FBi's Canvas

Have you ever been keen on get-rich-quick schemes? Almost everyone fantasises about winning lotto at some point but we generally know it just isn’t going to happen, so we keep our day jobs, and remember to feel thankful when we find $2 coins at the bus stop. Khaled Sabsabi may just have struck the right balance between sheer talent and hard work. He’s just won $60 000 for the Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship and I don’t think anyone would be putting it down to luck.

Associating dead animals and glamour is a trend that has long been out of fashion and to say that visual artist Troy Emery is glamorising dead animals would be taking things a little far....

Few people can deny the thrill of adrenalin pulsing through their body, their rising heart rate, anxiety and sweaty palms that accompany the excitement of an auction. It was quite a sight at last year's Still Life art auction, the FBI Fundraiser that saw the works of some of Sydney's most talented artists go under the hammer at the MCA. It was such an outstanding success that it's happening again this year and one talented artist who donated work both last year and this year joined Nell Greco in the studio.

In recent months, you may have noticed a major public debate unfolding that wasn't the election or a mining tax squabble. The debate is about Australia's arts policy and arts funding. The very insightful Marcus Westbury joined Nell Greco to discuss these issues.

Have you ever considered dinosaurs or the study of ye olde dinosaur bones sexy? The only time I’ve ever come close to thinking Paleontology was ‘sexy’ was when actress Laura Dern wore those short shorts in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. But playwright, producer and performer Patrick Lenton will convince you otherwise.

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘opera’? Big hair and garish make-up? Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman almost pee-ing her pants? For many of us opera is a closed world that seems to be inhabited by overdressed people our parents’ age. Nell Greco was joined by a woman who’s part of a new generation of singers taking over the genre.

Did you have a friend in High School who knew a second language? Cast your mind back to what the first words you asked them to teach you were. Profanities right? Saying them in another language lent you all the freedom from censorship you ever wanted - until that kid’s mother heard you saying it and dobbed you in of course... In good humour, Will French, is an artist who has devised a conceptual method of insulting those who view his art - like Duchamp might have - without them even realising it.

You can fold it, read it, recycle it, shred it, wrap it, and perhaps even burn it? Call it parchment or papyrus, but you certainly couldn’t say paper was boring... Nell Greco got to speak with Sian McIntyre, the lady behind The Paper Mill, a new gallery dedicated to art involving paper.

Do you have a favourite fairy tale that you were told as a child? Some favourite fairy tales are ones with happy endings, like Thumbelina, but classical mythology, where the fairy tales stem from, rarely had that idyllic, happily ever after ending. Kath Fries has set her eye on cobwebs, bamboo and ancient Japanese mythology. She joined Nell Greco in the studio to discuss her works.

You know that guy who’s always the last to leave a party? When everyone else has crawled home to hide from the dawning parades of Sunday cyclists, he’s the one you notice, spooning the toilet bowl in the back shed, dressed in your mother’s bathrobe three days after you swept the yard and scared the neighbours cat with your piles of recycling? Maybe that’s even been you a few times too? Nell Greco was joined by a guy whose new book’s about someone who consciously wants this party to be his last.

What do you think of when you think “Tiwi Islands”? Gorgeous scenery? Stinking hot weather? AFL footballers? Perhaps even Indigenous trans-gender pin-up women? Bindi Cole's work will definitely linger in your mind for having captured one of the unique perspectives of the Tiwi Islands. She spoke with Nell Greco about a few of her projects.

For dead people, zombies are extremely resilient; a cast and crew of young artists and first time performers bring a new breed of zombies to life at Hazelhurst Gallery in the Sutherland shire. With live music, performance, dance and multiple video and film projections, it’s a very different kind of theatre. Matt Levinson went south to check out what they are all about.

Before the era of the internet and sky travel, Australia was a rather isolated country and notions of isolation and discovery have always been present in Australian art. Nell Greco was joined James Newitt who revels in exploring that isolation through his video installation art that intervenes in everyday life, encouraging its viewer's mind to wander into the realm of its subjects as well as its creator.

Have you ever wondered if we are alone in the universe? Or what it would actually mean for us if earth had an extra-terrestrial 'visitation'? In 70s Russia, under the shadow of communism and nuclear warfare, two brothers wrote a book called 'Roadside Picnic' which imagines exactly what would happen if such a thing occurred. The book won prizes across the world and has inspired classic films, plays, and even a Finnish tabletop role-playing game. Nell Greco was joined by a video installation artist whose dark and impressive new show has also used Roadside Picnic as its starting point.

There's a scene in the movie Bran Nue Dae, a crowd of people are hanging out in this Broome pub, Dan Sultan steps up to the stage, starts singing, and... it explodes into one of the most electric dance scenes I've seen in a musical. The rhythm, the sense of people moving and loving the movement of their bodies, and dancing in this seductive moment. You want to be there. Well the dancers were from Sydney's Bangarra Dance Theatre, and the moment was choreographed Stephen Page, he's won a couple of Australian Dance and Helpmann Awards and he joined Matt Levinson in the studio to discuss his work.

How are you listening to Canvas right now? Streaming on your computer, downloaded to some other kind of player? Maybe just on your radio. If you're like me, there's a very real rubbish tip somewhere full of technological offcasts, and with tech getting cheaper all the time, most of us don't question the need to upgrade to something faster and sleeker. But what happens then?

You probably go to gigs all the time but beyond the booze and chatter of an exhibition opening, 'live art' events involving visual artists are few and far between. Nell Greco was joined on the line by an artist who's originally from Brisbane but has now shown all over the world. Prolific and provocative, he's also part of a live street art event at cockle bay run by amBUSHED Gallery.

Did you have a high school art teacher who told you to move on from painting or photographing your family and pets? Well, I did, and I always thought that was such a silly thing to say.For centuries poets, painters and artists of every kind have had muses, drawn from their close relations. Nell Greco was joined joined now by a painter who would have told my art school teacher to go jump!

What do you think of when you think about graphic design? A cool t-shirt or amazing album cover? Perhaps the art direction of your favourite magazine? The truth is, thanks to technology graphic design is no longer constrained to ink on paper in two dimensions: it's now exploded off the flat page and become a truly interactive, 3-dimensional medium. Nell Greco was joined by a graphic designer who's so passionate about these emerging technologies that he's curated an exhibition to show case the most amazing of these new developments.

Before you go out to Campbelltown Art Centre for their latest show, before you buy your tickets to a show at the Seymour Centre, before you book for the Sydney Film Festival or Sydney Design. Before you check out a lot of things in this town, your opinions have already been shaped by our next guest. Suzanne Boccalatte joined Matt Levinson in the studio to have a chat about her work as graphic designer behind visual identities and brochures and websites and all sorts of things, for all of the above, and a whole lot more.