Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial
Art Gallery of NSWEvery two years a major exhibition of innovative contemporary drawing, the Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial, is presented at the Art Gallery of NSW with the support of the Foundation. Each Biennial is an exploration of a particular theme that expands our understanding of what a drawing can be.
Every Drawing Biennial has a different curatorial concept and showcases the vitality and breadth of drawing taking place in Australia. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. A selection of exhibited works is acquired for the Gallery’s collection from each Biennial. Following its exhibition in Sydney the Biennial tours to regional galleries across NSW.
The 2024 exhibition, Infinite, is the fifth Australian Drawing Biennial at the Art Gallery of NSW and involves ten artists whose work focuses on abstraction. The works vary from hand-drawn graphite, coloured pencil and ink on paper, to collaborative wall and floor drawings, works made using the power of the sun, and works that extend beyond two dimensions.
Infinite is at the Art Gallery of NSW from 14 September 2024 to 12 January 2025.
2020
Art Gallery NSW – Real Worlds
Real worlds: Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial 2020 presents the work of eight contemporary Australian artists who create extraordinary new worlds in drawings of great complexity and invention.
With drawing as the principal medium, the exhibited works evoke distinctive ways of seeing and making sense of the world. For some, it recreates a physical environment, grounded in a deep connection to place or country. For others, it is an invention that springs forth from history, memory and the imagination.
The exhibiting artists are Martin Bell (Victoria), Matt Coyle (Tasmania), Nathan Hawkes (NSW), Danie Mellor (NSW), Peter Mungkuri (South Australia), Becc Ország (Victoria), Jack Stahel (NSW) and Helen Wright (Tasmania).
Becc Ország Fantasy of virtue / All things and nothing 2018. Collection of the artist. © Becc Ország
Walk through the exhibition ‘Real Worlds’ with curator Anne Ryan
2018
Art Gallery NSW – Playback
In response to images found in art history, archives, newspapers, cinema and online, the artists in this exhibition use drawing to reanimate history, in a process that involves imagination, fabrication and the repurposing of prior sources.
Vernon Ah Kee creates skeletal and ghostly faces in remembrance of the 2004 Palm Island riots; Sharon Goodwin’s 3-D drawings re-vision the slippery surfaces of fact and fiction in historical narrative; and Laura Hindmarsh’s double exposures trace images of women in cinematic classics as found on the internet.
Locust Jones The end of the beginning, New Year’s Eve to April fools 2018 (detail) Collection of the artist
© Locust Jones. Photo: AGNSW
2016
Art Gallery NSW – Close to Home
The Art Gallery of New South Wales is delighted to announce Close to home, the second Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial, from 30 July until 11 December 2016. Continuing the legacy of the Dobell Prize for Drawing, this curated exhibition presents the work of six Australian artists whose practice is connected by narrative, memory and experience.
Noel McKenna Untitled from Animals I have known 2015-16 pencil, pen and ink, wash on paper © Noel McKenna
2014
Art Gallery NSW – Drawing Out
Showcasing the vitality and breadth of drawing in Australia. Drawing is fundamental to the practice of each of the ten contemporary artists in this exhibition. Their works range from watercolour to film, performance and sculpture, highlighting how the art of drawing can often defy classification.
The exhibition reveals how the process of drawing itself allows these artists to engage with the landscape – urban, rural, natural or constructed – and the importance of a tangible subject to their work.
Drawing out is the first in a series of curated exhibitions on contemporary Australian drawing to be held every two years – the Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial – following the acclaimed Dobell Prize for Drawing (1993–2012). It features Tom Carment, Joe Furlonger, Ross Laurie, Ivy Pareroultja, Ana Pollak, Peter Sharp, Mary Tonkin, John R Walker, Gosia Wlodarczak and John Wolseley. Their wide-ranging works move from intimate sketchbook drawings to large-scale panoramas
John Wolseley A Clarence Galaxia in the Ancient Sphagnum Bogs – Skullbone Plains, Tasmania 2013 (detail), watercolor, graphite on paper, 140 × 300 cm. Collection of the artist, courtesy Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Media
Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial opens at Orange Regional Gallery
Central Estern Daily: October 10 2019, By Alex Crowe Playback, the third Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial, will open at the Orange Regional Gallery on Friday. The exhibition presents work by eight contemporary Australian artists, exploring history through crossovers...
Artist Locust Devours All the News – Daily Telegraph
Locust Jones’ news-inspired artwork takes plague proportions in AGNSW Dobell drawing show Blue Mountains artist Locust Jones pictured with one of his artworks at Sydney Olympic Park last year. Picture: supplied THERE are news junkies, and then there’s Locust Jones....
Drawing Out, the inaugural Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial is now on at the Art Gallery of NSW
John McDonald, SMH 5 December 2014 One cannot travel very far in any discussion of drawing without coming across a famous statement from the great neo-classicist, Jacques-Auguste-Dominique Ingres: "Drawing is the probity of art." "Probity" means both "correctness" and...