Conversation – artists Peter Dailey and Emma Buswell with Janice Lally

Thursday, 30 May 2024, 6–7pm

Produced at quite different times, the motivations and ideas explored in the artworks by Peter Dailey and Emma Buswell that are featured in the exhibition THE END OF HISTORY, foreground issues of the times of their production.

Join us as the artists discuss their works together with Dr Janice Lally Curator of Academic and Public Programs and along with questions from the audience, consider dramatic notions such as ambition, hubris and cynicism together with contemplative considerations of hope, anxiety and identities that are raised, either directly or indirectly, and that relate to the moment of their making.

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The exhibition THE END OF HISTORY probes how the subconscious reacts to a tumultuous decade in art and life and at its centre is a group of works from The University of Western Australia Art Collection created between 1985 and 1995 and united by mood and motif.

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Emma Buswell is an artist, curator and writer fascinated with systems of government, economies and culture, particularly in relation to constructs of place, identity and community. Her current work takes its inspiration from the matrilineal hand craft and knitting techniques passed down from her grandmother and mother, as well as a contemplative investigation into the nature of kitsch, ephemera and national identities. Recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of Western Australia titled Emma Buswell: Selected Knitted Works curated by Robert Cook in 2020 and Fair Isle, curated by Katherine Wilkinson for DADAA, as part of the Perth Festival in 2021. She was the 2022 TILT artist at Goolugatup, Heathcote, and in that same year was the winner of the 2022 Joondalup Invitational Art Prize and was awarded a ‘Highly Commended’ in the Churchie Art Prize in 2022 at the IMA, Brisbane. She was a finalist in the Ramsay Art Prize in 2023 and featured as part of the 2023 Australian Fashion Week, in a showcase of Australian designers as part of the We Wear Australian x Afterpay runway showing at Carriageworks, Sydney. Her work is held in the City of Joondalup Collection, the City of Melville Collection, the Art Gallery of Western Australia Collection, the University of Western Australia Art Collection, Artbank and several private collections.

Peter Dailey is a well-respected artist and arts educator; since receiving his Advanced Diploma in Fine Art (sculpture major) from Claremont School of Art in 1985, he has had nine solo exhibitions, acted as curator for numerous group shows, and participated in over 90 group exhibitions interstate and internationally. Dailey has also completed over 20 private and public commissions. In 2023 Dailey and artist Beverley Iles were awarded the Kerry Harmanis Sculpture Scholarship to Basel, Switzerland. His work has a strong sense of narrative and contemporary mythology, forged in a theatrical aesthetic, reminiscent of stage sets, which is technically sophisticated and highly detailed.  Dailey’s mythologies are drawn from the notion of an internal structure connecting the nature of all things, and consideration whether such a concept can be understood through scientific processes alone. Consequently, his works embody a multidisciplinary conceptual approach that draws roughly on science, politics, art history, intuition, alchemy, semiotics and many other analytical methodologies. Dailey’s work is represented in many public and corporate collections including The Art Gallery of Western Australia, the University of Western Australia, Edith Cowan University, Murdoch University, Warrnambool Art Gallery, Victoria and numerous local government collections throughout the state.

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Images (left-right):

Peter Dailey, Working Class Shrine, 1988, cast iron, painted wood and aluminium mesh, 62.5 x 34 x 34cm, McGillivray Bequest Fund, 1989 © the artist

Emma Buswell, Once upon a time in… , 2021, acrylic wool, plaster, acrylic and fixings, dimensions variable. The University of Western Australia Art Collection, Leah Jane Cohen Bequest, 2023 © the artist, Photography Courtesy the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art.

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Please note: in keeping with the University's guidelines, space is limited for this event and registration is required.