Rose Agnew is a Melbourne based multi-disciplinary artist whose practice includes painting, sculpture, gold and silversmithing, botanical illustration, and embroidery. Rose is also a published writer, sometime piano player and maker of ornate and whimsical cakes. While it is challenging to find a single descriptor for her work, it is safe to say that Rose has an intense love of beauty and of the practice of making, both of which are fuelled by an equally passionate inquiry into human experiences and our shared natural world.
George Aitken works specifically with neon glass, producing one-off neon art pieces. He has worked with this medium for over 30+ years. His first encounters with the use of neon lighting as an artform came from looking through various books acquired during his neon apprenticeship tenure in the early 80s – specifically the works of Stephen Antonakos and James Turrell, pioneers with experimentation in light refraction and reflection which differed from most of the commercial work he was doing at the time which was concealed neon. In the past few decades it has been entwined in his working and artistic life.
Luke Barlow is a Geraldton based graphic designer with a strong focus on digital illustration. He gets his inspiration from his time spent in the ocean and exploring the amazing coastal region of the Mid West.
East Fremantle based artist, illustrator, designer and mural artist, Joanna Brown has been honing her artforms in a long and varied career in the arts. Joanna studied visual arts and art teaching at Curtin University before completing her Master of Art Therapy at ECU. She has worked in many mediums including a 10-year stint as a textile designer in Fremantle at 'Hustle', a store on High Street. She currently operates a bespoke illustration-based design practice alongside her own developing art practice. Recently she has extended her botanical artwork into large scale murals for both the cities of South Perth and Melville.
Hilary Buckland engaged with art in her early 50's whilst studying weaving and design at WA School of Art and Design and Contemporary Art at Edith Cowan University. With a background and family history of weaving in the north of England, it was a natural progression to work in textiles. She moved to Denmark WA in 2012 where she has continued with weaving and textile making, exhibiting intermittently since 2003.
In her work Hilary investigates cross-cultural identity, dislocation/hybridisation of cultures, industrialisation and globalisation which are often in conflict with environmental, social and spiritual needs. Processes include dye, stitch, weaving, fabric manipulation and printing and more recently traditional embroidery. She enjoys exploring ideas and concepts and experimenting with different materials to make accessible contemporary work.
Michelle Campbell won the City of Belmont Art Award in 2015, was a 2019 finalist in the Minnawarra Art Award, City of Joondalup Invitation Art Award and Portia Geach Portrait Award; and a semi-finalist in the Doug Moran Portrait prize in 2018 and the Black Swan Portrait Prize 2016. Her paintings are represented in the City of Belmont and City of Armadale collections and will be having a solo exhibition in 2021.
Dogs on Chairs 2022
York Botanic Art Prize 2020
Kate Campbell-Pope is a visual artist whose practice encompasses studio works, community arts, public art, teaching, curating, and mentoring. She has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions locally, nationally, and internationally in Chile and Japan. Her use of natural fibre and textiles sits at the heart of her practice, and she employs constructional and decorative stitch, adapted basketry techniques and random weaving.
Kate's work is represented in several public collections such as AGWA, King Edward Memorial Hospital, City of Tamworth, and various private collections. Kate is based in Albany WA, where she is actively involved with MIX Artists as Chairperson and exhibiting artist.
Born in the French Alps, Christophe Canato undertook postgraduate studies in France, where he continued to live and work before moving to Perth, Western Australia in 2005. His work has shown in more than fifty solo and collective exhibitions, currently showing at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. Multiple prizewinner Christophe's photographs are also included in public collections such as the Australian Federal Government's Artbank collection. His photographic series are published internationally including France, England, Australia and recently in the Chinese magazine Photoworld.
Mikaela Castledine is an award winning artist and published writer, with a degree in Science and an MA in Writing and Literature. She has been a professional artist for more than 25 years, working in collage and sculpture. She has won the Sculpture by the Sea Scholarship, Cottesloe 2013, the Sculpture Inside Award Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe 2016 In 2016 she was selected as a finalist in the distinguished Bankwest Sculpture Prize and in 2018 as a finalist in the Mandorla Art Prize. She is represented in public and private collections in Australia and internationally.
