Visions: A Sullivan+Strumpf Podcast

Polly Borland is one of Australia’s most internationally recognisable contemporary artists. Famed for her early editorial work and portraiture, the artist today has shifted her focus decidedly to sculpture.

Claire Summers spoke with Polly about her new exhibition with Sullivan+Strumpf, about the distinctive and disruptive visual language that has defined her practice throughout her 4 decades as an artist and about her transition from photography to working in three-dimensional space.

Encountering Borland’s work is to be met first with a kind of obscurity. It is not her intention or desire that the work can or should be immediately understood. Borland’s work is intentionally unsettling, at least initially. In her sculptural works, turgid, morphed, misshapen, almost alien forms stand or slump before us. The urge to flinch is as strong as the one to prod. Yet beneath the skin of her creatures, both in her imagery and sculpture, stirs something deeply human. The artist invites us to look further, to ask questions not only of the work but of ourselves, of the self we see reflected to us. It is this lingering hint of the human that draws us closer, and closer still.

Sanné Mestrom’s art practice has always worked to complicate understandings of sculpture, but has recently focused more intently on exploring the agency of sculpture and its accountability to public and private space and the people that inhabit it. 

In the fascinating discussion recorded during the installation of her latest exhibition, Body as Verb, Sanné and Gallery Director Ursula Sullivan discuss how Hannah Höch, motherhood and moving to the Blue Mountains has changed her and her practice. 

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In this delightful, meandering conversation, multimedia artist Angela Tiatia chats with Genevieve Smart, co-founder of the iconic Australian fashion label, Ginger & Smart about the climate crisis, art and fashion. 

It’s a fascinating discussion between two creative kindred spirits who met in 2017 at a climate crisis workshop on Heron Island organised by renowned Australian environmentalist, Tim Flannery.

Angela was also featured in Ginger & Smart’s recent Changemakers Series with six other influential women. She chats with Genievieve about creativity and their shared passion for the environment.

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There is an intrinsic link between place and identity - who we are, is to a large extent determined by our environment.

Alex Seton’s unusual upbringing around a marble quarry not far from the Wombeyan Caves in New South Wales, Australia has shaped him at least as much as he has shaped the limestone that comes from it.

Seton’s award winning sculptural works, hewn from solid marble are a love letter to this upbringing and the material he has worked with his whole life. His sculptures are a paradox, rendering an inherently hard material soft, and can also be viewed as an allegory to Australia’s mineral resource wealth and exploitation.

In this podcast, recorded in the lead-up to his latest exhibition at Sullivan+Strumpf gallery, Meet Me Under the Dome, Seton chats about his work and his upbringing with 2022 Adelaide Biennial Curator, Sebastian Goldspink. As Seton says, “there are things that form you and shape you...”

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Artist Lindy Lee draws on her Australian and Chinese heritage to develop Contemporary works that engage with the history of art, Daoism, Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism and the cosmos including the connections between humanity and nature.

Join Lindy and Sullivan+Strumpf gallery Director Joanna Strumpf for this delightful conversation recorded in the lead-up to her forthcoming survey show Moon in a Dew Drop opening in October at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (MCA).

Several new works have been commissioned especially for this major exhibition, including her largest ever installation, Moonlight Deities which will be a fully immersive experience for visitors. Lindy has also created a series of epic new scroll works for the show from her Byron Bay rainforest studio, working with her latest collaborator, the rain.

Enjoy.

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Throughout history, artists have always quoted and appropriated, synthesising the past and (hopefully) creating something new all their own. It is the modus operandi of award winning painter Sam Leach and is exemplified in his controversial Wynne Prize winning work based on a 17th century Dutch painting of an Italianette landscape.

No stranger to controversy, Sam Leach is now using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to generate new imagery based on his own catalogue of work, which he then painstakingly paints. It’s a kind of feedback loop, blending the mystical qualities of paint with digital technology.

The process raises serious questions about the future of art, culture and humanity — or what Sam calls the cultural singularity. Is this a new kind of collaboration between man and machine, giving us a new aesthetic beyond ourselves, or has the artist been subjugated as the machine’s apprentice?

Join Sam and art critic, lecturer and broadcaster Andrew Frost in this very timely, thought-provoking conversation.


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A road trip through the Australian outback listening to an audio book of Homer’s The Odyssey was the beginning of a transformative journey for contemporary ceramicist Kirsten Coelho — a journey which would eventually take her to Europe and inspire her upcoming exhibition, Ithaca at the Samstag Museum of Art.

Join Kirsten and Samstag Museum of Art Associate Curator Joanna Kitto for an enlightening odyssey through the work of one of Australia’s leading ceramicists.


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Tony Albert is one of the most important indigenous artists working in Australia today. In light of recent world events, he reflects with long-time friend and National Gallery of Australia Program Manager Sally Brand on his latest exhibition, Duty of Care.

Albert’s work has always been in protest, seeking positivity in the face of adversity ⁠— but in late 2019, during his six week residency at Canberra Glassworks there is no way he could have known how the death of George Floyd would set America ablaze and ignite a call for change around the world. Albert doesn’t believe in chance - things "happen because they’re meant to happen" he says. Glass is neither solid or liquid, and these works are amorphous too — a powerful lens that brings this issue painfully into focus. A not-to-be-missed episode.


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Natalya Hughes and Grant Stevens have been close friends and colleagues for 20 years. Both use digital technology in the creation of their art work, but in very different ways. Join Natalya and Grant for a walk through The Forest, Grant’s latest work which brings digital technology and the natural environment together in an endless series of speculative moments, uneasy contemplation, instant gratification and perpetual fatigue.

On now at Sullivan + Strumpf Gallery, Sydney and online.


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Curator Louis Ho chats with Jeremy Sharma about his art and his music in the lead-up to Flat ⁠— a virtual exhibition supported by the National Arts Council featuring works by Alfonse Chiu, Daniel Chong, Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen, Fazleen Karlan, Genevieve Leong, Justin Lin, Nicholas Ong, Fiona Seow, Mangkhut (Jeremy Sharma), Moses Tan and Terry Wee.


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