Art Destinations

We are in conversation with Pat Brassington, one of Australia’s most significant and influential artists. Over four decades, Brassington has captivated audiences with her ability to transform the familiar into the fantastical through her enigmatic photomontages.  This conversation is recorded as a radio play where a voice artist performs Brassington’s responses to my questions.   In this episode we cover: how Brassington’s childhood in Hobart has influenced her practice. At a young age, Brassington contracted polio. She was confined to her bedroom for six weeks and experienced a heightened feeling of isolation. This experience, in combination with catching tadpoles with her brother and playing in suburban backyards, sparked her artistic imagination. how Tasmania and the concept of isolation influenced her artistic imagination, Brassington’s exploration of contradictions, inspired by dialectics, surrealism and psychoanalysis, her use of distortion, symbolism, and the provocative use of pink, and insights into her lens-based practice, blending straight photography with manipulated images to evoke unsettling yet captivating emotions.  

Adam Thompson, a Pakana writer, sources much of the inspiration for his stories from his experiences working across the archipelago of Furneaux islands between lutruwita | Tasmania and mainland Australia. These islands are not only the backdrop for his dark moral tales but they also hold his family history. We talk about his work as a builder and ranger on Badger, Mount Chappell and Big Dog islands that inspired his collection of short stories Born Into This, as well as the TV series Moonbird to be screened on the SBS channel NITV in 2025. Adam shares his writing process and how he sees his role as a father imparting his cultural knowledge to his son.   I acknowledge, with deep respect, the traditional owners of Lutruwita (Tasmania) Aboriginal land, sea and waterways. For many years the Palawa people referred to this land as Palanwina Lurini Kanamaluka meaning ‘the town near river Tamar’. I respectfully acknowledge their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.

Ellen Dahl is a visual artist who grew up in the Arctic North of Norway and is now living and working on Gadigal Country in Sydney. Her expanded photographic practice questions whether the landscapes in lutruwita | Tasmania, and Svalbard, north of the Arctic Circle share something in common. Do these two places on the peripheries offer another way of understanding how we see and feel about the world?  Our conversation follows her winning the National Photography Prize 2024 with MAMA Albury, showing at the contemporary photography art fair Unseen Amsterdam and her current Oct/Nov 2024 show with Melbourne gallery, This is No Fantasy.

We are in conversation with Troy Ruffels, a photomedia artist drawing on the tradition of painting and drawing, to make works that are both immersive and atmospheric. Troy incorporates the elements of fire and water into his daily routine from pre-dawn ocean swims to evening fire pits, creating a discipline for his art practice. As a country boy growing up in Forth on Tasmania’s north-west coast, Troy’s career was launched at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Primavera exhibition for emerging artists in 1997. Since then he has continued his exploration of boundaries: through the mediums he uses or the poetic language to evoke the atmosphere of weather. Troy lectures at the University of Tasmania’s School of Creative Art, Inveresk and is represented by Bett Gallery in Hobart. You can see Troy’s work on our Instagram page @artdestinations.podcast. Troy would like to take a moment to correct an error he made during a recent conversation for Art Destinations. While discussing key individuals involved in the Digital Art Research Facility, he mistakenly referred to Mary Knights. The correct name is Mary Scott who was key participant in this research project. Troy is sorry for the oversight. Mary Scott was an invaluable part of this project, and he would like to ensure their contribution is fully recognised. He sincerely apologises for any confusion caused and appreciate your understanding.