Since his first solo exhibition in 1987, Stephen has pursued parallel careers in fine art and graphic design and his work in both disciplines has received numerous awards. Castledine enjoys the unpredictability of watercolour in his painting practice which can produce extraordinary results beyond the control of the artist. The works featured in "Romancing Botany" continue his exploration of combining drawing and painting to capture the unexpected patterns which nature reveals. Castledine's work is represented in private and corporate collections in Australia and overseas.
Summer Show 2019
Romancing Botany 2019
Jane Coffey is a multidisciplinary artist based in Perth. She completed a Master of Arts at the Royal College of Art in London in 1999. In 2007, together with her husband, she created 'Future Shelter' on Angove Street, North Perth, selling locally made products including her artworks inspired by Western Australia's biodiversity. Her commissioned works include large scale sculpture and paintings. The interaction of natural and built environments have been a persistent theme throughout her art practice. Jane is particularly interested in how historical layers of decision-making create boundaries within our built and natural surroundings.
Sujora Conrad [BA Art] is a contemporary mixed media artist working with land and place from historic, contemporary and environmental perspectives from her studio in Fremantle. She has worked in remote communities with Aboriginal women artists of all ages, facilitating workshops, organizing exhibitions, and coordinating an artist exchange. During that time she completed a series of large scale ephemeral works in the landscape. Other projects include co-design and installation of a Cultural Heritage Museum and, most recently, an Art Residency at Vasse Felix sponsored by the Holmes à Court Gallery. She has exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions. Her work is held in collections both locally and interstate.
York Botanic Art Prize 2020
Purity and Danger 2019
James Crombie is a Western Australian artist who is predominantly a painter of large-scale abstracts and portraits, but also works with installation and printmaking. His paintings are bold, colourful, gestural, and he likes to explore the materiality of paint as much as he does his physical subjects; be that a face, a landscape or the play of light on opaque and translucent objects. Most recently James has moved to combine his familiar painterly vibrancy with contour sketches and even descriptive and allegorical text.
Since receiving his Diploma in Fine Art from Claremont School of Art in 1985, Peter Dailey has had 9 solo shows, acted as curator for numerous group shows, and participated in over 90 group exhibitions in WA, interstate and overseas. Peter has also completed over 20 private and public commissions. In 2020 he and Beverley Iles were awarded the Kerry Harmanis Sculpture Scholarship to Basel, Switzerland. Peter's work is represented in many public and corporate collections including The Art Gallery of Western Australia, the University of Western Australia, Edith Cowan University, Murdoch University, and Warrnambool Art Gallery, Victoria.
Jo Darvall is an accomplished artist who specialises in watercolours, oil painting and printmaking. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Art in Melbourne in 1989 before moving to Perth. She has grown her art practice and reputation and has recently exhibited her art in China and Singapore, as well as 25 major exhibitions in Perth and WA.
Jo has also been a finalist in the Perth Royal Art Prize, Minnawarra Art Prize, and John Leslie Art Prize for Landscape painting, Redland Art Prize, Albany Art Prize, Claremont Art Prize, the National Still Life Prize, Art Award Art Geo Busselton and a Fremantle Print Award finalist. In addition, she was selected to exhibit in the Bunbury Biennale 2019 and won the prestigious Mandjar Corporate Award, received a High Commendation in the Kalgoorlie Boulder Art Prize, was Awarded "Highly Commended" in the City of Busselton Acquisitive Art Prize and was an Award Winner in the City of Belmont Art Prize.
Jo has published widely and been featured in numerous publications and periodicals. She teaches teacher at Fremantle Arts Centre and the University of Western Australia in drawing, oil painting, printmaking, pastels and Watercolours. She is the founder of Swan River Print Studios at Heathcote Cultural Precinct and Artists for Kids Culture Trust in Melbourne.
