Just found: the work of Lucy James

Independent artist and illustrator Lucy James - and her sharp scalpel - recover images from forgotten books, transporting them into her offbeat but beautiful collage world. Take a look at her website and blog, then head on out to see her work at Anna Pappas Gallery from May 31, and at Craft Victoria from June 14. Click Read More for more images.

Cosmic Scale and the Super Future by Ghostpatrol at Backwoods Gallery

Ever since receiving a pair of Ghostpatrol gocco prints last year, I've had a serious soft spot for the street artist's curious characters and captivating created worlds. Now, he's taking on the cosmos, embarking on a quest to understand time and place beyond this human moment. Head to Backwoods Gallery, where an exhibition of five large-scale paintings on linen will be running from 18 May until 13 June.

Human Rights Arts and Film Festival

Celebrating awareness, participation, and inspiration, the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival is back in Melbourne for 2012 to explore a range of human rights issues through film, music, and art, plus a program of forums in which to get engaged. The festival is running now until the 27th of May. You should explore the full program on the website, but here are just three taster events and exhibitions to get you activated!

Earth v Sky, City of Sydney public art project

Twilight in Sydney is newly alive with colour, through a public art project that’s graceful, bewitching, colourful, and sustainable to boot.

The City of Sydney has unveiled a new artwork in Bicentennial Park, a dynamic and shifting light piece by artist Allan Giddy. Using technology that continuously samples the colour of the sky

Grace Cossington-Smith

Google informed me, kindly, that it is Grace Cossington Smith's 120th birthday today, so I thought I'd join in. I've always loved this era of Australian women's art - so colourful, so feminine, but so spirited and gutsy at the same time. You can see this painting (Poinsettias, 1931) at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Parallel Collisions: 12th Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia

Parallel Collisions is divided into three sections and spread across the Gallery’s spaces, intermingling the new and transitory with the old and permanent. The Tracking Shot, in the temporary exhibitions space downstairs, presents the new work of sixteen artists. The Redux presents a revisitation of seven Australian artists, while The Incursions bring contemporary still, video, and installation works into contact

Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery

I recently went for an impromptu drive up to the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery and was very impressed, so thought I'd share some of the highlights of their current exhibitions!

The main attraction at the moment is the retrospective 'Michael Shannon: Australian Romantic Realist,' a touring exhibition by the Art Gallery of Ballarat. To be frank, Michael Shannon wasn't in

Time to step down from the arts high ground

Having just begun an Art Curatorship course, I'm encountering more and more art history students these days. There's nothing wrong with them as a bunch — really, they’re all my kind of lovely, creative people — but there’s a trend I’m noticing that’s getting me a little annoyed. It’s a preponderance of intellectual snobbery.

I Packed the Postcard in My Suitcase

Partly composed of new works commissioned by ACCA, and partly drawing on the artist’s older works, this unique collection of video installations represents the first major survey of Pipilotti Rist’s works to be shown in Australia.

Through four rooms of integrated installations, Rist takes us on a journey through the elements: fire, water, wind, and earth. Each work is

By the beautiful sea

Street artist Rone, from Melbourne's Everfresh Studio, took his distinctive images to the streets and beaches of Jamaica in December, and brought back a whole lot of gorgeous snaps (see the rest here). A landscape of jaded pinks, faded greens, bright blues and dune yellows.  Beautiful!

If hope grew on a bush

A sweet rhyme has been flirting with my memory and ringing about my head this week, singing to be shared. They're some words that have always graced the walls of my childhood home at the bottom of a Barbara Hanrahan print and a bit of research has revealed that the author is Christina Rosetti, the nineteenth-century romantic and children's poet.

If hope grew on a bush,

And joy grew on a tree,

What a nosegay for the plucking

There would be!

If hope and joy grow on any bushes, it must be these stems by Melbourne-based artist Kirra Jamison.