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COFA featured in the Australian Art Review

Article released: Thursday, 03 November, 2005

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Dr Idris Murphy and the COFA Fowlers Gap Artist in Residence Program are featured in the latest issue of Australian Art Review magazine.

The November 2005 issue of Australian Art Review feature a double page spread on the Fowlers Gap Arid Zone research station - a scientific and research facility of the University of NSW.

Quoted in an article written by Rod Pattenden on pages 80 and 81, Murphy states:

"This is a place of contemplation where artists in particular find themselves alone to confront not only the physical isolation of the desert but also the very habits and conventions of their art making."

Murphy and his cohorts made up of COFA lecturers and students have been inspired to create the 'Imaging the Land International research institute' in response to their experience at Fowlers Gap and they intend to explore the landscape and the possibilities it presents for the art making process further.

The Imaging the Land International Research Institute (ILIRI) is an initiative of the School of Art in the University of New South Wales College of Fine Arts. ILIRI aims to open a dialogue across a wide spectrum of contemporary approaches to landscape art - indigenous and non-indigenous, local and international.

ILIRI's activities include annual field trips to the Fowlers Gap Arid Zone Research Station in far western NSW, a biennial conference and regular exhibitions showcasing landscape-based art in its many forms.

ILIRI is an initiative of four practising artists who teach within the School of Art: Ian Grant, Dr Idris Murphy, Louise Fowler-Smith and Peter Sharp.