Colin Lanceley (2010) Photo: Paul Green
COLIN LANCELEY: EARTHLY DELIGHTS
COLIN LANCELEY: EARTHLY DELIGHTS
Curated by Sioux Garside, this new major exhibition celebrates Colin Lanceley (1938-2015), a Modernist trailblazer who believed in celebrating the joyous qualities of life in his vibrant, three-dimensional art.
After studying at NAS in the 1950s, which he described as “the opening of my life”, he returned to teach there from the 1980s, then in the 1990s helped write a new chapter for the School as an independent tertiary institution offering visual art degrees, after decades of being attached to NSW’s technical education sector. In the 1960s and 70s, Colin was a vigorous and adventurous spirit at a time when contemporary Australian art was discovering new forms and inspiration, as well as acknowledging the ancient country’s unique and powerful Indigenous art. Born in New Zealand in 1938 and growing up on Sydney’s north shore, a life creating art was not on the cards for young Colin, but with the encouragement of key teachers he found his way to the place he belonged, and in turn helped countless others setting off on their own artistic path. Supported by his wife Kay, this exhibition is a celebration of Colin’s life and work, confirming his creative legacy in the same year the National Art School celebrates 100 years since moving to the Darlinghurst Gaol site.
EXHIBITION DATES:
Friday 24 June – Saturday 13 August 2022NAS GalleryMonday to Saturday, 11am–5pm
Publication Supporter:
With additional support from the Lanceley Exhibition Supporters Group.
Diverse Delights
This panel discussion will offer recollections and insights into the life and work of Colin Lanceley AO from a range of perspectives. Speakers include Felix Lanceley, the artist’s son, Sioux Garside, curator of the Earthly Delights exhibition, Stuart Purves, Director, Australian Galleries who has represented the artist since the 1980s, and Louise Olsen, artist and co-founder of Dinosaur Designs who is a former student of Colin Lanceley at NAS. The discussion will be chaired by Julian Beaumont OAM, who sat with Lanceley on the Advisory Board of NAS during a formative period in the 1990s.
Image: Colin Lanceley, Xanadu 1969, synthetic polymer paint, assemblage and ink on shaped canvas, 106.5 x 124.5 x 24 cm. Macquarie University Art Collection. © Colin Lanceley estate / Copyright Agency. Photo: Effy Alexakis, Photowrite.
DATE HELD:
Saturday 6 August, 3pmNAS Gallery
Panelists
JULIAN BEAMONT OAM
Following a career in investment banking, Julian Beaumont was appointed in 1996 as a founding member of the National Art School Advisory Board with . He also represented NSW on the board of Artbank and of several other arts organisations. He has been involved in the selection and judging of several sculpture events, including the National Sculpture Prize at the NGA, Sculpture Inside at Bondi and ArtsCape in Byron Bay. Julian Beaumont also oversaw the creation and development of the Macquarie Group Collection and contributed to the building of the Australian Club Collection and has written books about both. He has long been a supporter of Australian art and artists, promoting them here and overseas.
SIOUX GARSIDE
Sioux Garside is the curator of Colin Lanceley: Earthly Delights. She has enjoyed a 35-year professional life working in the Australian visual arts sector as a gallery director, curator, educator and writer. She holds a Master of Arts degree from the City University of New York and worked in the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She was deputy director of Newcastle Art Gallery, inaugural director of Campbelltown City Art Gallery and senior curator of the art collection at the University of Sydney. Since 2006 Sioux Garside has worked as a curatorial advisor in the private sector. Recent publications include Elisabeth Cummings, Ildiko Kovacs and Suzanne Archer and she is currently working on a book for the John Peart Estate.
Felix Lanceley
Felix is Colin’s youngest son, born to the artist and wife Kay during their time away living in London in the 60s and 70s. Having grown up immersed in Lanceley’s creative process and the world surrounding it, the younger Lanceley has a unique perspective of the artist’s work and its creation. Felix Lanceley inherited his father’s interest in travel and exploring the different cultures of the World. He has spent the last 25 years studying and working at home and abroad, chiselling out a career in international education which has taken him to Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He is currently General Manager of UOW College, an Institute of Higher Education providing pathways to the University of Wollongong.
Louise Olsen
Artist – Studio in Sydney, Australia. Creative Director, Designer & Co Founder of Dinosaur Designs. Louise grew up in the world of artists as the daughter of Valerie Olsen Strong and John Olsen. You could say that she was touched by the brush from the moment she was born. Her artworks and designs have travelled the globe and have been collected and exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. The combination of her own art practice alongside her work as a designer and Creative Director of Dinosaur Designs for 37 years, with stores based in New York & London, has given Louise a great creative adventure.
Stuart Purves
Stuart Purves, director of Australian Galleries, continues to strengthen and diversify the thriving enterprise started in Melbourne in 1956 by his parents Anne and Tam. Since joining the business in 1966, Stuart has been privileged to promote a leading selection of modern and contemporary Australian artists. From the beginning, Australian Galleries developed a reputation for representing prominent Australian artists. As a passionate advocate of artists, Stuart’s role as director is to ensure the gallery remains vital and viable so the artists he represents survive and prosper. Stuart Purves’ personal dedication and enthusiasm to the promotion of the arts in Australia is indicative of his confidence in the important role visual art plays in the national and international psyche. With over fifty years active involvement, he continues to be passionate about art and his commitment to the artists he represents.
