Art and Architecture

Art and Architecture

Brush With India, An; an artist’s journey by Linda-Marie De Vel. ISBN 1877270326. Published by Hazard Press. Recommended retail price $29.95.

.An artist’s journey through Rajasthan, Agra and Varanasi

Paintbox and easel in hand, professional artist Gaston de Vel and his freelance journalist wife Linda travel widely in search of subjects for his work. In this vivid, beautifully observed account Linda describes their journey by hired car through the Indian regions of Rajasthan, Agra and Varanasi. Always deeply interested in what is happening around her, and with her keen sense of humor ever alert for absurdities, she creates a colorful and engrossing picture of India’s challenging contrasts – architectural grandeur alongside appalling poverty, empty deserts and teeming towns – and of its fascinating past.

Linda De Vel is no armchair tourist: she is keen to meet people and talk to them about their lives, their religion, their politics. Sacred cows, traveling by tuk-tuk, fancifully named beer, finding affordable accommodation, the horrors of Indian driving, the glories of the Taj Mahal and Mehrangarh Fort, buying and wearing a sari: all this and much more makes A Brush with India a marvelous mosaic of a book, perfect for those who have visited this extraordinary country and those who still long to go. Soft cover, 183 pages. Published in 2002.

Creative Spirits: An insight into the life and work of some extraordinary Australians by Don Featherstone. Recommended retail price $20.

Creative Spirits brings together a diverse and unique group of leading Australian artists, writers, musicians, choreographers, film-makers, actors and singers. The book covers the whole spectrum of the arts and offers a fascinating insight into the creative culture of Australia. From literature, drama dance, music and art – the book explores the inspiration and source of the creative forces which are shaping Australia.

Taken from a series of documentary programs made by award-winning film-maker Don Featherstone for SBS and ABC Television the book includes Australians whose achievements have brought them attention and acclaim both nationally and internationally. Soft cover, 148 pages.

Pacific Art Niu Sila edited by Sean Mallon and Pandora Fulimalo Pereira. ISBN 0909010838. Published by Te Papa Press. Recommended retail price $24.95.

Since the 1950s, a new wave of immigrants from all over the Pacific has come to New Zealand’s shores, bringing their cultures, customs and values with them. Some of these have been maintained or transformed to suit the conditions and circumstances of a new country and community, while others have been discarded. Today many Pacific people maintain strong social, spiritual and family ties to their homeland and seek to establish and understand their new connections to this land – New Zealand. The ways in which these connections are expressed are very diverse, and nowhere can this diversity can be seen more clearly than in the arts.

Pacific Art Niu Sila highlights some of the ways that Pacific peoples have contributed to New Zealand arts from the 1950s to the present day. The contributing authors engage their areas of interest in different ways; some are from academic and teaching backgrounds, others are curators, artists or practitioners; some are a combination of these. They offer varying scales of distance and participation in their documentation and commentary. This book provides a snapshot of contemporary practice across the arts, highlighting what is and has been important and relevant in different genres. It covers a range of artforms including tivaevae, tatau, tapa, weaving, film and photography, painting and sculpture, architecture, theatre, literature, costume, jewelry, music and dance.

Pacific Art Niu Sila shows how these art forms have maintained long-established ideas and have incorporated and been transformed by new ones. It is essential reading for all those interested in the contemporary arts of both New Zealand and the Pacific.Soft cover, 232 pages. Published in 2002.

Click on links below for these books.

Aboriginal Australian Art by Ronald M Berndt & Catherine H Berndt with John E Stanton

Accidental City, The : Planning Sydney Since 1788 by Paul Ashton

A Guide to Contemporary Melbourne Architecture edited by Doug Evans et al

An Illustrated Guide to Maori Art by Terence Barrow

 Art of Grahame Sydney, The by Grahame Sydney and contributors

Art of Tonga, The by Keith St Cartmail

Arts of Vanuatu. Edited by Joel Bonnemaison, Kirk Huffman, Christian Kaufmann and Durrell Tryon

Baskets in Polynesia by Wendy Arbeit and Douglas Peebles

Bridges of New Zealand by Patrick Hudson

Buildings to Enjoy drawings by Lewis E. Martin

Conrad Martens on the Beagle and in Australia by Susanna De Vries

Earning a Living in the Visual Arts and Crafts by James Stokes

Historic Sydney: The Founding of Australia by Susanna de Vries

I Was No Soldier: An Artist's War Diary by Ted Lewis

Jane Evans by John Coley

John Gully, Painter by Fred McLean

Max Gimblett by Wystan Curnow and John Yau

New Zealand Art for Investment by Fred McLean

Pacific Tapa by Roger Neich; Mick Pendergrast with photos by Krzysztof Pfeiffer

Pentecost ... an island in Vanuatu by Genevieve Mescam and with photos by Denis Coulombier

Photography of the Age: Newspaper photography in Australia by Kathleen Whelan

Speaking In Colour: Conversations with Artists of Pacific Island Heritage by Sean Mallon and Pandora Fulimalo Pereira

Taiawhio; Conversations with Contemporary Maori Artists edited by Huhana Smith

Traditional Handicrafts of Fiji by Merieisi Sekinabou Tabualevu, Josefa Uluinaceva and Sereima Raimua

Traditional Pottery of Papua New Guinea, The by Patricia May and Margaret Tuckson

Why Paint Cats: The Ethics of Feline Aesthetics by Burton Silver and Heather Busch

With My Camera For Company – adventures & images of a pioneering New Zealand photographer by Diana Rhodes

Yirawala: Painter of the dreaming by Sandra Le Brun Holmes