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Arts

Mix'n'match switcheroo leaves art lovers guessing

Artist Alex Gawronski and his work for The National: New Australian Art at the Art Gallery of NSW.

If it looks like it doesn't belong, that is a good thing, says artist Alex Gawronski on the eve of The National: New Australian Art 2017, a ground-breaking three-way collaboration between the Museum Contemporary of Art, the Art Gallery of NSW and Carriageworks.

Surprise shortlist picks in children's book awards

Maxine Beneba Clarke (pictured) with illustrator Van T Rudd received two nods for The Patchwork Bike.

Two self-published books - including a unique album of typographical art in which every image is made with letters that spell its very name - have cracked the shortlist for information books in the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards.

Dreams of a good night's sleep

A sleeper is bathed in pink light in Matthew Bird's  speculative installation Dormitorium.

Some people design a dream home around a library or a kitchen. The owner of the Garden Pavilion in Brunswick renovated in order to dream. An insomniac for 50 years owing to childhood trauma, he required a refuge to sleep.

How fences can mend political walls

Street art: Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is planning a major work in New York.

The provocative Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has announced he will build more than 100 fences and installations around New York City in a project called Good Fences Make Good Neighbours, one of his largest public art works to date.

'I lived a hero's life but I was actually a demon'

Khadim Ali's mural "The Arrival" depicts the fate awaiting asylum seekers in Australia.

The strange transformation of Khadim Ali into a demon might be traced back to when he was a boy, drawing pictures on the walls of his home in Quetta, by the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, using charcoal scraps from the local bakery. He liked drawing a gallant man with a feather in his helmet, who tamed wild stallions, slew dragons and battled evil beasts. Ali kept the charcoal in his pockets, which annoyed his mother when she did the washing.

Block party brings Beastman back on board in surprising arts space

Street artist Bradley Eastman, known to some as Beastman.

Back before he was Beastman, the teenager Bradley James Eastman travelled on trains across Sydney, searching for spots to skateboard. He sometimes stopped at St Leonards, for the fun to be had with its handrails, ledges and bounty of pebblecrete. The lower north shore suburb - better known for attractions such as the College of Law, Gore Hill Cemetery and the Pacific Highway - was rather gnarly.

Build it and they will come

Justine Clark founded Parlour, an advocacy organisation for equity in architecture.

When biographies are written, in that rocky ground between hero worship and dry scholarship, who is seen as notable - and who decides?