Arts news and events in Canberra.

A show that reinforces art's ability to deal with experiences that are too traumatic, too frightening, too terrible for words.

Lin Utzon was a 17-year-old art student when Martin Sharp, the notorious young cartoonist of the satirical magazine Oz, arrived at a noisy Paddington party. She found him intelligent, charming and roguish.

Some artists have women or men for muses. David Hockney and Viktor & Rolf have sausage dogs.

Artist Dacchi Dang has long been exploring his experiences as a Vietnamese migrant through his art.

Phil Ferguson has built an empire out of an unlikely hobby: making crochet hats that are shaped like everyday objects.  

Chicago's loss is Los Angeles' gain.

It was work that left her bleeding and exposed to dangerous poisons, but Bronwyn Oliver created some of Australia's most marvellous and important art.

Four experts from outside the art world offer their ideas on why we create.

Deep inside Barangaroo is a beach made from 1.1 million plastic balls.

Coming to the Sydney Festival this month is one of the brightest events of the year as Hyde Park is transformed into a world of big hair in The Hair Salon.

"It provides free and accessible space for experimental and emerging artists in the arts precinct, and there's nowhere else really like it in Australia."

Gaze into the eyes of one of Vernon Ah Kee's portraits of his family members and you can see the range of human emotion: tenderness, anger, curiosity, sorrow and surprise.

A Congolese-Australian playwright reveals the tale of a refugee boxer.

"It feels like you are at the centre of the Earth."

He skewed the art establishment, won the Booker Prize and his musings became staple at art schools the world over.

The renowned bird photographer took a roundabout route to finding her talent.

A new crop of artisan designers is taking back the power from big brands, thanks to social media.

• Art review

These prints constitute an exceptionally impressive body of work, non-figurative in its pictorial language and glittering in its technical virtuosity.

Head

There are some impressive works here but too much that is slight and silly in a show that tends overall to be a little flat.

These five exhibitions are indicative of Canberra's amazingly active and impressive visual arts scene in 2016.

An out-of-the-loop visitor to the Guggenheim Museum in New York City might be curious about the long queues.

The urgency of Sister Corita's imagery reflects the Zeitgeist. Her printing experiments with paper stencils and glue resist are technically audacious.