The archetypal ‘Madonna and Child’ is perhaps the most iconic vision of the tender bond between mother and child embodying the sacrifice and heartache characteristic of the role. In the Western Art canon, Mary, the hallowed Mother of God, is joined by a cast of mother figures leveraged for the symbolic power of their maternal virtues. In the 18th and 19th century Britannia, represented as a warrior goddess, she became a personified emblem of British national identity.

Bendigo Art Gallery Curator Clare Needham in conversation with New Zealand born, Naarm/Melbourne based contemporary artist Kirsty Budge - winner of the 2021 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize.

Bendigo Art Gallery Curator, Clare Needham in conversation with contemporary artist Jahnne Pasco-White the 2019 winner of Bendigo Art Gallery’s prestigious Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize. 

Clare: Your winning work messmates 1, is fleshy and visceral. Can you talk a bit about the relationship of this work and the title messmates to the body?

In 2018, Bangerang artist Peta Clancy was awarded a Fostering Koorie Art and Culture Residency Program grant from the Koorie Heritage Trust, Melbourne, to research massacre sites on Dja Dja Wurrung Country in Central and Northern Victoria. Working closely with Traditional Owners, Clancy spent a year visiting and documenting an unmarked site submerged underwater, learning the land and it’s hidden stories to create the expansive and compelling photographic series Undercurrent.

Contemporary Australian artist Georgina Cue and Bendigo Art Gallery Curator Clare Needham discuss Cue’s work Three Musicians recently acquired by the gallery through the generosity of the Baring family in memory of Wynne Baring. 

CN: Your work is rich with historical references. How does historical material inform your practice? 

When the first Bendigo Easter Fair was held in 1871 there were many who believed it was a success because it was a novelty, and that in time, enthusiasm for its continuation would expire. These gloomy forebodings were clearly unfounded with 2020 boasting what would have been the 150th fair.