VISUAL ARTS

WHERE & WHEN

MELVILLE ART AWARDS EXHIBITION

Wireless Hill Museum Opening Night Fri 28 Oct | 6pm Exhibition runs until Sun 20 Nov

FREE

TILT | EMMA BUSWELL

Goolugatup Heathcote Opening Night Fri 11 Nov | 6pm Exhibition runs until Sun 29 Jan

FREE

Art in the heart of Melville

Melville’s visual art program is a celebration of art, showcasing work by Western Australian artists at all stages of their careers across the city’s galleries, museums and studios. From personal explorations of identity to prestigious awards, experience the power of art: beautiful, moving, pleasurable and challenging – sometimes all at once.

ART AWARDS AND PRIZES

Melville showcases diverse and ambitious new art in a spectacular series of prizes and awards. The Melville Art Awards return for their 46th year at Wireless Hill Museum, with entries from hobbyists to established professionals. The second biennial Digital Art Prize engages Australia’s best digital artists in a celebration of art that lives on the screen. Goolugatup Heathcote will also host the 2023 Melville Contemporary art prize, a rare opportunity to come and see the work of Western Australia’s best contemporary artists across a wide range of practices, styles and formats.

TILT

My dad told me the other day they call him ‘the Mayor of Duncraig Road’. He doesn’t have any vestments. Just a crumpled outdoorsy sun hat, khaki greens, and in recent years, a set of lurid electric blue arm covers that protect his thinning skin from the sun. When I say ‘they’, I refer to the clients whose lawns, gardens and pathways he has carefully maintained for some 25 years. My dad is a gardener. eMMa busWell

TILT, Goolugatup Heathcote’s annual invitational exhibition, challenges artists to respond to the site itself. This year, artist Emma Buswell explores Applecross as a place where different lived experiences of class come together in a way that’s not always comfortable. Incorporating a range of mediums, Buswell’s work explores the different experiences of the people who live in Applecross’s wealthy streets, and the others – like her dad – who work there maintaining their mansions and gardens.

CREATIVE RESIDENCY AT HICKEY STREET

The Hickey Street Creative Residency Program is a hub of creativity in the heart of the city. Located in two cottages at the bottom of Yagan Mia Wireless Hill Park, it offers artists temporary accommodation and studio space in this unique historic precinct. A precious space dedicated to art and artists, it gives them the time and space to ideate, develop their practice, take inspiration from the surroundings or create a new body of work.

WEEKENDER ART SHOWS

Weekender Art Shows allow local artists to manage a gallery space on their own terms. A fantastic place to buy art for the home, it’s a unique opportunity to view and purchase work outside the traditional gallery scene.

PUBLIC ART

Melville is home to over one hundred pieces of permanent and temporary public art. At any time that suits, you can explore an array of diverse sculptural and mural works right across the city. Keep an eye on the Canning Bridge precinct this summer as five new works get installed in soon to be revealed locations.

To learn more about Melville’s Visual Arts Program, visit melvillecity.com.au/artsprograms and goolugatup-heathcote.com.au

I THINK, LIKE MANY OTHER ARTISTS, ART FOR ME IS A COMPULSION; YOU DON’T HAVE A CHOICE OF WHETHER YOU DO IT OR NOT – YOU JUST NEED TO. IT’S SOMETHING I’VE ALWAYS NEEDED TO VOCALISE MY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS.

Emma Buswell captured by Rebecca Mansell

eMMa busWell, artist

Emma Buswell

Emma Buswell is fascinated by the changes in the land as she walks through the suburbs from East Fremantle to Goolugatup Heathcote.

“The suburb shifts and changes as you get closer to Duncraig Road. The way the land is used and maintained changes. I’ve been collecting the litter and debris on the roadside – mostly smashed car headlights and broken glass. But that all stops around the Goolugatup Heathcote area, where i’m guessing people can afford to employ private landscaping and cleaning services. You see lots of service vehicles for cleaning and gardening businesses around there.”

This difference is at the heart of Buswell’s exhibition for this year’s TILT program. It also has very personal significance for the artist – Buswell’s father is one of the many people employed to maintain the area’s tidy streets and gardens.

“Growing up, I used to accompany my Dad to work a lot. He was a gardener who maintained a lot of the wealthy properties in the area. My understanding of that area comes from that experience of Dad as a worker coming in from a very different lived experience, which was just on the other side of the highway.”

Buswell sees greater significance in the work, beyond its response to the Goolugatup Heathcote site. “For this show, I’m imagining the present moment viewed from a distant future. How will future societies look back on us as a Western colonial society and how we use land, who has access to that land, and who is allowed to thrive?”