The worldwide virus lockdown has hit all aspects of art and culture particularly hard. Cultural spaces and gatherings are often run on a low budget and it is hard to see some of them recovering. As well, the Oceanic and Aboriginal communities that are the custodians of the art and culture that we revere are […]
Navigating for a Place in the Museum: Stories of Encounter and Engagement between the Old and the New from the Highlands of Papua New Guinea
A paper by Dr Michael Mel, Australian Museum. Reviewed by Bill Rathmell Dr Michael Mel. Image courtesy of the Australian Museum, Sydney. Michael Mel, the Manager of Pacific and International Collections at the Australian Museum in Sydney, is well known in Oceanic art circles. In an interview in the OAS Journal Vol 23 (2018, #2) […]
Obituary – Barbara Perry
13 August 1938 – 10 November 2019. By Ron May Barbara Perry was a larger than life character, well known in Oceanic art circles in Sydney, and later in Brisbane. Barbara Perry (née Hockey) was born in Dubbo and grew up on her father’s sheep station, Courallie, before boarding at the Presbyterian Ladies College, Sydney. Following her […]
War Art & Ritual: Shields from the Pacific
Edited by Bill Evans, Two Volumes, 518 pages, 140 Shields illustrated with additional images, eight essays and introduction. Published by William Nathaniel Evans, Woollahra, NSW, Australia, 2019. Reviewed by James Elmslie This lavish and beautifully produced book by Bill Evans is a rich resource for anyone with an interest in the shields of the Pacific […]
San Francisco Art Fair 2020
By Krisztina Turza When I boarded the plane from Brisbane to San Francisco in February as a last minute decision, I could not have imagined that rather than the first, it could potentially be the last tribal art show of the year. To a first timer at the San Francisco Tribal & Textile Art Show […]
Noah’s Art – Floating art galleries of Indonesia
by Jeffrey Mellefont, Honorary Research Associate, Australian National Maritime Museum The subject of my recent lecture to Oceanic Art Society (OAS) in March – the artistry that can be found on many of the timber sea craft of Indonesia both today and in the past – grew from a wider research interest that has drawn […]