Michelle Dawson has been working as a professional artist since 1996 and has studied both in Australia and the UK. She has been a finalist in many major art prizes including the Jacaranda Drawing Prize, The Portia Geach Art Award, (Highly Commended), The Bendigo Drawing Prize, The Ravenswood Art Award, The Hurford Hardwood Portrait Prize, the KAAF Art Award and the Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize. Michelle has exhibited widely in Australia and overseas, including The Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Romania.
Mimi Dennett is a visual artist with Iraqi and English heritage working in regional N.S.W. Recently she has been collaborating with performance artists, composers, choreographers and community groups for Bleach Festival QLD, Commonwealth Games and Flowstate, Brisbane QLD. Mimi has been included in exhibitions in Australia and overseas including Bondi Sculpture by the Sea and Aarhus Sculpture by the Sea Denmark, The Centre for Contemporary Photography Melbourne and Heide Gallery-Museum of Modern Art Melbourne. Mimi has won numerous grants and prizes including an Australia Council Residency, East Coast Sculpture Prize and the Artecycle Incinerator Gallery Award.
Helen Earl holds a Master of Visual Arts from Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University. The intention of her art making practice is to explore narratives of connection between everyday lived experience and natural environments. In 2019, Helen was commissioned by the Sisters of Mercy Brisbane to create Short Careful Steps, a site responsive, permanent installation of intricately detailed porcelain flowers at Adderton: House and Heart of Mercy in Brisbane. Helen was a selected finalist in the 2020 Pro Hart Outback Art Prize, the 2019 National Still Life Award and the Rookwood Sculpture Prize receiving judges' commendations in these exhibitions.
Willemina Foeken is a practicing artist who has taught visual art at secondary schools and TAFE, as well as Academic Skills at Edith Cowan University. She has a strong interest in music, having performed and conducted in many choirs and draws strong parallels between music and visual art. Her most productive period in art has been since completing Grad Dip Fine Arts at University of NSW. She developed a great working relationship with Indigo Gallery in the Netherlands, which sold her work for many years. She works out of her studio in Southern River, WA.
Mel Foster is a self-taught painter that works from her home studio in Broome. Inspired by Northwest Australia, Foster's paintings are abstract expressions of vegetation and fauna. Colour and expressive mark-making play an important role in the way Foster captures the form of her subject, leading to an interesting tension between loose large brushstrokes and detailed patterning in her paintings. Mel is represented by Blackstump Gallery in Broome and has exhibited at the Port Hedland Courthouse Gallery, Kimberley Art Awards, Cossack Art Awards and Shinju Art Awards.
Fiona Gavino is a nationally recognised fibre artist. With Australian, Filipino, and Maori heritage, Fiona has been described as an intercultural artist working the traditional into the contemporary. There is an undeniable crafted aesthetic in her work and through her conceptual ideas, intercultural dialogues, and collaborative practice, she has placed her practice within sculpture and installation. Fiona graduated from Charles Darwin University with a BA Visual Arts in 2006. In 2007 she relocated to Western Australia and currently lives, works and teaches in Fremantle. In 2014 Gavino was a recipient of an Asialink Residency where she spent three months in the Philippines and in 2015 she was invited to exhibit at the Cultural Centre of the Philippines. For the past three years she has also been working with the Yindjibarndi woman in the Pilbara; collaborating with them to create contemporary fibre sculpture, baskets, and reviving their traditional practice of net-making. In 2018 she undertook a residency in Madrid and for the last two years has worked with Japanese artists and the community of York (WA) creating large scale sculptures of endangered Australian animals from wheat straw.
York Botanic Art Prize 2020
Listen Louder 2019
Margery Goodall works with stitched textiles and mixed media. Her work is held in private collections in Australia and overseas, including the International Quilt Museum in USA collection. She has convened juried textile exhibitions, open to both Australian and international artists in Tasmania, Victoria, and the ACT and while in WA she was convenor of the Stitched and Bound 2003 exhibition at Fremantle Art Centre. Most recently she was the joint curator of the Marjorie Coleman Lyrical Stitch solo retrospective exhibition at the Holmes à Court gallery @No.10 from October – November 2020.
