TALK | Nolan's Africa: The Paradise Paradox

Join Andrew Turley for this talk about Sidney Nolan’s four African works and his 1962 travels across Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Zanzibar. Turley’s talk offers a rare glimpse into a little-discussed era of Nolan’s life and work and traces the artist’s incredible body of work and his thematic and creative process at the time. For the last decade, Andrew Turley has unearthed the forgotten histories of several significant series of works painted by iconic Australian artist, Sidney Nolan.

This talk is part of the Sidney Nolan: Search for Paradise currently at the Canberra Museum and Gallery. This exhibition explores Nolan as one of Australia’s most iconic twentieth century artists whose life and loves among the Heide circle of artists in the 1940s were at first his idea of Eden but then became his own personal hell. This time of intense passion and creativity fuelled a life-long fascination with the elusive notion of paradise and the consequences of its loss.

From his nostalgia for St Kilda, his childhood heaven, to his explorations of the Australian landscape and restless travels abroad, Sidney Nolan: Search for Paradise examines one of the artist’s deepest impulses and the journey of self-discovery it engendered.

Tickets $10. Bookings essential