The Art Show – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Over the past decade, Ramesh Nithiyendran has become one of the most visible artists of his generation and one of the most hardworking with his signature emoji-like, wildly coloured and often multiple-limbed sculptures making their presence felt across the globe. Daniel drops in on Ramesh as he prepares to unveil his next big solo exhibition - including his magnum opus, a self-deity in bronze.

And the first in an occasional series If Not Critical, we meet art critic (and artist) Jack Wilkie-Jans. A trained political scientist, Jack’s critical writing explores the power of his country in the art of far north Queensland.

Sasha Huber is Swiss-Haitian… but she lives and works in Finland. She’s got a truly interdisciplinary practice - but she does have one particular medium, that’s quite unusual - in fact, it’s hard to imagine how she makes art from this non-art material. Her medium is the humble staple - not your desk type - she packs a semi-automatic staple gun like the ones tradies use.

Sasha's work can be seen at Crepusculum along with artist Petri Saarikko at Gallery Project8 in Melbourne until 14 September.

Freya Jobbins is an artist based in regional NSW. Her method of assemblage - the art of making three dimensional pieces from objects that have been discarded  - creates extraordinary and often disturbingly touchable sculptures are made from the flesh coloured parts of toy dolls.

Freya is set to have a solo exhibition at Penny Contemporary in Hobart in the new year.

It's Poetry Month and to celebrate Radio National is bringing you brand new poems commissioned by Red Room Poetry. Poet, playwright and dramaturge Dylan Van Den Berg's poem Red Face Man is his response to to Benjamin Duterrau's 1840 painting, “Mr Robinson's first interview with Timmy” 

A culture that flourished 3,500 years ago in Thailand. They made jewellery and ceramics, not war.  You may never have heard of Ban Chiang —That’s possibly because the objects that tell the story of this fascinating archaeological site are in limbo, caught between voracious collectors, tomb-raiding locals and undercover federal agents. Art historian Dr Melody Rod-ari tells Daniel the story. 

For four decades Judy Watson has been making layered, ethereal art about profound and difficult subjects: frontier violence, dispossession and ecological destruction. From her beginnings with the famed Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative, to lithographs and her monumental public artworks, Daniel speaks to Judy Watson at her largest survey show at the Queensland Art Gallery, ‘mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson’. The stories in this episode were first broadcast in 2023 and March 2024.

Australian-born Polly Borland is best known for photographing kink sub cultures, Nick Cave and the late Queen, but she has also long been experimenting with the surreal. She tells Daniel about her shift to sculpture and her true feelings about photographing the late monarch. Plus, who was Janet Sobel? The unlikely abstract artist who used paint drips and splatters before Jackson Pollack 'furtively admired' her work.

In the 1960s Vivienne Binns scandalised critics with her joyfully sexual paintings of giant genitalia and Dada-inspired pop art. But instead of following her expected path, Binns abandoned painting and devoted herself to community art projects and the Feminist art movement. Plus, a spotlight on pioneering ceramic artist Thanakupi, from Napranum (Weipa). And a short history of the smile in western Art.

Paul Yore's colourful artworks riff off pop culture, queer identity, religion and politics. In 2014, he was embroiled in a censorship scandal that saw him charged with child pornography (later dropped) over images he used in a collage, part of an exhibition in honour of the Australian avant-garde artist Mike Brown. Paul talks to Daniel about the impact of the case and his new survey show, full of his trademark trash, sparkle, found objects -- and ‘obscenities’.Plus, the 'shark bra' that bit back and became an iconic piece of Australian feminist art. And a video artwork project split between art museums in Sydney and Birmingham, UK.

Kara Walker is one of America’s most significant living artists, known for cut-paper silhouettes and gigantic public sculptures, using the visual artefacts of slavery in nightmarish black and white scenes. Daniel speaks with Kara from her Brooklyn studio, for the National Gallery f Australia's Annual Lecture. Plus, pick up a pen and draw your plants! Our resident drawing instructor Lily Mae Martin says it's good for the soul. And Daniel visits the studio of Archibald Prize-winning painter Yvette Coppersmith.

Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian-Ukrainian photographer who hangs out of helicopters to capture aerial scenes of rapid industrialisation and destruction, on Earth. So how does he pick his monumental subjects? And what has he witnessed over his 40-year career?

Plus, this week on The Drawing Board, Daniel and Lily Mae Martin talk about how to draw hands. Why can they be so hard to get right?!

And Australian sculptor Clayton Blake on making art for Burning Man in the Nevada desert -- just don't call it a festival!

Drew Berry is a biomedical animator, who brings to life microscopic molecular processes in vivid colour. He’s won an Emmy for his visualisation of DNA and been described as the ‘Steven Spielberg of molecular animation’.Plus, on The Drawing Board learn how to approach drawing perspective with instructor Lily Mae Martin. And Natalya Hughes shows Daniel around her exhibition The Interior, where the potent imagery of Sigmund Freud's famous case studies meet the furnishings of his consultation room.

One year on since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, we speak to Adelaide-based Hazara artist and poet Elyas Alavi and photographer and conceptual artist Rada Akbar, now living in France. Plus, do you want to start drawing (again)? Lily Mae Martin takes Daniel back to The Drawing Board, our new drawing segment.And enter the marine world of textile artist and weaver Aly de Groot.