Rona Green was born in Geelong, Australia. Her practice involves making fantastical figurative prints, drawings and paintings. She studied art at La Trobe University in Bendigo (1992-1994) and Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne (1998) and in 2012 completed a Master of Fine Art degree at Monash University. Known for creating striking pictures of peculiar creatures, Rona has received many accolades such as the Geelong Print Prize, Swan Hill Print Acquisitive Award and Silk Cut Award for Linocut Prints Grand Prize. Her work is represented in over sixty Australian and international public collections including the National Gallery of Australia.
Born in WA, Marcia Hadlow spent many years travelling and working around Australia and overseas. She returned in 1992 to study art and has been painting and exhibiting ever since. While attending the Claremont School of Art, she and six other art students formed the Open Bite Studio in North Fremantle and worked and exhibited together for many years and maintain a strong connection to this day. Marcia has always been drawn to the 'ordinary' but painted it in a strong, colourist manner. Her works are represented in many private collections both in Australia and overseas.
Rockhampton based artist Angela Heffer has been illustrating the people of Central Queensland since 2016. Her love of people watching and attention to detail drew her to capture the quirkiness of local individuals, often highlighting Angela's ability to find humour in everyday life. Since moving into digital drawing, Angela has added another element to her illustrations, with the layering of background stories in her simplistic images. In 2020 Angela won the Gladstone Regional Art Gallery's International Museum Day Art Competition and was selected for the 2021-22 touring exhibition of the Queensland Regional Art Award.
Kirsten Hudson is a trans-disciplinary artist who creates film, performance, and object-based works that visually register, perform, or speculate upon, human, non-human, and other-than-human experience and embodiment. Currently working with the increasingly obsolete medium of 16mm celluloid, Kirsten creates handmade cameraless films compiled from found footage, clear/coloured leader, and other affected filmstock. Embracing the physical and conceptual nature of 16mm celluloid (particularly its relationship with time, death, and decay), Kirsten creates films that bypass the photographic process and instead manipulate the celluloid directly. Kirsten is also a Screen, Photography, Art, and Cultural Studies academic and researcher at Curtin University.
In 2016 Beverley Illes graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Curtin University and won the City of South Perth Emerging Artist Award. Since then, she has completed a residency, had a solo exhibition and been in numerous group exhibitions in WA, Melbourne and Brisbane. She has been a finalist in three national awards including the Churchie Emerging Artist award and was part of a collaborative project with a Taiwanese curator. She was co-selected for a sculpture scholarship and residency in Switzerland and featured in a documentary about working cross-culturally.
Kyoko Imazu is a Japanese artist whose practice encompasses a range of mediums such as printmaking, puppetry and installation, bookbinding and ceramics. As a child, she drew animals like rabbits, cats, rats and birds for her mother and these subjects are still prevalent in her art practice. Drawing inspiration from childhood memories and Japanese folklore, she creates visual stories through her work.
Her works are held in collections at National Library of Australia, State Library of Queensland, State Library of Victoria, National Gallery of Australia, Melbourne Athenaeum Library, RMIT, Sydney College of Arts and numerous private collections worldwide. She regularly exhibits her work nationally and internationally especially in Hong Kong, New Zealand and New York. She is a current fellow of State Library of Victoria Amor Residency at Baldessin Press and Studio.
English born photographer, Annie Kavanagh, lives on a farm in the Wheatbelt, Western Australia. She studied illustrative photography at the Photography Studies College, Melbourne (1998/9) before moving west and opening her own gallery. She now works from her garden studio drawing inspiration from the natural world around her. Her still-life photographs are in the style of the Dutch Masters floral paintings, with their symbolic depictions of flowers, Vanitas theme, and chiascuro effect. Her multi-layered images tell visual stories of the flowers and insects from her garden, inviting contemplation of the fragility of the Wheatbelt and the flora and fauna found there.
Alice - Conversations with Flowers 2023
The Unknowns 2022
York Botanic Art Prize 2020
Jenny Kitchener works predominately with printmedia, producing both 2D and 3D works and artist's books. Her artwork is underpinned by a fascination and respect for the diverse beauty and complex relationships inherent in the natural world. She studied visual arts at Sydney College of the Arts and later at the University of New England, Northern Rivers, NSW, where she was awarded The University Medal for her Honours year. She has exhibited regularly throughout Australia and has held many solo shows. The National Gallery of Australia, Parliament House (Canberra), State Libraries and numerous public collections hold examples of Jenny's work.
