Visual arts board members
Prof Ted Snell AM, chair, WA
Professor Ted Snell AM was appointed chair of the visual arts board and a member of Council for three years from 27 December 2006. Ted is Professor of Contemporary Art, and Dean of Art at the John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University of Technology, Perth. He has made a significant contribution to the Australian visual arts sector through his roles as Chair of Artbank, chair of the Asialink Visual Arts Advisory Committee, chair of the Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools and as a board member of the National Association for the Visual Arts. Ted has curated many exhibitions and has published several books and catalogues. He has twice been shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier's Book Award. Currently he is the Perth art reviewer for The Australian and has been a commentator on the arts for ABC radio and television. A practising visual artist since 1968, his work has been shown in solo exhibitions in Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane, and in group exhibitions throughout Australia. Ted's work is represented in many public collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Artbank and the Art Gallery of Western Australia as well as in private collections in Australia and overseas.
Steven Alderton (community interest representative), NSW
Steven Alderton has an extensive history of involvement with various art galleries throughout Australia, having served as Manager of the Redland Art Gallery and as curator of the Wagga Wagga City Art Gallery. He is currently the director of the Lismore Regional Gallery. He has curated a large number of exhibitions including, Patricia Piccinini, Double Love Knot; Lucian Freud, Still; and Dale Frank, Gin Gin Paintings. In the early 90s he established the Brisbane based artist run initiative, Space Plentitude, where he curated many exhibitions by emerging artists. Steven has a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts) from the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University. Steven has been a member of various boards and committees, such as the board of the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane and the Regional Galleries Association of NSW Committee. He was also a Regional Arts Fund panel member for Regional Arts NSW.
Robin Best, SA
Born in Perth but now residing in Adelaide, ceramicist Robin Best has a Graduate Diploma in Visual Arts from the University of South Australia. Robin’s work is held in collections throughout Australia, including the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, as well as the National Museum of Scotland and Seto Cultural Centre, Japan. In 1999 she was awarded a visual arts board grant to research Computer Aided Design and Computer Aided Manufacture technologies which led to a South Australian Design Awards Merit award. In 2003 she was awarded a Visual Arts Board grant for a solo exhibition in Shanghai, China and was a recipient of an Asialink Beijing residency and an Australia China Council grant in 2005. In 1997 she established a partnership to make ceramics with Ernabella Arts and JamFactory and still collaborates with Pitjantjatjara elder Nyukana Daisy Baker. Some of Robin’s recent exhibitions include; Light Black, The Jam Factory Craft Centre, Adelaide and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan in 2003, Collect, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK in 2005, and Writing a Painting, Adelaide Festival of Arts 2006, University of South Australia and A Secret History of Blue and White, Museum of Fine Arts, Hanoi and the Arts House, Singapore in 2006.
Lyndal Jones, VIC
Lyndal Jones is a Melbourne-based visual artist and associate professor of multimedia at RMIT University. Lyndal is considered a pioneer of new media, video and performance art in Australia and has produced a considerable body of work since the early 1980’s. She represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 2001 and was artist-in-residence for the City of Melbourne in 2001–02. In 2005, Lyndal was one of two Australian artists invited to exhibit in DMZ 2005, at the Demilitarised Zone in Korea. She was also a recipient of an Australian Artists Creative Fellowship in 1993-96. From 1999 until 2000, Lyndal was artist-in-residence at ARTEC, London and an Art Fellow in Media at the University of Paisley, Scotland from 1997 until 1998. Lyndal’s work has been exhibited at numerous galleries in Australia and overseas including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, Queensland Art Gallery, Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, UK, Maclaurin Gallery in Ayr, Scotland and the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. Her work has also appeared in Kwangju Biennale, Korea, 1997; the Melbourne International Biennale, 1999; Perspecta, Art Gallery of NSW, 1997; and the Biennale of Sydney, 1996. Her 10-year series of digital works, From the Darwin Translations has been widely acclaimed.
