As Long As Memory Lasts

There’s a marble stone plaque on Morpeth’s war memorial statue that reads, ‘For King & Country’. Listed there are the names of the local ANZAC soldiers who served in World War One. Third on that list is Lieutenant H. Maynard MM, and below, on another plaque is a commitment, ‘Lest We Forget’. This is a […]

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From the Inside Out

Music, storytelling, ugliness, and love. These are the things Newcastle-based artist Sally Bourke (1973-) notes among her largest influences.  In the portraits The Quiet Light and I am a ghost of you, you are the ghost of me, Bourke avoids her subjects’ external features or appearance. Painted ‘from the inside out’ as one curator puts it, ‘her […]

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In Memory of Maurice O’Shea

When speaking of his uncle, Maurice O’Shea, the Sydney-based  artist Garry Shead (1942-) shows great admiration. According to Garry, his childhood memories of annual visits to O’Shea’s renowned Mount Pleasant vineyard in Pokolbin in the Hunter Valley recall ‘a cultured man who loathed pretension and arrogance’.  Along with his thick glasses worn to rectify severe […]

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A Lovable Lad

Known affectionately as the ‘first Clown Prince of Australian country music…’, Chad Morgan was inducted into the Australian Country Music Roll of Renown in 1987. His colourful career as a unique entertainer and ‘larrikin’ country singer began in 1952 as a finalist on the Australia’s Amateur Hour radio show. A subsequent recording contract delivered his […]

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