Mia Laing is a professional Perth-based artist. Working mostly in oils, Mia paints across a number of genres, including still life, wildlife, landscape, narrative figurative works and whimsy, with a number of these works licensed with an Australian homewares and greeting card company. Mia is gallery represented in Perth, regional WA and regional NSW. With the onset of Covid restrictions and the closure of her representing galleries and exhibitions earlier in the year, Mia found the space to pursue a body of work she has pondered for a number of years. Having pursued a career in children's illustration in the early stages of her art practise, her current imaginative realism paintings connect with this, but are larger, refined oil paintings that include aspects of narrative art, conceptualism, symbolism, surrealism and traditional still-life painting.
Amichai Lankri holds a Diploma of Visual Arts from Latrobe College of Art and Design and a Diploma of Furniture Design from RMIT. He currently works as independent furniture designer-maker in Melbourne as Mandrake Workshop, creating custom furniture for private clientele and collectors, as well as select commercial fit-out commissions. In recent years his craft has been shifting toward items of ritual and purely sculptural expressions that marry materials indigenous to this country with various traditional joinery techniques, steam bending timber and hand carving.
Camilla Loveridge engages in a mixed media/disciplined, process-driven visual art praxis. She has a BAFA, an MCA, and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Notre Dame, Fremantle in Creative Practice Research. She has exhibited in Perth, regional WA, interstate and overseas, where she has received awards for her work, and is represented in public and private collections. She was curator of the Mandorla Art Prize (2009-2012), and worked for the Art for Change in New Delhi (2016) as an international artist in residence. Currently, Camilla is an art worker at DADAA in Fremantle, mentoring adults living with disability.
Tempe MacGowan's art-making is concerned with the natural and urban environment. Through the physical mark-making process she interrogates and researches a place or subject. Typically, she uses drawing, experimentation and layering to find and develop a story. Stories that were invisible or apolitical can be made visible through this practice. It is influenced by her former practice in landscape architecture/urban design and writing.
In 2006 Shauna Mayben completed her Masters with Distinction in Fine Art and Design at the University of South Australia, as well as completing a two-year intensive associateship at JamFactory, which has a training institute for professional craftspeople.
A third-generation jeweller with a background in design and fine arts, goldsmith Shauna has created a studio in Moonah Tasmania, which at its heart has an ethos based on connection, craftsmanship and creativity. This reflect Shauna's practice which focuses on conceptual integrity, personal expression: carefully conceived, beautifully crafted. Currently Shauna is inspired by the Australian acacia: wattle.
Jason McDonald enjoyed a successful career in Sydney as an award-winning graphic designer before returning to the family farm near Mudgee NSW where he grew up surrounded by nature. It was here in 2015, Jason established his accommodation business the highly regarded Permanent Camping Eco Retreat, while also following new directions in his creative pursuits. Jason's work is regularly exhibited at the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens and this year he joined the stable of artists at The Corner Store Gallery in Orange NSW and Gallery of Small Things in Canberra.
Lia McKnight is a Western Australia-based artist whose practice includes drawing, sculpture, textiles and installation. Privileging lived experience and emotional geographies as areas of intrigue, her current work extends upon her ongoing interest in the sensual experience of objects. Directly referencing the natural world, personal themes of memory, ritual and the subconscious coexist with concepts of 'the endless' and the interconnectedness of all things.
