We are very pleased to announce that Vincent Fantauzzo is a finalist in this year’s Archibald Prize with his portrait of Asher Keddie.

Congratulations also goes to Michael Peck and Luke Cornish, who have both been selected as finalists for the 2013 Sulman Prize.

Well done to you all!

Missed the recent Dabs Myla show at Metro Gallery? Don’t fear…the duo left their mark in the back lanes of Richmond. Check out these great shots from Dean Sunshine!

Happy hunting!

Herakut’s Giant Storybook Project chronicles the creation of a new children’s book being created by the internationally-renowned street art duo.

Launched in September 2012 and continuing through 2013, the project follows the artists as they introduce the story’s main character, Lily, in murals that they are painting around the world. If you’re in one of the cities where they’re painting, you have GOT to check it out.

Herakut brought Lily to Melbourne and introduced a new scene when they painted a mural at 639 Brunswick St Fitzroy North VIC 3068.  Our suggestion? Go and check it out… you won’t be disappointed.

Dabs and Myla’s “All Good Things…”

January 27th, 2013 | By Caroline Caldwell |

Opening at 6:30pm on February 1st and running until the 9th, Dabs and Myla have a solo show entitled “All Good Things…” at Metro Gallery in Melbourne in affiliation with LRG. The Australian natives have been living in Los Angeles recently and this marks their first show in their home country in over 3 years. If you’re in the area, this really looks worth seeing.

Photos courtesy of Metro Gallery

Portfolio Review: Street Art Duo Dabs Myla Share Their Favorite Outdoor and Indoor Paintings

By Cedar Pasori | Jan 24, 2013 | 12:57 pm | Permalink

On Friday February 1st, a capacity crowd lined up down High St to be the first in the door to see Dabs Myla’s new show, All Good Things.  The exhibition will run until February 9th and showcases 34 brand new works from the loved up street art sensations.  Originally from Melbourne, but now calling Hollywood home, it’s great to have Dabs Myla back on home turf!

Check out the photos here.

John Olsen, Kitchen Story, Mixed media on arches paper, 76 x 92cm, POA

Perhaps Australia’s most renowned painter of landscapes, acclaimed artist John Olsen celebrated his 85th birthday this week.

John Olsen, 'The Edge of the Void', mixed media on paper, 160 x 121 cm, POA

Born in Newcastle in 1928, Dr John Olsen received an Order of Australia (A.O.) in 2001.  In 1977 he was awarded the O.B.E. for services to the Arts and in 1993 he was awarded an Australian Creative Fellowship.  He was also awarded the Wynne Prize in 1969 and 1985 amongst many other awards throughout his career.

John Olsen, 'The Edge of the Void - Lake Eyre', mixed media on paper, 160 x 121 cm, POA

Metro Gallery is lucky enough to have three new works from Olsen’s studio, created in the artist’s 84th year.

For enquiries about theses, or any other John Olsen works, please contact Alex@metrogallery.com.au

The studio of Del Kathryn Barton is a place of colour, forms and found objects that belong, I sense, as much in dreams as in reality.

One feels transformed, as if the paintings in combination with the artist’s poetic prose as she speaks shift a line between dream and reality.

At the time of my visit the artist is reaching the end of another long journey painting and I’m somewhat surprised that she has let me see an unfinished piece. She explains that unlike some people who like the tension of having spectators look at a work in progress, she prefers to keep her pieces private until they are completed. Although Barton comes across as composed and strong, she speaks of “usually avoiding feelings of vulnerability and being exposed that early showings of work would give rise to”. It’s strange to an outsider to hear someone speak of a fear of rejection – the paintings around me are wondrous in composition, colour and content.

These paintings were done specifically for a book project. This involved her providing paintings not so much to illustrate Oscar Wilde’s famous story ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’ but for the works to be its visual embodiment. The story deals with universal themes of love, violence, sacrifice, disappointment, ingratitude, joy and sorrow. The nightingale that gives its life for love does so not knowing of the betrayal that comes in the wake of its death. The nightingale gives its life to create a rose of blood. The analogy holds perhaps when one experiences the sense and the extent to which Barton gives of her life to her art. She writes in the foreword to the book: ‘It seems possible to me that the Nightingale is the true artist, she gives completely of her deepest essence.’

The story of process can be dreary, but not when Barton explores her own. It appears there are many ‘people’ that inhabit her mind as she works, but mostly they divide into two types. Both are ignited by the necessity to create; it is the work that takes her somewhere and generates its own energy. There is one that emerges when doing the labour-intensive work on the feathers of the birds, characterised by a sense of calm and patience in the process of building them up in all their intricate complexity. Then there is the person who makes the final finish that takes the form of a splattering of paint that is seen in her works. This requires the right kind of mood, she insists. It must also emerge at the right time, that moment in which she wants her work “to be teetering on the edge of completeness, still in a state of rawness but built up to that point of saturation … more would destroy it”. The other person that emerges at this point “is harnessing different states of being, taking a risk”. It may occur randomly in the night and requires a particular ‘head-space’.

In Wilde’s story the nightingale, upon seeing the sadness of the student who needs to find the reddest of roses to give his loved one, decides to sacrifice its life to create a rose drawn from its blood. At the height of this exchange of life for art and love she gives one last burst of music:

“The white Moon heard it, and she forgot the dawn, and lingered on in the sky. The red rose heard it, and it trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its petals to the cold morning air. Echo bore it to her purple cavern in the hills, and woke the sleeping shepherds from their dreams. It floated through the reeds of the river, and they carried its message to the sea.” (Oscar Wilde).

In Barton’s work ‘eyes’ fascinate her as both objects and symbols; they exude things as well as take things in: there are the tears and there are eyes that resonate the dreams from within and from all that the world provides. These extraordinary paintings will be available to all who know how to listen and who want to see into the centre of things: the beauty, the terror and the transformation.
Louise Bourgeois and Australian Artists, featuring new works of Del Kathryn Barton, shows at Heide Museum of Modern Art until April 14.

On Thursday December 6th, punters and art enthusiasts alike flocked to the Gallery to mingle amongst the best of the British for the opening of  our last exhibition for 2012, British Realism Now.  We welcomed the silly season with champagne and tunes as guests enjoyed the work of some of Britain’s most acclaimed photo-realists.  Tom Martin, Simon Hennessey, Nathan Walsh, Daniel Smith, Andrew Tift and Christian Marsh wow with their technical skill and works of indescribable photo clarity. The show runs until 24th December.

Pop in, say hi, and check out this incredible show before it ends.