Gold Coast (Bundall)
ArtsNational Gold Coast welcomes you.
You are warmly invited to join us at ArtsNational Gold Coast to explore the fascinating world of the Arts.
Visual and performing arts, design, history and literature form the basis for our eight lectures that are presented by international and local experts. These experts are chosen for their communication skills and expert knowledge in their fields. There is something for everyone!
In addition to our lectures, we also organise Special Events throughout the year, including visits to galleries, museums, exhibitions and places of cultural and historical interest.
Our Members and Friends receive our popular triannual ArtsNational Gold Coast Newsletter (click here) and monthly updates from the Chairman through “Keeping in Touch”.
ArtsNational Gold Coast has a 20 year successful history (click here) on the Gold Coast providing intellectual and social interaction for its 200+ members. Members also help to support young artists in our region by raising funds to support our Young Arts Programmes.
We meet on the lands of the Kombamerri clan of the Yungambeh people.
We are a not-for-profit volunteer organisation and encourage those interested to join our organising committee.
Lectures:
Venue:
Lectures are held at Lakeside Room, Home of the Arts (HOTA), 135 Bundall Road, Surfers Paradise, QLD. Metered parking is available on site.
Time:
Lectures are held on Saturday mornings.
Lecture commences at 9.30am and we ask Members and Guests to be seated by 9.15am.
Lectures run for approximately one hour. Morning Tea is served immediately after the lecture which provides Members and Guests the opportunity to ask questions and meet lecturers after each talk. The cost of Morning Tea is included in the membership or guest ticket fee.
Program
Find full details of the 2024 program here
Membership:
Annual membership
$210 Single
$400 Double
Click here to join or email: membershipsecretaryadfasgc@gmail.com
Guests welcome:
$40 per lecture
Contact:
For all enquiries please email: membershipsecretaryadfasgc@gmail.com
Postal Address: PO Box 7737 Gold Coast Mail Centre QLD 9726
ABN: 77 428 160 468
Committee
Chair: Gordon Wright
Treasurer: Amanda de Fina
Secretary: Peter Simmonds
Membership Secretary: Cara Gordon
2024 PROGRAM
Saturday 2 March 2024
LES PARISIENNES: HOW WOMEN LIVED, LOVED, AND DIED IN PARIS FROM 1939 TO 1949
Presented by: Anne Sebba
Venue & Time: Lakeside Room, HOTA. 9.30 am – Morning Tea: 10.30 am
Les Parisiennes is a story about women’s lives during the Nazi occupation. The lecture opens with a magnificent circus ball at a chateau in the grounds of Versailles, many guests not believing war was imminent, and ends with Christian Dior’s lavish 1947 new look and his perfume Miss Dior
Biographer, historian, and author of eleven books Anne Sebba lectures in the US and UK, and to the National Trust, British Library, and Imperial War Museum. Formerly a Reuters foreign correspondent, Anne presents on BBC Radio and television talking about her books, including biographies on Jennie Churchill, Laura Ashley, and Wallis Simpson. Anne’s latest book, a history of Paris is Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s.
Saturday 13 April 2024
SIDNEY NOLAN AT HEIDE: THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK
Presented by Kendrah Morgan
Venue & Time: Lakeside Room, HOTA. 9.30 am – Morning Tea: 10.30 am
Sidney Nolan is perhaps the most famous member of the ‘Heide circle’, the group of young artists whose formative careers were championed and shaped by Melbourne art patrons John and Sunday Reed. This lecture charts Nolan’s early, experimental years as a young painter, from his days as a commercial artist and the enfant terrible of the Melbourne art world to the completion of his acclaimed Ned Kelly paintings in 1947. It also explores his complex relationship with the Reeds, who supported Nolan unreservedly from the time of their first meeting in 1938 until his abrupt departure from Heide a decade later, after which they never saw him again.
Kendrah Morgan is Senior Curator at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, where she joined the staff in 2003. She began her curatorial career at Auckland Art Gallery in New Zealand, after previous roles in the commercial gallery sector and as a lecturer in art and design history. Since 1998 Kendrah has curated more than forty exhibitions, with Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls, (2017); Arthur Boyd: Brides (2014); and Fiona Hall: Big Game Hunting (2013) among her major projects. She has also co-authored four books on aspects of Heide history, including Modern Love: The Lives of John and Sunday Reed (2015), which was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for non-fiction and the Colin Roderick Literary Award. Her most recent book, Mirka and Georges: A Culinary Affair, the story of Mirka and Georges Mora’s transformation of Melbourne’s culinary and cultural landscape, was released in 2018.
Saturday 18 May 2024
HOW WE GOT IKEA: SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN 1880-1960
Presented by Anne Anderson
Venue & Time: Lakeside Room, HOTA. 9.30 am – Morning Tea: 10.30 am
At the beginning of the 20th century the Scandinavian countries emerged as leaders of progressive design. They looked to the British Arts and Crafts Movement. Carl Larsson, the ‘father’ of IKEA, created a rural retreat where he hand-crafted much of his furniture. Georg Jensen, Denmark’s premier silversmith, also drew on the Arts and Crafts ethos. Swedish and Danish glass and ceramics – Orrefors, Rorstraand and Royal Copenhagen were similarly inspired. By the 1950s Scandinavian Modern offered an ideal based on clean lines, natural materials, and ‘less is more’. Founded on principles of economy and self-reliance IKEA has globalised Scandinavian Modern
An Arts Society lecturer since 1994 Anne was senior lecturer at Southampton Solent University and is currently Hon Associate Professor at Exeter University, a tutor for the Victoria and Albert Learning Academy, and Ceramics Consultant for Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum. Anne has published on Art Deco teapots, the Pre-Raphaelites, Edward Burne-Jones, and Art Nouveau architecture. She held various fellowships and has curated national exhibitions, the most recent Beyond the Brotherhood; the Pre-Raphaelite Legacy (2019-20).