Lia has been exhibiting in group and solo exhibitions for over 15 years. In 2018 she developed the major exhibition, Sensual Nature in collaboration with Fremantle Arts Centre Curator Ric Spencer and presented a solo exhibition at Turner Galleries. She has been invited to participate in the Midwest Art Prize (2019), Minnawarra Art Prize (2019), Perth Royal Art Prize (2018), Joondalup CIAA (2017 & 2011) and Stations of the Cross (UCIC) 2017. She has been an artist in residence at Art on the Move (2019), PICA (2016) and Fremantle Arts Centre (2014 & 2012) and has undertaken major exhibitions with c3 Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne (2014), Paper Mountain (2014), free range Gallery (2013), Heathcote Museum and Gallery (2011) and created temporary public art commissions in collaboration with Stephen Armitstead for the City of Fremantle (2013) and the City of Subiaco (2011-2012). Lia is the Collection Manager at the John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University where she has curated the exhibitions Post-hybrid: reimagining the Australian self (2015), ASSEMBLAGE (2016), and (co-curated) 50fifty (2017).
York Botanic Art Prize 2020
Summer Show 2019
Purity and Danger 2019
Kayla McMillan is an artist that is strongly influenced and inspired by Western Australia. The adoration that she has for this state has been distilled in her since early childhood. Kayla has lived in various towns and cities these being Exmouth, Shark Bay, Geraldton and Perth. This love has translated through to her art practice which captures WA's magical scenery, from coastal to inland native flora and fauna, primarily using fineliner ink pens. Through her artwork, she hopes to strengthen the viewer's connection and appreciation for the place in which we live, Australia.
Jen Mellor is a Perth based artist, who works from her studio and also as a plein-air artist. Jen's paintings have been acquired by many overseas and Australian collectors including Wesfarmers Art Collection - Sydney and Voyager Estate Winery. Jen had a sellout show at Aspects of Kings Park in 2019 as the feature artist during the Kings Park Spring Festival. She has been a finalist in numerous Art Awards including the Black Swan Heritage Art Prize, and won the Melville Painting Awards in 2014 and 2018 and the Claremont Local Artist Awards in 2016 and 2018.
Mark Mohell is an accomplished and respected visual artist. Canberra-based – where he has been Imaging Services Manager at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) for close to a decade – Mark draws much of his inspiration for his photography from the region's unique urban landscapes. Proficient in both film and digital formats, Mark has exhibited widely, both locally and interstate, and his works are held by various national and regional cultural institutions. His portrait of inaugural NPG Director Andrew Sayers AM was acquired by the Portrait Gallery, and in 2015 a series of his Canberra urban landscapes was purchased by the Canberra Museum and Gallery.
Susan's degree in Graphic Design from Swinburne University in 1980 led to a career in design, textiles and illustration which has now evolved into a more personal art practice. Painted directly from life, Susan regards her paintings as 'portraits of plants' rather than 'still life'. Softly lit against dark grounds, the grace and delicacy of foliage and flowers is emphasised and the movement and structure of the subject can be observed. Her paintings are not large but detailed and careful studies of the Australian natives she finds growing locally.
Scott Owen is a Sydney based artist who investigates the bittersweet, joy in melancholy, and earnest reflection through still life and landscape painting. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting at the National Art School Sydney in 2015, and was selected as a finalist in the Eutick Memorial Still life Award in 2019.
Narayani Palmer is an Australian artist living and working in Fremantle. She studied at Claremont School of Art in the 90s, majoring in Sculpture. It was through attending a course at Fremantle Arts Centre with Stewart Scambler that an interest in ceramics was sparked. She has a range of ceramic work but is particularly fascinated by Raku and pit firing: primitive firing techniques which can produce stunning surface effects.
Sean Palmer has spent most of his professional career as a barber. He pursued art through his schooling years with a focus on photography, later completing a Diploma in Graphic Design. He is currently working on an Advanced Diploma of Industrial Design. Sean enjoys having a multifaceted skill set and is always hungry to explore new territories and push boundaries.
Jody Quackenbush is a multi-disciplinary artist from Northbridge. Quackenbush often collaborates with photographers though the defining thread has always been the initial creation of a wearable textile element. For the last 10 years she has developed a significant collection of fabric masks and styled photoshoots of woman wearing them in both urban and rural environments. More recently models have been fashioned as historical female heroines of the art world, such as Jody's entry in the Joondalup Invitation Art Award which was a photograph of herself depicted as Camille Claudel.
