Issue #322 —

“Two of the most enduring myths around the visual arts of Western Australia (WA) are that Perth is Australia’s most isolated city, and that it is defined by the many artists who have departed to find creative connections elsewhere.

In proposing a WA focus edition at this time, as the local sector is undergoing both turbulence and transition, it was important for it to be piloted from someone on the ground, independent in spirit, and with multiple viewpoints, to see through the mists of myth to a more defining and complicated truth.

Our guest Editor Dunja Rmandić is such a person. With experience across both artist-run initiatives and institutions (she is currently Associate Curator of 21st-Century Arts at the Art Gallery of WA), Rmandić has the curatorial instincts and insights to offer a bigger picture — not as someone who has departed, but rather, as a more recent arrival: in 2015 from Tasmania’s Devonport Regional Gallery where she was Curator of Collections.

Rmandić brings with her a list of writers — including Clothilde Bullen, Kelly Fliedner, Melissa McGrath and Gemma Weston — who help define WA’s next generation of thinkers and writers on the visual arts. We thank them, and acknowledge the generous support of the Government of WA’s Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, in helping bring their state’s artists to a new level of intimacy and proximity.”

— Michael Fitzgerald, Editor

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Art Monthly is Australasia’s flagship visual arts publication, providing a critical platform for its artists. Published since 1987 under six full-time editors (Peter Townsend, Peter Timms, Philippa Kelly, Deborah Clark, Maurice O’Riordan and, from 2014, Michael Fitzgerald), it is Australasia’s only monthly visual arts magazine placing visual arts in a contemporary, historical and regional context.

Based at the ANU School of Art in Canberra since 1992, Art Monthly is a non-profit charitable organisation whose income is derived from sales of the magazine, advertising, sponsorship and government funding. Its board comprises leaders in their fields of visual arts scholarship, practice and curating, along with business and finance.

Since 2015, Art Monthly has also fostered critical discourse across the Asia-Pacific region with a new International Council, which, along with increased participation at international art fairs and biennales, is helping to provide a meaningful new context for its visual artists.