Until 21 July the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) will survey the career of Australian artist Bea Maddock, spanning her early prints of the 1960s, the incorporation of photo-etching and mass-media imagery in the 1970s, as well as her profound later works that explore Australia’s Indigenous history.

Bea Maddock is one of Australia’s most acclaimed artists, recognised in particular for her innovative and evocative prints. Bea Maddock will present over fifty prints, drawings, artist’s books and paintings selected from the NGV’s strong holdings, collected over a thirty year period.

Mix Tape 1980s: Appropriation, Subculture, Critical Style will explore Australian art of the 1980s; a decade of dynamic social change and fiercely contested viewpoints on contemporary art and culture.

Featuring over 120 works, the exhibition will bring together creative approaches ranging from appropriation and sampling to the DIY aesthetics of post-punk; and from postmodern critiques of authorship and originality to postcolonial revisions of Australian history.

Mix Tape 1980s will feature various media – painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, fashion and furniture design, as well as selected ephemera including magazines, records, films and video which reference the preoccupations of a rapidly changing Australian society and the intersections between art, music, theory and popular culture.

Create your own hand rendered characters and fonts in an intense two day workshop – Saturday 18 & 25 May.

In this introductory course, Old School will guide you through the fundamentals of signwriting technique with its resident sign writer who completed his apprenticeship at the Melbourne School of Painting and Decorating in 1970. You will then use these skills to move forward when we explore various hand techniques that will enable you to understand what the difference is between hand lettering and an alphabet.

Two sessions of six hours over two consecutive weeks plus time outside of class to develop your personal project.

Semi-Permanent, one of the worlds leading creative events, is back in Sydney for its 11th year. The event will once again be showcasing a diverse range of talent from many creative industries with a selection of top international and Australian speakers. With side events and parties, Semi-Permanent is a not to be missed event on your yearly calendar.

Speakers include Aaron Rose, Brian Roettinger, Stab Magazine, Saturdays NYC, Finbarr O’Reilly, Sandra Dieckmann, Steve Ayson, March Studio, Paul White, Max Doyle, Beastman, Numbskull, Marty Routledge, Moving Picture Company + more to be confirmed.