Mandy Renard is one of the most prolific printmakers in Australia. Since completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts at UTAS in 2005 she has become a household name in Tasmania and her popularity around Australia has also steadily grown. Her work can be found in private collections in Australia and around the world and are housed publicly at Government House, the Tasmanian parliament building, the Spirit of Tasmania and at numerous places of healing and feasting. Mandy has been working consistently in her studio for the past 12 years but has so far not been drawn toward prizes and grants . In many senses her career focus and chosen lifestyle are minimalist.
Mandy lives 20 minutes south of Hobart on a bushy block by boulderous Mountain River where she and her family have spent the past 10 years building their home and garden from the ground up. As can be clearly seen in her work her interests lie in the interconnectedness of life, the pursuit of sustainable pleasures and figures throughout history who have contributed greatly to our wisdom as a society.
"I have childhood memories of my grandmother who was an orchid photographer, taking me into the bush to search for elusive species. I would help record our finds. I was always drawn to spider orchids, there unusual petals and labellum. For pollination orchids use three methods: rewards, deception and traps - the same can be said about female sexuality.
Throughout history orchids have become a symbol of the female sexual metaphor. Using this as a starting point I explore the essence of femininity. Notions of purity, softness and society's expectations of women are examined using materials that reference the female experience. Crystalline, sparkly sugar against delicate luxurious icing creates curvaceous lines, feminine form and intricate undergarments.
With a realistic and cheeky viewpoint, utilising pin-up girl imagery and my own body, it is not merely the act of making beautiful objects but the processes and experimentation involved along with the information acquired which is just as significant".
Her work spans intricate mixed media works and public sculpture. She takes on a wide range of techniques from the ultra-traditional to the cutting-edge contemporary. Rogers is an awardwinning Australian artist and her works can be found in prestigious international public and private collections. March 2019, she was showing and taking part in the Sinergia International Painting Festival hosted by CETYS University, Baja California, Mexico. She represented Australia in the 18th Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh, Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka, 2018. She was awarded the Inside Out billboard commission by City of Joondalup in 2017 and the ANZAC art commission by the City of Wanneroo in 2015. In 2016 she represented Australia at the G20 Art Agenda at Hangzhou China.
York Botanic Art Prize 2020
Summer Show 2019
Romancing Botany 2019
Ariel Ruby is multi-disciplinary artist based between Sydney and Hobart, working from Good Grief Studios and Workshop Sydney respectively. Her practice spans a range of mediums including video, photography and sculpture; culminating in experiential installation contexts.
Ariel's work explores a liquid relationship between polarities encompassing the real and illusory, organic and synthetic and the human or non-human. Heavily saturated landscapes draw on a variety of objects to create layered stories of imagined things and places, where nature further merges with culture.
Margaret Sanders has long been fascinated by the Kwongan vegetations of the South West. Her distinctive layered prints have been made in response to visits she has made over many years to the extraordinary plantscapes of Torndirrup National Park, near Albany. She has a degree in Communication Studies from Murdoch University (1979), Diploma in Museum Studies from The University of Sydney (1980) and she studied Printmaking at the ANU School of Art, Canberra with Master Printmaker Jorg Schmeisser (1989-1993). Between 1994-2015, Margaret lived in Adelaide where she worked as a researcher, community artist and curator. She now lives in Albany.
Sultana Shamshi's work is primarily botanical and reflects her overwhelming concern at the loss of much of the world's forests and plants. Growing up in Bombay, the first paintings she saw were the Mughal miniatures in the Museum, and these remain her inspiration today. The exquisite trees and flowers, their jewel colours, all remain vivid and strongly influence her jewellery design. On arriving in Australia, the wildflowers in Western Australia were a revelation to her: their exoticness a contrast to the dry vast landscapes of the outback; and she began collecting and working with the seeds, barks, nuts and flowers. The geometry revealed in the nuts when Sultana sliced them was like the Islamic geometry of her childhood visits to the great Mughal monuments, their radiant patterns and their polygons and hexagons, the stars and flowers reflecting each other.
Joanna Sulkowski is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in fashion and textile design. She works predominantly with ephemeral and interactive installations investigating themes of domesticity, space, and habitation. Often working in the urban environment with unconventional materials such as packaging products and found objects, noticing the unnoticed and transformation of materials are persistent motifs in her practice.
