Andrew Frost co-founded The Art Life in 2004. He has written for Australian and international art magazines including Art & Australia, Art Guide, Australian Art Collector, Contemporary, Flash Art and Art Forum and many others. He has contributed journalism and opinion pieces to The Sydney Morning Herald and is the art critic for Guardian Australia. He wrote and presented two, three-part series of The Art Life for ABC1 [2007 & 2009] and more than a dozen other documentaries on contemporary Australian art including The A-Z of Contemporary Art [2013]. He is also the writer, co-producer and director of the documentaries My Space Program: The Art of Peter Hennessey [2015] and The Grand Mistake: A Portrait of McLean Edwards [2017].When he was a child he cried at an Alice Cooper concert.
Luise Guest has worked as an art teacher and educator for many years prior to travelling to China on a NSW Premier’s Kingold Chinese Creative Arts Scholarship early in 2011 to further her researches into contemporary Chinese art and art education. While in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong she interviewed more than 20 artists, curators and artworld figures, from eminent artists such as Wang Jianwei and Hu Jieming, through to emerging younger artists such as Lu Yang and Shi Zhiying. Since her return she has been writing and blogging regularly about China and Chinese art, and will continue to travel regularly to China to further her research.
After completing a Masters of Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts in 2015, George Shaw spent the next two years plotting his return to New York. Happily ensconced in his new digs, George has resumed duties as writer of Postcards From New York. He is looking forward to reigniting his art practice working with photography, video and installation.
Sharne Wolff has been a contributor to The Art Life since 2010. She writes regularly for a number of arts publications and is co-editor of the The Art Life’s annual Power Trip: The 50 Most Powerful People in Australian Art and Outfielders Lists. Find her on Twitter @sharnewolff
Alumni
Meredith Birrell completed a BA at Sydney University and studied painting at the National Art School. She has always fancied the idea of being a writer as well as a painter and hopes the two will amalgamate into some sort of artful and fascinating career.
Din Heagney is the former artistic director of Platform (2006-10), editor of un Magazine 4.1 (2010) and editor of Making Space: artist run initiatives in Victoria (2007). Din has written for numerous galleries and magazines including the NGA, Gertrude, West Space, Pages, Nylon, and Monument. For fun, he advises government on censorship while simultaneously presenting controversial art in public. He made his reputation as The Art Pimp playing a hand in various, sometimes questionable, artistic endeavours. Din is currently a practicing rapscallion and is writing his first novel of ‘art fiction’.
Michael Hutak is a journalist, critic and visual artist who has written widely on film, art and commerce. His writing has appeared in a variety of news media including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Independent Monthly, and many other titles. For a decade he was an arts columnist and critic for The Sydney Morning Herald before joining Australian Art Collector magazine in 1997 as its founding editor. He was art market analyst and art critic for The Bulletin from 1999 until its demise in 2007. In 2001, he presented the “Art Biz” segment for ABC Television’s national arts program, Coast to Coast. The creator of more than 20 experimental films, Hutak has also published film criticism and reported on the Australian film industry. He was film critic for The Sydney Morning Herald from 1992-1994, and is thrilled to be contributing to The Art Life.
John Kelly was born in Bristol, UK in 1965. In 1985 he obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts Painting) from RMIT University, Melbourne where he also completed his Masters of Arts in 1995. As a winner of the 1995 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship, he travelled to London to study as an Affiliate Student at the Slade School of Art from 1996 to 1997. Kelly lives in Ireland and contributes to a variety of magazines and online publications including Art Monthly (UK), Art Monthly (Australia), Circa Magazine Ireland, Recirca.com & The Art Life .
Tristian Koenig is a curator, gallerist and writer. He lives in Brunswick with his wife Jane and dog Monkey.
Stella Rosa McDonald is an artist, freelance writer and associate gallery manager at Minerva, Sydney. Since 2011 Stella has been the Sydney correspondent for Ocula Magazine. Her writing and reviews have been published by a variety of publications including Art Collector, Art & Australia, Das Superpaper, The Art Life and Overland literary journal.
Wendy Meares trained as an accountant but always dreamed of becoming an artist. After raising a family she decided to make her wish come true and enrolled at the National Art School where she studied painting and drawing, concentrating on still lives and landscapes. She has exhibited in a number of group shows and has sold several of her paintings. Wendy has interests in all forms of art making, likes good quality art house movies and listens to ABC 702 Local Radio for relaxation.
Carrie Miller majored in Fine Arts and Philosophy and has a first class Honours degree in Philosophy from Sydney University. For the past decade she’s been a professional freelance writer and social commentator. Carrie’s written on a wide range of issues from the ethics of collecting Indigenous art to the etiquette of begging as a contributor to Australian Art Collector, New Matilda, The Punch and The Spectator. Carrie’s dislikes include moonlit walks, romantic comedies, and good bottles of red.
Bruce McMillan – went to school – didn’t like it much. Then he went to art college – didn’t like that much. He’s a graphic designer currently studying Interactive Digital Media. One day Bruce hopes to learn to type as he’s thinking of becoming a writer.
Isobel Parker Philip is a freelance writer and visual artist who does not think in straight lines. She has curated and contributed to a number of exhibitions and has had artwork and poetry published in various literary magazines. One of her essays, an anatomization of the metaphoric significance of the human ear in literature, was included in a literary anthology. She is the Australian coordinator of a forthcoming international interdisciplinary and experimental arts/literature journal with roots in Sydney, Paris, New York, Norway and Brussels. Whenever asked what she wants to do with her life, she says she wants to be a freelance Isobel.
Ian Houston Shadwell is a freelance writer who once lost a game of scrabble to Kylie Minogue. Despite his pleas she has so far refused a rematch.