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Home truths: Ian Strange, Sera Waters and spotlight on feminist artist Frances Phoenix

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Ian Strange (photo by Chris Gurney); ‘Dalison 2’ by Ian Strange, 2022; Sera Waters (photo supplied AGSA)(Ian Strange (photo by Chris Gurney); ‘Dalison 2’ by Ian Strange, 2022; Sera Waters (photo supplied AGSA))

Ian Strange uses the entire outside of a house as his canvas. Painting, lighting it up and even commissioning music, to explore the vulnerability and symbolism of the great Australian (and American) dream, through eras of unaffordability and foreclosure. His recent work DALISON took over the last remaining house in the last remaining street in a demolished neighbourhood of Perth, at the invitation of its owners.

Plus, head out onto the streets with visiting Irish artist Sean Lynch, as he walks around his new public artwork Distant things appear suddenly near at Melbourne's University Square.

Adelaide artist Sera Waters uses age-old crafts of hand embroidery and highly skilled needlework to explore the past in her work for the Free/State Adelaide Biennial Storied Cloths. Sera’s ancestors were some of the earliest colonial settlers to South Australia and were involved in pioneering industries that paved the way for European settlement, land clearing, infrastructure -- and dispossession.

Know My Name: Frances Phoenix. Frances Budden Phoenix was an innovative feminist artist, best known for her textile works. From the mid-1970s, she began making delicate doilies that often carried powerful political messages. A fire in the 1980s destroyed much of her work -- but recently a few precious works were uncovered in her archives. Georgia Moodie looks at her story and artistic legacy.

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Arts, Culture and Entertainment, Contemporary Art, Art History, Craft
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