‘Colin Lanceley: Earthly Delights’ Exhibition Catalogue
Earthly delights surveys the significant creative achievements of Colin Lanceley (1938-2015) over five decades from the 1960s to 2012. This exhibition traces the evolution of his work from the early, raw collages made as a member of the Imitation Realists, an artist collaborative group formed at NAS, to his assembled sculptures of the mid-1960s and his subsequent incorporation of hand-carved assemblage into his painted surfaces over ensuing decades.
Colin Lanceley’s art evolved from his curiosity and the pleasure he gained from art, poetry, classical music, literature, nature and the world around him. He worked endlessly to give expression to his rich store of memories and sensory encounters, creating ingenious interplays of colour, texture and sculptural form as a way of visualising the boundlessness and vitality of experience. In his own words, Lanceley wanted to ”make art that addressed the street, which more satisfactorily addressed our experience of being alive”.
PUBLICATION DETAILS
Title: Colin Lanceley: Earthly Delights
Author: National Art School
Publisher: National Art School
ISBN: 978-0-6451306-2-1
Publication Date: June 2022
Language: English
Binding: Hardcover
Dimensions: 25 x 27.2 x 2 cm
Shipping Weight: 1kg
Thank you to everyone who has come through to see the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize for its first week. The exhibition is now open until Saturday 21 June 2025. Please note we are open this Saturday and closed for the observed Easter holidays.
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Good Friday CLOSED 18 April 2025
Easter Saturday OPEN Sat 19 April 2025, 11am – 5pm
Easter Sunday CLOSED Sun 20 April 2025
Easter Monday CLOSED Mon 21 April 2025
Anzac Day CLOSED Fri 25 April 2025
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Installation view, 24th Dobell Drawing Prize, National Art School Gallery, Sydney, 2025, image courtesy the artists and National Art School © the artists, photograph: Peter Morgan
Apr 17
Art Club is our high school student program for 15-17 year olds, designed to enhance and extend students’ technical, conceptual, and intellectual skills, through intensive practical study in the disciplines offered at NAS as well as engaging in an experience of our studios and campus, under the expert direction of experienced artists.
Set your child on a creative path with Art Club.
Learn more at the link in bio.
Apr 15
Thank you to everyone who attended the opening night of the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize and congratulations again to the prize winner NAS alumna Rosemary Lee.
The 24th Dobell Drawing Prize is now open until Saturday 21 June 2025
11am – 5pm Monday to Saturday
NAS Gallery
Free admission, all welcome
Learn more about the exhibition at the link in bio.
Apr 11
We are delighted to announce NAS alumna Rosemary Lee as the winner of the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize, Australia’s leading prize for drawing, worth $30,000.
Selected from 56 nationwide finalists, and 965 entries, Rosemary’s work will become part of the National Art School’s significant collection, built over the past 120 years. Rosemary, in her winning work 24-1 (2024), observes tonal and compositional profundity in everyday life.
The judging panel comprising acclaimed First Nations artist Vernon Ah Kee, Paula Latos-Valier AM, Trustee and Art Director of the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation, and Dr Yolunda Hickman, Head of Postgraduate Studies, National Art School, commented of Rosemary’s work: “The decision to award the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize to Rosemary Lee for the work ‘24-1’ was unanimous. We were most impressed by the level of visual intensity the artist has achieved in this work both through its vibrant colour and in the extraordinary detail of the composition. The artwork’s exploration of the urban landscape and gentrification of the Sydney suburbs of Ashfield and Summer Hill, has produced an image capturing a broader sense of transience and the omnipresence of construction sites in our cities today. It questions the cultural and historical value of place, through the lens of the artist’s personal connection.”
See Lee’s work alongside the work of the other finalists in the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize, 11 April – 21 June 2025, NAS Gallery
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Left to right: NAS Director and CEO, Dr Kristen Sharp with artist Rosemary Lee, featuring winning artwork 24–1, 2024, pencil on paper, image courtesy the artist and National Art School Gallery © the artist, photograph: Peter Morgan
Apr 10
Introducing the National Art School Short Courses Program from July–December 2025
Whether you’re a beginner, rediscovering a past passion, refining your skills, or considering our Fine Arts degree, the short courses offer a stimulating and rewarding experience for all levels.
Our 2025 program begins in July with Winter School, followed by Term Three, Spring Weekend Workshops in September, and Term Four in October.
Learn more and enrol at the link in bio.
Apr 10
Making Sound is a performance event featuring four artists who make devices that make sound, including Gary Warner, Pia van Gelder, Ben Denham and Sean O’Connell, presented following Facture: Drawing Symposium 2025, Saturday 12 April 5-6pm.
Gary Warner creates an improvised soundfield with his ‘aleatoric ensemble’ autonomous sound machines, a collection of modified turntables that spin ad-hoc bric-a-brac assemblages.
Pia van Gelder (pictured) amplifies an electronic circuit as it is built in real-time. Under the moniker of “PvG sans PCB,” in these performances, van Gelder works on a breadboard with electronic components and additional found objects to demonstrate the electronic variabilities produced in the material world.
Ben Denham and Sean O’Connell perform together with handmade synthesizer systems that sense and sonify barometric pressure and the flow of electrons through matter.
Purchase your tickets to the symposium at the link in bio.
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Pia van Gelder, `sans PCB`, 2021, performance, Collings Creative, image courtesy and © the artist
Apr 6