Janet Laurence, NSW
Janet Laurence is a Sydney based installation artist who has an extensive exhibition history both in Australia and overseas. Her work has been exhibited in group shows such as the 9th Biennale of Sydney in 1992, Australian Perspecta (1985, 1991, 1997), ARCO Art Fair, Madrid, Spain in 1994, and in 2003 she was invited to create a permanent installation for the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial in Japan. Her recent solo exhibitions include Birdsong, Object Gallery, Sydney in 2006, Glasshouse, Sherman Galleries, Sydney, 2005 and a survey exhibition at ANU Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra, 2005. Janet has also been involved in a number of significant public commissions and collaborations, such as the Australian War Memorial, Hyde Park, London, 2003 (with Tonkin Zulaikha Greer architects); In the Shadow, Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, Homebush Bay (1998-2000) and Tomb of the Unknown Solider, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1993. Her works are held in many significant public collections throughout Australia, including National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Victoria and Queensland Art Gallery. Janet’s works
are also part of collections in New Zealand, Italy, Japan and the United States, as well as in a number of private collections worldwide. In 2006 she received a Churchill Fellowship and was awarded a visual arts board two-year fellowship grant in 1996.
Richard Whiteley NSW
Richard is a glass artist based in Queanbeyan who is currently the head of the glass workshop at the school of art, Australian National University. Richard has studied in Australia and the US and has worked closely with Czech artists Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova. He has held the position of chair of the board at Object: Australian Centre of Craft and Design (2000-2002) and was an international board member of the Glass Art Society in the US (1999-2001).
Richard was the winner of the prestigious Ranamok Glass Art Prize in 2000 and he has received five grants from the Australia Council visual arts board, most recently a new work grant in 2005 to produce work for exhibition at SOFA in Chicago, USA, and for the exhibition ‘Autralishce Impressionen’ in Gottingen, Germany. Richard continues to make significant contributions to glass art through his continual investigation and experimentation with new techniques and technologies.
Richard has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Australia, USA, and throughout Europe. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Solid and Suggested Space’ at Object Gallery in Sydney, ‘Inner Space’ at Axia Modern Art in Melbourne, and exhibitions of new and recent work at Chicago and Portland in the United States. Richard’s work is held in corporate, public and private collections nationally and internationally including, National Gallery of Australia, National Glass Collection in Wagga Wagga, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, and the Bullseye Glass Company Collection in the United States.
Michael Zavros, QLD
Brisbane visual artist Michael Zavros, graduated from Queensland College of Art with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 1996 where he has subsequently worked as a lecturer in painting and printmaking. Michael has taken part in numerous group exhibitions including Primavera 2000 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Quiet Collision: Current Practice/Australian Style, Associazione ViaFarini, Milan, Italy, 2003; and New Nature at Govett Brewster Gallery, New Zealand in 2007. His solo exhibitions include This Charming Man, 24HR Art, Darwin in 2006; Everything I wanted at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2003/2004; and Egoiste at Wollongong City Art Gallery, 2007. Michael is the recipient of several awards and grants. In 2005 he won the Robert Jacks Drawing Prize through the Bendigo Art Gallery and in 2004, 2005 and 2006 he was a finalist in The Archibald Prize. In 2001 he was awarded the visual arts board Milan residency and in 2005, the visual arts board Barcelona residency. In 2003 he was awarded a Cité Internationale des Arts Residency in Paris through the Power Institute, University of Sydney. His work is held in numerous private and public collections, including Artbank, Collex, ABN AMRO, Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Grafton Regional Art Gallery and the Tasmanian Museum and Gallery. In 2001 his work was included in Awesome! Australian Art for Contemporary Kids, a Craftsman House publication featuring 50 Australian contemporary artists.
Dennis Del Favero, NSW
Dennis Del Favero is an Australian photographic, video and new media artist and academic.
He is currently an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellow and Senior Fellow at ZKM, Germany. Dennis' photography, video and media art work has been widely exhibited in individual exhibitions in museums and galleries such as Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Münchner Stadtmuseum, Munich, ViaFarini, Milan and Neue Galerie, Graz and included in major group exhibitions such as Kriegszustand, Battle of the Nations War Memorial, Leipzig (joint project with Jenny Holzer), 1996, Future Cinema, ZKM, Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, 2003, Cinemas du futur, EuraLille, Lille, 2004, and Videonale, Kunstmuseum Bonn, 2005.
He has held numerous artist-in-residencies including at ZKM, Karlsruhe, Civitella Ranieri, Umbertide, Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz and Presentation House, Vancouver. Dennis' writings on art have been included in a number of Birkhauser, MIT, Springer, and ZKM publications. He is currently an Australian Research Council Queen Elizabeth II Fellow, Chair of the iCinema Research Centre and Co-Chair of the Creative Media Institute at the University of New South Wales, Senior Fellow at ZKM, and an editor of the ZIP Digital Arts Edition published by Hatje Cantz, Germany.
Dennis has worked on a large range of international multi-disciplinary research projects with organisations such as University of Nottingham, University of Pittsburgh and ZKM and has been awarded numerous international Fellowships.