Saturday 15 June 2024
WONDERS OF THE ALHAMBRA – SYMMETRY AND PATTERNS IN ISLAMIC ART AND DESIGN
Presented by David Banney
Venue & Time: Cinema 1, HOTA. 9.30 am – Morning Tea: 10.30 am
For more than 700 years the Alhambra Palace in Granada has delighted and inspired. A treasure trove of art and design, the Alhambra is a virtual encyclopedia of symmetry and patterns, even more remarkable given the simplicity of the tools available to the artists and craftsmen. This lecture introduces the extraordinary techniques of design and construction that lie behind the tessellations of the Alhambra.
Described by pianist Roger Woodward as ‘quite simply one of the best conductors in the country’, David is one of Australia’s most highly regarded musicians, with success as a conductor, composer, string player and educator. During studies for a PhD in music David discovered the fascinating world of symmetry and symmetry breaking. His interest in this subject has lead to numerous papers about symmetry in music, as well as interdisciplinary research with Italian physicist Giuseppe Caglioti and reproductive endocrinologist Roger Smith.
Saturday 13 July 2024
CARAVAGGIO: THE BAD BOY OF BAROQUE
Presented by Daniel Evans
Venue & Time: Lakeside Room, HOTA. 9.30 am – Morning Tea: 10.30 am
Caravaggio was a violent bully with a massive ego, yet the most gifted painter of his generation. He offended as easily as he wowed with his works. Scandal followed him everywhere he went or fled to. His paintings have cinematic compositions with intensely visceral details, as he developed a pioneering style that would inspire a European stylistic following, and change Baroque painting forever. His tragic end and eventual downfall is the stuff of a great film not yet made and this lecture aims to bring his colourful character to life.
Dan Evans, an educationalist with a passion for European art and architecture. He teaches History and A Level History of Art at Cheltenham College, a full boarding independent school established in 1841. Dan has been lecturing since 2001, and spent 9 years working as a senior lecturer and tour guide for Art History Abroad and he was once voted the British winner of the World Guide of the Year Awards.
Saturday 10 August 2024
ALCHEMY AND ADVENTURE: A HISTORY OF EXOTIC COLOURS AND POISONOUS PIGMENTS
Presented by Lynne Gibson
Venue & Time: Lakeside Room, HOTA. 9.30 am – Morning Tea: 10.30 am
It easy to take colour for granted in our manufactured world. But before organic chemistry the most desirable pigments were often rare, exotic, or poisonous. Merchants supplied cochineal ‘grana’ from the holds of Spanish galleons, pungent golden nuggets from India and lapis rock carried by camel train from the mountains of Badakhshan. Alchemists prepared deadly King’s Yellow, mysterious Vitriol of Venus and Moorish Gold concocted from basilisk powder and human blood. Small wonder artists kept their paint recipes closely guarded in ‘Books of Secrets.’ This lecture tells the stories of alchemy and adventure behind some our beautiful and colourful paintings.
Lynne Gibson is a freelance lecturer in History of Art, and in Drawing, Painting and Printmaking. She has worked at the Universities of Sussex and Bristol and has conducted lectures, courses and guided tours for organisations including Art Galleries and Museums, The Art Fund, The National Trust and The Arts Society. She is a professional artist specializing in oil painting and etching, has been exhibited widely and her work used in a range of publications.
Saturday 7 September 2024
THE HEALING POWER OF PLANTS – WHY PLANT DERIVED TREATMENTS ARE NOT AN ALTERNATIVE INSTEAD THEY ARE THE REAL THING
Presented by Timothy Walker
Venue & Time: Lakeside Room, HOTA. 9.30 am – Morning Tea: 10.30 am
Mankind has exploited the medicinal properties of plants for thousands of years, yet the role of plants in modern medicine is still considered to be peripheral by many people. This talk attempts to put the record straight and to show that plant products are used every day by all of us to relieve pain and suffering, to heal wounds and cure diseases. This is a talk with a very wide appeal and relevance.
From 1988 to 2014 Timothy Walker was the Director of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden. Botanic gardens are often described as living museums, and garden curators talk about them in the same way as museum curators do. Gardens are often thought of a place where science and art meet on equal terms and Timothy’s lectures investigate this relationship. Since 2014, he has taught Plant Biology at Somerville College Oxford.
Saturday 26 October 2024
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S SENSE OF PLACE
Presented by Dr Deborah Jenner
Venue & Time: Lakeside Room, HOTA. 9.30 am – Morning Tea: 10.30 am
Unlike Europe’s International Style, Wright’s architectural designs are site-specific. Ecologically ahead of their time, they exploit local materials and provide shelter from local weather. From Falling Water, a millionaire’s residential retreat in Pennsylvania, to affordable – even prefab – urban housing in Milwaukee, each construction is married to its unique setting. His all-on-one-level Prairie houses spread out over Mid-West farmland, while the ascending spiral ramp in the Guggenheim Museum in New York completely redefined gallery spaces. Not only are Wright’s buildings America’s icons of 20th century architecture, they also offer the key to novel solutions for the new millennium worldwide.
An American-born art historian and member of the College Arts Association, Deborah Jenner has resided in Paris since 1990. She has worked at the Ecole du Louvre, the Sorbonne, the Catholic Institute, and the British Council. Her Doctorate thesis proved non-western influences in Georgia O’Keeffe’s art. Deborah’s publications include catalogue essays for Musée d’Orsay and Centre Pompidou, scholarly papers and gallery critiques. She gives public talks, guided walks, museum tours, and study-abroad programs.
