to be his last.