Arriving from Singapore in her teens, Sarah Thornton-Smith was struck by the quality of the light here in Western Australia, which contrasted with her formative experience of light bound by tropical lushness. Her art practice gives her opportunities to explore the myriad of attributes of colour in the compositions and constructions she creates. Sarah's work stems from observing nature directly with photographic documentation and field study illustrations. Influenced by rhythmic beats of music, words or ideas, her work echoes the intimacy of the process involved and highlights the temporary nature of our feelings through which our experiences and memories are created.
Shenade Unicomb is a Perth-born photographer and digital photomontage artist who captures urban and natural landscapes, transforming them into virtual realities. As fragments of one image cross the path of another, new micro and macro worlds come into play that didn't exist before. Shenade is a digital landscape designer. She wants the observer to pause and wonder what's actually happening, to be confused about what's real and what's not. Shenade is energised when new patterns, lines, shapes, colours, spaces, possibilities and feelings emerge. She loves nature. Dada, surrealism, dreams, meditation, quantum physics and transcendental experiences are all influences.
Jenni Vacca studied visual arts at TAFE, the University of Western Australia and Curtin University. Since finishing her studies last year, Jenni has undertaken a residency at Fremantle Arts Centre and is currently Artist-in-Residence at North Metropolitan TAFE, where she created this work.
Deborah studied fine art at Victoria College, Prahran (1987 – 1989), an Honors degree at RMIT (1994) and a Masters of Fine Art by Research at the National Art School in Sydney (2011).
A keen observer of the canine realm and our own relation to it, her artistic perspectives have been further informed by travels to remote locales where she has explored culturally relative attitudes to both pet ownership and abandonment. Williams lives and works in Melbourne and is the Coordinator of the Advanced Diploma and Printmaking within the Visual Art program at RMIT University and teaches Printmaking sessionally at the VCA, The University of Melbourne. She is represented by Australian Galleries in Melbourne and Sydney.
Laura Williams is an artist from the South West of Western Australia, now based in Melbourne. She graduated from UWA with her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2007 and has since been exhibiting her work throughout Australia. Laura's work has been selected as a finalist in Hatched 2007: National Graduate Show, the 2014 Black Swan Heritage Prize, the 2017 Elaine Bermingham National Watercolour Prize for Landscape Painting and the 2018 Heysen Prize for Landscape where her work received a commendation. She also completed an artist residency at Studio Kura in Japan in 2017.
Jude Willis is a Western Australian artist with studios in Fremantle and the Ferguson Valley. Having worked in the field of medical research, she is drawn to the process of documentation and close examination. Whilst her main focus is the natural environment, Jude is also interested in exploration of light, texture and pattern. Overarching themes include, memory, beauty and transience. In her more detailed drawings and reflections she is investigating habitats and the preciousness of the natural world. She has work in several collections including the Holmes à Court Collection, Woodside Petroleum, Central College of Art and Karratha Health Campus.
Originally from the UK, Nicola Woodcock is now a Sydney based artist. She has been a finalist in the Northern Beaches Art Prize and the Little Things Art Prize and regularly exhibits in NSW. A self-taught artist, Nicola now works from her Terrey Hills studio drawing inspiration from the surrounding bush landscape. She finds the bold forms and colours of Australia's native flora fascinating. The relatively crude nature of oil pastels encourages the focus on simple line and colour and promotes a use of decisive, gestural marks.
Born in Hong Kong (1988), Clarice Yuen moved to Western Australia in 2006. She earned a Graduate Diploma in Biological Arts from SymbioticA (UWA), a Bachelor of Contemporary Art (ECU) and a Graduate Certificate in Media Production (Murdoch University). In the past seven years, she achieved an award, artist in residence and tutor positions in local schools. Clarice works across painting, flora cultivation and sculptural book making. Her ongoing project explores the obsessive relationship between scientists and their research. She employs semi-abstraction through different mediums to explore relationships between human and plants. Since 2016, she has been enamoured with growing peas.